Presently claws are extremely under powered in the current rules system. We are kidding ourselves if we think that the majority of melee focused characters are not running around with magical indestructible weapons at most chapters no matter how they were obtained (DS, GS, Rits, drops etc). Given the prevalence and relative ease of acquiring unbreakable weapons, one of the primary benefits of claws (their unbreakable nature) is largely moot except to new players. So the primary benefit of claws is that they cannot be disarmed. Granted this is useful. Now lets look at the down sides. Claws cost 3 more build than 1 handed edge for a fighter, rogues and scouts, 1 more for templars. Claws cannot be imbued to swing for magic, earth/chaos, or elemental carriers. This is a huge disadvantage. Being able to double your damage against certain types of enemies and more importantly affect a number of different creatures is invaluable, and far better than any advantage gained from not being able to be disarmed. Furthermore they cannot be imbued with MS or DA to increase their damage, another huge advantage of using weapons over claws. Last their max length is limited compared to a 1 handed edge user.
Now lets look at claws in the new system. First I do agree that claws are improved because of addition by subtraction (DA and MS going away). No longer will claw users have to choose between using claws and swinging for more damage. However, they are still unable to benefit from earth/chaos aura, elemental aura, magic aura, etc. The impact of this might be felt less if indeed we do see a lot fewer enemies who require one of these carriers to hit, but we're still giving up the option of doing double damage straight to body in the instance of earth aura. So the question becomes is the advantage of being immune to disarm worth foregoing 3 additional build, the extra reach provided by a long sword vs a claw, and the inability to have any special carriers added to your swing. I personally don't feel that way.
I would also like to comment on Dan's post
Passion for the game is a good thing, and I in no way want to discourage anyone from being passionate. However, combative and aggressively opinionated posting motivated by passion is disruptive to the play testing process and is precisely the reason we removed the old rules discussion and theory boards. Do not turn the play tests into a personal crusade. It is counterproductive.
I feel that we as play testers have almost been forced into "aggressively opinionated posting" because frankly we are frustrated and don't think our feedback means all that much and we're just wasting our time here. We as players had zero input into what went into the new rules. That was all ARC and the owners. Anyone who presents a new idea or a change to an existing rule is told to send it to their chapter owner, and they can present it to the other owners and ARC. Given how busy the owners are, and the reluctance to make additional changes mean that such requests are largely pointless. Then when we find flaws in the new rules through reviewing and play testing them, we are told to just put it on our feedback form and if enough people complain about it, then it will be looked at. So we do that and then the new play test version comes out, nothing has changed. So we come on the forums and publicize our problem with a rule, and hope to get others to feel as strongly as we do, so that they include it on their feedback form., Then if we're able to convince enough people to put it on their feedback form where it meets some critical threshold of complaints, then maybe, just maybe ARC and the owners might look at changing it. And then we're basically told to quit complaining if it's something we personally don't like. Frankly as a play test coordinator and a play tester the chance of any of my opinions, or other players in my chapter's opinions having any meaningful impact on the new rules seems so minimal and it takes such a herculean effort to get anything changed at this point, it feels like why bother?
