Skill Bar and Auto-Swapping Weapons

In PoE 1 we have a separate skill bar for each weapon set. They typically have different skills bound to the same keys, so you can easily see which weapon set you are using. I can use one set of skills to clear the map and the other set for single target damage on the boss. I just press X and continue using the same key (or mouse button) for my primary skill in each set.

In PoE 2 we have only 1 skill bar. That's already a step down from PoE 1 because you cannot bind weapon-dependent skills to the same key. You have to bind them to different keys. That's inconvenient.

The supposedly good part about it is that pressing a key that corresponds to a skill bound to a inactive weapon switches the weapon sets to make it active. And this way you can spam skills bound to weapons in different sets without having to press X between them.

But if you are not using weapon-bound skills from both sets then it's much worse than the PoE 1 model. For example, I have two nice weapons in set 1 that grant me good stats and aura buffs. And in Set 2 I have a weapon that grants me a spell that has a culling strike. Whenever I want to cull a boss/rare, I press the key associated with it, and the game swaps from Set 1 to Set 2 to cast the culling spell. Then I have to press X to switch back to Set 1. But there is no way to tell when they actually switch. Sometimes the switch doesn't happen because of lag or animations or w/e. So I have to press I to see which set is actually equipped. That's pretty bad.

Please add some indicator somewhere showing which weapon set is currently active.

And add back the second skill bar from PoE 1. This way I can use my weapons the same way as in PoE 1: bind different skills from the two weapon sets to the same keys. And I can use the PoE 2 feature to auto-swap weapon sets if I bind weapon-dependent skills to different keys.

I ran into the same issue with weapon skills on my Merc. It took my a while to understand why I was always switching back to weapon #1. I wanted to see if weapon swapping could help in tight stops where reloads were getting me killed in the early game, and I thought it was so much worse that it was.

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Kelvynn#6607 wrote:

In PoE 2 we have only 1 skill bar. That's already a step down from PoE 1 because you cannot bind weapon-dependent skills to the same key. You have to bind them to different keys. That's inconvenient.

And add back the second skill bar from PoE 1. This way I can use my weapons the same way as in PoE 1: bind different skills from the two weapon sets to the same keys. And I can use the PoE 2 feature to auto-swap weapon sets if I bind weapon-dependent skills to different keys.

This is what I have been trying to figure out lately and it's driving me nuts.

I like the auto-swapping for weapon feature, but I also want to use the same keybind (right mouse button) for an AoE version and single target version of a skill, or 2 completely different skills.

Really hoping they do something to implement some way or form to do this.

Who even thought it would be good the way it is now? I have a warrior, and I wanted to use one set as 1h with a shield and the second as 2h. It is virtually unusable this way, because the basic attach changes, also the raise shield skill is not relevant for the 2h weapon set, but it will stick in the skill bar.