Blade school

Blades: Swords, Daggers. Fast direct damage. Weaker against heavy armor.

"Reston, the Master Blades trainer, can be found in Ardoris in the guild hall."

Blades Skill Tree

Active

Coup de Grace	Attack that does five times the damage if target below 20% health Blade Specialization: Raises that threshold, to about 33% at skill 100 and 45% at skill 200.
Double Slash	Two quick melee attacks. Blade Specialization: Gives a small chance to get a third quick attack.
Rend	Attack that inflicts a damage over time effect on the target and reduces their ability to heal. Blade Specialization increases the amount of healing debuff that Rend applies.
Riposte	Attack that deals modest damage, unless used immediately after you parry an opponent's attack. A successful riposte is a very powerful attack that can't be blocked, dodged or parried. Blade Specialization increases the time that a player has to respond to a parried attack.
Thrust	Powerful melee attack which strikes up to two targets. With Blade Specialization, Thrust also comes with a small chance to add a 5% heal reduction (the term "heal reduction" in the tool tip is called "Healing Modifier" on the thrust debuff icon that is applied to opponents).
Whirling Blades	Attack that hits multiple targets around the player. Blades Specialization reduces the focus cost to use this skill.

Innate

Blade Specialization	Blade Specialization is the devotion of one's self to the study of bladed weapons. It increases the power of and flexibility of all other active skills in the blade skill tree. NOTE: Only one Specialization skill may be trained and one additional skill maintained at any given time or two may be set to maintain. Enabling training for a different specialization skill may set a specialization skill currently set to maintain to unlearn.
Blade Speed	Increases attack speed bonus with blades
Bladed Combat	Base bladed combat skill
Vital Points	Increases critical chance with blades.

External Reference

• The following link points to extremely old and outdated information, but the link is supplied for historical purposes: Magic, Combat, and Crafting Skills on the Shroud of the Avatar Forums