Which LIGHTSABER design is the best? STAR WARS 

Not Star wars related but I wanna say that i bought ur book a few days ago and it absolutely hooked me immediatly. Great Job!

I'm sure someone has already said this but Christopher Lee (Count Dooku), had a long long history in stage fencing and was super experienced when it came to that sort of "sword fighting" so all of his styles of fighting is based on his experience with that, lots of similarities. Also, the curved hilt is supposed to pay homage to other historical weapons like the Filipino Moro Barong and Charlemagne's sabre.

One advantage of Ezra's lightsaber pistol is the fact that people didn't recognize it as a lightsaber.

Interestingly the reason Count Dooku and other characters have curved handles is because they’re lightsabers designed to be used against lightsabers because most lightsaber duels will have clashes where the two Jedi collide lightsabers and the curved handle is supposed to give the wielder better leverage in clashes meaning they’re harder to disarm, they have an easier time disarming opponents, and they can break out of clashes sooner than opponents expect

Kylo's cross guard isn't new, just the first time it's showed up in film. I remember one of the clone wars DS games featured Nightsisters welding sabers with forward swept cross guards, like the Witcher's silver sword. The cancelled(?) Old Republic show's main character was supposed to have a saber with a cross guard too, though I think that one was conceived of after episode 7.

I’ve always loved the concept of a double bladed lightsaber, it just looks badass too

"Whyy didn't anyone make crossguard before" iirc in Rebels, we actually see a crossguard lighsaber in an episode where they went to the sith temple. The temple was a battle field and we actually see a lot of crossguard sabers. The battle was old as well as they activated a lighsaber and the battery powering the lighsabe immediately shuts down. Meaning it was old, ancient even For the whip lighsaber, I'd go with a power setting on the handle as well. In Rebels again, They can manipulate the lighsaber length, width and in Clone Wars. There were training sabers with so low energy that a person can hold it without hurting themselves

I remember reading somewhere that Kylo Ren's saber was able to have a cross guard due to the Khyber crystal being fractured. That fact also seemed to allude that this kind of fracture was rare and also made the crystal unstable which explained the power of the saber.

There are other folding double blade lightsabers. Krell had two folding double blades. Jedi temple gaurds have short yellow blades that are also double folding. However neither of these folding hilts are ever ignited when folded. They only fold when put away. It is better to have a shorter handle when it's on your belt.

9:30 To answer your question: Cross guarded Lightsabers were used on the eras of big sith wars but in the time of the clone wars and later were much more rare because Lightsaber duels were much rarer in comparison. thats also the reason why Dooku has his curved grip.

2:14 Funny you should mention that because the late Sir Christopher Lee actually based Darth Tyranus' fighting style off of fencing since he himself was a master fencer. Infact George Lucas created and canonized an entire lightsaber style based on Sir Christopher Lee's portrayal of the character.

For the lightsaber whip, there is actually a character in the high republic era books who can change their lightsaber between a standard one and a light whip by altering the plasma itself

Christopher Lee (Dooku) actually had lots of experience with fencing in college and I believe he has the most sword fight scenes in movie history. I always questioned it too but knowing what I do now I like that his lightsaber design reflects that.

Canonically (in Legends), the Lightwhip was mostly only useful against someone that's never fought against it before. Once you know how to counter it, it's easy to do so.

I think the Inquisitor lightsaber spinning is more used as a scare tactic. Seeing a lightsaber spinning that fast would be very scary to see, especially if it spins so fast all you see is a circle of light. General Grievous also used his hands to spin lightsabers like a fan and that was more for diversion and instilling fear.

I think Vader’s saber being able to change length is massively underrated

They did make more cross-guard lightsaber before, it’s in the comics. There are also light spears that are in the comics.

The Crossguard actually has been seen in rebels and comics, the only thing with crossguards is that they are more susceptible to long term damage, and the older they are the more they malfunction

When you mentioned the use of Shotguns against Jedi, that actually has a precedent in the games. In Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy you can use guns against Jedi/Sith and there is a shotgun that can't be blocked by lightsabers. However, in the same game a Jedi/Sith can use the Force Push in the right moment to send all the pellets right back at the shooter. Risky but definitely possible.

