Non-primary weapon use

I'm curious if anyone knows why it is that ANet seems not to want anyone to use weapons other than the primary classes intended to have them. Warrior primaries using swords/hammers/axes, Assassins primaries using Daggers etc.
I've seen them repeatedly take deliberate steps to prevent people with those professions as secondaries from being able to viably use them.

Warrior weapons for example rely almost entirely on adrenaline, which requires you to stay in someone's face taking a beating while you build it up (which the warrior's armor takes advantage of). Warriors (and perhaps Paragons) are the only ones who can really get the most out of Adrenaline, since the primary skills of every other profession in the game revolve around energy. With all the skills they've made over the years they've been extremely stingy with energy > adrenaline conversion skills as well (I think only Hammers have one or two, and even then I think that was a very recent change and done as much for the benefit of Warriors as anyone else).
You also need either an increase in attack speed or adrenaline gain to use those weapons effectively, but only Warrior primaries have decent access to those (at least in PvP).
Flail used to be usable by anyone, so they nerfed the base duration. Rangers used to have a reliable IAS with Expert's Dexterity, and they nerfed the IAS (they actually mutilated the entire skill). Rapid Fire also used to provide melee IAS as well as ranged, so they nerfed that to be bow-only.

With Daggers, some of the best dagger attacks are under Critical Strikes instead of Dagger Mastery, making them Assassin Primary only. Shattering Assault used to be usable by anyone but they changed that, taking yet another away from others.
Many of the attacks rely on mechanics that only an Assassin could reliably trigger without being terribly gimmicky, such as enchantments or hexes (at the very least, such attacks are nearly inaccessible to Warriors/Rangers/Paragons).
Daggers themselves are heavily built around the use of the Assassin's Critical Strikes, having very high attack speed with low damage with high variability.

Thumpers are much of the reason Rangers can't have good things such as IAS, even though Hammer Warriors are far more annoying and effective.

I know there are a couple such builds that might actually be viable right now (though I personally doubt it, I've only seen them as highly rated builds on PVXWiki which is populated by idiotic observer sheep), but they're very gimmicky and I've seen such builds crop up only to be swatted down many times before.

Maybe it's just been an endless series of wild short-sighted mistakes? I don't see what could possibly be wrong with other classes being able to use those weapons effectively. Even if they were equally good with them. The only issue might be if they were universally better with them, which I don't think has ever been the case.

Mainly because they nearly always end up in gimmicky builds as you said yourself.

They've usually ended up being better than the primary weapon user at some niche parts of pvp and that hasn't been good for the game.

Main thing that pops to mind is the A/D crit scythe, and the R/A escape dagger ranger.

Thing is with these builds there's nothing (that) overpowered in the individual skills, it's just when combined on that profession it made them stupidly powerful and as such Anet took measures against them being used on professions rather than destroying skills that aren't that powerful on their respective professions.

But by it's nature a gimmick build is terribly easy to counter. It's like playing a convoluted game of Rock, Paper Scissors when someone uses one.
I'm in favor of gimmicks being nerfed since they force that Rock, Paper Scissors gameplay on others, but completely removing the viability of weapons with those classes was excessive.
I think the main issue here is that, while they've actively taken steps to stop these gimmick versions, I don't think they've ever taken a single step to allow these other classes to use the weapons in a non-gimmicky fashion.

Granted some gimmick builds are easily countered, however many are only as open to counters as their non gimmick counterparts.

Latest example being the R/A escape ranger, playing against this in GvG it is no more open to usual melee counters than the usual warrior or whatever. There was no glaring counter to it, outside of regular blind/hex hate.

Especially seeing as it allowed it to be played very very aggressively without any punishment compared to a warrior, push an enemy flagger and get snared with a warrior collapsing? Usually you'd be dead but with Escape etc it would get away unscathed.

You're completely right in your point that anet should've made them a viable option outside of gimmick use, and it may have made a more interesting game. However i don't think they ever had the ability to bring up that level of balance, with so many skills it would've been a mammoth task to have to balance each line of one professions weapon skills for potential use on every profession.

Plus the steps they've taken against the R/A example, which were basically to stop it being too viable were the only real option they had for a timely (ish) fix with the decreased manpower.

it's really just too hard to balance. to get it so Derv, Paragon, Warrior, Ranger, and Assassin can all have multiple viable builds with cross-class weapons would be a monumental undertaking. The reason you see any of it is because loop holes with certain classes being able to utilize a skill here or there that works well from another class.

I don't think they should spend the effort trying to make them perfectly effective, but allowing little bits of support for it here and there while swatting down gimmicks would seem much better to me.
As an example, I don't know what was wrong with Expert's Dexterity to warrant the raping it took in PvP, but it could have been perfect for a Ranger to mix a little melee with a little range.
With rangers again, I don't see why they couldn't allow something like Expert Focus to work with melee.

Basically I would just like if they tried throwing them a little something here and there instead of only taking away.

Considering what has been said and that they only seem to keep making progressive steps backward from this with no effort at all to help this issue, I have to come to the conclusion that it's just apathy or even laziness.
Especially since I'm sure I'm not the only person who came to the conclusion years ago that Izzy or whoever it is that is in charge of skill balancing is incompetent. Otyugh's Cry? That skill should never have made it into the game with it's old function, let alone stay that way for years.

I wouldn't ask for any sweeping changes, just... something.

I'm not even sure if anet wants to balance it all

I think if any class could use any weapon and could cast any spell, differen classes would be pretty useless....

i don't think its about not wanting weapons to be used by secondary classes, rather not wanting weapons to be stronger when used by secondary classes than when used by primary classes.

