Guild Wars 2

I just wanted to bring this topic up because I haven’t seen another thread for it yet, but does anyone else think that adding a second sigil slot to two-handed weapons is a really bad idea?

I think it is and I’ll explain why.

1: It’s easier to craft one two-handed weapon than two one-handed weapons (it costs less resources, takes less time and you get all the same stat benefits). This sentiment is further amplified with ascended gear, which is time gated, and legendary weapons, which would cost double the resources getting two one-handed legendaries as opposed to just crafting one two-handed one.

2: Two-handed weapons already have a weapon damage advantage over one-handed weapons, which also affects slot skills.

I don’t know, the way I see it, one-handed weapons already feel neglected compared to their two-handed counterparts and the one benefit that closed the gap a bit and made one-handed weapons more appealing (at least to me) was that you could get a second sigil slot, which kinda made up for the lower weapon damage and longer crafting times, etc. Even for me personally, I always feel like I was gimping myself when I use a one-handed weapon over two-handed and for a few classes, the two-handed weapons feel far superior to their one-handed counterparts.

I’m just worried that adding a second sigil slot to two-handed weapons would make one-handed weapons feel more obsolete given all these factors involved. At the very least, they need to balance it out so that one-handed weapon damage is increased to similar levels as their two-handed counterparts.

I’m not sure if anyone else feels the same way?

nope,

1. Crafting times/cost ? who cares ? you can buy exotic weapons on TP
2. Ranger/Ele/Mesmer/Engi/thief/necro have good 1h weapons, in some cases even better compared to 2h weapons ( it’s situational ).

Anyway, Anet is making big changes to sigils/runes/class/equipes, they will probably balance it out.

Axe – a 1handed weapon deals more damage than GS – a two handed weapon for warrior.
Pro-tip – that’s the case for MOST classes.

Two handed weapons are actually the ones dealing overall damage – look into it.
You’re insufficiently informed.

For engi it makes no sense to take a rifle since you are missing a sigil slot. Engi fights anyway 90% of the time with kits wich means +5% dmg or sigil of battle or bloodlust are all welcome. 2/3 is better than 1/3.

No 2h weapon is stronger than 2x 1h weapons in general, that’s made up. It’s about time they get their 2nd slot!

Harper.4173:

Axe – a 1handed weapon deals more damage than GS – a two handed weapon for warrior.
Pro-tip – that’s the case for MOST classes.

Two handed weapons are actually the ones dealing overall damage – look into it.
You’re insufficiently informed.

When I was talking about weapon damage, I’m talking about the actually attack/damage values on the weapon itself. In other words, a level 80 two-handed weapon will have a higher attack value than a one-handed level 80 weapon of the same quality. There’s nothing misinformed about that, it’s all facts and numbers.

Now while the damage of the actual weapon skills themselves will differ from class to class (e.g. a guardian’s greatsword will out-dps the sword, but a ranger’s sword will out-dps its greatsword), those attack values also affect slot skills (which are affected by your overall attack value) so there is an advantage to having a two handed weapon over one-handed in that regard. If you add a second sigil, that advantage will seem greater (though not spectacular). I just think one-handed weapons should see an attack value buff to offset two-handed weapons gaining an extra sigil, that’s all.

As for popularity, I was going by the sentiment that I generally see more people running around with two-handed weapons than one-handed. It was my impression, not based on fact. Lol. >_>

yes, fully agree with OP.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Harper.4173:

Axe – a 1handed weapon deals more damage than GS – a two handed weapon for warrior.
Pro-tip – that’s the case for MOST classes.

Two handed weapons are actually the ones dealing overall damage – look into it.
You’re insufficiently informed.

When I was talking about weapon damage, I’m talking about the actually attack/damage values on the weapon itself. In other words, a level 80 two-handed weapon will have a higher attack value than a one-handed level 80 weapon of the same quality. There’s nothing misinformed about that, it’s all facts and numbers.

Now while the damage of the actual weapon skills themselves will differ from class to class (e.g. a guardian’s greatsword will out-dps the sword, but a ranger’s sword will out-dps its greatsword), those attack values also affect slot skills (which are affected by your overall attack value) so there is an advantage to having a two handed weapon over one-handed in that regard. If you add a second sigil, that advantage will seem greater (though not spectacular). I just think one-handed weapons should see an attack value buff to offset two-handed weapons gaining an extra sigil, that’s all.

As for popularity, I was going by the sentiment that I generally see more people running around with two-handed weapons than one-handed. It was my impression, not based on fact. Lol. >_>

Numbers are just numbers, attacks still have different weights and speeds. If 2h damage is in practice lower than 1h weapon, why on god’s earth do you even care that the number on the 2h weapon is higher? If they nerfed it 2h would be even FURTHER behind. Good balance, just to appease your OCD of weapon numbers. x.X

Both of your justifications for not allowing equality between weapons are bunk.

