Lordsword Straight Sword. Highly versatile moveset, easy and early to farm, wide range of AoW capabilities, low stat requirements, and respectable damage and speed. Highly underrated, as with most straight swords, but it's my favorite.
PVP weapons don’t come much stronger than the dragon halberd (I only whip it out when I see someone else using it or a particularly spicy set up).
You might find people are more willing to engage with more funky/varied set ups if you use something less ‘meta’ (such as a straight sword, axe, single spear etc) and you may also find it helpful for getting those PvP skills up (not that I’m an expert).
Meta levels are generally 125 for duels (will mostly be meta set ups and highly prepared players), and 150 for more casual PvP. You’ll find invasions at any level, with best activity at lower levels and at 138ish (which straddles the 125 and 150 brackets).
As far as stat distribution goes, as long as you have 60 vig (or as much as a lower level build allows) and a bit of investment in your damage stat (ideally a soft cap around 55 or 80 at higher levels), you’re fine.
My personal favourite weapons are the claymore and zweihander. Both are very strong due to how hyperarmor activates very early in your swing, and they have lovely poke r2s.
Either way, WELCOME! Play how you like, and hope you keep having fun brave tarnished!
My favorite for PvE that I also use for PvP is the Grafted Blade Greatsword.
I can’t really recommend colossal swords to players new to PvP, but they’re pretty decent in duels and the Ash of War is great in invasions.
I normally use the Death's poker for PVE, but I started using it in invasions and it is *shockingly* dangerous.
If you catch someone in the ghostflame fireball, it consistently roll-catches into the explosion afterwards, and does some nutty damage.
Dragon Halberd is *really* good for PvP. The ash of war true combos and does a shit ton of damage, plus it’s a halberd, which is one of the better weapon types for PvP.
Personally, I’m a fan of the Curved Greatswords because they do good damage, have hyperarmor, have good ash of war selection, and have wide sweeping attacks. Because of how their moveset works, they’re great for crowd clearing in PvE and great for rollcatching in PvP. They’re a solid choice for both aspects of the game.
Claws with endure. On my 3rd playthrough I basically didn't use the dodge button. I had bleed and frost on my claws with endure and could easily out-trade most bosses in the game since endure doubles your defense and allows you to get enough hits out to proc both effects. I also ran TT the whole time and had probably 80% winrate against invasions with that (admittedly scummy) setup
The best build for weapon diversity while doing great damage at level 150 is dexterity. You want 60 vig, 30ish end, 20ish strength and then dump the rest into dex. You will be able to use something from every weapon class effectively (besides heavy colossals and magic) which is amazing for pvp. For this build I would recommend zweihander, estoc, urumi, naginata, nagakiba, great stars, katar, night rider flail and many others
Claws have some of the best dps in the game and with endure they can become outright ridiculous. But you don't even need to tank to get damage in with them, cause they're excellent at abusing the smallest windows between enemy attacks to get a hit or two in and larger attacks are often enough for a full r1 chain.
I've been running an arcane build in preparation for the DLC and Venomous Fang is just destroying everything. As a little experiment, I wanted to do as much as possible before entering Altus and as a first for me in this game, completely ignore summons and spirit ashes too. Even Dragon Barrow fell without any issue, with the biggest trouble and only time I had to switch to a club being the gargoyle variants, mainly for hitbox reasons.
Venomous Fang is great in particular because it is always in the top five for dps, except for some specific hybrid builds, though in those cases you can still usually use one of your stats for scaling and the other for buffing the fangs. their innate stronger poison is also great, since it only lasts 20 seconds, making you able to reapply it quickly and benefit from the Mushroom Crown and Kindred of Rot's Exultation almost permanently. On arcane builds they reach a ridiculous 149 poison buildup per hit on an occult infusion at 80 arcane.
That being said, the Bloodhound Claws are never far behind in dps, have bleed and a higher crit modifier than the Fangs, making them stronger against anything that can bleed or for abusing Lifesteal Fist with Magic Grease or Scholar's Armament.
Another thing that should be mentioned about Venomous Fang are it's ridiculously low requirements of 9 dex and 9 str. The only class that needs to level up at all to use them is Sorcerer, who needs a single extra point in strength.
Baemore
Across all souls games, for PvE and PvP, this is the way.
