The first milestone of our Any% run is acquiring a legendary weapon from the world boss crocodile. Many runs will be reset right there depending on RNG. Here's a list of all 47 weapons and my thoughts about which one to keep:

Greatswords, these are 5 great choices and all of them are keepers.

• Blade of the Adventurer, highest damage out of all the weapons we can get. Keep in mind that this one has slightly higher stamina cost than other greatswords, so if you have your greatsword combos locked down into muscle memory, you might outstam.
• Baal-pteor's Razor, higher damage than the other 3 below and +5 Encumbrance and no weight, a real keeper.
• The Papyrus Blade
• The Watchblade
• Jedias Greatsaber => Combo notes: 1st light attack is almost same damage as first heavy, but significantly faster and costs less stamina. Otherwise you want to go 2nd-4th with heavy in almost all cases. The chomp attack on the kick button is almost never worth the high stamina cost.

Warhammer (two-handed), slightly lower DPS than greatswords, in my opinion slightly harder to use. All 5 (4) of them are keepers.

• Baal-pteor's Lodestone, +2 Strength, no weight, high damage, best warhammer.
• Forgelight, slightly higher damage then the 2 below and comes with a build in torch, might be useful in the last 3 dungeons.
• Bec-de-Corbin
• Sledge of Tsotha-lanti
• Hanuman's Gada, heighest damage but weight of 50kg. This will force you to skill some Encumbrance early and make it hard to hit 20 Strength for Witch Queen and Undead Dragon fight. If you spent your points before opening the chest, the run will get a lot more difficult. => Combo notes: For free DPS, 1st-2nd heavy, 3rd-4th light. Alternate with 1st light for enemies that have to be staggered, e.g. the Witch Queen.

Mace (one-handed), here we got 4 out of 6 keepers. Overall this is the best weapon type in my eyes for all fights but the Witch Queen's guardians.

• Aja's Bane, +5 Strength, no question this is top tier.
• The Unintelligible, +2 Encumbrance, this helps a little early on with messy inventories.
• The Wyrd
• Momentum, good damage, but 15kg weight. This can work without investing into extra Encumbrance as long as you keep your inventory tidy and do not craft more Aloe Extracts at any time than you'll need.
• The Brittle Bastard, too low durability for a whole run.
• Lovetap, this is a truncheon and does no damage. => Combo notes: Against most bosses you'll spam 1st light attack with off-hand animation cancel. Exceptions are the Witch Queen guardians (1st-3rd heavy) and the Undead Dragon (1st-3rd light into 4th heavy). Off-hand animation cancel will be explained at the end of this guide.

Waraxe, easiest to use weapon with stupid high combo multipliers, all 5 of them are keepers.

• Reaver's Axe, this is the only axe with armor penetration and thus stands out over the others in DPS.
• Axe of the Lion, +5 Strength is obviously a keeper.
• Glimmermoon, slightly higher damage and build in torch.
• Battle-axe of the Berserkers, +50 HP, if you do proper animation cancel through off-hand, you won't lose this buff during fights. Useful for Well of Skelos fight (which is pretty easy with axe though).
• Stangely Familiar Axe, +5 Grit, it helps, but not as good as the others. => Combo notes: Pure DPS, 1st-2nd light into 3rd-4th heavy. Axe's damage lies in those two heavy attacks, so you want to connect them as often as you can. Against Witch Queen use full heavy combo. Against targets that cannot bleed use 2nd heavy for cripple to trigger 20 Strength perk. Always use off-hand animation cancel at the end of your combo, no matter if you are about to continue attacking or stepping aside.

Longsword, these do not have the greatest damage and if you are aiming for an absolute top time, they will end up costing a few seconds on every boss fight which will add up.

• The Bane of Khosatral Khel, +5 Strength sword, obviously standing out above the others.
• El's Drinker
• The Wightblade, +5 Vitality, with off-hand animation cancel you can keep this buff through fights.
• Tulwar of Amir Khurum
• Dueling Blade of the Hawk => Combo notes: For pure DPS, 1st light into 2nd-3rd heavy, off-hand animation cancel and repeat. If you'll be able to perform only one more attack after the 3rd, then proceed to 4th heavy instead of resetting to 1st light. Against Witch Queen guardians 1st-2nd light into 3rd-4th heavy.

All other weapons are not viable. Depending on how quick you want your run to be, there are 18-24 weapons good to use listed above. There are a grand total of 47 weapons in the loot pool.

Quick explanation why other weapons are not viable. Spear: Not enough DPS. Daggers: 4/5 too low durability, unable to hit Witch Queen guardians reliably, too little DPS against bleed immune targets. Katana: Too little DPS. Bow: Too little DPS, no arrows. Shield: Obvious ...

Off-hand animation canceling explained. This works with any off-hand, shield, throwing axe, torch or even a fiber binding. When unsheating a weapon, a pre-defined animation is played during which the character can walk but not sprint, attack or dodge. Sheating a weapon however (the act of putting it away) is instantely. This mechanic we can use to double click the hotbar key for our off-hand item. The animation of taking it out will be cancelled by the immediately following action of putting it away, which will also cancel animation of our main-hand. This technique is nowhere as useful as for mace to allow spamming 1st light attack over and over again, bringing it up to an insane level of DPS. For longsword it allows us to spam the high damage combo light, heavy, heavy. For waraxe it is mostly a tool to quickly get out of our 4th heavy to either "dodge" by walking sidewards or start our next combo.

Side note: When putting away a two-handed weapon, it happens instantly as well. This does not help with maximising DPS, but can be helpful for dodging or side stepping. When dodging out of a combo with a two handed weapon, follow this procedure. Attack ... sheath weapon, dodge, unsheath weapon (while in the last part of the dodge animation when the character stands up), attack or walk.

Last but not least, why does a Waraxe with significantly less damage printed in the info box have such high DPS? Well, combo multipliers is the answer. These are numbers not accessible in the game but only through the developer software. One-handed weapons have lower damage but higher multipliers. To understand the deeper mechanics of the damage, take a look yourself, here I am providing the multiplier numbers in a Google Doc.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RI1UIcajA6ZLkmTyPf722e1yDfILFPCtGsR8absmYA0/edit?usp=sharing

Final thoughts: I did not conduct extensive testing with every weapon against every boss to nail down which one is the absolute very best, though from what I can tell Blade of the Adventurer should outperform all of them. The difference is not that great as the pure damage number in the info box might suggest, since most of the run is spent well ... running. xD