Guild Wars 2

When I first started playing this game, I made all types of classes to see what I prefered. When I came across the thief, I noticed their 1 handed weapons have seperate #3 skills if you’re not using an offhand weapon. Almost a year later, being extremely bored, I decided to make a build for my thief using D/- and P/- and discovered just how crappy those skills are, and this made me wonder why they were added in the first place if they are so crappy noone will use them.

After this experience I got to thinking about how, recently, Arena Net has been trying to give people the option of more build diversity, and it dawned on me, they should give all 1 handed weapons a full set of 5 skills (for all classes not just thief), and make these skills good enough that people would actually consider not using an offhand weapon. This generates a lot more diversity in how people can choose to play the game.

TLDR : give 1 handed weapons a full set of 5 skills so people can choose not to use an offhand.

How would you deal with the stat loss of not having an offhand though? Thats the main reason i never undertstood why they bothered with thief. Noone is going to run around with 1 mainhand even if the skill is good because you lose stats and damage by doing that.

The reason thief gets crappy #3 skills with no offhand is because of the way thief #3 skills work. It’s based on your offhand, or in this case, your lack of offhand. It’s mostly to keep the way it functions consistent across all weapon combinations but also to encourage you to equip an offhand.
In regard to having 5 skills per one hand weapon, I’ve said it ages ago in a similar thread. I just don’t think it’s a good idea for the following reasons:
- As Spoj mentioned, you would lose stats meaning that to compensate, they’d have to make 1 handers magically get more stats if you had one of them equipped but then they lose those stats when you equip an offhand.
- Personally, I think someone with two 1 handers should always be at an advantage to someone who has a single 1 hand. It just makes more sense.
- You could say the loss in stats is the handicap for choosing the 1 hander only skills but why would you choose to have less stats? Surely a better handicap for not having an offhand would be ….. less skills. So, really, exactly how it is now except without the magically fluctuating stats.

I see what you’re saying here and I’m sure a lot of people would like it but I really don’t think it makes a lot of sense. Especially since, if you weren’t suggesting so already, every offhand would then be requested to have a set of 5 skills. It would seem incredibly odd to me seeing Warriors running around with only a shield equipped and still having a reasonable variety of weapon skills available…

I’d rather just have 2 or 3 skills per weapon slot to choose from, making each weapon more customisable to whatever build you’re running.

GRRR, I had a response all eloquently written out on my phone and when i went to post it it logged me out and got deleted, so it won’t be so expertly worded this time, but bare with me.

I had thought about the loss of stats beforehand, and that was the way I had thought of fixing it, was giving more stats if only one wep was equipped, but there may be another way that works better. They could possibly take the stat loss into account when designing the 4th and 5th skills and use them to compensate for that loss in some way.

As far as offhand skills having 5 skills to them, I was not suggesting they get 5, nor do I believe they should. Thinking about it logically, no one runs around with JUST a shield, or JUST a focus (as much as i would love to use a single shield, or dual shield character, the likes of which i used in Demon’s/Dark Souls), they simply add those offhand items as an alternative to two-handing a single handed weapon. This brings me to another point, which is that a person wielding 1 sword is not, and should not be at an intrinsic disadvantage to someone wielding 2 swords, because with 2 free hands to utilize your weapon, you have the ability to make it do things for you, that the man with 2 swords simply cannot do with 1 hand per weapon. (the same way a person with a great-sword is not at an automatic disadvantage to someone with 2 swords, or a person with a shield and sword in the same situation) Weapons can be used different ways depending on how they are wielded, and what other weapons/items they are used alongside.

ArenaNet has already said they intend to add new weapon options. How is allowing a 1-handed weapon to be wielded 2-handed any better than simply adding a new offhand option?

If we’re talking real-life combat, I’d say the person with the shield is at a huge advantage, not to mention, greatswords are actually a long range melee weapon and you’re dead if someone gets close but I digress, this is clearly a fantasy game etc etc.

I’m not thoroughly opposed to the idea of 5 skills for a one hander but to make it worthwhile, they really would have to fix that stat loss problem. I doubt a skill hitting super hard or something is going to make people be ok with, say, 5% less crits etc.
One of the only ways I could think of making it work would be to remove stats from weapons entirely because then you don’t lose them when you equip whatever. The problem with that, though, is that it would totally invalidate all of the weapon crafting professions so we know that will never happen.

Assuming the stat boost is in place, what stats would get boosted? There are times where I’ll have, say, a berserker sword equipped alongside a cleric’s shield. I imagine the only streamlined solution in that case would be to boost the same stats as the weapon you’re holding. I’m sure people would find problems with that in the long run as well, considering how finicky we all are. This is also ignoring the fact they would have to introduce and balance a lot of new skills yet some of our existing skills still need work.

I dunno, I feel like it’s a fair bit of extra work to implement for not a whole lot of gain.
As I said earlier, I’d rather just prefer a couple of selectable skills per weapon slot and then I’ll be happy.