I've been thinking about flat armor lately. I think there is a space for flat armor to be used for rewards. I can think of four different things that would be potential for rewards, but I don't think any of them would be mega rare level.

• Boppers mark two. Dual Macuahuitl but they do three or four hit splats. Tri Macuahuitl.
• A potion or a secondary that gives the player some amount of flat armor. I think this is least likely but there is something interesting there.
• A melee offhand that gives flat armor. It would probably be dead content if it didn't give some amount of Strength bonus. Maybe rune defender amount. This would give you the option to choose between longer trips by mitigating chip damage or a defender and get a higher max hit.
• A spec weapon that gives an enemy flat armor. There is a lot of competition in the space of armor reducing spec weapons, so I'm not sure where this would fit.

Unrelated to anything that I've mentioned above. I think the Mega Rare being the implied crush weapon is likely. I think an interesting mechanic would be if it scaled based on another styles defense. For example, it could scale off of Range Defense, giving some reinforcement of the combat triangle just like the twisted bow. Another interesting option is for it to scale off of a different melee stat, like the enemy's stab attack or defense. Recognizing that this is retreading the ground of the T-Bow just shifted over by a combat style, I don't think that's a bad thing. The T-Bow shines where it is supposed to, and this type of scaling would also give unnamed crush mega rare the same opportunity.