what early weapons offer good survivability and decent damage? cause my sword and shield doesnt do enough damage and my greatsword is to slow. i really dont wanna waste money experimenting either...

Get a good lance. I'd recommend the Bone Lance series.

Try gunning, it can be expensive for ammo but you get pretty powerful shots, can kill a wyvern using 20-30 clust ammo

bowgun would be better later on for the better ammo... like all the good shots require tougher to get ahold of materials. the lance is all Defense for ya man. its fast. weaker attack .. but great D also the attacks arent as "cool" but if greatsword isnt working for you.... you could try to continue improving your sword and shield.. then going for the dual swords. make sure you pick good ones with good sharpness. bad sharp = death or frustration.also......
i know u dont want to experiment. but hammer is fast and very strong too. D isnt great but you can do some serious damage with that baby. bad thing is
close range ONLY

how effective is a gun in a solo game? would you just hit everytime you had to stop and reload?

Not really, you just have to time it right you can reload while a wyvern charges or does other attacks, doesn't take long if you pick a quick gun.

i'd stick witha lance if u want to kill a wywern quick for materials or just to win you can headlock it and with a good 1 element dosent matter because rath die in like 5min with the crimson war pike (no flashbombs)

Why in all hell would you use a Fire elemental lance against a Rath >_<

yea go lance... gunning is more difficult

offline elements dont really make much of a difference =P.
Actually lance is pretty good but bone lance's charpness gets real annoying quiet quickly.
I actually sudjest the great sword for getting used to things, you can upgrade the bone sword quickly to the great seprent blade with little ingredients. PLus good sharpness and 624 attack.

The Great Sword isn't really all that slow when you get used to using it. Just remember to roll right after each attack or set of attacks to cut out the pulling-sword-out-of-the-ground-animation. That animation can also be skipped by using another attack after the first(as long as it is not the same as the first) if timed right.

i think im set now. i have an agito and am getting enough skill with it so that i dont get hit after every attack. thanks for all the tips, especially the one about rolling to keep from being a sitting duck at the end of every combo.

You should try getting a Great Serpentblade instead os an Agito. This is beacause the Great Serpentblade is sharper and more powerful at least dats wat i think.

Great Serpentblade is definately the way to go, the agito tree won't go past the Golem Blade until you can get a Blos fang from a Monoblos if I remember correctly. So keep your Agito until that point, then you can work on getting Sigmund which is the second best offline GS falling about 50 points short of the Ancient Blade. Until then go along the Serpentblade series or the Iron Katana series both are good.

Edit look here for the Great Sword trees to pick your weapon.

i personally use sentinel GS trying to get ancient blade. GS is good offline