No one cares about the crafting costs and the name of the game is DPS and not damage per attack. Most one handed weapons have a higher DPS than 2handers.

One handed weapons can do or does more damage on some classes compared to 2handed.. And on some classes it doesnt.. Its to easy to say nerf all 2handers or buff one hands.

because most skills on 2handed weapons are also slower compared to one-handed and even this issnt true for all classes or weapons..

So some weapons on some classes benefith some and others doesnt.. even if they are using a two handed weapons because some two handed weapons doesnt do more damage or issnt viable or has bad skills.. it all depents on class and weapon and its weaponskills.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Harper.4173:

Axe – a 1handed weapon deals more damage than GS – a two handed weapon for warrior.
Pro-tip – that’s the case for MOST classes.

Two handed weapons are actually the ones dealing overall damage – look into it.
You’re insufficiently informed.

When I was talking about weapon damage, I’m talking about the actually attack/damage values on the weapon itself. In other words, a level 80 two-handed weapon will have a higher attack value than a one-handed level 80 weapon of the same quality. There’s nothing misinformed about that, it’s all facts and numbers.

Now while the damage of the actual weapon skills themselves will differ from class to class (e.g. a guardian’s greatsword will out-dps the sword, but a ranger’s sword will out-dps its greatsword), those attack values also affect slot skills (which are affected by your overall attack value) so there is an advantage to having a two handed weapon over one-handed in that regard. If you add a second sigil, that advantage will seem greater (though not spectacular). I just think one-handed weapons should see an attack value buff to offset two-handed weapons gaining an extra sigil, that’s all.

As for popularity, I was going by the sentiment that I generally see more people running around with two-handed weapons than one-handed. It was my impression, not based on fact. Lol. >_>

2 handed weapons are larger and look cooler.
Also – if 1 handed weapons deal more damage through their #1 skill then why does it matter that on paper 2 handed weapons have more damage?
If in the end the 1H solution deals MORE damage output?!

Xyonon.3987:

For engi it makes no sense to take a rifle since you are missing a sigil slot. Engi fights anyway 90% of the time with kits wich means +5% dmg or sigil of battle or bloodlust are all welcome. 2/3 is better than 1/3.

No 2h weapon is stronger than 2x 1h weapons in general, that’s made up. It’s about time they get their 2nd slot!

totally disagree about engi.

first, a good player isnt just in kits 90% of the time, they swap every 1-4 actions. you blow your cooldowns and ditch the weapon/set for another, cuz theyre all short cds.

second, when it comes down to it, the only thing p/p or p/s has over rifle is the variety of conditions, a sigil, and a blast. rifle is just plain better for exploration, catching, and disengages. and (especially) in a pvp setting, when you can squeeze about the same damage out of each weapon type, the more utility you have the better. rifles arent common in s/tpvp because the available stat combos are terrible. in wvw most people dont realize that a bruiser power build plays really well because perplexity is just easier and widely accepted as viable/strong. in pve, zerk builds take rifle just for jump shot damage, since its our biggest hit aside from BOB, but youre right about stayin in kits for better damage in pve.

finally, to counter youre statement that 2h weapons are generally inferior, even though i agree that we need a 2nd sigil: staff ele has higher dps than dagger/scepter/focus combos in dungeons (when an ele doesnt need to bring anything else to a party, they roll staff). also in dungeons, guards will almost always have a gs (5 has unparalleled utility) or a hammer for perma protection and warding in fractals. in wvw, hammer warriors are popular because hammer has the strongest cc available to warrior, and gs has the strongest land speed in the game on a single weapon.
necro, ranger, engi, mes, and thief… well i rarely see a mes without either a staff or gs, i never see a necro without a staff, i never see a full 2x 1h ranger with sword and/or axe, and youre prolly right about thieves. sb is… situational at best. engi ive talked about.

if 1h weapons were stronger in general, you would see a lot more of them completely displacing 2h instead of comboing weapons based on what they can bring to a fight. its just plain false.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

2: Two-handed weapons already have a weapon damage advantage over one-handed weapons, which also affects slot skills.

This was my original argument, but I realized that this is not in fact true. That’s because the tooltip for a skill always takes into account weapon coefficient.

