oddities buying (nice) charged items

[Crystalion]

Druid: Firestorm, 71 charges level 10: ~40 fire damage x1/x2/x3 (streams) to multiple targets (and looks cool)

Took an enormous amount of time and gold, but I gambled for a spiked club of Firestorms with a level 99 which is level 10 and has 67 charges. Indeed, as others have pointed out, it has clvl req of 7 for characters other than Druid, for whom it has no level req.

So I gave a Horadric Cube, 60000 gold and this club to a new Druid and set him loose in players 8. He played until he was level 10 (cleared the Crypt and Mausoleum after Blood Raven). Basically anytime he runs into a tight crowd he toasts them with Firestorm. Quite fun.

But not as effective a twink as level appropriate socketed long bows (Gheed sells these with 3 sockets)--that is: gems req ~clvl for (e.g. poison) damage, at least one cold charm (and if you can: Cleglaw's gloves for slow/knockback, clvl 4 req iirc). A similar bow for the cold Rogue hireling also, naturally. And, of course, a Hellforge hammer (skip completing this quest with one of your characters in normal, and you can fetch a hammer for newbies whenever you like).

So, apart from entertainment value, the only "twink" of charged items that seems of real value to me is the Nova staff for Sorc emergency spamming (clvl 12). Certainly, like Firestorm, Teeth is probably effective, it is just that the aforementioned bow(s) are also effective, and far easier to procure.

I have a similar feeling about Fulminating and Strangling Gas potions... effective, but not more effective than the bow/hammer twink, so why bother? (actually there is a specialty use for them, because they are autohit, but that's another discussion).

Of course the very very easiest twink is simply the free-with-new-amazon javalins, as they are either 1 gold or free to repair (sell to shop, back back method) and do excellent damage for a lowbie (ranged) weapon.

Giving a new character a Horadric Cube is nice too, of course, for various reasons too numerous to mention here.

And, lastly, the power of raw cash shouldn't be discounted. Given "limitless" cash a low level character can do quite well for themselves in the shops--some of the items are spendy enough that the higher level character should buy them after the lower level character primes the shop, as the lowbie *can't* have enough gold to do the buy in some cases.

All in all it seems to me that the majority of the charged items need to be substantially beefed up to be worth thinking about (enchant probably being the most egregious/silly example).