I would be fine with that design philosophy, if not for the fact that appearance is completely linked to your primary class. If not for that simple fact, I would agree that someone who wants to play like a warrior should just make a warrior etc.
I very much prefer melee characters, but I just can't accept playing as a grizzly-faced hulking giant or a malnourished bondage-freak.

I'm not saying that a mesmer for example should be able to play just like a warrior either, though. I would just like it if you could use another class' weapon and have an actual reason to do it other than to look good.

Um, maybe its because of imbalance and the fact that some classes can abuse weapons more than the class they were intended for...

I seem to recall the scythesin as the most obvious example....

too bad when sins were buffed rangers abused the fast activating skills with daggers and totally made pvp dead, so i dont know what ur crying about, and yes ranger sins totally raped primary sins during that time

rangers should always be better with a bow or u may aswell play a melee char

Shame they made bow rangers so useless. There is a reason why rangers try anything else to compete.

I think Snaek here is stating the truth, and as ANet would probably tell you: they simply don't have the manpower to be able to keep the balance between all the professions.

On the bright side, the "dual profession" system is taken away from GW2, and professions like the Ranger will be having their own melee abilities by default!

+1

They havent nerfed Way of the Master. I dont think they do have a problem with a primary using a secondary weapon. I think they do have a problem with it being exploited and being more powerful than if it were his primary.

I dont mind that an Assassin can use a Scythe, but when it uses a Scythe better than a Dervish, its kinda silly.

I have to disagree with the OP.

Secondary professions should in my opinion function as the name suggests: secondary. The skills you use from a secondary class are there to compliment the rest of your (primary) skill-bar. Good examples are Rangers with Mending Touch, Shock Axes and stance Monks.

Secondary professions often allow you to play with the weapon of that profession, and that is a good thing. It gives the player choice and room for experimentation and variety. When the use of such secondary weapons becomes so successful that it becomes a serious competitor with the primary's weapon attribute, something's wrong. It means that either:

• The primary's weapon attribute is underpowered
• The secondary's weapon attribute is overpowered
• The combination of primary inherent attribute and secondary weapon attribute is overpowered

Good examples of unbalanced primary-secondary profession builds are the Escape Dagger Ranger, the FC Water Mesmer, the N/Rt Healer, the ER Prot and so on.

As long as the primary profession is the best at using it's own weapons and attributes, things are balanced. If you want to play Axe with a Ranger, fine, but don't expect to be as good as a Warrior. If you do want to be as good as a Warrior, roll a Warrior. If you don't want to roll a Warrior because you don't like the way they look, that's a sacrifice you have to make. Personally, I find game balance more important.

There you have it!

I agree with this. If every class can use every weapon and every skill set just as effectively as any other, what's the point of having different classes?
Personally, from an RPG aspect, I would prefer there to be more defined differences between classes, rather than less. I would prefer, for example, that the "requirement" on a weapon would affect more than just the damage output.

Tl;dr but from the first sentence or so I'd say you are wrong.

Ive used lots of weapons on a variety of classes and its not always the primary class that can do it best:

War: Daggers, Scythe
Para: Daggers, Scythe
Sin: Sword, Spear, Hammer, Axe, Bow, Scythe
Ranger: Sword, Hammer, Spear, Scythe, Daggers, Axe
Derv: Sword, Daggers
Rit: Daggers, spear
etc. etc.

I use daggers on my Warrior, and I must say the build I have setup does wonders. Honestly, does more damage in PvE then if I was using my main weapons.

Well, I love my Necro using a bow. People of my guild often laugh about it
until they have seen the damage and support it can do even in hardmode.
It's fun.

this is the build. PvE ofcourse.

[Barrage Necro;OAJTYsDnZSVst0SYxY1gR0WULE]

Well, why classes in fact ?

Juste let people have a bunch of points and desing how they want to have energy, e-regen, armor, spell abilities and so on.

Its understandable that dual prof system can't help the game becoming imbalanced but...

In many cases the dual profession system, which used to be essential, isn't needed anymore. In some cases the dual prof system is causing problems. So, now we have hundreds of skills to choose from but this doesn't help us. In the case of a warrior, for example, there are many skills that aren't useful anymore. Most Warrior builds for PvE use no secondary prof. Most builds tend to revolve around the same skills.

The diversity of builds is less now and some skills and the dual prof system has fallen into disuse.

In general I believe that the absence of dual prof and the fewer skills in GW2 is a positive thing since these features ended to acte more as a "burden" rather than a feature in the original GW.

Because without classes it would be a totally different game maybe?

It's really fluff only, if it doesn't add anything to the game, why allow characters to use multiple weapons?

When you let classes use secondary weapons (and oftentimes, even skills) better than the primary profession they were designed for, you end up with ridiculous stuff like Elementalists healing better than Monks, Necromancers nuking better than Elementalists, Ritualists being better ranged physical AoE than Rangers, etc (which is exactly what we have). Worse yet, there's no guarantee that the class who got kicked out of his job will have something else worth doing (coughDervishcough).

Another issue is that Anet obviously balances skills and weapons around the class that has them. They clearly did not expect assassins to use scythes, Necromancers to use weapon spells, and Paragons to shout "Save Yourselves!" at the top of their lungs. This leads to grossly overpowered builds.

without classes it would be like runescape, and we dont want another one of those do we?

Also, they really arent forcing the classes to only use their primary profession's weapons although it seems like it. Skills like Way of the Master help when you use other weapons.

Most of the gimmicky OP builds are (were) cases of secondary abuse. It's probably one of the main contributing factors to ANet taking out secondary professions from GW2, certainly one of the main benefits...