Okay! So I made a quick multiplayer LAN on my PC to get 4 custom characters and various sets of weapons so I could study the effects of different weapons on different skills, and the results were pretty interesting.
>Warfare
Crippling Blow - usable with any melee weapon, does damage based on the damage of the weapon, equipping a second weapon will increase the damage, but not by as much as the main weapon. with 0 finesse and 2 daggers that each do 3-4 damage, it does "4-5 physical + 2-3 physical". It does NOT work with wands or bows, but it DOES work with a staff; with the staff having 5-6 fire damage and 15 int, this ability will do 8-10 fire damage. The saving throw is still listed as physical armor, though, so the effectiveness of this as a solo character is questionable.
Battle stomp - Has the same weapon limitations as crippling blow, but is locked into physical damage and the damage scaling is likewise unrelated to the used weapon. For example, you can use it with a staff, but it will still do physical damage.
Battering ram - Works exactly the same as crippling blow. Damage is based upon weapon, equipping another weapon will increase the damage, and the second weapon will scale with less damage than the first weapon.
Of note: On the weapon-related skills above, equipping a dagger + a wand makes the skill still usable, and it will deal both physical and poison damage according to the tooltip. However, it only works if the dagger is the main hand. Equipping a wand mainhand and dagger off-hand will have the tooltip tell you "no melee weapon equipped!" even though you do, in fact, have a melee weapon equipped. This leads me to believe that weapon requirements are entirely fulfilled by the main hand.
> Pyrokinetic - Due to oversight, none of my characters started with one of these abilities unlocked. Whoops!
> Scoundrel
Vault: True to its word, the skill is unusable without a dagger. It does scale with the dagger's damage, and will deal more damage if you have two daggers. With two daggers, this ability reads "3-4 physical + 2-3 physical damage". However, once again it's usable with a dagger in the main hand and a wand in the off hand.
Chloroform: This ability is usable with any weapon, or no weapon at all, and the damage is entirely independent of weapon damage.
> Necromancer
Mosquito Swarm: This ability is usable with any weapon and damage does not scale with weapon.
> Aerotheurge
Electric Discharge: usable with any weapon, damage does not scale with weapon
> Huntsman
Ricochet: Now here's an interesting one. Though wands may deliver attacks at range and are weapons, they are not considered ranged weapons, unlike the warfare skills. This ability will only work with a bow or a crossbow. However, the interesting thing is that even though the skill is unusable when other weapons are equipped, it will continue to update its tooltip with how much damage it would be doing if you were allowed to use the ability. So, for example, if it allowed two wands, it updates it to say "3-4 poison + 2-3 poison".
Marksman's Fang: Same as ricochet; only usuable with bow or crossbow, but the damage continues to update based on the weapon. However, due to the unique property of the ability, it adds together all of the damage and displays it as "x-y piercing damage". Oddly enough, two daggers makes that number go to 9-12 piercing, when the bow only has it at 8-9 piercing.
> Geomancer
Magical Poison Dart: usable regardless of weapon type, no weapon damage scaling
Fossil Strike: usable regardless of weapon type, no weapon damage scaling
> Hydrosophist
Hail Strike: usable regardless of weapon type, no weapon damage scaling
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Some pretty interesting stuff.
To answer a few of my own questions:
- Anything that says "requires a melee weapon" is usable with any melee weapon, including a staff.
- Anything that says "requires a ranged weapon" is usable only with a bow and crossbow. I recommend they change these abilitys to read "requires bow or crossbow", because there appears to be no weaponskills that key off wands specifically or off any ranged weapon, and this opens some design space. For example, it'd be pretty cool if there were a weaponskill "aimed shot" that was like a regular ranged attack but has a cooldown and higher crit chance, and this skill would be usable with any ranged weapon
- Any weaponskill that scales with weapon damage will indeed deal more damage if a second weapon is equipped.
Neat stuff!
Now... time to make a properly built staff wielding frontliner warrior mage...
