Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-24278127-20131211040442/@comment-3146930-20131211052229

Going from just a series perspective, all Pyrrha mentions on Semblance is that she has magnitism, Ruby has speed, and Weiss has her Glyphs. It is never said that everyone has a special Semblance that isn't anything like anyone else's.

It is much more likely that there are certain classes of Semblance, like a group of people that have similar Semblances, but each person has certain differences. For example even though Cinder, Glynda, and Weiss all use Glyphs, each one of their Glyphs appear to be different colors. This could mean that their powers operate different, but they come from the same source. Also notice that while Cinder and Weiss only have the Dust they use glow, when Glynda goes into battle, there is a point when her entire body glows. And also all three have different style Glyphs when you take a good look at them closely (Glynda has flat circles, Cinder has cylinders, and Weiss' is also a flat circle, but snowflake shapes appear in place of Glynda's more mystical looking circles). This could mean that despite the wide range of Dust abilities, only certain Glyph users can manipulate Dust in certain ways. Cinder is good with explosions, Weiss is good with Attract-Repel platforms, and Glynda is just all around good with awesomeness.