ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

This tree still takes strength to unlock the talents even though it now runs mostly off cunning.

Optimally it feels more like a cunning tree to me at this point. If I want to dual-wield daggers I'll have to invest enough in strength to get the talents I want out of Arcane Combat, and put points in cunning, magic, and dex (as well as con and probably willpower considering the number of sustains). That's a lot of stat points.

Also the mana regen talent in arcane combat looks unnecessary because of the new Shock Hands talent.

Maybe something to increase crit somehow for some nice synergy with that Arcane Destruction proc?

I'm not so sure, on the idea of a no-Strength AB.

I mean, I don't say you're wrong there, that it should be Cunning as a tree, per se(Undecided...I'd worry that this wouldn't leave them with any base Strength trees, but at least several of their unlockables are Strength still.).

But I think that if you tried to neglect Strength entirely, you'd run into the fact that the class lacks Lethality. Not only would you fail to get physical power from Strength, you'd also only be boosting one statistic for damage.

Having said that, this does strike me as a good argument for giving them the Lethality category, either locked or unlocked; It would help cement the fact that they're meant to be a Cunning-oriented heavy fighter. It feels more thematic/logical locked, so that someone has to pay for their ability to ditch Strength, unlike, say, a Shadowblade, who is designed around it(and not all Arcane Blades may want to try to ditch Strength on knives, either). And it allows for an interesting branchoff in build design, either Dexterity or Strength heavy Arcane Blades with different focuses. Seems neat, really.