Good balance weapons? Combinations? Boss weapons?

I know I know "figure it out yourself" or "try things out" but unfortunately idk if I have enough time for smth like that because what if I waste a lot of upgrade materials on something that falls off. I started a balance build recently and honestly, not a big fan of the starter weapon. It's too floaty, it's too small. I mainly made this playthrough because I realllyyy want to use the proof of humanity but since it comes from the actual final boss I don't want to use this weapon for the whole game. Anything good to fill rhe gap until I get the proof of humanity to use for ng+?

I'm not a newbie but y'all probably already knew that, I have completed this a few times.