Not to be rude, but how many hours have you put into the game? Because your regdate and name suggest that you started with the April 25th patch. Now, I have seen some really good ideas come from people who are posting for the first time.
However, you lose credibility by claiming that that increasing the effective damage of single-handed weapons by 50% would not be overpowered and simple to do. Getting 1 extra AP in this game is really, really significant. It's not even just about weapon damage (although it'd throw out the balance between 1H and 2H weapons as well).
Everything becomes cheaper when you no longer have to choose between attacking normally, or using a skill or item. Or when you no longer have to choose between moving to a new target and staying put (because you haven't got enough AP to both move and attack). Lowering the AP cost means suddenly that skills are a LOT cheaper because you're now spending less AP on regular attacks. You can move farther and attack enemies you couldn't before. Scrolls, potions, consumables - everything. It would be an incredibly massive balance change, and I don't think you've played the game long enough to realize that.
I'm not saying that doing something about weapon specializations to make them more than something you get after your main skill is a bad idea - it isn't. But lowering AP costs for all single-handed normal attacks IS a bad idea.
Well to answer your first question, I started to play a bit before that update.
As for the -1 ap, it may have to be placed at lvl4 instead of lvl3 and Im aware it would be a great balance change that would also change the way 1H and 2H work, that was the declared purpose, make 1h much better for single target attacks, 2H for aoe attacks and have both of them be of closer in utility to way of the warrior. Way of the warrior lvl5 gives 4 ap, that's usually 50% of a warrior's ap but for ALL abilities and attacks on top of giving lvl5 abilities. If you get lvl4 1hand, you won't get those 4 ap so it better be worth it.
Moreover, the ap gain from that talent would be limited, you only gain 1 ap per attacks compared to without the talent, if you move and attack someone you couldn't attack before, it will mean you only attacked once and then only gained 1ap. It does give more flexibility but you seem to overestimate the utility it gives. It will though give more possibilities to attack with various attack based skills giving potentially more effects, but that should be part of the benefits when you take into account the cost to reach that lvl in 1hand.
Of course, I'm not stuck on those particuliar bonuses, if you have other ideas, feel free to expose them. But when you do, you also have to compare the utility of those bonuses to the ones we currently get with the existing talents.
The changes I propose are big because in order to make those talents interesting, you need something big compared to what they currently offer. If we want to have a sense of progression after lvl10 similiar to what we currently have from lvl1 to lvl9-10, either we need to boost meaningfully the current talents(and increase the ennemy's difficulty accordingly) or nerf significantly the current main talents and skills. Otherwise, people may feel there's no more character progression after lvl10.
I don't know how much it would impact the game but we will never know until we try and the Beta is the ideal time. Better explore those possibilities now rather than after the launch date.
