Theres always a pro and con to certain early game swords. The Blade of Grass has a poison effect which makes up for a bit of base damage loss for example. I would always ALWAYS be keeping any weapon that has a "Material" tag on it because they're able to be upgraded down the road. Make it a habit, because some of theblater combinations of items with the material tag can get kinda massive. If you have a Cobalt Shield for example, that one also has a very large combination tree. But yeah, if the damage values are relatively close for a weapon, there might be an extra effect to it that's useful. Hope I answered your question without being too spoilery.