Guild Wars 2

I read a post the other day by someone on these forums that got me thinking..

Why are dual skills, if they are in fact one of our profession mechanics, #3 on our skillbar? We already have a #3 for every weaponset that we literally never ever use.

So, I thought to myself: “Self, what if dual skills were actually set to the F2 key instead? What if those abilities that were attached to each one of our weaponsets when we have no offhand became our new #3 abilities? What if we then set a cooldown to the dual wield skills? What would happen?”

And honestly, I think that would be the best solution. Currently, excluding death blossom in a condition dagger/dagger spec, how many of you actually think our dual wield skills are powerful? Because I don’t. Pistol whip is a pretty decent ability, even though the nerf hurt it. It’s still reasonable. But look at shadow shot, and shadow strike, and unload, and flanking strike. All of these abilities are actually somewhat (if not extremely) underwhelming, and it’s understandable as to why. We are a very spammy class. Due to initiative, these abilities can’t be as powerful as they should, because we would simply use them nonstop (see pistol whip prenerf). By attaching them to F2 and putting a cooldown on them, ANet could actually really buff them and turn them into powerful abilities that thieves would have to actually think about using, yet thieves would still retain their initiative system with all the flexibility it provides.

Also, keep in mind, you would end up with the #3 abilities from mainhanding certain weapons, and those could be tuned a bit to be actually useful (ie perhaps twisting fangs could hit 3 times and essentially be the new “death blossom” for death blossom builds.. but you could also make a condition dagger/pistol spec! stab could apply vulnerability and deal perhaps 10% more damage than the sword’s first or second chain strikes, etc)

What do you guys think? I’d be interested to hear your opinions on this.