(Copy - paste from my answer to another person asking that exact question) "I have had to make this choice too recently, and my research on the sword vs. BW question seems to be summed up as follows: Swords are a common weapon, since heroes (the most popular warrior) uses swords. This makes finding good swords and scrolls easy, but a lot more expensive. Swords also typically have faster attack speed, compared to BW's. (except the ultimate lategame BW). BW's are rare and dirt cheap (all scrolls typically found in fm for 100-500k tops). The optimal end game pally uses a one-handed BW called "Crushed skull" (http://bbb.hidden-street.net/eq/one-handed-blunt-weapon/crushed-skull) and a good maple shield. Basically: Swords easier to come by, but more expensive and isn't the optimal weapon for lategame. BW's are harder to find, super cheap and have the best lategame. I suggest you take this with a grain of salt and look a bit more into it, since im not a expert in this matter"
I went 2H because BWs are very cheap to mass scroll. But if you choose to go 2H BW, you'll have to scroll your own end game weapon. There aren't many godly 2h BWs out there on sale.
The damage formula in the game has a multiplier for each weapon. For 2h weapons the swords have strX4.6 always while the 2H bw/axes have strX4.8 when slashing and strX3.2 when stabbing. This makes 2h swords to be far stronger than 2h bw/axes (also 2h bw are usually slow which makes them even weaker). For 1h the formula is more balanced with swords having strX4 and bw/axes having 4.4 when slashing and 3.2 when stabbing. 1h bw also have the crushed skull which has high atk clean but slower speed compared to swords (so it's probably still weaker than swords but not by much). BWs are cheaper as well but crushed skull is kinda rare I think (cause it only drops in perion gach). Also bw is more unique I guess cause heroes use swords.
There are a lot of statistics about the DPS formula but sword's seem to be the highest DPS. Also there is a small factor that no one has yet to mentioned is: BW damages are more unstable than SW.
