I'm two-handing a shortsword. It's great. Primary attack is a fast sweep with good reach for crowd control. The secondary attack is the real deal, though. It's a stabbing move with decent range that staggers most enemies. So you can get 3-4 hits in no problem and it works in tight spaces.

Using the craftsman hammer upgraded to +5. It's a wrecking ball!!

Been using it since I found it and am near the end of the game now.

I'm started to get slightly irked when I keep finding weapons with high STR requirements that have much better scaling in DEX. It's like we're getting trolled in weapon stats too.

I've been using a mace for quite awhile, have it at +5 now with 38 STR so it's scaled nicely. Just waiting to find and even better weapon. I have plenty of huge swords and clubs but they are all too slow for my liking.

I just found a mace of the imbecile, I think its called. Something like that. Its a full on mace, but also acts as a chime and lets you cast miracles and hexes. Its not very strong on either as compared to a regular mace or chime. But it cuts out having to switch. And the casting speed is pretty good also. And its fooled a few people in PvP. They run in because they just see the little mace against their ultra greatsword and I cast super fast great lightning bolts to stun them. Its pretty great. Not so great for PvE though.

I just traded for the Chariot Lance(which was my favorite boss fight so far) and I'm quite disappointed in the damage and moveset. I might keep it around since it is a pretty safe weapon behind a shield. The Dragonrider Bow so far though is excellent. I'll probably just start upgrading the Club since I don't know if I'll find a better one handed strength weapon.

Sorcerer , with Staff of wisdom and Moonlight greatsword , both of them hit like a truck lol

I just beat the game a couple hours ago. I played a high strength character, believe I ended up at 50 strength. My weapons of choice were a +10 Mastodon Greatsword, a +10 Varangian Sword (low durability but they have very high damage for a straight sword), +10 Hiede Sword, +3 Dragonrider Bow (if you are a strength character this bow is must have, first time a bow has ever felt "powerful" to me in a souls game), and +4 Defender's Shield (probably the best shield all around in game). Honorable mention should go to the +10 Fire Longsword, it was my go to weapon for a long long time but it got out paced by the time I hit 30-35 strength, a +6 Royal Greatsword I experimented with a bunch (love the moveset but bleed seems weak to me), and the Red Rust Sword.... if I had twinkling to spare I know you would be a monster!

Oh and I guess the Drangelic Shield. It did serve me the vast majority of the game save a few specific fights until I got the Defender.

Went back to using the Greatsword (Ultra) and have it maxed out. Got the Firesword maxed on standby as well as a Mastodon Greatsword embued with Magic, just for the hell of it.

I've done some playing around with the great swords. the royal great sword has the move set of the claymore and you can get one extra swing in but the damage is not as good.

the mastadon great sword has the bastard sword overhand r2 which isn't a patch on the thrust, but at +10 it has 300 base damage and scales A with strength, giving me 458 total damage , at 40 strength. very nice.

however, a claymore +10 with lightning added does 476, and I only have 10 faith. of course that's split damage but lots of enemies seem weak to lightning, and it does damage even through shields that block 100% physical.

finally, the unique swords. red rust at +4 does 191 damage and scales A with strength, to give 374. drangleic even at +2 already does 223 base, giving 363 overall, although that is probably due to the B scaling in dex, and I have 26 dex.

so in conclusion. the red rust sword doesn't seem as good as the drangleic, though it is also a slightly smaller sword so you get in an extra swing. drangleic definitely better for a quality build.

and if you add lightning to a +10 sword, it will do more damage, to almost everyone, but not by much. against the hollows by McDuff, there is a 10% damage difference between the mastodon +10 and the lightning claymore +10

so in conclusion, all options are fine, though the biggest damage output for normally upgraded weapons will be the mastadon lightning +10. however, you can power stance the claymore and red rust sword, but not any combination of the other swords, so that is worth considering, and the r2 thrust only happens on drangleic, claymore and royal .

edit: just tested the mastadon with lightning at +10. it actually does about 20 points less damage than the lightning claymore. no idea why. worth noting that the msstadon also weighs twice as much.

so in actual conclusion, stick with the claymore? it also has ten points more counter damage. odd. my character status screen says the mastadon should do 500 damage comoasred to 476 for the claymore. hmm

red rust sword also does more 2h damage by about 15% than the drangleic,and when you 2h the mastadon it does about 50 points more damage than the 2h claymore.

