The obligatory 'which weapon should I upgrade?' thread :D

[paulaus333]

In DS1, I used the Black Knight Sword +5 (STR). Slow, but mean. In DS3, a fully-upgraded Refined Broadsword (QUALITY).

I am now up to a point in SOTFS (first DS2 play-through) where I think upgrading my weapon would help. I don't know what to choose!

Generally speaking, faster weapons seem to allow you to strike more often (as less stamina expended per attack) and do more overall damage at the expense of defensive play. But in the most recent boss fight (with multiple foes), I am faring better with a Great-sword, as the attack openings are very small & don't allow for successive hits.

Are most of the bosses like the latter?

Would appreciate some comments and advice!

[Alliesaurus]

Black knight greatsword +5 is a good base weapon, black knight halberd +5 for range, should have these as a base in your inventory

[Dr. Uncredible]

Sounds like you enjoy your big guns, it´entirely viable, and the Black Knight Weapons are not a bad choice,
however, they have an immense stamina drain so starting out with something lighter of the same weapon class might be a good idea.,
also, they do fire damage that scale with int and faith, so you´ll need points in caster stats to use them properly, and there are enemies with fire resistance, so a back-up weapon is recommended.
I´d try the Claymore, a very reasonable greatsword with a sweet moveset, and from there you can decide wether you feel like going heavier or lighter.

[James8451]

I recommend any weapon that does strike damage. Does insane damage against armored enemies (basically 80% of "hard" enemies existing in DS2), and doesn't have any penalties that is visible.

basic, approporiately upgraded mace is a decent weapon that will last you through the entirety of the NG and beyond.

[King Robert Baratheon]

Originally posted by James8451:

I recommend any weapon that does strike damage. Does insane damage against armored enemies (basically 80% of "hard" enemies existing in DS2), and doesn't have any penalties that is visible.

basic, approporiately upgraded mace is a decent weapon that will last you through the entirety of the NG and beyond.

And if he needs a mace with better range Chancellor Wellager sells the Homonculus Mace (but thats late game).

[Fredericks of Cursewood]

I try to have somewhat of an arsenal of weapons to choose from in DS2. One of the areas that DS2 differs from DS1 is that you can't really rely on one weapon to carry you through. I try to have at least one weapon for each type of damage. You can get around that in the early game with something like long sword and by 2 handing it doing the R2 thrust attack for the piercing damage.

Since the Black Knight weapons are brought as an example, I will add this. Black knight weapons work wonders in the Ivory King dlc. Depending on my character I might even infuse them with fire damage. I take that same weapon to the Old Iron King dlc area and it does meager damage by comparison. On the other hand anything that does strike damage will carry you a long way in the iron dlc. Take a giant club at +10 and buff it with whatever and go to town.

[myoptic]

most bosses you won't have much trouble getting multiple attacks with a smaller weapon. The rapier, for example, is a high dps, small weapon that is the choice of many speed runners.

Ultras are fine for most enemies. The stunlock and damage per hit are both fantastic. But there are some enemies that aren't stunnable and have very short windows of opportunity.

The straight swords in the game are really good. There is a fire longsword that can be looted early on. That could get you through the game if you wanted. The broadsword is ok for PvE - but i think its a bit short and I miss the thrusting attacks of the other straight swords.

btw, almost all the straight swords in this game are primarily str weapons. the c/c scaling gets more str than dex by a large margin.

[꧁༺tS.KIRIHARU༻꧂]

Murakumo. Hits hard. Fast.
Stat requirements aren't that high either.

[perico2palotes]

One good thing about this game is that nearly all weapons are viable, so you can pick whichever suits your playstyle the most and get familiar with it. That said, some are definitely easier to pick up than others. Namely, straight swords are amazing because of overall DPS output, safety of use (aka diverse moveset, speed, stamina management) and, although offering quite depth, easy to just grab and swing with moderate success. The opposite would be scythes, which demand a lot of precision from the user but are devastating if you can reliably hit with the sweet spot (and bypass shields). For some top class streaming PvPers straight swords are the best weapon in the game for PvP and they're certainly very solid for PvE as well.
Another great choice are crossblades. My favorite is the most hated Santier's Spear (actually more of a spear / twinblade / halberd hybrid) because of amazing versatility and good DPS output regardess of stat allocation (once you go +5 raw). In fact, "all bosses" speed record holders (last time I checked) go for mace at the beginning, then switch to buffed red iron crossblade for boss fights. That should give you an indication of efficiency: quite possibly one of the best DPS outputs in the game against bosses + jaw-dropping poise damage against trash mobs. They do suffer from durability loss though (except santiers).
Buffed rapiers also dish out the damage against bosses but against trash mobs are tricky to use because of bad poise damage + awful tracking, so you will likely need a switch weapon. Streamers I've seen doing no bonfire, no death runs use greatswords (plus bow obviously) for trash mobs, then switch to buffed rapiers for bosses. Against bosses you could say rapiers are safer than twinblades because of attack speed and stamina management.
But it's up to you, really. Just master whatever weapon you find more fun and you'll be g2g.

[Captain Bravo]

Craftsman's Hammer is a beast.

[Dexter]

Any greatsword. They are larger then short(fart)swords but are easier to use then ultragreatswords.
If You want to have a cake walk, level up that dex and get yourserlf a rapier.

[theseeker52]

Originally posted by paulaus333:

In DS1, I used the Black Knight Sword +5 (STR). Slow, but mean. In DS3, a fully-upgraded Refined Broadsword (QUALITY).

I am now up to a point in SOTFS (first DS2 play-through) where I think upgrading my weapon would help. I don't know what to choose!

Generally speaking, faster weapons seem to allow you to strike more often (as less stamina expended per attack) and do more overall damage at the expense of defensive play. But in the most recent boss fight (with multiple foes), I am faring better with a Great-sword, as the attack openings are very small & don't allow for successive hits.

Are most of the bosses like the latter?

Would appreciate some comments and advice!

I always find these threads interesting....thankyou. For my part, Of course it depends on your build and character like mage or melee,then it depends on what you feel comfortable with ....the moveset ,you might have a less powerful weapon but you might be more efficent with it or can you buff it or not. One .....for instance , in DS1 ,I used the broadsword,in DS2 the ba$tard sword worked better early game. As you progress in the game things change and weapons become more available.

[Wolfe]

Try something out of your comfort zone, I went from and rapiers/thrust swords to spears/lances to great clubs in various Dark Souls games, though I still always use a shield, having gone from greatshields with lighter weapons to medium shields with the heavy weapons.

[M I S E R Y]

whips are actually viable.
halberds are generally slow and have 1handed movesets consisting of the exact same attack for the entire moveset, use them if you can hit the sweet spot, but it'll get boring after a while.

there are tons of ultra greatswords and great hammers that are usable with high str, quality weapons are a bit scarce-er than ds3 and it's usually a better idea to dump into the stat that the weapon scales with than 40-40 with str and dex.

there are quite a few spellcaster weapons, and black knight weapons are mostly meant for hexers/pyromancers that also invest heavily into str/dex.