Guild Wars 2

seem to be a waste of developers resource on this feature, when off hand weapons are better than fighting with no off hand.

I dont see a reason for this.

Just speculation, but it was probably because Main hand weapons have 3 skills normally, and that is just how the core weapon skills were created… Thiefs dual wielding is probably something built on top of the weapon skills system used by other classes.

Also, no profession starts with off-hand equipped, should thieves have the short end of the stick for those first 15-20 minutes.

It was there only way of doing it so that you can get 3 skills with 1 weapon (if you dont have another weapon to equip) and also be able to change the 3rd skill according to what weapon you are dual wielding. To my knowledge, no other class changes their 3 skill upon equipping certain combinations.

It’s only necessary for the first few minutes of the tutorial, then they basically disappear.

I’m sure they didn’t spend a ton of time/resources on these few skills that they don’t even have to balance b/c only a moron would think that having an empty off-hand is a good thing.

The swords third ability is literally called “Stab.” All it list is a damage and a range. Not much resources spent there because its the same animation as the auto attack lol

For some reason I think it’s a leftover from some earlier design. Maybe it used to be that instead of steal giving you one item, it gave you 2 abilities in that empty slot?

That would be an awesome reason for not using something off-hand if they implemented that either way.

Yeah they’re pretty pointless. The only time you really need them in during the tutorial and then as soon as you get out you get your first off-hand.

Maybe they could find a way to recycle these back in. Maybe allow Theives to switch their Dual wield skill between the combo-skill or the light hand skill (so a S/P theif could swap between Pistol Whip or Stab, or atleast a reworked version of stab).

Maybe it’ll cause balancing issues but at least gives the skills more use than those early levels.

How many hours do you think it would take to add a ‘pimp hand’ skill?

One question though JonPeters, what about giving thief (for all 3 of their weapons) 5 abilities with no offhand? I hear thieves complaining all the time about lack of variety, so why not throw in 3 new weapon loadouts? Just a thought

Ghost.9035:

One question though JonPeters, what about giving thief (for all 3 of their weapons) 5 abilities with no offhand? I hear thieves complaining all the time about lack of variety, so why not throw in 3 new weapon loadouts? Just a thought

This….this would be great! More variety is always good, especially with a class that doesnt have a huge amount of skills

Hey my idea was to add more abilities that unlock as options for some of the slots. what if we could get different variants for example for just the dual skill or a few of the slots. My point is more customization without making it the same system as the other 4 slots with one big skill pool would be really cool.

Ghost.9035:

One question though JonPeters, what about giving thief (for all 3 of their weapons) 5 abilities with no offhand? I hear thieves complaining all the time about lack of variety, so why not throw in 3 new weapon loadouts? Just a thought

This is a terrible idea. I suppose the main hand weapon should then have double stats to make up for loss of the three stat boosts + sigil bonus/effect + attack/defense bonus that you get from an offhand, that it magically loses when an offhand is equipped or swapped?

Most other classes weapon abilities have a cool down timer when used. So for them having as many buttons to press is critical.

However we thieves use the initiative system ,we can use the same weapon skill over and over again.

If the offhand weapon didn’t provide a stat increase i wouldn’t mind just using a main hand weapon. The pistols #3 ability is pretty decent.

Ghost.9035:

One question though JonPeters, what about giving thief (for all 3 of their weapons) 5 abilities with no offhand? I hear thieves complaining all the time about lack of variety, so why not throw in 3 new weapon loadouts? Just a thought

I would LOVE to play a thief with only a main hand weapon!! I don’t even care about a potential stat loss while playing without an offhand weapon.

I just think it would be so cool. Too much dual wielding in games lately, what ever happened to the classic thief/assassin character who only uses a single dagger? Why does every videogame character have to be Drizzt now?

Before, I was hoping thief would get more weapons, maybe offhand sword or torch, but now I’m sold on this idea, it would be a really cool alternative to thief weapon gameplay…

Also, if additional light offhand skills were added it would be really sweet to have weapon skills that influenced Steal somehow… I’ve always hoped thief would have weapon skills that had something to do with stealing…

EDIT: On second thought, we don’t even really need more light offhand skills for onehanded to be viable, just need the light off hand skills to be a little better or cheaper…

For example: the pistol light skill Repeater costs 5 initiative and shoots 5 times, if it cost 4 and also caused bleeding, and/or shadowstepped you away before firing the shots, it would make Pistol with no offhand really nice.

Twisting Fangs for Dagger / Light costs 4 initiative and makes you spin around, dealing aoe damage and bleed, but it would make Light offhand more viable if it gave you evasion while it casted and/or crippled enemies or caused vulnerability. (Side note; I REALLY love the asura animation for Twisting Fangs, it’s really a shame you only ever see it in the tutorial area)

Stab for sword is the only skill that would need to be reworked. Right now it costs 4 initiative and simply just deals a little bit of damage, but if it was changed to something like “Pickpocket: Stab your enemy, successful hit reduces Steal cooldown by X seconds” then it would be a great weapon to use with Light offhand

But realistically, I know something like this will probably never happen, I think the devs simply don’t want light offhand thieves to be a thing. It’s still fun to dream though

To Jon and the GW2 team,
As discussed in this thread and elsewhere, Thieves really need more weapon variety. Here are some realistic suggestions on that front that don’t involve any drastic reworks:

-Add Sword as an offhand option. Seriously, we’re Thieves, who tend to be masters of one handed weaponry… so why is it that MESMER of all classes can offhand swords (with more weapon choices overall) while Thieves can’t? If we gained the ability to offhand swords, it’d add three new possible weapon combinations (and the corresponding unique dual skills) in one fell swoop. This would help Thief weapon variety a LOT.

-Figure out something to do about the Shortbow. Right now the mobility and AOE damage potential that it brings to the table is just too useful on all strata of the game to leave the Shortbow out of any build. This obviously makes weapon choice a good deal more stale.

I know this is an older topic, but I just want to say I agree with the above poster. Thieves are too lacking in choices, and I feel like they of all classes (though it should probably apply to other classes as well) shouldn’t be forced to dual wield due to the game’s mechanics. Here is my suggestion:

Make the thief gain some unique benefit from only wielding one weapon in the MH, either give them “bare handed” utility skills in the 4th and 5th slot and improve the stats on their MH weapon, or give them a new unique off-hand “weapon” type that is thiefy and doesn’t really feel like “dual wielding”, maybe either a small toolkit or gloves.

JonPeters.5630:

These skills are intended to cover the tutorial as people have said. They were very low impact on the development of the game, taking less than an hour total to create. Their benefit (new thief players having more skills in the tutorial) is certainly worth that small investment in our opinion.

Have you considered the ramifications of designing all main-hand weapons to give 5 skills, instead of forcing people to either wield two small weapons, or one big weapon?

Consider, for example, the Thief sword. What if we don’t want a dagger or pistol in the off-hand? Why doesn’t the sword give 5 skills which are all designed as one solid kit?
And then, for those who do want the off-hand weapon, the last three skills (since our third skill is a “dual wield skill”) are switched to what we have now?

You’ve already shown that, with the dual wield skills, you can have the skills of one weapon change to something else based on our equipment.
Obviously, this would take more work in balancing the profession skills against each other, but I think the gains would outweigh the risks.