Guild Wars 2

Why are my options in regards to what weapons I wield limited, specifically, to either dual-wielding or 2handers?

I would like the option to say, on my Warrior for example, wield a sword. And just a sword. Nothing in the off-hand!

Unfortunately, doing this gives me 3 skills… not 5. What if main-hand weapons gave us 5 skills, with the last two being replaced when wielding a weapon in the off-hand? (three for the Thief)

And no, I don’t mean wielding one Sword should be the same as dual-wielding Swords. I mean that, when you wield a Sword in your main-hand by itself, you get different skills in slots 4 and 5 then if you were wielding two Swords!

INB4 damage is brought up: The damage of skills 4 and 5 are exclusively decided by the weapon in your off-hand, and the damage of skills 1, 2, and 3 are exclusively decided by the weapon in your main-hand. Main-hand skills are not AT ALL affected by the weapon in your off-hand.

So if you were single-wielding a Sword, and it gave you all 5 skills, skills 4 and 5 would just use the damage of your main-hand weapon, and skills 1, 2, and 3 would still deal the same damage.

1h sword with no offhand should have diffrent skill setup. It should have skills that fits swiftness and grace of wanderer whilist sword+shield are representing the tough soldier.

Marrond.1385:

1h sword with no offhand should have diffrent skill setup. It should have skills that fits swiftness and grace of wanderer whilist sword+shield are representing the tough soldier.

Not sure quite what you mean there.

I’d just want to be able to actually see a single-wielded weapon as an option. Hell, Elementalists could have JUST a Scepter, and not be forced into Scepter/Focus or Scepter/Dagger if they don’t want to.

DrakeWurrum.6049:

Not sure quite what you mean there.

Upvoting your idea with my reasoning after using only a 1 handed weapon, sword in this particular case.

Yea that could have some cool ideas… Like having the 4 / 5 skills have animations to hold the weapon with both hands and strike… or swap hands thus switching out what you do with skills 1-3 temporally. Or stick the target and pull the sword out with suport of your other hand… skill 5?

Or with your fist… you punch the mob in the face

That’s a really great idea. I mean, the weapon ‘types’ are already enough, so instead of adding new weapons to get new skills, have this idea of being able to do more with weapon mixing between off-hand and main-hand. Referring to what the TC & others have said, start with: no weapons on off-hand = 2 new skills. Then later on, if more skills need to be added, they can continue with this method of adding combinations to the main-hand /off-hand – for example: every 1-handed weapon can go on off-hand or main-hand, and by swapping it it will give that weapon combination a whole new 5 skill set. So, that will literally provide a future capacity of doubling the skills in this game (more customization options).

Again, I think the TC’s suggestion is the best suggestion for adding new skill (because it combines the need for “weapon desires” [what everyone wants] as well as giving more skills in the process).

Kalithro.6532:

Yea that could have some cool ideas… Like having the 4 / 5 skills have animations to hold the weapon with both hands and strike… or swap hands thus switching out what you do with skills 1-3 temporally. Or stick the target and pull the sword out with suport of your other hand… skill 5?

Or with your fist… you punch the mob in the face

It also gives Thieves a chance to have a “hidden blade” I dare say!

FluffyDoe.7539:

That’s a really great idea. I mean, the weapon ‘types’ are already enough, so instead of adding new weapons to get new skills, have this idea of being able to do more with weapon mixing between off-hand and main-hand. Referring to what the TC & others have said, start with: no weapons on off-hand = 2 new skills. Then later on, if more skills need to be added, they can continue with this method of adding combinations to the main-hand /off-hand – for example: every 1-handed weapon can go on off-hand or main-hand, and by swapping it it will give that weapon combination a whole new 5 skill set. So, that will literally provide a future capacity of doubling the skills in this game (more customization options).

Again, I think the TC’s suggestion is the best suggestion for adding new skill (because it combines the need for “weapon desires” [what everyone wants] as well as giving more skills in the process).

I don’t think that wielding something just in the off-hand really makes as much sense, actually. It’s a cool idea, but I like to see the “main hand” as your character’s dominant hand (and we all just happen to be right-handed visually).

DrakeWurrum.6049:

I don’t think that wielding something just in the off-hand really makes as much sense, actually. It’s a cool idea, but I like to see the “main hand” as your character’s dominant hand (and we all just happen to be right-handed visually).

Yah, I think I realize now that my pervious example wasn’t such a good idea. Might also confuse people as to thinking whether they have a weapon on main-hand… or off-hand – the current setup is indeed already pretty clear. I was just throwing out ideas which is at core related to making new weapon skills by having new weapons set combinations.

Or another idea is that you can combine the ‘property’ of an off-hand weapon with its paired main-hand weapon, such that the main hand weapon receives a whole set of new skills. IE:

- Combing the property of an off-hand torch with a 1-H sword gives the sword 2 new skills (toggle to switch on or off).

- Combing the property of an off-hand focus with a sceptor on the main-hand gives the scepter 2 new skills (toggle to switch on or off).

Different off-hands will each have their own ‘synergy’ effect, or in other words each off-hand will give a main-hand an additional set of weapon skills (activated on a toggle – so a player now actually gets 5 skills from their 1H main-hand weapon instead of 3 – 1 skill consistently the same being the auto-attack). I think this idea along with the TC’s idea would basically & nearly double the weapon skills in GW2 and make it more like GW1 in terms of the amount of ‘skill options’ to choose from (Summary: 2 new off-hand skills for each lone-1H weapon on the main-hand [TC’s idea], and another 2 new skills on the main-hand for each unique pair of off-hand weapon activated by toggle [my idea]).

The only direction I see to go with new skills in the future is with adding these new skills to existing weapons, considering the fact that:

A) Creating a new weapon would make a huge impact on the game balance (I see the mesmer weapons have already mostly covered all the roles – staff -> support/crowd control, sword -> tank/melee, greatsword – range/dps, sceptor -> conditions).

B) Creating new weapon will mean creating its corresponding “exotic items”, which will take the artists a lot more time. It’s for looks, so really if a person says “I want to make my sword look like a hammer” – that’s what ‘skins’ are for right? Whackky, awesome, and cool weapon styles (Skins ~ Fun, Actual Weapons ~ Class skill properties).

C) The Main-hand weapons for each class have already been carefully thought out (imagine an elementalist with a hammer – that would be cool, but again it will defeat the whole purpose of ‘class’ [seperation]), so in that sense it’s not really necessary at all to add weapons currently to the weapons stash in GW2.

Wait, you mean you would want to see “dual wield” skills like what the Thief has for everybody?

Doubt they’d do that.