Thief Mainhand should be a unique and viable playstyle.

[Yasai.3549]

As such, Stab, Repeater and Twisting Fangs could use some QoL and buffs.

[DemonSeed.3528]

I'd love for thief to have flexi sets, the way Weaver has access to so many weapon skills due to attunements.

[MrForz.1953]

I'll take main hand only. To be frank I wished main hand only was an option for more classes.

[UNOwen.7132]

Honestly, why not? Course, the question becomes whether or not thief gets the stats of 2 weapons even when he is holding one, and whether or not the thief gets 4 and 5 skills or just the non-dual-weild 3d skill. Maybe it could be a trait somewhere?

[Yasai.3549]

@UNOwen.7132 said:Honestly, why not? Course, the question becomes whether or not thief gets the stats of 2 weapons even when he is holding one, and whether or not the thief gets 4 and 5 skills or just the non-dual-weild 3d skill. Maybe it could be a trait somewhere?

Exactly what I mean by QoL and Buffs.

Maybe have a stronger trait while holding a Mainhand only would suffice.

[Yasai.3549]

The best place to put a special "Mainhand Trait" could possibly be in Trickery tree.

Imo Pressure Striking isn't used much at all, even by Condi builds, which favor either Bountiful Theft in Pvp, or Trickster in Pve.It could be replaced with a "Mainhand Trait" instead.

Proposal :One Armed BanditIncrease Damage and Condition Damage dealt by 10% when only Mainhand weapon is equipped.Additionally:

• Twisting Fang turns into Death's Pirouette (No movement lock, Whirl Finisher, Inflicts 4 hits, Bleeds, Reflects Projectiles)
• Stab turns into Puncture (Inflicts Vulnerability, Increased damage based on Vulnerability)
• Repeater turns into Fan the Hammer (Fires 25% faster, 6 hits, Inflicts Bleeding, Dazes on final shot)

[Teratus.2859]

I would like to have more main hand only options on some classes.

Be kinda cool if one handed mainhand weapons on give 5 skills instead of 3 and 2-3 skills changed when equipping a offhand weapon.

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

Sure it would be interesting but they will have to mess with the core mechanic deep within the engine of the game. And whenever they try to do that, shirt hits the fan.

What I'm talking about is the mechanic that do not require me to have an off-hand weapon in my second set.

Basically, if I have S/D in set1 and Dagger only in set 2, when I swap to set 2, I get D/P instead of Dagger only. This mechanic is part of the engine of the game and I don't really want ArenaNet tinkering with the engine. This is also the reason why Shadowstepping sucks. The mechanic is buried deep within the engine that's why they have not fixed the pathing at all.

Not only that I don't really want to see this feature, but I doubt ArenaNet is willing to make this change.

[Taobella.6597]

more skills more fun <3

[Kageseigi.2150]

I want to be able to use mainhand-only Sword so I can play as a Jedi/Sith with the Plasma / Holosmith sword without having to use an offhand Plasma Dagger to have full fighting potential.

Other than that, I'd like to be able to change the colors of the beams :-P

[draxynnic.3719]

To be honest, I don't think the mainhand-only skills were ever intended to be viable, just something that would fill in the gap until you got an offhand. Even with the buffs (and it honestly surprised me that they bothered) they're essentially less interesting substitutes for Flanking Strike, Death Blossom, and Unload.

There are also multiple mechanics that assume that you'll be carrying an offhand. Sir Vincent III mentioned one. Another is that statistics are largely balanced around having both hands occupied: a single mainhand weapon doesn't provide the stats that a pair or a two-handed weapon does.

These are both theoretically fixable, but I don't think there's a lot to be gained from trying to fix the mechanics in that way when it would be simpler to just offer a 'dummy' offhand weapon (possibly focus) which could facilitate a one-handed fighting style.

[Yasai.3549]

@draxynnic.3719 said:To be honest, I don't think the mainhand-only skills were ever intended to be viable, just something that would fill in the gap until you got an offhand. Even with the buffs (and it honestly surprised me that they bothered) they're essentially less interesting substitutes for Flanking Strike, Death Blossom, and Unload.

I would not say Repeater is a less interesting version of Unload, considering it is Condition based and that Pistol/Dagger 3 Flip skill uses it as well.

That just left me thinking, what if people wanted to use Pistol for a purely condition based build, similar to how Engineer uses Pistol for Conditions.

Seeing as Thief is the only profession which has no weapon skill cooldowns, it is the perfect profession to experiment this sort of unique limited skill pool playstyle.

Or we can just hope that Anet decides to add an Elite in the future which utilizes Mainhand only playstyles with a full skill set.

