@Adedamola:

I can see that you want different charges for swords, but the reason the game hasn't gone with the AoE damage type sword gear is because they are trying to restrict hybrid weapons. Weapons like the pulsar is a good example of hybrid gear where the energy shots from the pulsar as it travels over time expands and explodes like a 2 star bomb's radius upon impact or maximum flight path duration. This weapon is in my opinion reasonably balanced. But a kind of recent weapon change that showed they were displeased with hybrids is the Shard bomb's change from having projectile attacks to having small clusters of bombs emerging from the one bomb implanted by the knight. This change showed that they want weapons restricted to their own functions such as sword = melee damage, gun = range projectile damage, and bomb = AoE damage. Some good examples of gear that fits their class is: sword = cutter, gun = antigua, bomb = haze bombs.

I think your idea is great and that spiral knights needs more hybrid gear that meets the small description that is provided when inspecting a weapon. The biggest problem though with having hybrid gear is that the developers need to balance it out so it doesn't out perform gear that fits their classes in the correct 5 star families. When i say correct star family i mean, only compare weapons that are the same star as the other weapon being compared. For example, a 5 star supernova pulsar gun will out perform the AoE of a 2 or 1 star bomb. But that same 5 star pulsar AoE will not outperform the AoE of a 5 star Nitronome bomb. Basically, as long as these new weapon charges wether it be swords, guns, or bombs can be balanced out, then their is no reason they cannot be part of the game as long as it does not already have a counter part duplicate that does the exact function of that new weapon.