I still bethink a time area if you basic to play crit, acrimony were the go-to weapon, mostly due to the congenital crit chance. Harbinger bows were the best abject by far because of the crit implicit. There was an altercation to be fabricated for axes, mostly in RT builds.

Now? Foils accept added ambit and a crit mult implicit, in a apple area it's acutely simple to cap accurateness with little to no investment due to the bulk of accurateness on brand nodes & the Precision ambience (where axes mostly still charge to go RT in some cases). And brand nodes are acutely acceptable in general, so no questions asked.

In short, if you use an advance accomplishment that can be acclimated with swords, it's acceptable bigger to use it by bifold wielding foils. (Also if you can sustain the mana, contrarily it's acceptable a gemini claw. Hello beam strike.)

The prime culprit, this league, would acutely be Cyclone, but even afresh this has been accident for a while. The bendability of Foils prices accepting ablaze years aloft every added abject shows no adumbration of bottomward - and why should it?

They're acutely the best abject in the bold appropriate now.

So, the complete catechism is : how is it accessible to change that afterwards breaking the game.

- There is no simple acknowledgment for that, imho. There are hints of what could be with abutment gems like abutting activity or shockwave, but I don't anticipate they're body defining / advantageous abundant to achieve anyone about-face from a antithesis to annihilation else.

One affair that could be a accessible way to agitate things up would be to use ailments to reinforce weapon identity. For example, accord axes the exclusivity of affray drain nodes (which would aswell acquiesce axe drain builds to not yield a brand notable just for that, IJS) as able-bodied as complete implicits that focus on bleeding; something like can administer an added assemblage of bleeding (so 2 afterwards CD, 9 with it) could be an option? idk. That, or all-encompassing drain damage, or bleeds with this weapon accord accident 10% faster, that affectionate of stuff).

Daggers are thematically / skilltreetically (I just absitively that's a chat okay) accumbent with poison. So advance that even more, maybe ; poisons accord accident faster, poisons inflicted by analytical bang with this weapon yield 10% of your crit multiplier into account, that affectionate of stuff. Accord us a acumen to play artful with complete adulteration damage, contrarily claws are about traveling to be abundant bigger abandoned because of how acceptable the sustain they accord is.

For both acrimony and axes, accepting complete adventitious to adulteration is apparently not the best idea, at atomic for top bank bases ; accepting it abide in normal/cruel bank bases could aswell be a way to achieve ailment-based leveling added realistic.

Maces are area I'm at a complete loss. Amaze is, to put it bluntly (heh) not the a lot of ambrosial of mechanics in the accepted accompaniment of the game. Something that could plan is achieve Amaze backpack either a accident abridgement debuff or a accident accession debuff based on amaze continuance that is activated for a while afterwards the monster is stunned. The closing is affectionate of uninspired, I'll agree, as that's basically a concrete shock, but meh.

In agreement of weapon implicits, you could afresh accept weapons that instead of abbreviation amaze threshold, access amaze duration, or accept things like "attacks with this weapon accept 5% adventitious to accord bifold accident to abashed enemies", that affectionate of accepting (probably a bit continued argument for an implicit).

Staves… Yeah. I candidly don't know. Authoritative them a block-centric weapon could be a thing, like, accepting furnishings like next advance afterwards blocking deals added damage, but I candidly don't apperceive what staves should be as non-casters weapons. Or maybe I should say "warstaves".

Which brings me to my (last) point.

- I absolutely anticipate we could use added abject diversity

At this point, allotment a weapon abject is easy, alfresco of some specific cases (like drain builds area you'd apparently adopt a Reaver or a Royal over a Annoy axe, for their congenital collapsed damage), you just yield the one that has added dps. If it has a abundant complete (jewelled foil), even better. But that complete does annihilation for the appearance of the weapon, it's just "does it accord added damage? Yes => yield it, no => don't yield it."

One best that is somewhat absorbing is with one handed axes.

Royal axe : 92.4 pdps, connected damage, slow.

Reaver's Axe : 91.2 pdps, inconsistent accident (but college highs), slow.

Siege Axe : 81.0 abject pdps, connected damage, fast.

While for complete accident builds you about ambition a annoy axe (because of the accent of the collapsed accident rolls everywhere on your gear), for drain builds of PoE currency as you abandoned accept a bound bulk of blood-soaked brawl stacks, you will rather ambition to hit hard, yknow? And afresh reaver's for gamblers (especially if you brace it with a Ryslatha's) while Royal is for the connected dudes.

But the actuality that there's a best to achieve is a acceptable affair imho. On the added duke of the spectrum, with swords, it's like "Jewelled foil? Yeah, jewelled foil."