[draxynnic.3719]

@Yasai.3549 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:To be honest, I don't think the mainhand-only skills were ever intended to be viable, just something that would fill in the gap until you got an offhand. Even with the buffs (and it honestly surprised me that they bothered) they're essentially less interesting substitutes for Flanking Strike, Death Blossom, and Unload.

I would not say Repeater is a less interesting version of Unload, considering it is Condition based and that Pistol/Dagger 3 Flip skill uses it as well.

That just left me thinking, what if people wanted to use Pistol for a purely condition based build, similar to how Engineer uses Pistol for Conditions.

Seeing as Thief is the only profession which has no weapon skill cooldowns, it is the perfect profession to experiment this sort of unique limited skill pool playstyle.

Or we can just hope that Anet decides to add an Elite in the future which utilizes Mainhand only playstyles with a full skill set.

Said flipover skill is probably the only reason why they buffed it in the first place - including reducing the Initiative cost as well as applying bleeding. The assumption is that apart from at really low levels where ArenaNet doesn't care that much about balance, it's not going to be viable to use Pistol/Nothing just for Repeater. If they were to do what you ask, then they'd probably split between the spammable version of Repeater and the flipover skill, giving the former an initiative cost of 4 or 5.

Essentially making it a condition version of Unload. Which seems to be something ArenaNet is already offering to players, except that the expectation seems to be that you'd do it with P/D, using the dagger (and possibly other sources of Stealth) to set up Sneak Attack and Repeater.

Like I said, I don't think there's anything that couldn't be done with a dummy offhand weapon. Give Thief a focus offhand, and instead of having to come up with new dual skills for the focus, they can simply make it so that the dual skills available to x/focus are the same as the skills available to x/nothing. And then they can have the focus itself linked to skills that reflect doing something with the free hand - casting some form of shadow magic spell, performing some form of dirty trick, or whatever it might be.

[Curennos.9307]

Only if anet also removes thief's weapon swap cooldown.

Things are balanced around two weapons, 5 skills per weapon. For the skills to be at all useful, the three main hand skills would have to be super strong, especially considering one is an AA, to make up for the loss of two skills.

With weapon swap on place, the skills would not only have to be strong, but be strong in multiple areas to accommodate for that you would only have an aa and two skills to use for 9 seconds.

W/out weapon swap, the skills can be strong in one thing and call it a day because the thief could reliably use their other weapon for other things.

[Kageseigi.2150]

@"Curennos.9307" said:Only if anet also removes thief's weapon swap cooldown.

Things are balanced around two weapons, 5 skills per weapon. For the skills to be at all useful, the three main hand skills would have to be super strong, especially considering one is an AA, to make up for the loss of two skills.

I am 100% for removing the weapon-swap cooldown... as it should have never existed on the Thief in the first place for numerous reasons.

I would think that it would be somewhat simple to turn a one-handed weapons into a hybrid... like a bas-tard sword that could be used as both a one-handed or a two-handed weapon.

When a main-hand weapon (such as a Sword) is equipped along with an off-hand weapon, then only the main-hand's first first two skills are active along with the dual-wield skill and the off-hand's two skills. However, when a main-hand weapon is equipped alone, then its stats are doubled, and it has its first two skills active as normal, but also with three more unique skills. That is there's no reason why it would have to be limited to three skills.

For example, if a Sword and a Dagger were equipped (S/D)...Stats = Sword + DaggerSkills = Sword 1, Sword 2, S/D Dual 3, Dagger 4, Dagger 5

If the Dagger were removed so the Sword is the only weapon equipped (S/na)...Stats = Sword x 2Skills = Sword 1, Sword 2, Sword 3, Sword 4, Sword 5

The main question is should there be a limit to which weapons can be used in such a way? A sword makes complete sense to use by itself. Should Dagger or Pistol get two new 4 and 5 skills if they are used alone?

I would be curious to see this concept expanded, and to see what kind of fun/silly skills could be done if you were to allow something like the Shortbow to be used with (or even as) an off-hand weapon.

EDIT: Wow, the type of sword got censored into "kitten"

[BoxHat.1824]

Why not just give thief two 'offhand' weapon skills for when they have nothing equipped. Something graple based maybe like a lesser steal on the 4 skill and a blind-launch flip skill on the 5

[Yasai.3549]

@Ustaf.2953 said:Why not just give thief two 'offhand' weapon skills for when they have nothing equipped. Something graple based maybe like a lesser steal on the 4 skill and a blind-launch flip skill on the 5

After reading the various feedbacks, I honestly think it would be absolutely fantastic if we had Focus as a dummy weapon, and that the Skill 4 and 5 can be customizable with additional Utilities.

