A lot of people posted a lot of good tips here so I ' m just going to share my personal experience mainly in the Nightmare level as I think the weapons dynamic differ a bit at different level . 2 H Sword is great at clearing horde behind shield mates . No so great against SV in a tight spot even with Devastating Blow . Berserking and Swift Slaying charged are just to unreliable . Not the best weapon against ogre either . 1 H Axe is very good at clearing SV but need to have Devastating Blow to help interrupt them . Its charged attack is quick enough to deal headshot on 1 target after a push . Otherwise , just dodge leftright and do normal attacks can work too since it has amour penetration . Not the best weapon against horde . So so against ogre . Get Bloodlust , BerserkingSwift Slaying Normal on it would help . Rapier is great at clearing horde , i believe it is the fastest weapon in the game . Just get DB to help push and disperse rats if you get surrounded . It wasn ' t great against SV and ogre until I got Heroic Killing Blow on it which kind of synergies with its amour penetration charged attack meaning even if HKB doesn ' t proc , you ' ll still do max damage to SV . I ' ve killed fair amount of ogres with HKB even though it only has 3 % proc chance , seems to proc a lot more often than that . You can get a least 45 stab in behind the ogre if he is attacking your teammate . Bloodlust or regrowth are both good on it since you ' ll definitely hit and kill something with it often . Volley Crossbow is very good for killing ogre as you can quickly unload the full clip of 15 bolts with its charged shot with 5 clicks . The reload is just way too slow so you pretty much have to switch to your melee once you emptied your clip else you ' ll get yourself killed . I ' ve spent a lot of tokens to get ammo holder , extra capacity and Hail of Doom to max its DPS but I don ' t use it now as it is not very good at anything else beside killing ogre . Repeater Pistol is very good at killing specials and SV in midclose range , doesn ' t even need to use charged shot since it shoots very fast anyway . I ' ve got Rapture , Master Crafted and Ammo Holder on it so it is quite amazing in thinning horde and SV patrol as I can shoot and reload super fast especially if you ' ve learned how to aim for the head and compensate the recoil . I only use the charged shot on ogre when he is not near me else i stab him with my HKB rapier . Brace of Pistols was my favorite until I get my Repeater Pistol as I don ' t like the turret mode when doing charged shot . Not being able to move around quickly is just too dangerous in NM . It is good if you can get Targeteer and Skull Cracker on it for killing range target .