New Swordsman Technique

I discovered this recently with 3-swing swords which may be applicable to the 5-swing Cutters.
Essentially if you shield cancel after the first swing of a 3-swing sword then immediately initiate another attack, that attack will be the first swing again but if you attack again right after you'll perform the third swing and skip the second.
So it's like this, in quick succession:
First swing, shield cancel, first swing, third swing.
It might be possible to apply this to the Cutter series as well but I don't have one to test with at the moment.

With the Cutter, it skips the second, and maybe the third slashes.

This certainly was a good find, especially since i do tend to shield after every so strike. (And that I have Barbarous Thorn Shield)

Hmm, concerning the Cutter series, what if you repeat the first part? Basically I'm proposing that you might be able do something like
First swing, shield cancel, first swing, shield cancel, first swing, shield cancel, first swing, shield cancel, last swing
Or in a general sense
[First swing, shield cancel] N times, first swing, (N+2)th swing in the combo. (Assuming N+2 is less than or equal to the maximum # of swings in the combo yet greater than or zero to 2)

dosent work on leviathan -.- or am i doing it wrong
Might as well come in here to post my bit too.
I use slow two-swing swords exclusively, and I've noticed a few things as well. I've never seen or heard of anyone else using them before, so as far as I know I'm the first one who's discovered them.
First off, you can click twice to do the first and second swings. However, you can also click and hold until your first swing is done, and then release the mouse to do the second swing automatically. If you click and hold, you can move up to a square in any direction before releasing your second swing, which can give you a nice range advantage or allow you to retreat and parry advancing enemies with the more powerful followup swing. However, if you wait too long you'll do another first swing instead of the second.
The second thing is shield cancelling. After doing your first attack, there's a small timeframe where you can look around but cannot move. I'm imagining this is so you can aim your second swing. If you tap the shield button as soon as you're able to and release it, you free up your movement immediately and can do another swing even faster. However, doing this will prevent you from doing your second swing. Shield cancelling will therefore allow you to do two first-swings faster than if you were to do the first swing and follow up with the second. You do less damage, but you become more mobile.
An even weirder thing that I've noticed: The large swords only seem capable of doing two swings maximum before having a short cooldown period. The easiest way to notice this is to shield cancel after the first swing repeatedly. You notice that every other swing has a greater delay than the first swing. When you get that delay, it means your combo is done and you can't perform any followup attacks until you've waited for enough time. You can try this simply by doing a charge attack and trying to do a two-hit combo directly afterwards. You'll only swing once.
Granted, I've only extensively used the Sudaruska, so I wouldn't know if it applies to all heavy swords.
I kinda typed this out really quick, and I admit that it seems a bit confusing to read, so please ask questions if anyone wants me to clarify.
Looking back at this, it seems all swords seem to contain some sort of queue. Each type of swing you do fills up the queue. Once it's full (two for large swords, three for medium, etc), you have to wait a short time and your combo resets back to the initial swing.
EDIT: Just tested out everything I said with a proto sword. It still works.

I've actually known this for a long time. I guess I should have made a thread on it the moment I found it (but bloody 'eck, I'm lazy). Sorry. :/ Eh, the thread's here now, might as well contribute.
With some swords, this isn't very useful, but with weapons like the Barbarous Thorn Blade, it's good for distancing yourself or changing when you move, where you move, and how far you move. In other words, this is best for weapons that move you as you attack- the third slash of Calibur-style weapons and Flourish-style weapons are good examples.

I find it very useful on the Brandish series because the second swing's movement sometimes screws me up for the third swing, which is the best one since it does more damage and disrupts enemies.
Plus it gives more protection than doing the full combo because you have your shield up for a very small time.

Yeah this is really old stuff I think there was a topic about this a while back like "Pro skills in SK" or something.
And the cutter does a 10 swing combo you do 2 swings in one attack.

This is quite old, infact I recently bumped a 3 month old thread that had explained various techniques.
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/13083
There it is
EDIT: The thread discusses heavy sword techs, but the sequence for the three strikes works for all 3-strike blades as well.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean but I do something similar. When getting swarmed by greavers I pull out my vile and swing in all four directions. Like a shield of flying sword strikes. Sometimes I take no damage.
Confirmed to be usable with the Leviathan, contrary to a poster above.
You just need to be quick, if you wait for the animations to complete when you do it, you'll be too slow.

This technique works with Fireburst Brandish, Blazebrand, Silent Nightblade, Ascended Calibur, and maybe with Twisted Snarble Barb (the 2nd and 3rd thrust looks the same so I am not sure which one is it). Agree with Twest, if you are not quick enough, you can't do this trick.

What I meant was that you can only skip up to the 2nd/3rd slashes.
I literally just discovered this the day before seeing this thread.
I was messing around in the training hall and it works on ALL swords. Though I don't see the purpose of using this since you still have to hit three times for the third slash.
I think this also works right after using a charge attack.

confirmed this technique help alot the Flourich/snarby series.

I saw some guys messing with the Flamberge, damaging eachother with the Charge in the Training Hall.
One of them asked if they could use me as a Target. I said yes.
I used my Boosted Plate Shield & they attacked me...And I flew to where the Shufflebots are.
When they pushed me, I flew into the Shufflebot area & Bumped them unusually farther than normal.
I think if you launch someone with the Flamberge Charge while they're Shielding, and they make contact with a Monster, that Monster will become pushed a lot farther away.
OMG ITS TRUE ( works with brandish series) someone put this in the swordmaster wiki.