Thief Utilities are mostly really utility in nature.

It really couldn't hurt to have an additional 2 Utilities at the cost of sacrificing a stronger Dual Wield skill and 2 weapon skills.

And maybe we could see stuff like Scorpion Wire used this way.

[BoxHat.1824]

@Yasai.3549 said:

@Ustaf.2953 said:Why not just give thief two 'offhand' weapon skills for when they have nothing equipped. Something graple based maybe like a lesser steal on the 4 skill and a blind-launch flip skill on the 5

After reading the various feedbacks, I honestly think it would be absolutely fantastic if we had Focus as a dummy weapon, and that the Skill 4 and 5 can be customizable with additional Utilities.

Thief Utilities are mostly really utility in nature.

It really couldn't hurt to have an additional 2 Utilities at the cost of sacrificing a stronger Dual Wield skill and 2 weapon skills.

And maybe we could see stuff like Scorpion Wire used this way.

I love it

[ChillyKoti.1928]

I'd really like a main hand only thing, but the problem will be the stat loss when we don't have an off hand equipped. We'll need a replacement of some sort.

[Carnifex.3275]

Gimme my old 1200 range back. And un-nerf prepardeness. And exhaustion on dodge. Oh and dagger dmg. Not much to ask for. Oh remember how cool Acrobatics was before HoT but they nerfed it before releasing HoT so they can pretend Daredevil is something new while in reality it's "acrobatics in disguise"?? Yea.... un-nerf that too. We won't forget it. I'm still making a list of all the nerfs thief got over a few years.. we are like 40% of who we were.

[nopoet.2960]

@DemonSeed.3528 said:I'd love for thief to have flexi sets, the way Weaver has access to so many weapon skills due to attunements.

Maybe they can work it into the next elite. Stolen skills would replace your main hand weapon. If you steal again it bumps to your offhand. Obviously you would be able to drop either bundle at anytime. Could be fun. Call it the Vandal.

[Sobx.1758]

Rolling 3 skills (3,4,5) into one (3) is a recipe for disaster. And anything below that probably wouldn't be viable anyways.

[draxynnic.3719]

@nopoet.2960 said:

@DemonSeed.3528 said:I'd love for thief to have flexi sets, the way Weaver has access to so many weapon skills due to attunements.

Maybe they can work it into the next elite. Stolen skills would replace your main hand weapon. If you steal again it bumps to your offhand. Obviously you would be able to drop either bundle at anytime. Could be fun. Call it the Vandal.

That could be an interesting mechanic, actually.

Elite specialisation has the focus as their weapon.

The focus has no attached skills.

However, the specialisation is built around the concept that stolen skills are permanent until replaced with something else. Instead of disappearing once used, stolen skills have a recharge (if you have Improvisation, F2 becomes a charge skill), and only disappear when you next steal.

With a two-handed weapon or a core offhand equipped, this is as far as it can go, but if you have a focus equipped, instead of your F2 skill disappearing when you Steal again, the skill goes into focus slot 4, and if you Steal with a skill in focus slot 4, that skill gets bumped to focus slot 5 and the skill in F2 gets bumped to focus slot 4. Only when both slots are filled and you Steal again does the skill in focus slot 5 finally disappear.

This focus mechanic only applies when the focus is one of your active weapons, so if you don't want to keep the F2 skill when you Steal, you can swap to another set before using Steal, so that the F2 skill is the one that gets replaced instead.

(As a possible extra tweak, if Steal would give you a skill that you already have, it moves that skill to F2 and refreshes the cooldown.)

[Kageseigi.2150]

@"nopoet.2960" said:Maybe they can work it into the next elite. Stolen skills would replace your main hand weapon. If you steal again it bumps to your offhand. Obviously you would be able to drop either bundle at anytime. Could be fun. Call it the Vandal.

I'm waiting for the Thief to become the equivalent of Kirby by Stealing the enemy's abilities/skills.

EDIT: Link isn't working for me...https://kirby.fandom.com/wiki/Copy_Ability

[Antycypator.9874]

I think the idea of having one-handed weapon filling all 5 weapon skills would be awesome. The problem is: second weapon adds some stats, so having only one 1h weapon instead of two is dps loss. Maybe all classes could use that thing: off-hand weapons should be optional (I know you can play without off-hand weapons, but having 5 skills instead of 3 makes difference. Even if those skills are not super useful). Off-hand weapon could just replace 4th and 5th skill.