It was always my understanding that Kylo's "cross guard" is actually just twin exhaust ports, venting extra power from his janky crystal. Maybe not obvious to everyone (especially in the movies since you rarely get a chance to appreciate it alone) is that his lightsaber has a distinct sound on top of the visuals. Most hum and have a stable blade, while his crackles and the blade fluctuates like a flame. I'm sure others have pointed it out, but I just wanted to share my appreciation for that little detail. (It's easier to notice in Battlefront 2 if you just take a second in the loadout screen. Same for yellow saber Rey, hers sounds different since she's a scrapyard jedi)

If I remember correctly, in the rebels its explained that the crossguard lightsaber is actually an archaic design (Ezra finds a few of them in an ancient Sith temple), from the times of the Sith Empire I think, and I'm pretty sure it was said somewhere that Kylo made his lightsaber following the instructions from an old holocron, and that's why it has a crossguard. That way it actually makes sense in lore, it being common during the wars between the Jedi and the Sith, but after the Sith went into hiding and started following the rule that there can be only two at a time, the design with the crossguard also gradually stopped being used as there was almost no non-Jedi lightsaber users, and of the few weapons that could go up against a lightsaber for many the crossguard wouldn't nake that much of a difference, so it was discarded in favor of the more simplistic design. That's how I understand it at least.

Ezra's "gun-lightsaber" as it is called was actually a technological advancement and most people who used them were force sensitives that escaped order 66 and they wanted to keep a low profile while also being able to use their lightsaber at the moments notice.

This is why I love Cal Kestis. His lightsaber had a double blade, single blade, and separable two single blade functions. Very adaptable.

There actually is another occurrance of a crossguard-lightsaber used in the past. In Rebels S. 2 Ep. 21 the group visits an ancient Sith temple and stumbles upon an old battelground, where Ezra picks up such a lightsaber, it even works for a few seconds before fading out again. And, different to Kylo´s lightsaber, it appears to have a very clean looking blade, so the explenation, that the crossguard is only nessecary because the crystal is broken or too strong, doesn´t really hold up in this case. Therefore crossguard-lightsabers were indeed constructet during past periods in Star Wars, with the purpose of combat in mind.

For Kylo's saber, the canon explanation for his saber having a crossguard is that he cracked his crystal and his blade is unstable; the crossguard isn't there for protection, it's there to redirect excess energy because otherwise the saber would explode. Also, High Republic has crossguard sabers.

I feel like this is worth a note: There actually is a lightsaber blaster in cannon, as in a blaster that essentially shoots lightsaber beams. It only appears in this one issue of the Darth Vader comics, the librarian lady puts her lightsaber in it to let the crystal inside act as a blaster, but the use of it caused her lightsaber to just melt. It was very powerful, even Vader had a hard time defending against it.

The reason Ezra's lightsaber has a blaster is so that if he we're ever captured, or his lightsaber was taken away, it would just appear to be a blaster, so he would avoid persecution as a Jedi.

Not every lightsaber can be a cross guard as you need a very powerful kyber crystal as a regular crystal doesn’t exert enough power. As for kylo he has a cross guard lightsaber because when he bled his kyber crystal (a process of pouring your pain into a crystal to make it red) it cracked so it exerted more power.

I liked that the mandalorians in the Clone Wars series had plasma based bucklers that came out of their gauntlets because their kit was almost entirely designed around the idea of countering Jedi.

Cal's lightsaber from Jedi: Fallen Order deserves a special mention. It's a single blade that can turn into a double blade and if he's feeling spicy, can break it in halves and dual wield it.

True and also Obi-Wan repeatedly explains throughout the prequels the primary reason why they aren't used by Jedi. it's because blasters are uncivilized. as a ranged weapon the possibility of hitting an innocent being is to great of a risk. Ezra made his lightsaber before he was comfortable yet relying on the force and his newly acquired Jedi abilities. being much, much older than the average padawan it took awhile to break those old habits, and blasters kill people. delimbing them is the Jedi's less-than-lethal alternative.