My Fire Longsword hasn't done me wrong yet. Yet.

Thanks @zevvion and others for the hint on Titanite Chunk farming at Belfry Luna. I actually had some fun with the PvP, but I got lucky when invading some worlds that already had another invader in there. At any rate I just got the 6 that I needed and left because I didn't want to do too much griefing. With that said, it seems like the further we get out from the release, the longer it would take to farm as the masses of players pass through the area, so I'm tempted to stock up for a few future weapons or armor.

So, I've upgraded the Halberd to +10 and while I'm enjoying the mix of damage + range + having the flexibility to use a thrust attack with shield up as always, I thought that I'd get a little more damage at +10. I've had a pretty easy time with bosses recently though, but I've just now made it past the Gutter and much harder bosses await at Iron Keep and beyond.

Oh man, that sounds great! If you have the ability to video capture, would love to see this in action!

I've been trying to think of an alternate sword to my Greatsword +10 and I think you just convinced me to go with the Claymore. The Mastodon Greatsword looks better, but it weighs twice as much and the heavy attack on the Claymore is just too damn good.

Once I found the Bastard Sword I haven't looked elsewhere. I have it at +7 right now and need to get more chunks to finish upgrading.

In DaS1 the Zweihander was a popular STR weapon because even though other weapons could technically do more damage on one strike, the heavy attack had a phenomenal AoE (against poise I presume) which would cause enemies to be knocked down giving you time to recover and even land additional hits (which resulted in more damage - I admit I fell victim to it's charms: Zwei +15, Grass Crest Shield, and Havel's Set was a popular build and let you "Vinny"* your way through anything). So we know it's important to consider not only the #s but also the animations, stamina use, etc, but also any other fun effects a weapon might have.

With all of that said, I haven't gotten the Zwei in DaS2 yet. Do we know if it still has that effect? Has anyone really messed with it? Are there any other 'hidden' effects that people have found from other weapons (Clubs, greatsword, etc)?

I should be getting to the Iron Keep soon, so I am excited to try it again, though my armor is not good enough yet to "Vinny"* bosses. The other thing is, the regular upgrade path only goes to +10 vs. +15.

*Definition of "Vinny" - walk forward, mash attack + estus flasks. Iron Flesh as well - super fun to watch as Ian and Rorie's reactions showed during LOLS.

Don't feel bad. If you're invading people just don't be a dick. Bow first and if you see them being hesitant, just move to the bonfire so that if they die they can instantly retrieve their souls. It's not a big deal. More importantly, invading as a grey spirit is never grieving. The Grey Spirits are summoned and do not invade. They can only be summoned in area's specific for PvP. You do not need to be in those area's if you're just playing the game singleplayer. If you're there, you're there for PvP. No need to feel bad.

Thanks. You know, this might not be the place for this, BUT, I was wondering about Belfry Luna (haven't gotten to Sol yet). In DaS1, ringing the bells was very specifically part of the story. Even though DaS2 so far has been way better at explaining the lore/world/story then DaS1, I realized after ringing the bell and killing the Gargoyles, that I didn't really know why I just did that haha. Are the Belfrys then specifically for PvP? Not asking for spoilers here - If there is a story part that I missed, you can just say that it's explained later on?

@thiago123: The Gargolyes are completely optional. I do not believe ringing in bell in either places has any effect. I'm not sure though. But I didn't notice anything and there were a lot of messages saying 'Hurrah for pointless' at the levers.

But I haven't fully delved into it. There probably is some explanation for it. Just like the Dragonslayer stuff.

Is Bellbro PVP level restrictive? I'm 151 right now and I want to start doing Bell Tower PVP, but I'm afraid I'm too high level. Is it a popular enough spot that I'll run into people my level?

@lukeweizer: I have no idea. I was on the other side of it, I was in the Bell Keeper Covenant. I abandoned the covenant after Shrine of Amana. I'm guessing I was around lvl 130 there and I was still getting summoned.

I wish I were better at aiming ultra greatswords and great hammers, otherwise i would be using them. I've been rocking the club and mace for a while now.

Not going to get better unless you practice.

@lukeweizer:

I'm wearing havels set and just found the dragon tooth, so I feel obligated to get my str to 50 to start using it regardless of how good it is.

A falchion and that flame sword I forgot the location of where it came from.

