Okay, okay, the first thing that needs to be said is that the change to 2H weapons should be happening. As for the independent CDs… Though I disagree with him more often than not, Helseth’s comments about this are spot-on, and there really isn’t much more to say about the subject.
There is, however, a problem with giving 2H weapons two sigil slots. Given that this wasn’t addressed in the video, I’m assuming that the devs haven’t considered that 2H weapons already do ~5-10% more damage on average than 1H weapons due to weapon coefficients. The actual value is a bit more like 9.97%, but that’s obviously extremely close to 10%. Right now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It means that basically all 2H weapons have an automatic two Force Sigils attached to them, but in exchange for that they get less flexibility since they can only take one other sigil. The devs, however, mentioned nothing about nerfing this value, which could have fairly severe repercussions against a few specific classes/builds and could also create very strong buffs to other classes/builds.
The two classes I can see getting nerfed the most by this change are thief and engineer. The thief only has one 2H weapon, and it’s a ranged weapon that doesn’t do enough damage or is used enough in combat to make the buff useful. On the other hand, most engi builds nowadays run some kind of P/X build, since Rifle is a fairly specialized weapon. The result is that they either have to revert to using Rifle where the weapon is non-optimal, or they simply have to take the nerf/buff to other classes as it comes and face weapons that are just as flexible as their own as far as sigils go but have an automatic 10% more damage attached to them.
On the flip side, all builds that rely heavily one having one or two 2H weapons is going to be much stronger. Hambow is going to become stronger (though bow won’t experience the buff quite as much). Any guardian build running a GS/Hammer and Staff (or whatever combination) is going to get a massive buff. Certain mesmer builds are going to become much more powerful. Staff eles are going to get an extremely large buff (especially with the other sigil changes). While this is not inherently going to be a problem, per se, it could help start a very severe problem later on which I and likely many others would like to prevent now.
TL;DR average weapon coefficients give 2H weapons a 10% damage buff over most 1H weapons, but in exchange for only being able to have one sigil. The buff that the devs are proposing would give all 2H weapons a significant buff over 1H weapons by getting rid of 2H weapons’ main weakness. I thus suggest that the high and low weapon coefficients are decreased by ~10% on every 2H weapon in the game to give all weapons an equal footing in terms of base statistical superiority.