Lightsaber pike. Best design, hands down. They're common in SWTOR and Legends material. Pole weapon logic, with the potency of a lightsaber's plasma blade.

The circle of the spinning Inquisitor blades is not saber-resistant, and this is often their main weakness and has resulted in the deaths of at least two Inquisitors in Rebels alone.

I don’t know for sure, but I think I heard something about Kylo Ren’s “cross guard” actually just being a vent because the power crystal was physically damaged so the energy couldn’t be concentrated into a single blade. And I believe if you look closely that blade (and the accompanying cross guard) actually looks a bit unstable compared to a basic lightsaber.

I think another of thus comes down to the jedi's culture. The lightsaber is almost sacred and is "supposed" to be a last resort. Add in that they hated change in general on tip of how dogmatic they were then it makes sense why they wouldn't try and make the lightsaber more of an offensive killing tool.

I think Ezra’s lightsaber can be explained a bit because it was made from scraps that his friends had around, so mostly ship and blaster parts

The Darksaber was made at a time when vibroswords were common, so that small crossguard may have been made with those swords in mind.

The reason for the crossguard being used is to keep the lightsaber stable. Kylo's crystal is cracked, and therefore unstable (that is why his blade looks less smooth). The crossguard was explained as a way for excess energy to escape to not overheat the crystal + explode the saber. The corssguard was actually first introduced chronologically a long time before the movies. (I think the Old Republic, maybe earlier.)

The handle of count doku was based of on of his relatives that had a sword with a tilted hand like that it was made to make more precise attacks but it hinged his defence

Another interesting thing about Dooku’s curved lightsaber (and really curved lightsaber handles in general) would be its striking angle. In the Bane books they use a curved saber and people have to actively adjust how they fight otherwise they would still be hit by the blade because the curved hilt changed the angle that the blade came in so it’s more awkward to defend against

So I actually have an answer about why most lightsabers that we have seen don't have the crossguard. It is because most of the light sabers we have seen were from a time when deflecting blaster fire was far more common than saber on saber combat. There was actually a green lightsaber with a crossguard found outside of a long forgotten sith temple in the rebels show. It looked like there was a large war there between a sith army and a jedi army. So it makes sense that back then, when saber on saber combat was the main type of combat, a crossguard would be much more common.

4:02 Ventress is Dooku’s apprentice/personal bodyguard/assassin/lackey, so it makes sense for him to give her lightsabers that resemble his own. Ahsoka Tano also uses curved hilts after the events of Order 66, but their curves are less pronounced than on Ventress’ and Dooku’s.

The wip is cool and all, with high benefits (like wrapping around a lightsaber, pulling it away, and being flexible in general), but the high benefits also makes it high risks too (wip being pulled away and hitting your self). I personally like the double bladed lightsaber the most, because you can use it as crowd control in a way, like hitting two people at the same time.

Actually, in canon, ancient Jedi had used cross guards. However they really stopped until the High Republic l, when cross guards were more for show. Kylo's is meant to help vent power from his cracked kyber crystal

