Hellgate:London

[Thecla]

Also, the official boards are already full of junk

Well, I suppose that's a good thing, really --- if they weren't it would mean that almost no one was playing the game.

Originally, the damage was straight added. Dual-focus builds were the only way to go if you wanted to use any skills. About halfway through alpha it changed so that the second focus adds 50% of its damage to your skill damage - the same happened to Blademasters - and they upped the overall damage to compensate. Though dual-weapon is still the best, alternative styles are now more viable.

Well, as I saw it, the funny thing originally was that some cabalist rifles were so powerful that (at least in the starting stages of the game) even evokers were better off using rifles than skills. They made some appropriate rebalances, so that a dual-focus evoker is now more damaging than a no-focus evoker, but I absolutely agree that alternative styles are still viable.