An idea for a new type of 'sword' that could be added to Spiral knights, whips follow some unusual dynamics.

How it works: The whip starts its life as a 2-star weapon referred to in-game as (you guessed it) the whip. Whips are treated as swords in-game, but behave rather differently than a normal sword. The normal whip 'combo' consists of only 2 swings - each a 'whip' which covers a range of 4 tiles, executed with the speed of a spur's normal attack. Enemies hit within the closest 3 blocks to the player will take minor damage (about half that which a normal brandish would do at the same tier) and not interrupt the target: however, hitting the enemy with the TIP of the whip (about 4 ties away) deals huge damage about twice that of a brandish, and the second hit deals enormous knockback if the tip is used and can inflict stun. And of course both hits interrupt monsters! Basically, using a whip properly would revolve around skill and good depth perception.

The charge attack is a strong contrast. The charge attack starts with a slower version of the first swing: it doesn't do any more damage if anything but the tip hits. Having the tip connect, however, will stun-lock the enemy, which is then pulled in (assuming it is not a stationary enemy such as a gun puppy) and subject to a very brutal charged attack similar to the cutter's charged attack. The target will be stun-locked (I.E not capable of doing anything, with its attacks being interrupted every half second) until the attack ends with a final, slightly charged lash that launches the monster and anything else caught in front of the whip when the attack ends, usually inflicting stun. Note that although enemies approaching from the front are caught by the whip before they can do any harm (subjecting them to the same punishment as the original target), enemies can still beat the stuffing out of the player's BACK with impunity.

As it is upgraded, the whip can be turned into either a scourge (which reduces the normal damage and replaces it with some piercing damage and a higher chance to stun), a circus whip (with a high beast damage bonus), a thorny whip (which replaces the stun chance with a chance to poison and replaces some of the normal damage with elemental) or just stay a just plain whip with higher normal damage potential than any of these.