Ranking weapons and curses

[ProxyJames]

So there are alot of people talking about the different weapons and curses and whats good and what sucks SO I am just going to start them. I will start with the individual weapon types and then go into weapon type versions then go into curses going to rank
S = Super
A = awesome
B = bad ass
C = Crappy
D = Dismal
F = failure
as a final word before I start I am comparing all the weapons and curses to each other without card buffs, but I do sometimes mention how much better something gets WITH a card buff (like Merciless weapons with true sight) so I don't want to hear any "hammer is better with Divine strength (attack rate) stuff because EVERYTHING is better with divine strength and that just leaves hammer back where it started, below everything else, also I have been playing the game on normal so I would imagine things that start off bad get worse on harder difficulties, like having to stand still for a second to swing a hammer while a room full of projectile shooting heretics lock you into there sights while you try to chase down one of them but they keep moving out of the way by the time the hammer falls

Weapons

Swords = S
Swords are hands down the best weapon in the game, they attack fast, and have very high damage for that attack speed, you can also roll around before or after attacks very easily with it, easy to use and strong

Axes = A
The Axes aren't the fastest but they hit for a ton of damage and after a roll the attack comes right now so you can chain rolling attacks together to quickly clear out a room

Gauntlets = B
honestly the only reason these aren't a B is because they do slightly less damage than the axes but the final hit in the combo hits pretty hard

Dagger = C
its just a worse version of the sword, in every way and shape, if you start the combo its also hard to roll out of it so you have to be careful if you don't want to get hit

Hammer = F
just the worst weapon. has the highest base damage but the lowest everything else, it has a short windup animation before it actually deals damage and you can aim it in this animation and it actually hits slightly outside of the ring it displays and then during and after the attack you can't roll for a moment, this leaves you VERY open to attack and its hard to hit faster heretics with it. overall you can deal more damage faster with every other weapon than the hammer so the massive damage does not make up for the slow attack speed and the other drawbacks witch is why this skipped from C to F

Weapon Effects

Basic = C
Just a basic weapon type, no effect, nothing good or bad about it so C because you would take anything with a effect

Bane = D
So bane is not very great, it doesn't poison heretics all the time and there is a tarot card that applies the poison effect to all attacks making this weapon effect almost pointless

Necromantic = F
one of the most useless weapon types, every now and then when killing a heretics it will make a little ghost that after a short delay will seek out a heretic and attack it then poof, sound good but here is the problem: it happens rarely and when it does happen the ghost has a very short range so often will miss and do nothing

Vampiric = B
Not the best but pretty good, every now and then it gives you a heart when killing a heretics so its decent and can keep you in the game longer

Merciless = S
Honestly the best weapon type, the crits do insane damage and you can tell when your getting a crit too thanks to the little star that shows up over your head

Zealous = A
These weapons are extremely good for curse builds and on bosses you will always have the fervor needed to use your curses

Godly = B
these are just basic weapons that deal more damage witch is why they aren't higher ranked, I typically take Merciless or Zealous weapons over godly because of this

Curses

Flaming Shot = C
not great but pretty good, just shoot some fire, decent damage

Cleansing fire = B
this can deal ALOT of damage if you can hit with all 3 bolts of fire but the angle they shoot out of is wide so you have to get pretty close for small targets

Hounds of Fate = S
The best curse in the game hands down no contest, this spell melts enemies and bosses and can easily clear rooms with 1 or 2 casts, pick it up when you find it

Strike of the crown = C
its just the flaming shot but slightly better

Divine Blast, Divine Blizzard, Divine Blight = F
very low damage and very short range, most of the time your melee attacks do the same damage so you can kind of lump all these together

Divine Guardian = B
unlike the other blast spells this one is actually useful as it makes you invincibility for 2 seconds, long enough to get in there and get some really good hits with a melee weapon when you otherwise wouldn't be able too, or you can use it to get out of being damaged when you would otherwise take damage, think of this like royal guard from the DMC games

Deaths Sweep, Oath of the crown, Death's attendant, Death's squall = -F
so yeah I had to rank these as low as I could, they only do slightly more damage than a dagger but its a curse so you can't even use it that much, they each have effects from like making ghosts or freezing but if it doesn't do any damage or help in any way whats the point? its just a WEAKER melee attack that you can only use up to 4 times

Ichor thrown, Point of corruption, path of the righteous and call of the crown = B
ok so once more lumping all these together as they do pretty much the same thing, they are not bad but there not really good either. they take a moment to aim and thet don't always hit but they do hit like a truck when they do and they normally have some other effect like poison on the floor

Touch of turua = B
good damage and somewhat short range, also looks cool

Maelstorm = C
its just Touch of turua but harder to aim because it always fires off in a X pattern from you, decent damage

Touch of Ithaqua = D
I don't really use this one too often as its the similar to the least two listed curses but trades damage for a chance to freeze, I rather something be dead than frozen lol

Touch of the Revenant = A
not quite as strong as hounds of fate BUT still hits for a ton, makes 4 little ghosts that seek out targets, there range is short but get them to spawn on a big heretics or bosses and it will do a solid chunk of damage, worth picking up unless you already have hounds

[KryptKatz]

Death sweep, divine guardian, and hammers are all really underrated on this list.

Charged death sweep curses are one of the biggest AOEs in the game. They're big enough to hit most or all enemies in a room and destroy most projectiles. On top of that, they're able to destroy traps that use yellow projectiles. (some other curses destroy projectiles but I forget which ones and none of them work as well as death sweep)

Hammers are definitely not useless, or even a bad weapon, it just requires you to memorize enemy attack patterns. You actually can roll out of hammer startup and the direction your swing goes in isn't decided until the attack comes out, so it doesn't leave you as open as what it initially seems. Highest weapon damage and a decently large hitbox at least gives them a niche over daggers which are worse than everything above it.

Divine guardian is a gamebreaker imo since its literally just shovel knight phase locket. It allows for safe room clears without the risk of taking damage. This also extends to bosses where you can, in many cases, pop it over and over until the boss is dead. If you run into fervor buffing tarot (specifically *2 or full refill on a new room) you can go a whole run without even allowing enemies to damage you.

[Jäger]

You can roll after the last attack of the gauntlet combo and maintain it, I prioritize picking up gauntlets every game, especially considering that last hit seems to have a big hit box.