I think this would make normal damage too strong compared to specialized damage. Using acheron as a metric is wrong, as it is an outlier already. Using blitz + pepperbox is equally wrong when discussing slags, when zombies are usually weak to fire except for this time. A better example would be argent peacemaker, before and after it was changed.

Before: (When it was piercing/elemental)
Undead/Fiends: Good
Beasts/Construct: Poor = "resistant"
Gremlins/Slimes: Awful

Currently: (Pure elemental)
Undead/Construct: Good
Slimes/Fiends: Decent = normal damage
Gremlins/Beasts: Awful

This was problematic, because it was truly narrow to use-- if I brought it to an undead/construct area, I'd be at a tremendous loss against constructs, so I couldn't do that. In fact, the only permutation of themes it was acceptable for were pure undead, pure fiend, and mixed undead/fiend. Everywhere outside of.. well, FSC, it was useless. Making it less than normal completely killed it, and you can look up all the old threads from the few months after the game's release which detail exactly what was up with sentenza and argent peacemaker.

What you're suggesting is really that we make weapons only useful for what they're specifically good against. People often call normal weapons "underwhelming" as they compare them to specialized damage, and you want all weapons to be less than "underwhelming" unless they're up against their target monster class. This limits gear and options for all things more than you think it does, and forces players to craft things not of their own volition, but because the game requires them to do so to progress.

If anything, dual normal+shadow/elemental/piercing weapons should be removed altogether and replaced with pure damage equivalents. In the hands of an expert, normal damage weapons are just as strong if not stronger than specialized versions of themselves due to the abundance of damage buffs present throughout the game.

This is because of how defense is calculated via subtraction, which causes a static difference that presents itself as follows:

(Base damage)*(damage buffs) - (Resistance) = (Actual Damage)

So if I have 2 leviathan blades, one specialized and one normal, then they'll receive the same benefits from being buffed... except it gets better. EDIT: I meant to say that sub par damage is brought up by a bit, not the other way around.

Increasing moderate defense would murder pure damage weapons. Think AP stunk against fiends already?

The problem lies within the normal component of the split damage weapons. This part, in my opinion, is what should get the nerf.

@Fehzor
We aren't sure about the subtraction aspect yet - it appears as subtraction. Someone in one of my analysis threads suggested that it is a multiplier that can simplify to the mere subtraction when damage is greater than armor. I have a feeling that with the right numbers, it may follow the form of a hill equation.

That being said, Acheron's normal damage fits the "edge of the linear range" criteria at +0, while other brandishes are not until about +5.

No, the calculations are exactly that. I think I did get part of it wrong though, where I said that the defense values increase to net it in. I'll fix my post in a bit, I was a bit hasty making it but I still captured the intent and my point still stands.

First, read this--
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Defense

Second--
I would like to show this chart from Zeddy:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkB_kx1fvrxadGpGN18xQ09xMDZ...

Specifically, the box titled "Flourish Finish/Suda Slam"-- two attacks that do the same damage, one normal and one specialized.

Without buffing this, we see that:
Base Damage: 504
VS a "weak" enemy: 443
VS a "neutral" enemy: 382

At maximum damage increase, we see that:
Base Damage: 625
VS a "weak" enemy: 564
VS a "neutral" enemy: 503

If you will, the difference between these two numbers is as follows:
443 - 382 = 61
564-503 = 61

Which shows us that the following percentages apply to net increase when increasing net bonus:

Base: 24%
Weak: 27.3%
Neutral: 31.6%

Therefore, normal damage in this case increased 4.3% more than specialized damage. The same holds true for ALL forms of normal damage and ALL forms of damage bonuses-- including those from battle sprites and orb drops. Further, attacks below a certain threshold benefit more than what the defense article calls "Large attacks".

Dread Venom Striker VS Sudaruska:

Total Combo Damage, no damage bonus-
DVS: 881
Suda: 528

Total Combo Damage, MAX damage bonus-
DVS: 1318
Suda: 714

Percentage Change:
DVS: 49.6%
Suda: 35.2%

Now imagine that you've got that buff going on, and then you stumble across an attack orb.. or use maskeraith's deadly shadow cloak. This works for ALL multi-hitting weapons, not just DVS, however weapons with normal damage will get even more of a boost over weapons with specialized damage.

All of the above for blitz charges:
No buff: 3435
Max Damage: 4470
Percentage increase: 30%

As you can see, sudaruska STILL scales better than blitz needle in terms of potential from damage increases. Even if it will always trail behind, damage increases combined with almost universal effectiveness will make neutral damage a force to be taken seriously.