personal opinion on w-evade?
nothing with more than 2 panel range should have any, except possibly longbows, but since longbows are by and large better than x-bows i'd drop it from them as well.
daggers and poles should be highest-- poles in particular, but I feel daggers, which quite commonly lose out to 1h swords when both are options, would be well served by the utility boost. a -dmg for +defense tradeoff
1h swords, cloth, and non-2h spears next--- these would be the "standard" tier
wands and staves--- to reflect the mages are poorly trained in battle actions trope
forced 2h (greatswords, axes and forced 2h spears) should be lowest---- to reflect the lack of mobility any weapon that requires 2 hands to use will have, it'd be kinda difficult to swing a 5 foot sword around to block a xbow bolt. a +dmg for -defense tradeoff
haven't got a class that can use katanas yet on my personal playthrough, so don't know if they're all forced 2h or not. tempted to lump them in with wand/staves either way.
this obviously shouldn't trump unique weapons like defender or main gauche, whose primary reason for existence is their abnormally large w-evade for their type(or for any weapon in the case of main gauche)
yes i'm aware this will make your thief class(bandit i think it was) somewhat extreme in terms of total evade, personally, i think its a good thing. they're a commonly used foe, but tend to be equipped with the 2nd weakest weapons(daggers) can't use shields naturally, and have a non-damaging short range skill set. players(at least ones like me) largely master the skill via random battles and stick it on a carrier who can better contribute to battle--my performer carries thief skills til i get an assasin. letting them be an evasion tank via 1 RSM(instead of the 2 they currently need) and eating one equip slot(mantle accessory, since their off-hand would normally be empty anyway) would help with a reason to be a bandit, instead of being simply a "learn the steals then never use again" slot