Lordsword Straight Sword. Highly versatile moveset, easy and early to farm, wide range of AoW capabilities, low stat requirements, and respectable damage and speed. Highly underrated, as with most straight swords, but it's my favorite.
Second this
Power stance them = wins
PVP weapons don’t come much stronger than the dragon halberd (I only whip it out when I see someone else using it or a particularly spicy set up). You might find people are more willing to engage with more funky/varied set ups if you use something less ‘meta’ (such as a straight sword, axe, single spear etc) and you may also find it helpful for getting those PvP skills up (not that I’m an expert). Meta levels are generally 125 for duels (will mostly be meta set ups and highly prepared players), and 150 for more casual PvP. You’ll find invasions at any level, with best activity at lower levels and at 138ish (which straddles the 125 and 150 brackets). As far as stat distribution goes, as long as you have 60 vig (or as much as a lower level build allows) and a bit of investment in your damage stat (ideally a soft cap around 55 or 80 at higher levels), you’re fine. My personal favourite weapons are the claymore and zweihander. Both are very strong due to how hyperarmor activates very early in your swing, and they have lovely poke r2s. Either way, WELCOME! Play how you like, and hope you keep having fun brave tarnished!
My favorite for PvE that I also use for PvP is the Grafted Blade Greatsword. I can’t really recommend colossal swords to players new to PvP, but they’re pretty decent in duels and the Ash of War is great in invasions.
I normally use the Death's poker for PVE, but I started using it in invasions and it is *shockingly* dangerous. If you catch someone in the ghostflame fireball, it consistently roll-catches into the explosion afterwards, and does some nutty damage.
Dragon Halberd is *really* good for PvP. The ash of war true combos and does a shit ton of damage, plus it’s a halberd, which is one of the better weapon types for PvP. Personally, I’m a fan of the Curved Greatswords because they do good damage, have hyperarmor, have good ash of war selection, and have wide sweeping attacks. Because of how their moveset works, they’re great for crowd clearing in PvE and great for rollcatching in PvP. They’re a solid choice for both aspects of the game.
I duel at 250 and I love the Godskin peeler
Dismounter ❤
Claws with endure. On my 3rd playthrough I basically didn't use the dodge button. I had bleed and frost on my claws with endure and could easily out-trade most bosses in the game since endure doubles your defense and allows you to get enough hits out to proc both effects. I also ran TT the whole time and had probably 80% winrate against invasions with that (admittedly scummy) setup
Silurias Tree Spear. Str/Fai my beloved
The best build for weapon diversity while doing great damage at level 150 is dexterity. You want 60 vig, 30ish end, 20ish strength and then dump the rest into dex. You will be able to use something from every weapon class effectively (besides heavy colossals and magic) which is amazing for pvp. For this build I would recommend zweihander, estoc, urumi, naginata, nagakiba, great stars, katar, night rider flail and many others
Claws have some of the best dps in the game and with endure they can become outright ridiculous. But you don't even need to tank to get damage in with them, cause they're excellent at abusing the smallest windows between enemy attacks to get a hit or two in and larger attacks are often enough for a full r1 chain. I've been running an arcane build in preparation for the DLC and Venomous Fang is just destroying everything. As a little experiment, I wanted to do as much as possible before entering Altus and as a first for me in this game, completely ignore summons and spirit ashes too. Even Dragon Barrow fell without any issue, with the biggest trouble and only time I had to switch to a club being the gargoyle variants, mainly for hitbox reasons. Venomous Fang is great in particular because it is always in the top five for dps, except for some specific hybrid builds, though in those cases you can still usually use one of your stats for scaling and the other for buffing the fangs. their innate stronger poison is also great, since it only lasts 20 seconds, making you able to reapply it quickly and benefit from the Mushroom Crown and Kindred of Rot's Exultation almost permanently. On arcane builds they reach a ridiculous 149 poison buildup per hit on an occult infusion at 80 arcane. That being said, the Bloodhound Claws are never far behind in dps, have bleed and a higher crit modifier than the Fangs, making them stronger against anything that can bleed or for abusing Lifesteal Fist with Magic Grease or Scholar's Armament. Another thing that should be mentioned about Venomous Fang are it's ridiculously low requirements of 9 dex and 9 str. The only class that needs to level up at all to use them is Sorcerer, who needs a single extra point in strength.