Guild Wars 2

On guild wars 2, equiping atking weapon on both hand doesn’t mean you can attack with both weapon everytime. Yes it’s for the sake of balance, but this system also has many problem (including wonky gimmick).

Let’s take an example, thief shortbow has more edge than dual pistol since they use shortbow as escaping tool while poke everything with their melee weapon. Other class also has this “choosing two handed over dual weapon” issue is simply because their two handed has much more edge & cheaper over two single weapon, especially certain type of weapon (like Warrior Mace, and sword).

My suggestion is to add both main and offhand atk on 1st skill (which is basic skill) with certain percentage at combo finisher. A warrior who equip axe and mace will have his/her 1st skill combination look like this

Main->offhand->Main/offhand as finisher->Main/offhand as starter depend on last weapon skill used

Some class specific weapon type in this case will generate special move based on percentage with low cd. Example : Dual pistol engineer aside from firing weapon from main and offhand, will have certain percentage to use both weapon at the same time to create short burst which deal damage and give random effect, which is burning and poison. This special move has 1,5 cooldown to avoid effect spammer (Cooldown removed when gaining quickness buff).

Other pure offhand weapon such as shield, and warhorn will give buff on finisher move, which also has cooldown. This feature will give more reason for us player to use dual weapon as a main weapon, without a feeling of being gimped since your two handed has the same effect as your main hand, and it’s better.

Thief Shortbow:

AoE auto attack for up to three hits.
AoE skill on 2, for potentially high damage on clusters of enemies
Evade and cripple on 3.
Targeted AoE poison on 4.
Shadowstep and blind on 5.

On the dual pistols:

Bleed on auto attack.
Vulnerability on 2
3 with dual pistols is Unload, which is a single target burst.
4 is a daze.
5 is a point blank blind.

I don’t get where you get the idea that the shortbow is used to escape, while they “poke things with their melee weapon”. Both Shortbow, and Dual-Pistols can use the second weapon set to equip a melee weapon if they want.

Two handed don’t have the same effects as main hand + offhand in any profession in the game. I’m completely at a loss as to why you think they do, or what you think is going on, but maybe you should look at the skill bars again.

GW2’s Dual Wield system isn’t about attacking with two weapons simultaneously.

It’s about the utility of having additional sigils to assist your combat, and if you only have 1 main-hand, the ability to swap one off-hand for another without interrupting your auto-attack.

Example:
I could be a warrior with a main-hand axe and off-hand mace.

I’m attacking with my skill1-chain, then I could use Crushing Blow for the vulnerability, then immediately swap into an off-hand axe and use Whirling Axe for maximized damage.

The thing with that is between swapping, I could have gotten 1~2 of my skill1-chain attacks into my combo, which is a lot of damage.

If I had a Greatsword instead of a second axe and wanted to use Hundred Blades instead, then I would have to stop using my axe’s chain-1 skill. So, there’s a solid trade-off.

@Nels: Theorically both weapon are designed to be different so every weapon has their own comfort zone, but it’s a fact that some class weapon outshadowed other.

Let’s take a look at thief shortbow, 1st skill only work well when there are 2 target around, 2nd has slugish travel time, most ppl use this weapon as an escaping tool A.K.A 5th skill after spamming heartseeker/pistol whip. And pistol, how many thief do you know is using pistols as main outside of spvp/tpvp? well this build is not as rare as mace warrior on pve & wvw, but….you get the picture.

@DreamOfACure: Yeap sigil is the main reason i got superior bloodlust on both my axe n shield but swapping weapon has a long cooldown, so swapping weapon for certain class sometimes doesn’t seems to be worth it. Aside from that it’s not good enough compare to what two hand weapon has.

I see a lot of thieves with dual pistols, especially good ones in PvE.

Vulnerability is what makes for most of the good damage against bosses and other hardy targets. Pistol/Pistol thieves have a 2 button that is absolutely awesome for exactly that purpose. In fact, it’s the best vulnerability skill there is.

Nels the Cornwhisperer.8025:

I see a lot of thieves with dual pistols, especially good ones in PvE.

Vulnerability is what makes for most of the good damage against bosses and other hardy targets. Pistol/Pistol thieves have a 2 button that is absolutely awesome for exactly that purpose. In fact, it’s the best vulnerability skill there is.

SSHHH!!! You are giving away my spvp secret! Can’t tell you how many people /facepalm when I kill them with p/p thief build and I don’t use stealth. The sheer shock value people get when they see a thief kill them without stealthing is hilarious.