They actually designed Dooku's curved hilt to be reminiscent of a modern fencing saber because Christopher Lee was an Olympic fencer in real life. The cross-hilt lightsaber wasn't an advancement in technology, it was actually based on a very old design that was reused to help vent some of the unstable energy from Kylo Ren's cracked crystal. But that style of hilt was alot more common in the days before the end of the last great Jedi-Sith war. But after the reformation at the end of the war, there was alot of things done to demilitarize the Jedi, including discontinuing alot of saber designs that were meant to facilitate dueling and warfare. Dooku's saber was considered a controversial design specifically because it was a dueling saber in an era where the Jedi no longer fought other lightsaber users on any sort of regular basis outside of sparring. The blaster-saber from Rebels was built by a kid as his first light saber, and he had a background as a tinkerer/mechanic, so that was just something he came up with since there was only one other Jedi around to teach him, and he'd only been a padawan himself when Order 66 happened. Later when he grew up a bit, he made another more typical lightsaber and carried a traditional blaster pistol alongside it. In fact, using blasters and light sabers together was quite common before the aforementioned reformations. Also, it wasn't that Jedi weren't taught to shoot. Even in the movie era they were. Obi Wan was specifically trained in sniper style rifles which he used when under cover as a bounty hunter. All the Jedi were given similar training in the time before the Clone Wars. But it was A. illegal for them to use blasters when they weren't needed for specific missions (that was part of the reforms I mentioned above), and B. Obi Wan specifically didn't really like blasters. So when he called them uncivilized, that was his personal sentiment, not the policy of the entire Jedi Order. Anakin was quite fond of blasters, when he found an excuse to use them. And you'll recall Luke used both a light saber and a blaster right up until he went to confront Vader and the Emperor on the second Death Star. In the expanded content there are tons of Jedi who used blasters, outside of the period they were banned by the reforms. Kyle Katarn is a personal favorite example of mine. A storm trooper who defected from the Empire and helped steal the plans to the death star leading up to A New Hope, who then trained as a Jedi but never gave up his guns. Mace Windu's light saber actually DOES have variable settings to change the length of his blade. Darth Vader does as well, we even see him use it in the movies. There are scenes where his saber blade is about arming sword length, and other scenes where it's closer to long sword length, though it is debated if this was intentional during filming, or something the writers canonized later to explain why the blade length varied from shot to shot. In the comics, Vader specifically expresses his distaste for the inquisitors' spinning light sabers as very gimmicky, not very functional weapons, but it us explained that since most the inquisitors are not very skilled duelists (kind of by design since Palpatine wants them only as enforcers not potential Sith rivals) that these weapons give them a small advantage in confusion/surprise, and also intimidation. But ultimately, they don't expect them to be able to take on fully trained Jedi, like Obi-Wan. Even the aforementioned padawan was able to defeat the Grand Inquisitor one on one. Vader himself is the one called in to handle Jedi the inquisitors cannot. The legends inquisitors, who were quite prominent in the early Jedi Knight games starring the aforementioned Kyle Katarn, DID use shotgun style blasters. Though they had a different name for them (I forget what it was off hand), and they also used more regular light sabers without the spinning parts.

Technically Kylo's crossguard isn't actually there as a crossguard, those are vents (as seen on older lightsabres) as his crystal is so badly damaged that he needs the additional venting, even with all the moderns methods which make the crossguard obsolete

Having just stumbled upon this and hearing Shads rant about how Jedi would be way more efficient with Blasters, yeah funnily enough in Kotor running a dual wield blaster pistol Jedi was ridiculously strong if you made a good build

If Star Wars Rebels is to be believed, lightsaber blades actually somewhat attract each other with a sort of pseudo-magnetism. This means that a lightsaber's crossguard might be able to divert the opponent's blade to a certain extent, especially if the opponent's blade is shifting towards your hilt.

In regards to the ‘blaster saber’ from Rebels: it was made by Ezra Bridger, a teenage boy who was taken in by the Jedi Kanan as his padawan. Ezra made the blaster modification to his saber because he wasn’t very good with the lightsaber yet. Though he couldn’t have both modes active at once, as they drew power from the kyber crystal, he could swap between using it as a ranged or melee weapon *very* quickly. When Kanan dueled a dark Jedi, one of the Inquisitors, he wielded his own lightsaber along with Ezra’s in the fight and could rapidly swap between shooting and cutting with Ezra’s weapon pretty much instantaneously. So while both features couldn’t be used at once, there was basically no time delay between using both modes EDIT: and as for the Inquisitors’ lightsaber design: no, they weren’t made from lightsaber resistant material. Which meant that when the Inquisitors went up against light saber wielding opponents who knew what they where doing those rings not only didn’t protect the wielder’s hand. They became a target. If the rings were damaged or destroyed it would render the whole lightsaber inoperable. Though to be fair this may have been an intentional design flaw. The Emperor wouldn’t want the Inquisitors getting ideas and trying to overthrow him. Lust for power is the natural state of the dark side after all. The Inquisitors were only ever meant to hunt down small fish, like younglings who survived Order 66 or padawans with little experience. If any actual Jedi Knights or masters were encountered then it would be up to Darth Vader to hunt them down.

