About Blade/Blunt Effectiveness and stats etc.

[Daemos Avetorii]

This is a question for those who are good with mathematics. (which I am not)

Looking at Blade/Blunt weapons, there are several stats to look at:

Range
Speed
Fatigue Spendation on normal hit
Fatigue Spendation on power attack
Stagger chance on foe (and possible variable duration depending on weapon used)
Damage rating
Decay rate (how quick it need to be repaired)
And maybe another unmarked stat which is the extent to which using a weapon while blocking (without shield) affects how much your character is staggered. Ie, would a Claymore block better than a Shortsword?

Would it be hypothetically possible to extrapolate which of the following weapons has the most averaged/general efficient balance between those stats?

Dagger
Shortsword
Longsword
Claymore
War Axe
Mace
Battle Axe
War Hammer

[legoless]

I always felt like longswords have the best DPS balance/fatigue tradeoff, but I don't have any maths to back it up. Although, if you use some clever enchanting, daggers can become overpowered thanks to their ability to hit so quickly.

[MetaCthulhu]

I did some quick back-of-the-envelope math, and this is what I came up with:

First, the assumptions:

1. I statistical weighted the value of speed and reach as the same (almost never true, but I'll explain later)
2. I only compared fatigue spendation in the class I calculated from the best balance of speed and reach (best balance in this calculation being speed + reach)
3. I used weapon weight as the only factor in fatigue spendation
4. I didn't factor in Stagger chance
5. I didn't factor in blocking
6. I did rate by a damage/weight ratio

Given all these assumes (several of which aren't entirely true, but set a good start point)I can say that the best base weapon in the game is...
Either the Fine Iron Claymore or the Fine Steel Claymore. Woopee! All claymores have a reach + speed of 2.1, and of those the Fine Claymores have the best damage to weight ratios. The Fine Steel Claymore has a slightly lower Damage/weight ratio, but it also degrades slower.

Obviously, if we change statistical weight of speed or reach, factor in blocking, factor in Stagger chance, factor in correct fatigue spendation, factor in weapon decay, and give all those values the correct statistical weight, we will get a different result.