Katana

The Traveling Merchant decides when you get the chance, and by the time he shows up with it you may already have a better sword sitting in a chest. What it has going for it is critical strike rate, which is far above what any other early broadsword offers, so it hits harder in practice than the damage line suggests once you have a couple of crit accessories on.

There is no projectile and no special swing, so the ceiling is low. Treat it as a bridge for a character who has not found anything decent yet, and retire it the moment you can make one of the evil biome blades or reach a hardmode ore.