Today when logging in to do a mission as the opifex meta-physicist, I noticed something very strange. While I was in combat with opponents, she punches between weapon swings.

Right now she specializes in the Protector Warblade, for several reason, one of which is because it fits my image of her. Currently her Martial Arts skill is around 40, and 2 hand edged around 80. According to the 13.9 patch notes, "You will no longer do damage with your fist while you wield a weapon and have a martial arts skill above 120. The exception is if you use weapons that require a martial arts skill to wield. You will then do both fist and weapon damage as intended." However it seems something has gone terribly wrong.

I have noticed two attack bars charging and draining, like my character was dual-wielding something, I was doing 10-17 melee damage between energy hits from the protector warblade, and the animation of the combat in third person clearly showed her punching between swings. The requirements of the Protector warblade include, 2h Edge, Psycho Mod, Brawling, Sneak Attack, Fast attack, and Dimach. There is no mention of martial arts anywhere in the description of the warblade.

My question: Is requirements in brawling and/or dimach enough to define a weapon as a martial arts weapon, which means things are working as expected, or is this a bug?

This metaphysicist is just level 22 now, which means I can still have her switch weapons. My choice of the Protector Warblade was precicely because of the Psycho-mod requirement in the mix. I can use Teachings of Psychological Modification, and better formulas as an attack rating buff, to otherwise do better with the warblade than I could hope for with other melee weapons. However this won't work if I have to train martial-arts to keep up-to-date. If I'm stuck punching, I would be much better off switching her to a pure martial-arts setup to save IP. So what is the deal?