This post is going to focus on the effects of Legendary Melee weapons, and other forum posts complaining about it. I have seen a number of posts going on and on about how they want the changes reverted as the new effects are bad or ugly, but to an extent they make sense and I will come back to why they make sense.
Again, I have seen countless posts going on about how they would like to see unique effects for each class on staff, etc. Which even I think is a bit far fetched if you think about how many skills Eles have alone, and it would just take way too long to make unique effects for all classes to begin with. And even if that did happen, there would still be a lot of players who wouldn’t be happy with how some of them looked, and would wish them to be reverted, and if that were to happen, then what’s the point in making it to begin with.
What I am about to suggest only really applies for melee weapons as obviosuly ranged weapons already have a projectile effect, and won’t really be able to use a type of effect I’m going to suggest. Although there are exeptions I suppose when we come to Rev Hammer autos as, practically it becomes a ranged weapon, with ranged autos and no actual auto cycle.
Within the game for melee weapons, I am assuming there is one real form for a ranged attack, which is most likely just coded as a projectile even if it’s a “casted” or a “thrown” animation. This means that whenever a “ranged” attack is used you will just see the 3D model of the Legendary weapon being thrown. However, what should be apart of the Leggy Melee weapons, is the separation of a “projectile” and a “thrown” ability.
For example, Warrior axe 3, sword 4 is a thrown effect. The character physically throws the weapon which means it makes sense that the 3D is shown. Although when it comes to Guardian sword 3 or hammer 3, those are projectile effects,(in my opinion), which means there should be a unique effect for the Legendary weapon when a projectile is used. This would make things a lot easier as you would only need two types of ranged effects.
An example on Bolt would be, for Warrior 4 you still see the thrown effect of the weapon, as it makes sense. But for Guardian sword 3 there could be lightning bolts coming out of the sword. However I understand this would become confusing if you moved the same effect onto Berserk F1. A similar thing is happening to Guardian hammer 3, where the original effect is a pair of chains moving out immobing foes, but if you are wielding The Juggernaut, you will see a mini Juggernaut fly out. Again this could be solved with a projectile effect. Which then can lead into Revenant hammer autos. Granted, the skill is called Hammer bolt, and the default skin for this is also a hammer being thrown, so if you want to stick with that idea than the 3D model totally makes sense. But hence it’s also practically a projectile effect, there could be a change there too.
I didn’t actually wanted to make this post this long, however it’s annoying that people complain about ideas, and ask for things. But aren’t actually suggesting ideas. Again, with this method you could simply seperate a “projectile” from a “thrown” ability, and I reckon it would shut players up.
Hope this helps to an extent, but then again to all I know Anet could be doing something similar already, or scrappy the whole effect changes. Who knows, I’m just leaving this here either way for people to see.
-Exemple