Ezra's blaster-saber is a *stun* gun, so while being very useful, not exactly auto win.

I believe I first saw you on Tabletop Time after exploring your brother Jazza's channel, and was later delighted to see that you're a regular on FNT. Much respect to you & Jazza for all your hard work & enjoyable content!

I never thought of it that way, but it makes sense: Inquisitors were ex-jedi whose faith in the force (and thus their proficiency) was in the lacking side. The fact that inquisitors' lightsaber was created to compensate their lack of proficiency in the force to fight against a more hardened member of jedi who survived order 66 out of necessity makes these blades a whole lot more interesting.

Fun fact about the Inquisitor saber, It has the spinning mechanic for a reason. That reason being to imitate and re create General Grevious's spinning/unrelenting advance which was deemed very scary during the clone wars era and is one of the many reasons Grevious could kill so many Jedi.

There is that umbrella one from Visions Shad needs to check out.

15:10 fun fact, there are two sniper-rifle style lightsabers in Legends (so they aren’t cannon, but their purpose is pretty simple: they shoot a beam of plasma that is nearly identical or even exactly the same blade as a traditional lightsaber, which is dope af)

Just to note, at least in "canon" crossguard lightsabers were made historically. The real question is why they stopped making them. Also, in the case of Kylo's crossguard saber specifically, the crossguard started off as extra vents for the unstable energy of his cracked crystal, and their use as a crossguard was secondary.

Fun fact: there was a cut scene from the Clone Wars:the animated series, where Anakin decided to use blasters than his blade to save Asoka. He was so effective that everyone was terrified. I personally think jedi orginally dismissed blasters because it was too effective and could encourage power trips and oppressive natures. By that's just me

The Cross Guard Lightsaber has actually appeared before Kylo Ren was even introduced. In Star Wars Rebels, Ezra went to an abandoned jedi temple, and found a Cross Guard lightsaber in there. So it has actually been used by both Jedi and Sith before in the past; not just in the prequels.

30:00 I have trained in the control of my own arm for DECADES. I still poked myself in the eye the other day.

I believe the primary reason lightsabers wouldn’t have cross guards is because the number of times a Jedi would actually find and fight another lightsaber user(sith) would be astronomically rare yet incoming blaster fire would be much more common. Thus the ability to extremely quickly get a blade to block a behind the back shot or some other weird angle without needing to worry about a guard would be essential. It’s like a police officer who has a rifle in his vehicle for intense engagements just incase… but the handgun can actually be worn on the daily. If you don’t need it for any regular occasion you won’t go out of your way to make it a thing.

actually, the reason for Ezra's gunsaber is it allowed him to conceal hinself from the empire. Since jedi's before him could openly carry it, they didn't need to develop something like this.

Dooku's curved hilt came from Christopher Lee's own fencing background and evidently lightsabers were meant to sort of mirror katanas, which he was unfamiliar with, so his handle was curved allowing him to wield it like a fencer which was then added to Dooku's character and upped the danger factor of Dooku via his skill in swordplay.

Canon explanation for kyylo ren's crossguard : Ren used the dark side of the Force to bleed his lightsaber's kyber crystal, changing the color of its plasma blade from blue to red. However, the kyber crystal was cracked in the process, and as a result, Ren modified his lightsaber by adding lateral vents to either side of the handle in order to divert the extra heat generated by the crystal

Shad, they do explain how the "crossguard" lightsaber came to be: This is what is called a "double-vented lightsaber" (the "guard" counts as one vent, and the tiny blade that comes out the bottom is the other vent). A double-vented lightsaber is used to contain a cracked kyber crystal (the crystal that makes the blade energy), as a normal saber would pretty much blow up if you tried to put a cracked crystal in it. Only a cracked crystal can produce the streams of energy that require double-venting. This is why most lightsabers don't have crossguards: cracked crystals are rare.

Kylos light Sabre is actually a more primitive technology, because the blade energy is not as stable (like older Sabres in legends) so the "cross gaurd" is energy defussion

on the topic of lightsaber cross guards, a comic shows that Kylo's kyber crystal got cracked and with out vents the blade was unstable same reason for the less orderly look of the blade, And I believe there were more cross guard lightsabers out there in the comics (one only had one vent).

