Not really viable weapons?

[D-Jak]

So bear with me please, I am a FromSoft noob and this is my first game. And on a side note, I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ love it.

I am making solid progress (just beat Rennala) and now have a pretty nice arsenal of weapons to choose from. Including the golden Scythe, or Godricks Axe. Godricks Axe seems fine, but any other weapon doesn't come close to my starting regular confessor sword with +5 and blood slash. The blood slash with the talisman which increases special attacks is just too good for me or my playstyle.

I assume other combinations work well, too. But how do I go about it? I don't want to equip something much weaker and risk of getting destroyed.

[DES-TI-NY]

As you progress and kill bosses you unlock ball bearings which unlock infinite amount of upgrade materials at vendor in your hub area so you can upgrade everything you want.

[Toad]

Look on the map for dark orange spots, usually up against cliffs. These are mines which contain upgrade shards and other useful items. It's best to find a reliable main weapon that you put most of your upgrades in, and then any left over you can use for backup weapons.

For example I used a longsword as my main, and had a mace as a backup for strike damage. Like the previous reply said, you can also come across Bell Bearings to bring back to the Roundtable Hold. These will unlock tiers of upgrade shards, making experimenting much easier and quicker.

[Aria Athena]

In Fromsoft games almost everything is viable. You are using a very strong art of war. Any weapon that feels good in your hands with said art will do fine.

[Janthis]

I got the Bloodhound Fang pretty early on, upgraded it to +4 (so far) and still haven't found anything else to match it in terms of moveset and damage. Even the Moonveil feels more like a gimmick.

[Target]

Any weapon is viable, upgraded weapons will always out preform upgraded ones, you are not going to pick smithing up off the floor stronger then a weapon you have upgraded.

[D-Jak]

I actually found a reason now:

In the mines of Sellia (teleporter chest) m sword is almost useless as it bounces off enemies every hit. The Godrick Axe destroys them all, stagger with every hit. So I guess some weapons are actually better against certain enemies and are not just depending on the playstyle. Which is awesome, actually.

[Cpt.P1mp]

Originally posted by Target:

Any weapon is viable, upgraded weapons will always out preform upgraded ones, you are not going to pick smithing up off the floor stronger then a weapon you have upgraded.

while every weapon is viable in a sense of, you can finish the game with it if you try hard enough.(but why would u gimp yourself)
There are weapons that are miles better or miles worse than the rest. Be it by having a clunky moveset or ♥♥♥♥ skills. BUT STAT WISE, many weapons are the same.

The right weapon can deffo make your game 100 times easyer.

WHen you get to radahn n beat him, i recommend you upgrade his greatswords.
But you will want to use it in combination with another weapon, dont just stick with greatswords. I kept 2.

A quick katana and the slow greatsword, each with their own boons.
Greatswords stagger, and you will find it invaluable vs certain enemy/bosses.
Try to fight them normally and they will give u a hard time, u gotta dodge, etc. Use great sword and pow u stunlock them to death. (not all enemies, but some significant ones that are a hassle otherwise).

[Cpt.P1mp]

Originally posted by D-Jak:

I actually found a reason now:

In the mines of Sellia (teleporter chest) m sword is almost useless as it bounces off enemies every hit. The Godrick Axe destroys them all, stagger with every hit. So I guess some weapons are actually better against certain enemies and are not just depending on the playstyle. Which is awesome, actually.

yeah, they all have different uses, if you want to have an easy time with this game. its advised you upgrade more than 1 weapon and use them ofc :).
But you will deffo hate using greatswords on most bosses in this game.
VS other fromsoft games, this one is full of quick bosses. A slow greatsowrd will suck for the post part, outside of some bosses where its good.

[Janthis]

Cold-enchanted morningstar +15 atm. Fast attack, procs bleed and frostbite, and I get Hoarfrost Stomp. It's pretty disgusting, honestly.

[Deadoon]

Originally posted by Cpt.P1mp:

A quick katana and the slow greatsword, each with their own boons.
Greatswords stagger, and you will find it invaluable vs certain enemy/bosses.
Try to fight them normally and they will give u a hard time, u gotta dodge, etc. Use great sword and pow u stunlock them to death. (not all enemies, but some significant ones that are a hassle otherwise).

Here is a little tip, that is not completely correct. Most of the stance damage comes from heavy attacks, and charged heavy attacks.

The light attacks of every weapon has very little stance damage as far as I can tell.

Charged heavy attacks can stance break enemies VERY reliably. Some bosses can be chain broken by something as small as a war pick(the weight of some daggers) with charged heavies.

Guard counters are another case. I hadn't found a single enemy that would be stance broken by a great axe that they wouldn't by a katana.

Managed to reliably knock dragons to be vulnerable in as few as 3 jump heavies to the face with a katana. Biggest normal field boss in the game, and you can leave them vulnerable with a flimsy sword swatting them in the jaw.

Originally posted by D-Jak:

In the mines of Sellia (teleporter chest) m sword is almost useless as it bounces off enemies every hit. The Godrick Axe destroys them all, stagger with every hit. So I guess some weapons are actually better against certain enemies and are not just depending on the playstyle. Which is awesome, actually.

Those enemies are covered in stone, if you two hand a weapon, you can get through the bounce effect. Some mine bosses have a similar effect on them. They effectively have a light shield up at all times.

[Deadoon]

Originally posted by orthostatic:

Alternate perspective, being a semi-noob to From games myself. I 100% on DS3, but consensus is that DS3 is the easiest, so I'm not in the cool kids club. ;)

That said, the first end-to-end completion of a From game seems like a tutorial to me. The tutorial teaches you where weapons are, how to upgrade them, how many of them you can upgrade in a run, and quite possibly how not to completely mangle a critical side quest you didn't know existed.

I feel like these games point players towards their NG+ and NG++ and so on, and that the only real reason you clear it once is to get out of tutorial mode. Also note, I am really bad at tutorial mode.

I did a quick foray into ng+ in this with a backed up save to test something. It seems like only the earlier parts of the game get changed by ng+, later might just get extra souls, damage and health of the enemies I encountered there wasn't much different from ng0.

Considering you get like 5+ titanite slab equivalents by end game in this, and all the resources to get multiple weapons there, it isn't very surprising that later game isn't much different this time around. Especially when the late game bosses can two shot you with heavy armor.