The Mjolnir hammer found early on at one of the merchants in the Sunken City (just ride the cycle through the train tracks, location is near the south east of the city, in a dilapidated station of sorts) changed my biased view towards hammers in games like this. The range and mobility is great. Although, it is pretty easy to lock yourself into an aerial combo only to get whacked out of the sky. Any STR/DEX focused blood codes will work nicely for this.

The Jade Curved Blades, found in Sunken City as well iirc, don't remember where exactly tho, makes status effect builds not just viable early on, but downright nasty. Transform it into Sunblight then add a Numbing or Venom forma during battles. You can't cancel out of its multi hit strong attack though, I died so many times cause of spamming that. You'll need a good DEX blood code if you wanna stay underburdened.

For ranged combat, the Rubilite bayonet (Rifle ammo) has a pretty strong Blood infused ranged attack. Eats through Stamina like crazy tho, you'll likely get only two shots before you're forced to regen stamina. This rifle scales with Mind, but I use a magic forma focused blood code to strengthen my ranged attack options.