Technically the "cross guard" on Kyle rens light Saber is actually vents to stop his Saber from exploring since his cyber crystal(the main thing to make the Saber work and determines its color) is cracked. That is also why his Saber is not uniform.

I do love that madilorians fought Jedi with common sense and tons of firepower. Flame throwers, sniper rifles, explosives, and shotguns (not blasters, regular pellet shotguns) were their tools of the trade. And they were effective enough to fight jedi to a standstill.

Just popping in here to say that Rey dark side lightsaber(the folding double bladed one) isn’t actually the first one to be designed that way. In the clone wars tv show, a Jedi master named Pong Krell used a pair of folding double bladed lightsaber. The folding mechanism was so he could more easily carry them on his belt.

In the Legends novels, Corran Horn had a variable lightsaber that he could change the length of the blade. It wasn't all that useful in a duel, but it had an element of surprise in certain sitations.

One note about the lightsaber whip... if the user could control its motion fully with the Force, then it gets incredibly overpowered incredibly fast. Presumably the opponent also has that opportunity, though.

There is actually a sniper rifle specifically for force users in the comics that uses lightsabres as ammo called the "Lightsabre Rifle". It can only fire five shots before the Lightsaber itself is melted from its destructive power. Its supposedly the most powerful handheld blaster in all of the Star Wars universe and is basically a handheld version of the same technology used in the Death Star... Aaaand of course, its banned and kept in a secret room of forbidden artifacts at the Jedi Temple. But to be fair, the Jedi are supposed to respect Kyber crystals and the destruction of one is considered a great loss.

There is a scene in clone wars when a Jedi is fighting Grievous and has him in a bind. Jedi had 1 saber, Grievous was using 2. While they're in a bind, Grievous uses a third arm to pull out a blaster pistol and shoots the Jedi in the gut. I thought I'd ask for your thoughts on this.

Just wanted to take a moment as a Star Wars fan to thank you for doing this video, sir - I did a reaction video to this for my own channel, and it was fun to watch. 👍

17:06 This guy is gonna cream his pants when he sees Jedi Survivor

General Grevious did shoot a jedi padawan while blocking his lightsaber at the same time, although he did have the help of his four arms, 2 arms wielding 2 lightsabers blocking the padawans attacks and a third arm holding a gun came up and shot the padawan twice in the gut

When I watched the new trilogy, where Rey was already skilled with a staff, I assumed her lightsaber would be a lightsaber staff, sort of a polearm where it's an overall very long weapon, with about 2/3 of its length as the handle. It would give her a lot of control, reach, and be extremely flashy for the movies. I think it would contend with the best lightsaber designs in terms of effectiveness and classy/simple aesthetic.

For the whip saber it looks like, from the picture at least, that she has a standard lightsaber as well and it seems quite easy to be able to switch between the two in combat.

On the topic of lightsaber resistant material, the reason why people don’t wear it that often is because while the material is out there, it is very rare to find, Like beskar, it’s lightsaber resistant but it’s a very rare alloy to find. It’s quite literally impossible to find. If someone does find it, they would more likely try to make a quick buck out of it since it’s rare.

A lot of the reason why jedi didn't upgrade to different types of lightsabers too often is because they didn't want to be too aggressive. They saw their light sabers as tools not weapons, And they thought that having more aggressive blades made them more aggressive

The cross guard lightsaber has existed in Star Wars before Kylo Ren’s lightsaber. The cross guard lightsaber is actually an ancient lightsaber design.

The tilted hilt is actually pretty significant, it allows the user to grip the handle with pretty much full force pointing forward whilst still having full range of motion. It is basically what cause straight grip to be phased out almost completely in foil fencing. With light sabres having no weight it would mean the amount of force able to be exerted by the hand is very important in parries. This makes tilted hilt automatically better then normal Sabre imo

When I was a kid I read Star Wars comic where lighsabers had little plasma ball at the begining of blade. That was goving some protection to hand.

