I get that steel sword is for humanoids and silver for monsters, but.. I have a pickaxe that does 14-22 damage, why do I need to forge a silver sword that does 10-17 (+5% bleeding) ?

Also the smith that will forge the silver sword already has a silver sword in stock?

I don't know exactly how it works, but non-silver weapons do abysmal damage against monsters, and vice versa silver swords versus sentients.

No clue how it's calculated, could be -50% flat or so. In any case, you want the correct type of weapon, or you're screwed more or less.

I accidentally forgot to pick up my sword again after fighting the guy near the end of Act 1, only noticed 10 minutes later when running into a group of bandits. Fun fight that was with the silver sword. :P

Does anyone even use anything other than swords?
It feels like all the effort placed into making weapons that aren't swords is wasted effort, swords are the perfect balance having long reach and a fast attack speed.

The extra effort of actually going into the menu and equipping non sword weapons (axes, halberds etc) everytime you want to use them is an additional reason as to why anyone would ever not use the standard steel+silver combo, its just a cumbersome feature imo.

Yeah I felt that way about TW1 - but there was a separate slot for additional weapons. I never used them. But now I find a higher damage weapon, it caused high damage against some town guards, but it must be slow. Hadn't thought about speed. Anyways why have extra weapons if there's not an extra slot, when the game is centered around steel/silver sword?

Also does anyone have any thoughts about the silver sword that is available for purchase? Maybe it's not upgradeable or something?

you will find recipes for at least 3 different silver swords, also you can find a really nice one near the end of chapter 1 if you stick around and look after fighting the arachna, also the good swords have upgrade slots whereas weapons like a pickaxe don't also i'm not sure if your swordsman skills will work with alternate weapons, i have found swords to be the best weapons anyway, once you get good recipes or find a nice one it will be much better than any other weapon, also throwing daggers are very powerfull and you can take down a creature like the endrega queen with 4-5 superb ones without even getting hurt.

No it's listed as a silver sword, it's not a recipe, it's an actual silver sword, in the inventory of the merchant who can also forge one. It's called Silver Plated Sword and in the description it says silver sword

edit: the crafted one is slightly better

Throwing daggers? maybe I'll put points there. Are the daggers placed in your quick slots?

There are no real options to replace your silver sword with another weapon type.

However, the same is not true for your steel swords, at least until the last act where the stats on steel swords get so silly, and I don't believe I ever ran into a different type of weapon that has remotely comparable stats in that act.

Prologue through Act 2 though, there are some neat benefits for using other types of weapons, while the usual downsides are less graceful swinging.

As an example, if you haven't done so, try fighting your way out of the prison rather than sneaking, using a blackjack. ;p It makes you wish all fighting had consistent finishers like that.

yea the daggers go in your quick slots