Equip any weapon, but main class skills are weapon type locked? Why?

[Prismwind]

What it says. I WANTED to poison things and use DoT, but bandit skills that poison (with poison being the main draw of the class) are both weapon type locked, I cannot use either if I'm using a Bell. Fighter is moreso, much of its damage is focused on melee weapon skills.

The only class that doesn't care what weapon you use is Mystic, but that also means Mystic weapons don't get bonuses from the class skills, meaning there's nothing particularly good you can do to buff Bells and Scepters beyond what any class has available.

I question why this is the case, if you can still use any weapon, shouldn't there be something in each class that improves your weapon regardless of what type it is? Even if the rest of the class isn't geared towards it I feel there's a big waste here, not leaning into the fact you can pick any weapon no matter your class, then locking most of the best class damage features behind specific weapons for two classes and making the third do nothing at all for your weapon attacks.

[TakeMyLunch]

You can have two weapons equipped and using the skill swaps to the correct one.

As for "Why": Specializing in a weapon gets you rewards. Not every class needs to specialize, Some classes specialize in specific things better than others. (Fighter and Heavy weapons and blocking, Bandit and Bow and CC/Evasion)
Mystic is a caster. It benefits from staves and bells since they have Magic Power on them as a base making them directly better to be holding when casting but not required.

Just cause something has a reward for specializing in something doesn't mean you *have* to walk down that path. Scroll Skills are a thing. You can use Sword and Shield + Bow on Fighter and use Spreadshot for AoE instead of Cyclone.
You can run Bandit with Execute, Inner Focus and Sturdy and just have 15s of mindlessly going ham with Heavy Weapon or Spear.
Don't let the shiny thing that says "use this" be such a weight on you. The freedom *is* there. Ya just gotta look for and loot it.