Wearing an almost fully upgraded Heide Knight set. Weapons are a +10 Claymore w/ lightning, a +10 Mace of the Insolent w/ lightning, and the Bow of Want for ranged poisoning and pulling. Tower Shield +10 for blocking. Great Lightning Spears and Great Heals spells etc. Should have Sunlight Spear after I get a couple more skeptic's spices.

Rings are Chloranthy +1, Binding, Soldiers +1 and the fourth switches around. Try to keep my equip load in to 60s. My Faith is at 45 so that helps scale all my lightning junk I guess.

Final equipment:

Black With Staff +10, Magic Greatsword +10, Towershield +5

Armour: Saint's Hood +5, Faraam Armour +10, Jester Gloves +10, Faraam greaves +10

Rings mostly consist of Chloranthy Ring +1, Second Dragon Ring, Binding, mostly quartz rings\Old Sun Ring (for fun)

Heide's knight sword so far, I tried replacing it with a bastard sword but it seemed to do less damage so I switched back.

Seriously though, the club is too good. I want to switch weapons, but it does so much damage so quickly. I also think I'm overlevelled, I'm at 113 with 35 in strength (on an A strength scaling!) at Aldia's Keep, just after getting the King's Ring. Any opinions? I feel like I'm just TEARING through guys, and it's getting boring, so I'm probably going to switch to something that does a little less damage. Maybe force myself to change by throwing away my club.

@melvargh: There's guys coming up with better clubs (well, for them) than your club, try to club them to death.

Using Halberd +10, Mastodon Halberd + 6, Large Club + 4, Drangleic Sword, and Full Moon Sickle at present in the no bonfire run, mixing in the Dark Scythe and the Black Scorpion Stinger from time to time.

Been using the Drangleic Sword so far, but after reaching 40 STR/ 40 DEX, I switched to the Sun Sword (double A scaling). For PVP, I'm using the Sun Sword in combination with a Poison Twinblade and it is beast!!!

Heide knight sword is perfect for my "paladin" character. It scales well, it's got good stats. The move set is flashy and fun, it's got higher durability than most weapons. All around great weapon.

(it drops off that sleepy big white knight in forest of fallen giants, dont worry he's not an NPC kill him without worry. he is tough though)

I forgot what it's called, but its a huge ass club (might just be called great club, or ultragreat club, or whatever). It scales A with strength (S if you upgrade it enough) and is pretty fucking fast for how huge/powerful it is. Im doing like 400 damage right now and Im only level 83 (sounds weird saying that, but from what I understand that's a low level). Have it at plus 5 right now. I see it taking me through a huge chunk of the game.

Before that, I was using the drangleic sword +1 (the strong attack when 1 handing with it is great. one stab and a quick turn around slash. First weapon in a souls game where I used the heavy attack more than the regular). Before that the same mace Brad was using in the first ds2 video.

In DS1 I went with a medium dex build that used a fully upgraded uchigatana or chaos blade, if I had some humanity stacked up. Having a lot of fun being a strength build in ds2; feel like such a bad ass. Hopefully I find a great sword or ultra great sword that suits my liking, cause it'd be way cooler carrying one of those around, as opposed to this huge club. So far no luck.

@narujoe93: The 2 handed club R2 is pretty incredible once you're good at timing it/ranging it; don't press it twice though.

Anyone have some suggestions for a good Mundane Weapon? I'm currently playing a magic based character, and am intrigued by the revers-scaling. Of course, since you can enchant imbuned weapons, it would probable be better to reinforce the weapons I already have.

Also, this makes me realize that Mundane weapons are going to be monstrous on VIG-gouge builds.

with 20 lowstat, mundane Avelyn is a total beast. Generally, everything that hits fast, base damage does not really matter as much. Twinblades may finally be useful, or true Santier's Spear I can see being good too, what with it having a Twinblade-esque moveset as well as regular spearpokes, depending on 1 or 2-handing. But you do realize that all your stats need to be 20 for this to work well, I hope. You can go above it but diminishing returns kick in hard and your SL would have to be very high.

So 20 has to your lowest stat? That makes more sense than what I imagined but also makes it worthless fo that build. It was probably already worthless anyway given the aforementioned enchanting, though.