For instance, warrior’s Greatsword Swing states that it deals 259 damage at base (gw2skills.net/editor). Similarly, thief’s Slice deals 269 damage. However, both of these numbers take into account weapon coefficients already. For instance, if GS had the same weapon coefficients as Sword, it would actually deal something more like 235.5 damage. This is true of all 2h weapons. Thus, we can “normalize” skill coefficients by assuming that weapons like GS have the same weapon coefficients as weapons like Sword. Under this assumption, GS Swing has a normalized skill coefficient of .77 (which is the regular coefficient, .7, times the damage amplification from having a weapon coefficient ~110% that of 952.5, which is Sword’s average weapon coefficient, and the base standard for comparing weapon coefficients) while Slice has a normalized skill coefficient of 0.8. As a result, the total damage of these two weapons is nearly the same, as all weapon-specific factors (skill coefficient and weapon coefficient) multiply out to nearly the same number, except that thief’s Slice has a coefficient that is .03 more than GS Swing. Given that GS Swing applies vulnerability, this small differential makes the two weapons essentially equal in terms of damage.

This pattern tends to be true of all 2h weapons. Guardian’s GS and Hammer, Ranger’s GS and Longbow- of all of the many, many 2h weapons, all factors considered, they are all roughly equal in terms of strength.

That being said, the argument that people are making about 1h weapons being better in more circumstances than 2h weapons is complete kitten. They’re generally about equal in terms of strength, with perhaps 2h weapons having a slight edge.

Atherakhia.4086:

No one cares about the crafting costs and the name of the game is DPS and not damage per attack. Most one handed weapons have a higher DPS than 2handers.

This is, quite simply, wrong, based on both experience, direct damage comparisons, and empirical observations from a variety of experiments measuring the casting times of different weapons, both 1h and 2h.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

When I was talking about weapon damage, I’m talking about the actually attack/damage values on the weapon itself.

Those values hardly matter however because they don’t translate into damage done – depends on the scaling of the abilities.

Carighan.6758:

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

When I was talking about weapon damage, I’m talking about the actually attack/damage values on the weapon itself.

Those values hardly matter however because they don’t translate into damage done – depends on the scaling of the abilities.

this.
skill damage scaling is more important than base weapon attack value.
whether 1hand or 2hand is higher dps depends entirely on the skills and the class.
gnerally, the auto attack on mainhands tend to be higher dps than 2handed….skills2-5 stronger on 2hand……though obviously there are exceptions.

as for topic…..adding the second sigil to 2handed is absolutely necessary.
the kitten to 2hand weapons only having one slot is far more unfair than having to craft another weapon.
single handed weapons allow more flexibility of skill choices by being able to match them with various offhands……….that is the equalizer to crafting cost.

insanemaniac.2456:

Xyonon.3987:

For engi it makes no sense to take a rifle since you are missing a sigil slot. Engi fights anyway 90% of the time with kits wich means +5% dmg or sigil of battle or bloodlust are all welcome. 2/3 is better than 1/3.

No 2h weapon is stronger than 2x 1h weapons in general, that’s made up. It’s about time they get their 2nd slot!

totally disagree about engi.

first, a good player isnt just in kits 90% of the time, they swap every 1-4 actions. you blow your cooldowns and ditch the weapon/set for another, cuz theyre all short cds.

second, when it comes down to it, the only thing p/p or p/s has over rifle is the variety of conditions, a sigil, and a blast. rifle is just plain better for exploration, catching, and disengages. and (especially) in a pvp setting, when you can squeeze about the same damage out of each weapon type, the more utility you have the better. rifles arent common in s/tpvp because the available stat combos are terrible. in wvw most people dont realize that a bruiser power build plays really well because perplexity is just easier and widely accepted as viable/strong. in pve, zerk builds take rifle just for jump shot damage, since its our biggest hit aside from BOB, but youre right about stayin in kits for better damage in pve.

Sry forgot to mention it: I was talking about PvE only. And in PvE it’s totally silly to take a rifle, it’s just for fun and nothing for efficiency. Not taking a rifle grants you ~5% more damage with kits. You would sacrifice that for some ego burst? No way. A good player (PvE wise) IS 90% of the time on a kit. He swaps the kits but only goes to the main weapons for the finisher since there is nothing else good there. You spam your bombs and grenades for max dps and vulnerability and you spam your BOB, fire bomb, heal turret, shield 4, elixiergun 4 for the might. You have no time for your main weapon, just to clean up a single enems (pistol 2, 3 as a filler).

btt: What you say about the 2h weapons is nothing else than “they are stronger in specific situations”. And so are some 1h weapons. I can only talk for PvE here and there you want max efficiency. As I mentioned the engi is the best example. Kits aren’t affected by weapon damage so you are just hurt by using a 2h weapon. But it is a problem if different classes have different specific weapons for situations and suffer from sigil lack.

