Main Hand / One Hand Question

[Peacemaker65]

I don't understand the deal with some one handed weapons being One Hand and some being Main Hand. It seems like most of the old stuff is Main Hand but everything in MoP is One Hand. I had worked really hard before MoP to acquire rep and items for transmorg gear to now find that I can't use the main hand mace and sword I wanted so badly for my Holy Paladin golden look. If Blizzard is going to just arbitrarily make two types of one handed weapons meant for the main hand, why don't they allow "Main" and "One" transmorg to each other?

What is their point in all this mess? Any thoughts?

[Lovestar]

It was originally implemented on the 4.3 PTR to prevent transmogging "Main Hand" and "Off Hand" items with art specific to that hand, onto "One Hand" stuff which could then be swapped to either hand and looked ludicrous.

This was primarily an issue with Fist weapons which were not at the time designed to flip sides properly. Since then they've put in a noticeable effort to revise many fist weapons to be One Hand instead and flip appropriately when switched between hands. However, the restriction on Xmog itself wasn't rescinded.

In other words, as near as I can tell, at this point the restriction is just ... kind of stupid and one of Blizzard's bizarre "We just want it this way, okay??" deals that will inevitably get changed once they get tired of being stubborn about it.

[Rivin]

The main reason Main Hands exist, besides for fist weapons before they implemented the mirroring system, was to prevent shaman from dual-wielding caster weapons. That restriction isn't being used as much anymore because none of the caster specs can dual-wield now.

Blizzard has said that they want to relax the transmog restrictions soonish, so maybe the whole main-hand/one-hand issue will be removed then now that they can mirror items between hands.

[leaks]

Pretty much what Lovestar said. It was originally because certain weapons would bug out and look terrible when put in the off-hand because they were never designed to be "flipped". They fixed this problem with most fist weapons for Mop but for whatever reason they have not gotten around to doing the same for other weapon types.

[Peacemaker65]

I can see the restrictions of tranmogging other types to Off Hand or vice versa. Off Hand is usually some odd type item you wouldn't make a main weapon. But if it is a mace, sword, or ax, what is the big deal if it is One Hand or Main Hand? (question purely rhetorical). To me, this makes more sense than a hunter being allowed to make a gun look like a bow or vice versa.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Originally Main Hand was meant to be paired with Off Hand. Allowing Blizz to balance weapons that way.

Then MH became for items specially designed to fit in only the right hand, like the warglaives.

That's pretty much where MH-OH vs 1h sits today.

[Rivin]

I can see the restrictions of tranmogging other types to Off Hand or vice versa. Off Hand is usually some odd type item you wouldn't make a main weapon. But if it is a mace, sword, or ax, what is the big deal if it is One Hand or Main Hand? (question purely rhetorical).

Probably nothing, now. Since they designed the system before the mirroring system was added, it was probably easier then to just say "No transmogging between main-hand/off-hand/one-hand" instead of "No transmogging between these specific weapon models which I will now have to manually search through the database for".

[Peacemaker65]

I am not sure what you mean by "mirroring system". Do you simply mean that there being more One Handed weapons without restrictions on which hand they can be used in by the weapon itself?

[Rivin]

I am not sure what you mean by "mirroring system". Do you simply mean that there being more One Handed weapons without restrictions on which hand they can be used in by the weapon itself?

They can mirror weapon models between hands. If a weapon model only fits in one hand (for example, many fist weapon models are only designed to fit in the left or right hand), the game can now mirror the model so that it fits in the opposite hand. That's why all main-hand fist weapons were converted to one-hand in 5.0.4.

[foxHeart]

I am not sure what you mean by "mirroring system". Do you simply mean that there being more One Handed weapons without restrictions on which hand they can be used in by the weapon itself?

Basically just means that some weapons (fist weapons, mainly) were only designed specifically to show in either off-hand or main-hand (I don't know why). They're not like swords where it doesn't really matter which hand they're in because swords are flat and sharp; fist weapons tend to be fist/crazy-shaped. I guess they'd somehow have to tell the game how to display these weapons in the other hand.

[Peacemaker65]

I see. So basically there might be an inside and outside surface that could appear differently because if the are claws for instance, they curve toward the body. Before they did not have a means to make them change the orientation based on the hand. Gotcha now.

---------- Post added 2012-11-20 at 03:36 PM ----------

Now that I understand mirroring, perhaps they could go back and make the following changes (assuming developers would listen):

-Change all Main-Hand items to One-Hand.
-Change all Fist Weapons to One-Hand.
-Leave other Off-Hand items as Off-Hand.

Then they would solve the problem. Does anyone see any adverse effects from this?

[rogueMatthias]

Actually, Blizz have said repeatedly that there is a lot they are planning on doing to change and loosen the rules on transmog, and I expect this to be one of them, given how much of an issue it is.

There STILL are main-hand daggers, even in MOP, and some of them I'd love for transmog for my Rogue.