Guild Wars 2

I’ve always enjoyed the idea of wielding a single one handed weapon with nothing in the off hand.

From a conceptual perspective, it would give an individual more control of that one weapon. A duelist can better aim a single pistol and two simultaneously. A single short sword seems elegant. Thinking jedi or samurai.

I’m not sure how to balance something like this. Maybe perks that give bonuses when no weapon in offhand to boost offense or defense to make it at least comparable to dual wielding.

Probably not something realistic to add to the game at this point, but something I’ve always liked and looked for in games. Anyone else like this sort of thing?

I think I’ve seen this actually in game.

Although I’ve only seen in on Thief. They call it “Offhand light”, where you don’t have an offhand and it gives you different weapon skills. I’m not sure if this is applicable to the other professions. Maybe it should.

I saw that on the wiki but it didn’t seem the 3 skills with no offhand were strong enough to make up for not having any 4 or 5 skills.

Moraj.2947:

I saw that on the wiki but it didn’t seem the 3 skills with no offhand were strong enough to make up for not having any 4 or 5 skills.

You haven’t seen how bad the OH pistol skills are.
All jokes aside, I’d love to see this happen. Not to mention an overhaul on the attack animations is sorely needed. A duelist-type character might work with the current animations for some classes, but that just goes to show you how silly dual wield looks with them as you brutally maul/shoot/maim your target with one weapon while your off-hand kinda sits there waiting for something to do.

They could just give every profession a default no-weapon-equip set of attacks, so if you don’t have a off-hand it gives you the defaults. Of course I can see this making sense for a warrior or guardian deciding to go fisticuffs (lore-wise) but not necessarily so much for some of the other professions

SpeedFiend.4521:

You haven’t seen how bad the OH pistol skills are.

The two OH pistol skills for thieves are the only good pistol skills they got XD

I agree that lone single handed weapons do seem a tiny bit pointless. They should perhaps make it so you get 5 skills just like with dual weapons but less powerful? Give a bit of variety to players.

CureForLiving.5360:

They could just give every profession a default no-weapon-equip set of attacks, so if you don’t have a off-hand it gives you the defaults. Of course I can see this making sense for a warrior or guardian deciding to go fisticuffs (lore-wise) but not necessarily so much for some of the other professions

Even better if they also showed up with many environmental weapons when they do not use all 5 slots. I hate seeing those empty slots.