Weapons

You do not need to collect all weapons. However, having a large collection of these would help you to pick and choose the items that suit your play style.

Choose the melee weapons you are comfortable with to help you defeat all or some mandatory bosses as quickly as possible. No matter which melee weapons you choose, you should know when to use which weapons against which enemies and bosses. Stick to a small number of melee weapons to help you easily remember and quickly swap to the required weapon. For example, have about three melee weapons that you will use throughout the challenge run. Move all other weapons to storage to prevent your inventory from clutter.

For crowd control, you require a long weapon that has a horizontal swing such as the one-handed R1 of the Greatsword. In 1-on-1 combat situations you might prefer a weapon having a faster attack animation than the Greatsword, such as the Red Iron Twinblade. In other cases you might require a weapon having an even faster attack animation. Any of the rapier class of weapons would do.

Consider equipping a main weapon that you will use the majority of the time while dashing to various boss arenas. The purpose of this main weapon is to help you clear enemies as required. Lightning is usually the general-purpose elemental buff for your main weapon. Also consider infusing your main weapon with a Boltstone. Any of the ultra greatswords is a good choice as a main weapon to help you quickly dispatch of enemies.

Limit your use of shields to a minimum and only whenever necessary. You can certainly sprint to the boss arenas while blocking with a shield. Shields can also be used to parry various enemies. Any of the Buckler, Target Shield, or Parrying Dagger is a good choice. Parrying is optional. Do not feel like you need to know how to parry some, most, or all enemies. Your main weapon should usually be good enough to get rid of most enemies you need to fight.

You might find the following weapons useful:

• Curved Dragon Greatsword, Curved Nil Greatsword, Murakumo. The one-handed R1 can be used for crowd control. Use the two-handed R1 against strong enemies and some bosses. The attack and recovery animation is rather slow. Time your attack strategically.
• Any ultra greatswords, such as Black Knight Ultra Greatsword and Greatsword. The one-handed R1 is excellent for crowd control. The one-handed R1 can be used against NPC invading phantoms because the horizontal swing covers a wide trajectory.
• The Dragonrider Twinblade, Red Iron Twinblade, and Stone Twinblade should be wielded two-handed. The two-handed R1 is rather fast and can deal high damage when fully upgraded. Ideal for use in 1-on-1 fights.
• The Espada Ropera, Estoc, and Ice Rapier are excellent for dealing quick succession of R1 attacks. Useful against fast and agile enemies as well as bosses who are vulnerable to thrust attacks.
• Any great shield, especially Havel's Greatshield. Use a great shield to block an attack, then go in for the punish. The Havel's Greatshield+5 should be the only general-purpose shield you need for the challenge run.
• Blossom Kite Shield. Boosts your Stamina regeneration. The effect stacks with Green Blossom and the Chloranthy Ring. The shield has high poison resistance, even higher than that of Havel's Greatshield. A poison infusion would grant the shield 100% poison resistance, especially useful when you run through The Gutter and the Black Gulch.
• Blue Dagger. While equipped, the weapon boosts the damage of your spells by 5%, but at the cost of a debuff in fire, lightning, magic, and dark defense. Wield this weapon in the left hand while you cast sorcery with a staff in the right hand. Do not wield the weapon as you negotiate your path through the Shrine of Amana.