what nonsense.. no 2handed weapon is usable by just one hand…
you definetly have played too much not good designed fantasy games which make the impossible possible there, just because of “looks”
Greatswords are too heavy and impractical to be wielded by just 1 hand /facepalm.
Such suggestions can really come only from people which have played too much bad designed games where designers just break it completely with realism just to make things in their games look “cooler/more epic”
The only weapon where I would agree with is the Staff, this is a weapon which theoretically could be changed into a 1H weapon that provides only 3 skills, but for that mechanic therefore we have SCEPTERS, the short versions of the Staff, theres no need to split up the Staff in a 2h and a 1h version, when there are already Scepters existing exactly for this cause only.
I can understand your intention of this suggestion what you want to reach with this, but trust me, there are much better options for anet to give this game more build diversity, than to stupidly make out of two handed weapons forcefully one handed ones, just so that they get more weapon skills this way added to increase the diversity when such a change makes absolutely no sense….
No twohanded war weapon can be wielded in just 1 handed and effectively be used this way, because these kinds of weapons are balanced around the fact, that you need to wield them with both handes to deal most effectively damage with them.
Saying you can effectively fight with a 2h weapon wieldign it with only 1 hand is just like say you can inline skate with just only 1 skate shoe at your feet, when you need effectively both of them to be able to skate with them. It just doesn’t work.
Same as much as like you can’t use a skateboard with just only 2 of 4 rolls on one side, you won’t come very far….
You sure can hold these kinds of weapons just in one hand, but fighting with them in only one hand is absolutely ineffective because these kinds of weapons are intented to be wielded with both hands so that you can effectively fight with them due to beign able to put more power into your strikes when wielded by both hands, thats the sole reasons for the existance of 2h war weapons…fantasy stuff like magic staffs are the only exception here., because it looks sily if you would need to hold them in both of your hands just to cast your spells and while moving around..it looks in these moments more natural when they are hold in just only one hand, whike there are hold in both hands (also here in gw2), while not moving around in the idle stance.
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However, to come back to the original intended point behind the whole suggestion – increase build diversity.
There are much better ways how Anet could do that:
1. Continue with adding more Elite Specializations, settign more focused pushing on that topic to release them faster to create quicker that way more build diversity
1.1 Increase the amount of Traits, thats already partwise done via ES, so thats why 1.1
1.2. Otherwise it wouzdl be good for build diversity, if the amount of Trait Lines we can use would get increased from 3 to 4 and the total amount of Trait Lines for all Classes gets increased from 5 to 8.
With more Trait Lines to play around with, Build Diveristy will become significantly bigger, because unused Traits don’t add anything to Build Diversity, but so bigger the amoutn of Traits you can use, so more thigns can affect your individual Build and make in total the complete system more diverse.
From this change would also profitate the classes, which are currently essentially forced to use specific trait lines just to stay competitive, which can’t experimentate much around, because Trait X or trait Y are always a kind of must have and if you don’t use them, then your basically screwed in PvP/WvW…
With an increased amount of useable Trait Lines would have players alot more options to experimentate around also with Utility and Healing Skills.
All classes coudl have easily for the Basic Classes 8 Trait Lines instead of 5
Example Thief:
Trickery
Critical Strikes
Deadly Arts
Shadow Arts
Acrobatics
+ new “Mobility”
+ new “Sixth Sense”
+ new “Disarming Arts”
and thus would have the Basic Thief easily instead of 5 now 8 Trait Lines to provide alot more build diversity while players could experimentate more around with beign able to use now 4 instead of 3 Trait Lines at the same time, from which especialyl ES would profitate alot from.
2. ES also always add new Weapons, thus through more ES will Classes always reaceive also new Weapon Skills, which further increases the build diversity
3. Add a Combat Style System which gives all Classes 3 different Combat Styles, which define what kind of Weapon Skills will be used while wieldign a Weapon.
Offensive, Defensive, Supportive.
Example Fire Elementalist Staff.
While playing the offensive Style, you would have the 5 Fire Staff Skilsl we all know:
1: Fireball
2: Lava Font
3: Flame Burst
4: Burnign Retreat
5: Meteor Shower
All 5 clearly offensive Skilsl all with the design to cause damage only.
Now lets change our example Fire Staff Ele to his defensive Combat Style, and the Skilla would get changed to something like this instead:
1: Heat Blast (Sends out a Heat Wave that deals lesser damage than, but weakens foes)
2: Flame Barrier (Creates a Fire Wall, which can’t be passed, burns on touch and destroys enemy projectiles)
3: Magma Armor (Increases Toughness, lets enemies burn on melee hits and causes a Fire Aura when it ends.)
