[Autumn]

So, specifically beelining them into a talent and a specific weapon part to distinguish them from the others in the event of the change. I don't think that's wise, or healthy, truthfully. A weapon type's identity being optional just doesn't sit right.

"Beelining" them into a talent or specific weapon part isn't exactly correct, the talent is a bonus and not a choice, everyone will have that no matter what unless somehow they don't have 2-3 talent points to spend into their weapon mastery, and spiked axehead still faces competition with another axehead, Cutting Axehead and Curved Axehead (When people realize 10% critical damage isn't everything)

Swords/Spears/Fists do not feel as fluent in a crit build as Axes do, this is because Axes do not need to sacrifice 20-30 of their stats to achieve decent critical damage, they can just stick to their weapon scaling. This should be an achievable effect for the other melee weapons as well, should it not? What isn't healthy is the state of basic attacking needing a breakdown and optimization of every stat in the book, on average they require 3-4 more whole stats than a mage or tank. This isn't to say that GUI shouldn't be considered in these builds either, but relieving the stress of needing it to be so high to do decent damage is the intended goal.

Not even to mention, due to the aforementioned Deadliness and Spiked Axehead, this does not even really erase their identity, nor are we taking away that on average axes have the highest base powers of any other weapon in the game.

I would like to get back to the topic at hand instead of talking exclusively about axes, on average, increasing the base critical damage of other melee weapons will help them feel more rewarding in their already really short ranges, this does apply to fists, who really only get Serpent Strikes as a build path, otherwise rawdog fist crits feel very bad, with the best fist weapons being mutated Stingers or ranged fists like Chakrams.