The Deep baxe is very similar to the Fire longsword in 2 and Drake sword in 1, it's the super OP weapon you find early on that outshines everything you'll find until you specialize your character. The Astora Greatsword is one of the highest regarded greatswords in the pvp community, great weapon all around. One of the lightest greatswords and has a higher AR than even the Zweihander, plus it's stab attacks with a leo ring seem to do more counter damage than other greatswords for some reason. Been spanked by a few of those in my time lol. It's really good in PVE too, plus it's just absolutely gorgeous to look at!Yeah, they're not brigands after all. I notice they respawn and they do have different weapons and armour to brigands. And they're even more annoying! That bleed build-up, and the damage of their double slash move! And From put them in the middle of a range of other enemies, including crossbow users and those little ganky gets! Gah! No twinblade drop for me either yet (though I didn't realise they could drop until you mentioned it tbh).
When I got jumped by that hide-and-seek tall heavy axe-wielding hollow guy and died for like the fourth time on the run form this first bonfire - as it turned out very close to the bonfire shortcut - I actually died a little inside IRL...
I have some weapons I'm interested in trying out once I level my stats a bit more - flamberge, great axe, astora greatsword, exile greatsword. Also wondering if I should upgrade the Irithyll Straight Sword. At +3 my Deep Battle Axe still outdamages any non-upgraded weapon I can wield, but it's definitely time to upgrade something else and switch.
Glad you're enjoying the game mate. Been playing 2 recently and never liked it that much but almost completed SotFS and feel like it's the best of the series now, perhaps it's just the honeymoon period of experiencing completely brand new (to me) souls content though.