4: Searing Heat (Creates an AoE that damages over time and removes Boons per tick, if the foes are burning at the moment)
5: Inferno: Attack a foe with a mighty fire blast, that gets stronger so more conditions are on you, removes after usage up to 3 conditions from you. If Burning was removed from you, then will cause Inferno also Burning to all hit foes.
Now lets change our example Fire Staff Ele into his supportive Combat Style and you would see in your Skill Bar then suddenyl these 5 Skills instead:
1: Guiding Torch (Send out a bright will ‘O’ wisp flame, to the location of your ally, which will encircle for a while the ally and deals damage to nearby foes that it touches, while preventing that the ally gets blinded.)
2: Fire Protection (Create a magical Fire Shield for your target ally that grants target allies protection and make them while they have it immune to burning.)
3: Lava Arrows (Shoot a flurry of Lava Arrows that deal damage, burn and cripple foes, while granting might and fury to allies in their flight path)
4: Flame Djinns Haste (Grants you and nearby allies Swiftness, while causing fire paths for a while when runnign around that damage foes on touch. You and your target ally gain also for a short while Quickness and Vigor)
5: Incendiary Bonds (Binds you to a target ally, the target ally will receive reduced damage therefore that you will receive Burnings therefore. Your Attack Power gets increased with every stack of burnign thats on you while Incendiary Bonds is active.
When Incendiary Bonds ends, you cause at your location a AoE Flame Bursts that will deal damage to all nearby foes that will be stronger based on the amount of burning stacks that were on you the moment that the skill ends)
That way woudl we have also alot more strategeticaly gameplay as also more situation based build diversity, if all weapons would provide different tactical combat style based Weapon Skills, splitted up between offensive, defensive and supportive skills.
Yes, that would mean basically trippling the maount of skills that we have now, but for the whoel combat system this would be a tactical enrichment for everybody and would provide more build diversity and maybe also some unpopular weapons becomign eventually this way more popular if they would have some goold alternative combat style skills compared to the skills we have so far.
4. Make Offhand Weapons useable in both hands finally.
A Shield, Warhorn, Torch and focus Artefact should be useable in both hands, and based on which hand I equip them, they should provide either 2 or 3 skills based on it, if I use it with the Primary or the Secondary Weapon Slot Hand.
Example Shield for Chronomancer
Offhand:
4. Echo of Memory/ Deja Vu
5. Tides of Time
Put it onto Primary Hand and you’d get these 3 Skills there then instead:
1: Time Collapse (Create at your enemy location a time rift which causes damage and and bleeds foes briefly)
2: Fate Breaker (Gain within a time span of 4 seconds automatically Aegis, if you would receive within this time span a deadly blow or one that would down you and get healed particially by a percentage of the damage that you would have received otherwise without that fateful protection which breaks your enemies hopes of defeating you)
3: Timespace Reversal (Create an area, that lets you gain Regeneration and Vigor periodically, while also reducing the duration of Conditions for you and allies while standing in that area, while enemies Bleed periodically and get slowed) in that area and conditions last longer for enemies in that area.
Do this with all offhand weapons for all classes, and there you have again alot more build diversity without alot of effort, just create some new skils for the offhand weapons to be used also in the primary main hand as offhand weapons are just normal 1h weapons and are free to be used in any hand that you want. any offhand weapon can be used also as a main hand weapon if you want. It makes absiolutely no sense from a game design standport to artificially limitate the offhand weapons to be just 2 skill weapons.
Same thign also for Main hand weapons..they shoudl be also useable as offhand weapons.
A class that can use a Scepter in the Main hand, should be also able to use a Scepter in the Offhand as secondary weapon…. and get this way two different skilsl to use, than when using the scepter in the main hand primarely.
Thats the steps I would have done already a long time ago with this game to provide more build diversity
1: All Hand usage for all 1H Weapons
2: Introduction of 3 different diverse Combat Styles
3: Expansion of the Trait Line System to 8 Traitlines for each Class and maximum of 4 useable Trait Lines
4. Elite Specializations (Sub Classes) basically from the begin on so that we would have had by now alot more of them already than just only one, but instead like already 5 or so per Class, because then we could really talk about alot of Build Diversity with like 5 specializations per Class with each of them havign their different gameplays and unique mechanics and features to differentiate themself from the others and the Basic Class itself
Personally I like the idea behind sub classes ~ quoted from Chris Whiteside