My take on crossguards - they are proven to be in Star Wars in the past, based on a rebels episode, but maybe they were phased out due to their larger size. After all, the Jedi assumed the sith to be gone for millennia, and their main opponents were criminals who use blasters. When guarding from blaster fire a straight blade with less bulk is quicker and fulfills the same job. Just a thought!

The lightsaber types, usage and techniques were actually incredibly well thought through before Disney. Certain EU books actually go into quite a bit of depth in their usage and how they would function in practice. Darth Bane instructing his apprentice Darth Zannah in the defensive usage of a double-bladed lightsaber comes to mind.

18:14 The Darksaber actually can cut easier, you can see when the mandalorian fights ahsoka the beskar doesnt do anything, but when moff gideon used the darksaber againts the mandalorian, his beskar spear heated up and started glowing

the sniper jedi talk was a very strong point i mean imagine a anti tank blaster being used like yandews(blue merl with arrows in gaurdians of the galaxy) good like deflecting something that isnt momentum based

Shad, I highly recommend getting a replica of Dooku's lightsaber, even if it's a cheap toy. The effects the curved hilt has are surprising (and quite fun to toy around with). I personally found that the curve amplified power and speed on both wrist extensions and two-handed slashes.

On the gun lightsaber from Rebels: Yes it's shown to only be used when the beam is off, so you can't shoot while in the bind unfortunately. It also fires stun rounds, not lethal bolts, which is probably in keeping with the jedi not wanting to kill people unless they have to. If you like jedi using guns and lightsabers, you'll love Kannan Jarrus in Rebels because he does use a blaster a fair bit in the show. It's mostly because he doesn't want people to know he's a jedi to start with, but he keeps using it at times even after the Empire finds out he's a jedi. Makes even more sense that his apprentice is the one with the gun saber, although Ezra does get his weapon destroyed by Vader at the end of season 2 and then replaces it with a regular green lightsaber for the rest of the show.

My favorite star wars lightsaber was by far the lightwhip, Zannah and Lumiya had such evocative scenes with the whip and it was incredibly difficult for opponents to manipulate or deal with- even to the effect that Darth Bane was not able to beat it outright and led to his defeat.

Pistol-grip fencing foils were available in the 1970s several of the members (and I) used pistol grip foils in competition while I was in my last 2 years of college.

Interesting thing about the crossguard lightsaber, they were the norm 200 years before the movies. The reason they existed is that the energy from the kyber crystal power source was not channeled properly and needed an outlet. Eventually they were phased out when energy could be channeled into a hotter blade. Kyle Ren has a crossguard because his crystal is cracked and has unstable energy flow.

The cross guards of Kylo Ren’s lightsaber have been shown to not get instantly cut by other lightsabers. I believe it is made of a lightsaber resistant material known as phrik.

also on the topic of the lightsaber resistant metal. the reason not many people use it, is because the metal is usually super rare and even harder to forge

The cross guard light sabers have been done before this. They're a more older light saber design used in the old and high republic eras. They been shown in the games, comics and in the old sith temple in star wars rebels

I heard the explaination why crossguards arent used more often has to with the fact that lightsaber combat in general just got rarer over the ages so they didnt need it a standard lightsaber worked perfectly well for deflecting blaster bolts

Count Dooku was a master of a lightsaber style that focuses on dueling. The style he uses is called Makashi and focuses on parrying strikes of other blades and control the enemy blade. It's a lot about adjustments in the angle of the blade. THe curved handle is said to give the user a better control of the blade's movement.

the reason why Cross Guard sabers are used less is probably because they are so much heavier than a regular lightsaber (according to canon)

Yeah good point about the cross guard. During the old/high republic eras it was very common because more people had active lightsaber duels, during the prequels and such there was no real lightsaber wielding enemy the Jedi had to deal with so there was no need for something that only specialised in duels and took probably more time to make.

The “Jedi aren’t using blasters and it’s dumb rant” is true, completely true. But I believe that, in hopes of saving my faith in this series that I love, it’s used to show the hypocrisy in even the best of the Jedi. Even Obi-Wan isn’t able to avoid acting as if he is better than the life and death struggle because that’s what the Jedi order teaches. The Jedi won the last war and they for the most part think they’re never going to lose.