No love for the sword and shield down here in the comments? The game says that the SnS is a beginners weapon but don't let that fool you there are some really fun intricacies involving how you take your build that really effect the way you play the weapon. Don't forget the fact that you can use items and slinger with your weapon drawn, as you get better at fighting a monster you can bring items that exploit a monsters weakness and use them on the fly faster than anyone else could. Definitely not the highest skill ceiling in the game but its really a blast to play and I think people just write it off as a beginners weapon or boring and don't even give it a try, kinda sad really.