[Jay]

As I was fiddling with the new daggers and thinking on the weapon variety thread, I came to some conclusion that Duelists are essentially the 'weapon experts' of SL2. Which means that some of their mundane tactics, like Repel, should probably continue the same idea of zero weapon discrimination. Touching upon the in-character logic is simple enough, but I think adjusting the following skills would promote more synergies and less popular weapons. And hopefully this 'motif' becomes a habit, so Dev doesn't have to set a quota for X many axe skills, X many spears skills, etcetera.

1) Removing the sword restriction for sidecut. It's a simple maneuver that not even daggers can currently make use of. It wouldn't hurt to share that love with other weapon types.
2) Removing the sword restriction for Lau'dela. It'd be feasible and fair to stay this can be restricted to martial weapons (sword, spear, axe, daggers) only, since the description describes the maneuver as a slash.
3) Removing the sword restriction for Crystal Rose. Probably applying the same treatment as Lau'dela, since it's using the 'edge' of your weapon to pull off.

I'll stop there and see where this thread goes.

[Rendar]

I think this works rather nicely. I'd expect that Pierce/Slash damage types should work properly with most DUelist skills, and Blunt should be left out. If we could change the requirement for the skill to be a "Weapon must use X damage type" that'd be kind of nice. Otherwise I'm on board for this.

[Grandpa]

These would be nice. Maybe repel could be restricted to "Martial" weapons, as well? (AKA, no repelling with a shotgun/tome/bow. The bow I could maybe understand, but everything else, no.)

[Rendar]

I can understand with a shotgun. Seeing as it doesn't get the SKI bonus. YOu're pretty much just smashing them in the face with it.

[Ranylyn]

Rendar » Wed Feb 04, 2015 4:19 pm[/url]"]I can understand with a shotgun. Seeing as it doesn't get the SKI bonus. YOu're pretty much just smashing them in the face with it.

Seconding this. Repel works well with every weapon since you're just smashing them with it to push them away, and the fact that it uses strength instead of whatever stat the weapon normally uses represents this well.

That said, I'm an advocate for "general" weapon skills; things that any weapon can do, so no one weapon feels crapped on since it always has at least those base options. And I fully support making Sidecut and Crystal Rose work with either any melee weapon (much in the same way Warning Shot is exclusive to both Bows and Guns) while leaving both Power Gradation and Couloir as their one exclusive weapon specific skill per weapon type. This would give both axes and spears a lot of love, without hurting swords at all. It would also indirectly help daggers, since VA + Kensei or Ghost is a popular combo.

However, I also feel we should leave Repel untouched. It has good situational use for other weapon types as well, and unlike something like sidecut, there's really no reason why you can't just bash someone with ANYTHING to push them back. I'm also iffy about not making Sidecut/Crystal Rose not work with blunt weapons since we have blunt swords.