I managed to get a Virgin run on very hard last year prior to the updates (you can see my previous post in this thread).
For the Succubus, you need to bring a Defender greatsword (no need to level or spec into its stats) to block low level attack spams.
When the Succubus does very hard to dodge attacks, just pause, switch from your primary preferred weapon to your trusty Defender sidearm, and then just hold it up.
After that, it's just learning Succubus patterns. I can post my recording from a year ago later.
I'm sure you know this by now but: the meta weapons were low commitment ones. High responsiveness and good thrust. I used Bone-carved Kris (ascension path?) for the hardest bosses I want no risks for. Crusader's Straight Sword (Light) was basically the same but a little more risky because thrust was on the 2nd swing, but it has 4 consecutive combos so overall dps done is higher, more damage done before retreating. Katana (Normal) was almost as amazing as the above two but manages to outshine neither, so it's actually not as cutting edge as I expected. Forgive me, Katana fans out there.
Don't know if new update affected this and how much I have forgotten lol. I'm trying to hunt through the thread for a good translation before starting. My old file seems to cause text unhooking.
Edit: Played 4 hours. I take back what I said about the Unmarked Katana. I forgot about that while it looks like it has 3 hits per sequence, it can actually have 5 if you stand close enough. I've gotten this to work on the dummy and on various mobs. You get the extra 2 hits if you stand at point blank range. So... theoretically, the katana's dps is through the roof and is better than the Crusader's Straight Sword in terms of dps. It's definitely a cutting-edge weapon. Its specialty should be punishing bosses for leaving huge windows of time in their animation end lag. The only issue is you have to be in point-blank range to get maximum dps. Unlike the jabbing type weapons, the windows of time you look for has to be fairly big ones so you could dart all the way into kissing range, do your damage, and also get out safely.
Also, holy fuck, I did not expect a new weapon to dethrone the Bone-carved Kris. At least, for me in my opinion. I mean, last year, I did use Crusader's Straight Sword most of the time once I learned everything's patterns but Bone-carved Kris is the surefire #1 choice I wanted for any boss if I wanted to tryhard.
My top choice is now the Decayed Sword, which is absolutely broken. It doesn't deserve such an early unlock. The reason is that Decayed Sword has both a high range jab, what I use Kris for, but it does it better. More range, higher speed. And it also has the followup attacks for if I want to commit and punish bosses' animation end lags (important on a certain holy boss) which is what I appreciated Crusader's Sword for. With the same amount of stat points to distribute, Kris lags behind because, for whatever reason, Kris consumes a lot more stamina per (slow) swing than Decayed Sword does, so more points need to go from DEX to stamina.
I would say the skill cap on the Katana is definitely the highest because the ability to get into kissing range and get out safely can be circumvented with sufficient skill.
However, it's still hard to compare the jab types like Decayed Sword and Kris to Crusader's Straight Sword and Katana. This is because the enemies' moves aren't truly random, so you'll start noticing patterns and get better at that enemy type. So, over time, you'll get better and better with Crusader Sword and Katana. The only questions are if you wanted to do a no-death run, in which case you would go with the jab weapons, and if you would have finished the game by the time you got good enough.
Speaking of Crusader's Sword, Candore's Pure White Virgin was really interesting animation wise. I would say it's amazing in terms of utility, but it looks very eyecatching as a spinoff of the Crusader's Straight Sword. Unfortunately, it has no up-front jab, so you won't be able to catch small windows in bosses' movements. It doesn't even offer cutting-edge dps so... sadly I'm not likely to investm uch time on it.
That said, I've only reached the Slums and hardly slowed down to test if all the weapons have changed this year, so my opinion is really incomplete.
Perhaps, as a fun summary and hardly anything serious: on a scale of low-commitment to high commitment, I would rank
Decayed Sword > Bone-carved Kris > Crusader's Straight Sword (I haven't tested it this patch yet though) > Katana (Normal). The ones on the right are capable of higher dps theoretically, but the ones on the left have higher success killing everyone without letting you take any hits.
That said, this is just my own style which ended up only focusing on dodges and counterattacking. I don't know any other style. I don't know how greatsword builds work, for example. I imagine I would need to do a lot of blocking and parrying, which is a field I've basically never investigated. Straight-up swinging the greatswords will not work because the window left for the boss to punish you is far too big. However, I think there's a lot of potential for a parry-centered greatsword playstyle once I get around to it and learn the timing.
As for magic, I've tested it out last year and, I probably posted this already, I think magic builds can work if you apply the same concepts, preparing a set of low-commitment highly responsive moves and thee high dps commits for punishing bosses for leaving openings. However, it will never be worth the effort until magic has a self-regenerating bar just like stamina. The closest I came to that was trapping opponents with Walls of Light -> spending mana on Exploding Crosses to farm HP -> sacrificing HP for mana via Witch's Prayer. Or something like that.
Edit edit: Correction, the jab weapons have absolutely no place versus ranged enemies lol. There's no reason not to just close in on these fuckers with a Katana. If your only atk-oriented stat is DEX, then you could actually keep both a Decayed Sword and Katana on hand...