Question about stats and such.

[Randy]

Im getting alot of greatsworrds and hammers, hardly any good 1h weapons for a tanky knight. What stats should i be upgrading so i can wield a 2h weapon and a shield and do decent instead of taking 20mins to attack 1 time. Any help is appreciateds thanks!

[RIP Chicken]

There's no stat that increases attack speed. Maybe a rune I haven't discovered yet. There are weapons with stats that increase speeds built into em but that's different. This game relies less on stats that increase your speed and more on the timing of your attacks to get hits. The stats are so simple you really can't ask... If you're a tanky knight increase your Str and Endurance... every other stat is secondary.

[Baron01]

Any weapon other than those with prefix -Great- can be considered 1H, ie. you can perform attacks with it with your shield up or gauntlet. I use hammers for my sword & board (hammers in fact but it does not sound right) cleric just fine. There are hammers that are only a fraction slower, stat wise, than swords--speed factor of 0.88 - 0.94 while fastest STR swords is 0.75 - 0.85.
I still subjectively believe hammers even at similar speed factor are slower than swords due to their wind up. You cant chain hammers as quickly either while their energy consumption is also significantly higher than that of swords.

My play style revolves around charged heavy attack for bosses, shield charge + running attack and jump attack + follow up combos. I try to maximize damage potential of each hit and ensure I'm swinging the least amount of times. Standard attacks are only good for weak non-armored enemies because they hardly ever stagger. Main bonus of charged heavy attack is guaranteed stagger, or even knock down on weak enemies.

You can get Vanguard Blade relatively early in the game, in Catacombs if I recall it correctly. That was my fast 1H option for majority of the game until I pumped enough points to Faith, at which point hammers were a clear winner.
There are other good swords available but they are pretty late in the game. Guard's Sword being probably the best traditional 1H sword, which can be obtained just before final encounter.