I use a Climber’s Pick tier II with a base damage of 17 and with my attribute bonus I reach 25 damage and with my Weeping Earth tier II, I reach 38 damage with the Weeping Earth. I don’t know how the armor or other icon on armor pieces (I presume posture modifier) affects damage reduction, if it’s percentage or flat modifier based, but it seams to penalize one big attack harder than a lot of smaller attack. Which leads to me point, heavy weapons feels weaker that lighter weapons, I can land 2-3 attack with my Climber’s Pick in the same time I get one attack of with my Weeping Earth. That I my perspective means lighter weapons have higher DPS.
Also when attacking with my Weeping Earth I easily get knocked out of the attack by even small daggers, and because enemies are often faster the the player I get killed before I can get my attack of, which feels bad.
I want to use big heavy weapons, but so far they just feels bad to use. Compared to lighter weapons who hold all the advantages in my opinion. My first try of an fix would be to increase the poise or anti-stagger when in the attack animation and increase the attack speed just a bit.
Hope you get my point.