Mundane scaling scales off of whatever stat is lowest, so you have to raise everything somewhat equally, with 1 or two exceptions. I'm SL 170 and have 20 everything except Vigor, Int and Faith at 30, if I recall correctly. My build is more based around hexes than mundane, which I only really use on Avelyn, but if I really want to cheese the game, all I have to do is use hexes and Avelyn and few things will ever touch me.

17 hours in, using the Bastard Sword. I like being able to one hand it with a shield in new areas, then switch to two-handed in familiar territory.

I was still using my Halberd until just recently, but when I was having a bit of trouble with the Skeleton Lord I decided to try out the Large Club, since my Mace was not cutting it against all those skeletons. Despite focusing mostly on strength I never really bothered using it, because I don't like big slow weapons, but it's surprisingly fast for such a big weapon and has pretty versatile moveset. After completely destroying the skeletons I decided to keep using it, especially since it went up to an S scaling in strength at only +2. I want to replace it eventually, because it's not really my style of weapon, but I'll keep using it for now.

I hope Titanite is easier to come by soon. Part of the reason I've stuck to my Halberd is because I already sunk the majority of my titanite into it.

After getting sick of the Heide Knight Sword I swore by the Bastard Sword for most of the game, that 1H R2 is beautiful.

I'm starting to fall in love with the Defender Greatsword though. Kind of bummed a lot of cool weapons are found much later but at least in this game's NG+ has all kinds of new surprises.

+5 Black knight halberd, pumped 35 into str and 27 into dex, having 21 in both faith and int makes this weapon godly...its "decent" for pvp but I'm a god in pve. Also using a +5 Dragonriders bow and +10 black Witch's staff, loving the combo.

I keep a poisoned mace of the insolent which also does lightning and dark dmg, but the poison effect doesnt kick in fast enough since my target is usually dead before they are even poisoned, sucks I wasted so many stones on it but whatever.

Earlier in the game i was using the chariot lance (because we finally have lances !), the roaring halberd, and bone scythe but they were all just so mediocre :-/, I wanted to love those weapons so badly too. I wished they would have gave each boss weapon a unique side affects and attacks absent in ALL normal weapons.

Does anyone know what boss soul weapons I should make? I have quite a few I have never turned in at all and don't know whats good or what scales well. I like using sword and shield and have been doing str/stam/dex leveling. I capped my poise at 20.

I'm bummed that all the boss weapons that have cool effects are tied to the durability. And it takes off 10 each time which is horrible. I'd compromise at 5 maybe. Or just none because even though the effects are cool they don't seem all that great.

Mastadon Halberd with dagger for backstabs. I don't think many people yet understand how powerful that tutorial dagger is. It one-shots everything that can get backstabbed.

+10 normal Mastadon Halberd is amazing, especially since you can get infinite gold pine resin this time around. I am not exaggerating at all when I say I won about 15-20 pvp fights in a row with it, on the "bridge of want" to the final boss. The follow-up thrusting attack is what'll fuck people. I'm not even good at PVP. I'm not sure why I was doing so well, but I think it was the halberd. By the time I went back to my covenant "master" I was informed I had 10 offerings more than maximum for that covenant (the Dragon covenant... super disappointing, by the way... I'd take 'rigor mortis dragon/rat face' over 'golden armor' any day).

@development: That armor is incredibly good for its weight, but yeah, not a huge fan either.

One thing I don't really like is how many pieces of armor have special effects on them, especially for casters. Wanna have max cast speed? Gotta use that ugly-ass Lion Mage set, bro. Boo to that, I like to play Fashion Souls, dammit. I wish they'd kept those effects to rings.

Anyway on my cleric now I'm using Lightning Mace and Lightning Priest's chime. On my SL170 dark knight type dude I use Dark Crypt Blacksword, Dark Moonlight Greatsword, Mundane Avelyn, Dark Caithe's chime and very rarely Dark Sunset Staff, but all the good hexes use chimes so that's very rare. Also Dark Pyro Glove. Kinda wanna upload a pic of that character because he looks badass.

@oni: @development: I mean, you'd rather look like a ridiculous cartoon than a badass, that's reasonable. It's not as idiosyncratic as "You Defeated." You don't have to play overpowered builds you realize, that's what's ultimately going to kill the PvP again is boring, uncreative people.

shield and sword combo if possible

I used the Drangleic Sword until upgrading my Claymore to +10, at the end I was dual wielding two +10 Claymores, also the Dragonrider Bow and about a million fire/magic/lighting/iron/dark arrows.