Guild Wars 2

Classically, in other games (daoc), if you used a 2h weapon the damage would be much greater than a 1h. But similar to wielding 2 1h weapons. Also the procs on a 2h would more potent than a 1h as a rule.

Makes sense!! You give up a weapon slot! There needs to be a return on that.

But tests show that 1H axe and sword hit for more than great sword and hammer. (the last step in mace damage is higher than listed GS damage as well).

Now that would be ok if sigils didn’t do anything. Beacuse then you’d still have 5 skills, and you’d be hitting with your main hand 1h weapon, not both.

But they do..they do alot of things. So you’re penalised for using a 2h weapon. You lose dps on button 1 and you give up a sigil spot.

I’m not sure what the amazing trade off is.

Solution? Best thing I can see is up damage on 2H weapon button 1s to above 1H’s or allow you to slot 2 runes on a 2h weapon.

For hammer you might have a point, but for GS, it has a better spread of abilities than any other weapon, including nearly the equivalent of of the axe burst skill with no adrenaline cost and a shorter cooldown (and an annoying self root). Two movement abilities, a (sometimes) two hit ranged attack with a snare attached, and vulnerability attached to it’s auto attack. You can’t give something like that even more damage without making it even more unbalanced than it already is. Two sigils, yeah maybe, but there’s no way it can have more damage.

you are not punished for using a 2 hander in GW2.

the mace hits harder than everything on its 3rd attack only. also the mace hits slower than everything and has one single damage ability, the rest are defensive and actually(not virtually, but literally) useless for dealing damage. you sit back and react to the enemy for 2 and 3 so having the chain hit hard makes sense.

the axe attacks fast and the main chain does alot of damage(due purely to triple chop), but everything else is unimpressive. not very high damage on the other skills besides whirling axe and the burst skill. this weapon exists to build adrenaline for eviscerate and not much else. has virtually NO utility at all nor good mobility.

the sword is versatile. you get CC on two skills, a defensive skill, condition stacking, decent attack speed and mobility.

the hammer actually has some of the hardest hitting skills and utterly unmatched cc.

the greatsword has a modest chain damage but stacks vulnerability, has extreme burst damage and great mobility.

it’d be a bit crazy to go on and on for all the weapons, but at this point you get it(hopefully). just realize that in those other games you are stuck with your shield slam/revenge/sunder/bladestorm/mortal strike/execute skills no matter what weapon you equip and the only thing that will set a greatsword apart form a normal sword is the damage it does.

It does not make up for the loss of a sigil.

Like I said, if that wasn’t a factor it would balance.

But it is. I lose out on 5 percent extra crit chance, or stacking power charges or freeze on swap…etc…that’s a huge loss!!

If it were really as unbalanced as you’re saying, wouldn’t everybody be using 1h weapons? As it is, GS is the most popular weapon, and for good reason. I agree with fony that balance is to be found in the skills mostly, although that can be debated.

The sigil unfairness is not true – only one activates at any one time, and they share cd’s. Quoting myself from another thread.

The anet devs realised they had to equal out the sigils on both double hander weapons and duel wield. In bw1 + 2 you could use multi sigil and it work just fine. BW3 + they changed it.

The change basically is an un-written rule “Only one sigil can activate any any one time” bear that in mind. Also sigils share cd’s.

Some examples:
Sigil of Earth 60% chance to do a 5 seconds bleed on critical.
Sigil of Strength 30% chance to apply might for 10 seconds on critical.

Now, if you duel wield, only one will ever activate at the same time. Try it out on a dummy, you’ll get a maximum of 3 stacks of might with 3 stacks of bleed (depending on build, make sure you use a crit build with non-bleed applying autoattack). With the same build, using 2x earths you can stack up to 6 – 7 bleeds or with 2x strength sigils 6 – 7 stacks of might.

Another example:

Sigil of Hydromancy you freeze nearby foes for 3 seconds when you swap to this weapon while in combat. (This effect cannot trigger more than once every 9s)

Sigil of Ice 30% chance to cause a 2 seconds freeze on a critical hit. (Cooldown: 10 seconds)

If sigil of ice procs, you have to wait the full 10 seconds until your other weapon sigil will proc.

Anet was looking for a way to balance sigils, and this is what they did pre-release.

The long story short, it’s often not worth having 2 different types of sigils on duel wield weapons as it will kitten the build you actually want.

they kinda nerfed the way sigils work long ago instead of adding two slots to 2h.

You do realize sigils only modify the weapon they are slot in right? Like if you using a sword and an axe and the sword has +5% damage this won’t affect the attacks you make with the axe and vice versa.

Lyonell.1753:

You do realize sigils only modify the weapon they are slot in right? Like if you using a sword and an axe and the sword has +5% damage this won’t affect the attacks you make with the axe and vice versa.

Incorrect.

FYI – ANet stated somewhere (BWE3? after several shared Sigil cooldown changes) that they were going to add second slot to all 2Hers to bring them up to par. It needs to happen for the sake of balance.

As a side note, attack speed/damage output is directly correlated to the appropriate weapon Talents taken. In the case of Greatsword, you need to look at both Slashing Power and Forceful Greatsword; with these talents and a full DPS build, it is (on paper) actually possible to be above Sword/Axe in multi-target situations in damage output without team support.