Q:
"Off-hand Light"
A:
A dev posted that those skills are only for the tutorial when you do not have access to an off-hand yet, they took less than an hour of development time to make (the dagger and pistol ones are just weaker versions of the D/D and P/P 3 skills, and the sword one is just the mesmer stab animation without fancy butterflies all over), and there are no plans to develop them further or bring them in line with other skill 3’s.
(edited by Ron Cordova.9824)
There was a time when everyone only had 1 weapon :p even if you bought one you had to get the gold to do so
The only thing that bugs me about it is that it counts as 3 of their already poor number of weapon skills. Thieves really do not have enough skills or weapon choices relative to other classes. I really have to say that even though the Thief is fun to play, it really feels less polished than other classes, almost like they switched gears a hundred times through development and ended up with something klunky and bandaged.
Having said that, I’ve mentioned in other posts that I don’t like how the game forces you to dual-wield (or use a 2 hander), and that thieves at least really should get either some incentive to only use a MH weapon or an OF weapon type that is not really a weapon and is utilitarian.
Exactly. 3 skills wasted in a already small skill library.
I wish I had more variety – more skills to play around with. More skills means more builds.
Yeh its a bit of a shame how limited we are,
You can notice that there are a lot of posts asking to give us a rifle mh, a sword oh, a mace mh etc etc…
perhaps we should start a petition?
We don’t need another topic for this since we Already had a developer respond when it really was not necessary the information is fairly easy to infer from the wiki.
Ultimately there are only two cases for these skills:
1- durability, offhand breaks, to have any 3 skill this needs to exist. Weapons can take damage can they not?
2- the weapon you start with in the very first level 1 to level 2 step on a brand new thief at the very least needed a 3rd skill. Offhands upgrade slot 3 to the dual skill, that’s the concept at work and the existence of the light version serves to illustrate that when a user is looking at the weapon skills tab
I am the super thief
I’m pretty sure weapons cannot take damage
Off hand Vanishing powder…
2 min stealth (1/2 movement speed) PLS! lol
Makes sense.. and would be an acceptable 3rd slot for no weapon.
We don’t need another topic for this since we Already had a developer respond when it really was not necessary the information is fairly easy to infer from the wiki.
Ultimately there are only two cases for these skills:
1- durability, offhand breaks, to have any 3 skill this needs to exist. Weapons can take damage can they not?
2- the weapon you start with in the very first level 1 to level 2 step on a brand new thief at the very least needed a 3rd skill. Offhands upgrade slot 3 to the dual skill, that’s the concept at work and the existence of the light version serves to illustrate that when a user is looking at the weapon skills tab
1: Are you playing the same game as we are?
2: Did you even read my opening post? I covered this.
How about you supply some of this “intuitive” information?
Telling you there is already a dev response to your exact question in an earlier thread for this topic. I provided a recap the two purposes of the skill for a helpful add to this thread.
I am the super thief
A dev posted that those skills are only for the tutorial when you do not have access to an off-hand yet, they took less than an hour of development time to make (the dagger and pistol ones are just weaker versions of the D/D and P/P 3 skills, and the sword one is just the mesmer stab animation without fancy butterflies all over), and there are no plans to develop them further or bring them in line with other skill 3’s.
Thanks. Didn’t find that topic when I searched for “off-hand light”.
It still annoys me. We get to look at those 3 skills for the rest of our thief lives and wonder what could have been.
And although the dev might have spent a small amount of time making that solution, it still feels like a rushed “OK we can’t think of anything else, so lets add this”.
We don’t have to put up with that kind of stuff.
As Jon said in that post, the alternative is that you just have two skills during the tutorial. I think this is better. I’d like more options for weapon skills too, but I don’t think making our OH-light skills better is the best way to get that. Open up swords (for OH), axes, maces, torches, warhorns, foci, shields, or rifles. Those all could thematically fit somehow and I think that’s a bigger untapped resource than adding 1 skill for non-viable builds anyway.
I’d say the solution would, in fact, be to just give the thief an actual offhand in the tutorial…
Better than developing some bizarre solution that will be on your thief forever, only to be used in the tutorial.
I still feel that, for ALL classes, wielding just a single one-handed weapon with no off-hand should be a viable playstyle that gives you 5 skills for that weapon. Would allow for more aesthetic variety.
If Ezio Auditore da Firenze and Altair Ibn-La’Ahad can kill people with just a single sword and a graceful flourish of style, why can’t we?
Okay, so technically they have an off-hand “dagger” or “pistol” hidden in their bracers that they can use, but that’s just a technicality!
I hope you haven’t forgotten my role in this little story. I’m the leading man.
You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.
You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.
I still feel that, for ALL classes, wielding just a single one-handed weapon with no off-hand should be a viable playstyle that gives you 5 skills for that weapon. Would allow for more aesthetic variety.
If Ezio Auditore da Firenze and Altair Ibn-La’Ahad can kill people with just a single sword and a graceful flourish of style, why can’t we?
Okay, so technically they have an off-hand “dagger” or “pistol” hidden in their bracers that they can use, but that’s just a technicality!
I second this. Another possible (and easier to implement) option besides making all Main-handers have 5 skills is just letting each profession have unique utility-oriented 4th and 5th skills when no off-hander is equipped. For the thief, this would also result in an upgrade their off-hand light skills to complement the purpose of long-term viability for single-wielding. I posted in another thread that Steal would make more sense as an off-hand skill for when no weapon is equipped, and that the F abilities should be something else, but that point is of course debatable.
Although I agree that it should exist for all professions, the absence of this type of option is particularly glaring for the thief, who in many concepts/archetypes uses only a single dagger or sword because they use their other hand for various tricks and acrobatics. I actually resent the fact that I’m “forced” to dual wield at all times on my thief (or use a shortbow).
I also like the idea of adding a bunch of new weapon types, which I’m sure we’ll get at some point. Ideas: whips, crossbows, boomerangs, claws.
(edited by Einlanzer.1627)
Well, you also have to wonder why it’s the case that… Elementalists have to equip a Focus or Dagger in their off-hand.
Why can’t they just use a Scepter by itself? Some people would prefer that aesthetic.
The only real question is how to balance it so that you still have the same stats as somebody dual-wielding or using 2handers. Perhaps when you have no off-hand, the game can simply double the stats from your main-hand, or something like that.
I hope you haven’t forgotten my role in this little story. I’m the leading man.
You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.
You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.
I would actually argue that the weapon system in the game is most odd for elementalists, with thieves being second. You would think the elementalist’s skills wouldn’t revolve around weapons at all. I’d love to at the least see a UI option for elementalists to hide their weapons altogether, but that’s a different topic. I do agree, though, that single-wielding one-handers should be viable for all professions.
I would assume that just doubling MH weapon stats would be the most natural solution. I wouldn’t even really have a problem if they didn’t quite double it, but increased it by 75% or something, maybe making it increase to 100% through traits. I say that only because I hesitate at fully doubling it by default, people tend to equip the strongest weapon they have in main hand and whatever is in the offhand tends to be slightly weaker.