best weapon styles to use?

[Makeithappen]

I figure slow swinging weapons you'd what the most damage protection for your level like heavy for two-handed weapons. Since the animation recovery is pretty slow.

Ive mostly used daggers and a bow in this game. I tried the short sword and really liked its combos. So what is the best weapon styles do you like to use and why? I wanna try using different stuff and if its worth using.

[BurlsoL]

If you like daggers, try a 1 handed axe and throwing axes or daggers equipped at the same time. It lets you have a similar attack pattern as daggers, but with heavier hits and whatever debuffs your axe provides. Being a thrown weapon in offhand means that you can mix in some ranged attacks. Sabers and throwing daggers also works the same way, but you usually don't get the variety of debuffs (sunder, cripple, bleed) that you do with axes.

Short sword or 1 handed spear is good for hitting only singular enemies, such as when wanting to thin out groups to make it easier to knock out a thrall you want. The lunge and 3x stab and backstep also have their uses.

If I'm traveling with a thrall, I try to have a weapon that sunders or cripples. Sunder for armored enemies, cripple for quick ones that I want to keep focused on me. So I often use axes, maces for sundering, 2 hand sword or 2 handed lance for crippling so I have variety on my hotbar.

[Phlanka]

mace heavy starting attack has super armor meaning you cant be staggered but you take damage, sunders for 2 hits.

[Koumori]

Never thought I'd say this, but I've grown fond of 2h maces ever since the PVE rebalance that significantly reduced the amount of health enemies have. My current build uses 15 corrupted strength and a blackheart hammer, and it kills nearly everything in one or two swings... very satisfying to bonk someone on the head just once and watch them immediately crumple. Maintains respectable DPS against big boys who survive 3+ hits, too (which is basically only bosses).

That being said, it's probably not a good fit for you if you like the rapid combos of the short sword; I can't even get halfway through a 2h mace combo before running out of stamina.

[Jaq]

Katana for life, but pretty much all weapons are viable in PVE in a player's hands. Armor weight, carry weight and grit/stamina buffs also have a big impact on how you can best use the various attack strings of each weapon. Wearing light armor with green encumbrance gives you a dramatically better dodge with which to cancel out of attack animations than heavy armor with red encumbrance, but many players seem not to notice this due to how slowly and gradually they move into the heavyweight lifestyle.

[identity]

I use daggers for bleed on bosses, short sword with fencing mod for insane single target damage, and a katana with fencing mod for multiple enemies and the dash attack to clear out big groups.

[Bnn1]

All these people not stating their build too.

You can't use a 2h mace on a pure agility build, the damage will be less than half of what you can do with a basic agility weapon.

Vice versa, you can't use a 1h sword or javelin on a STR focus build, the damage will be less than half if not only a third of what you can do if you picked a 2h mace.

Rest in peace the people who have no specialisation and decided to "mix" attribute types. Due to Thralls and Player Damage being nerfed constantly (e.g. the current javelin nerf making javelins worse), you need to focus on one attribute type, strength or agility, and put at least 15 points in that. 20 if you want GG damage.

If you want big ♥♥♥♥ damage, you then need to craft armor specifically made for that attribute. Silent Legion for STR for example.

The design of that is abysmal, since there are a few cross-over weapons, like there is 1 agility based 2h sword, but for the majority, Funcom has locked the weapons into attributes.

And due to the way that the game calculates damage dealt you have still this meta pattern. The orders are descending, the BEST is the first, the worst is mentioned last.

For one handed AOE:
Mace > Axe/Javelin[x] > Javelin[x] > Long Sword

For one handed Single target:
Shortsword/Mace[1] > Axe/Javelin[x] > Javelin[x] > Longsword

For two handed AOE:
2hmace/2haxe[3] > 2h sword > Spear/Katana[2]

For two hand single target:
2hmace/2haxe[3] > 2h sword/Katana[2] > Spear[4]

For Debuff:
Daggers[5] > any other weapon that can debuff [arrows, axe heavy, katana heavy]

Bows:
Suck damage and fire-rate wise, I never use them. If anything, any bow works, just pick highest damage one.

Arrows [offensive]:
Obsidian > Starmetal > Black Ice/HS > all the others

Arrows [debuff]:
Gas/Firespark Arrow > Explosive Arrow > Set Arrow > all the others

Arrows [Support]:
Gas[6] > [nothing nothing nothing] > Healing[7] > Light [if you need lighting]

The correlation is simple: all the Strength based weapons are the GOAT. Daggers are the GOAT for even a newbie player to slay Gods with. Javelin are the GOAT for new players and for solo fighting easy to advanced enemies and to plink away at a Boss.

[1] - tied because of the fast animation vs damage falloff
[2] - Katana appears "good" damage wise, but is terrible due to severe AOE issues
[3] - tied because of 2h axe heavy attack being supreme AOE GOAT
[4] - Spears have reach but insanely slow attack speed due to animation limitations, making them terrible in PVE unless the enemy uses them against you
[5] - Stone daggers can be used to kill Demon enemies and even WorldBosses without dying and as a naked level 1, as soon as you get iron daggers you can instantly solo one phase no healing any% speedrun every WorldBoss and farm skeleton keys. You can kill any Boss that can bleed with any dagger by just spamming HEAVY for 20 bleed
[6] - Gas arrows are a better "support" arrow, if your Thrall or co-players wear gas masks, than any other
[7] - Healing Arrows are useless. They used to actually heal, but a long time ago they were nerfed into their present unusable state in which they provide miniscule food-level healing over a short amount in a very tiny area, skip making those
[x] - Javelin tied because of their light attack. Don't throw them, spam light attack, they are as good as axe, almost as good as mace, some Javelin types and animation finishers even better than Mace. A very touchy topic, Javelins

[Phlanka]

Forget firespark arrows, use acid arrows instead, its can be applied to almost anything including most undead and bosses too, plus it stacks.

[robert-ii]

Flexability is the 2nd doctrine of The Way of Glorious Victory.
the 3 tactical doctrines are: Mobilty, Flexability, and Initiative.

The skillful warrior of old remains flexable at all times, able to respond to the changing situations of the theatre of war

[Wotannatow]

The things you want to pay attention to is weapon category - strength or agility so you can maximise your damage bonus with your weapon.
Second you want the highest damage and armour pen values you can get
Thirdly you probably want the sunder ability as 5 stacks of sunder means completely negated armour buff. If you have a thrall - equip them with a Momentum or Quake with a master weapon fitting on them and watch how they tear through even bosses.
A very nice weapon to complent a thrall using Momentum is using Heartsblood daggers yourself - not only do you get the bleed stacked on enemies (except undead) you also get the gouging ability that applies a DOT on undead enemies.

[Half-Vampire]

1handed Mace No Off-hand
- Super Armour, Sunder, Knockdown.

1handed Sword & Throwing Axe Dual Wield
- Gap Closer, Fast, Knockdown.

I love the attack animation, looks really cool and violent.