For example take a guard that needs to take a hammer and next to him a mesmer that needs to take a sword + focus. Now the guard just can make use of one sigil and the mesmer has 2. Still they are choosing the best fitting weapon for their situation, however the guard misses stats. Or the elementalist in dungeons? Everyone can stack bloodlust and still have +5% dmg, +10% dmg, of battle, bloodlust, etc. He has just one. It is not fair atm.

…. Yaaaaaaay!!

Xyonon.3987:

Sry forgot to mention it: I was talking about PvE only. And in PvE it’s totally silly to take a rifle, it’s just for fun and nothing for efficiency. Not taking a rifle grants you ~5% more damage with kits. You would sacrifice that for some ego burst? No way. A good player (PvE wise) IS 90% of the time on a kit. He swaps the kits but only goes to the main weapons for the finisher since there is nothing else good there. You spam your bombs and grenades for max dps and vulnerability and you spam your BOB, fire bomb, heal turret, shield 4, elixiergun 4 for the might. You have no time for your main weapon, just to clean up a single enems (pistol 2, 3 as a filler).

---

btt: What you say about the 2h weapons is nothing else than “they are stronger in specific situations”. And so are some 1h weapons. I can only talk for PvE here and there you want max efficiency. As I mentioned the engi is the best example. Kits aren’t affected by weapon damage so you are just hurt by using a 2h weapon. But it is a problem if different classes have different specific weapons for situations and suffer from sigil lack.

For example take a guard that needs to take a hammer and next to him a mesmer that needs to take a sword + focus. Now the guard just can make use of one sigil and the mesmer has 2. Still they are choosing the best fitting weapon for their situation, however the guard misses stats. Or the elementalist in dungeons? Everyone can stack bloodlust and still have +5% dmg, +10% dmg, of battle, bloodlust, etc. He has just one. It is not fair atm.

great, you wanna talk pve, i can talk pve:

doing jump puzzles without a rifle is extremely inefficient, its practically stupid.

the only reason a pve zerker engi is in kits 90% of the time is because hardly anything can outdamage bomb autos, you use your cds and start 111111’ing. yeah, its efficient. but if pistol or rifle autos were better than bombs, you would use those 90% of the time instead, cuz this games pve is mostly about whos better at pushing 1 and racing around corners so mobs come to you. not that i hate it or anything, its fun to play with friends and feel like you work together to accomplish something.

so heres something to think about… which is better:
a 250% hit every 20 sec w/ double cast time and a 150% hit every 10
or a 5% damage boost

first lets make a single assumption: that you start a fight with everything off cd. its reasonable, most things take more than 20 secs to run to the next fight.

5% boosted autos would need 40 hits in 20 seconds to make up for the 2 250% hits and 2 150% hits. so, good thing bomb autos do 40 in 20 secs.

so far, over 20 sec, this is ignoring the 8 5 sec bleeds you put out by using rifle. definitely better than 6 15% chances at 15 sec bleeds, which averages out to about 14 ticks of bleed damage (versus 40 ticks). vuln stacking is essentially the same. on crit procs are the same.

what else havent i accounted for… the loss of 3 might. that can be made up with another party member. it only takes 9 blasts to cap out, and its not totally unreasonable to bring 3 instead of 4. for example, someone can grab a banner and push 5 when they wouldnt normally have to. or maybe your mesmer can take his signet when you dont need feedback. there are tons of ways to cap out might. so im gonna ignore that.

now, ask yourself, do supremely efficient pve fights take longer than 20-41 sec? no? rifle is better than an extra sigil. moar bleedz and the direct damage averages out. yes? better go p/s.

basically, you cant make blanket statements about all weapons and expect them to hold water. situations and conditionals are always factors. thats my point. and if you wanna talk efficiency, do calculations. big hits matter. and engi can use every big hit on cd without the opportunity cost of being unable to use the best case autoattack during downtime. and rifle 3 and 5 make up for the loss of a sigil of force.

also keep in mind i do want this change, i wont feel like im sacrificing something i dont wanna sacrifice in order to play how i want. i get a direct quantifiable buff.

finally, stat differences dont matter. saying “this class can take an extra bloodlust sigil” doesnt actually mean anything because they arent using the same attacks with the same base damage. stat comparisons are only valid within a certain class, and using 1 sigil would be preferable to 2 if you can get similar dps, because gold.

I think they mentioned the concern about crafting costs in the stream (or maybe that was WoodenPotatoes I’m thinking of) but yeah, I don’t think it really matters. Worst comes to worst, anet can amend the crafting recipes for 2-handers to require a few more materials. IMO the skillset of the weapon far outweighs the consideration for crafting and sigils. I’m never going to stop using GS on my mesmer, I don’t care how many people praise the 1h-sword lol.