It’s situation-dependant.
In PvP the spear is a must, because the staggering effect and the reach of its attacks.
It’s a viable choice (we will see how many it will be nerfed) if you’re facing PvE menaces vulnerable to stagger effect or just having a reach < than the spear.
My preferred choices in PvE is predatory blade + scorpion ward, predatory blade could also be improuved with advanced blunted weapon fitting, that means against NPCs it could be used as multifunctional tool being a really good DPS weapon (with light combo) or a truncheon (with the heavy combo). Scorpion Ward have a very low durability, but it grants you 100 points of armor, that means you can wield it even without using it to block, but just to absorb in medium armor hits you didn’t dodged like you was in heavy armor.
Against bosses or enemies immune to stagger or block effect of the shield I prefere to use 2h sword, in particular Baal-pteor’s Razor, this is not the best 2h sword of the game, but being for me a secondary weapon it offers all the advantages of the 2h sword (unstoppable heavy combo) without weight and giving you 5 points of encumbrance, very usefull in combo to bearer’s pack as helm while coming back home charged of loot.
In boss fights I also carry Whirlwind Blades to be able to give them always 20 bleedings during the fight, and a katana (the best is Musashi’s Black Blade ) to be able to escape from surrounding situations.
Oh, I also carry a bow most of the time, because healing arrows to heal your thralls, poison arrows + fire arrows to attack players and mine meteors.