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[Neonivek]

I play adventure mode. So "Best for all situations" can be firmly established there.

Especially when fighting Night Creatures and other creatures that "feel no pain" which is basically the mace's largest weakness.

Intelligent use of weapons beats the Dwarves general incompetence at combat (Go for the ankle as your first move with a Mace. If it isn't a good idea then back off and try again)

[Pirate Santa]

Everything Melting Sky said.
DF is a massively complex game and you really can't say any one weapon is better than all others at everything, just like there is no metal that is perfect for everything. (Candy comes close but alas the lightweight properties that make it so great for armour make it terrible for blunt weapons)

[Bumber]

Outside of a couple of fringe cases, the best all around weapon a dwarf can natively make and wield is the pick axe.

One of those fringe cases appears to be raised undead. I was fighting zombies in a necromancer tower with an exceptional candy pick and kept striking them down again and again before any pulping could occur.

The severed head sails off in an arc. The head shudders and begins to move. The severed head sails off in an arc. The head shudders and begins to move. The severed head sails off in an arc...

[Melting Sky]

Outside of a couple of fringe cases, the best all around weapon a dwarf can natively make and wield is the pick axe.

One of those fringe cases appears to be raised undead. I was fighting zombies in a necromancer tower with an exceptional candy pick and kept striking them down again and again before any pulping could occur.

The severed head sails off in an arc. The head shudders and begins to move. The severed head sails off in an arc. The head shudders and begins to move. The severed head sails off in an arc...

Yep, reanimating biomes and necromancers are one of those unusual situations where edged weapons in general are terrible. I'm curious if a steel pick would pulp them better due to the increased mass vs a candy one? During my testing candy surprisingly didn't seem to be noticeably better than steel for picks accept of course if you go up against something like a steel FB.

I should also add my testing was done in the arena with dwarves that fight with the same amount of intelligence as an angry brick so I don't recommend applying those findings to adventure mode where the player can control the type of strike. For example, swords are pretty lack luster in the hands of a fortress dwarf since they have a bunch of different attack styles most of which are pretty bad in a given situation. This leads to unfortunate instances where you will get a dwarf slapping goblins with the flat of his blade, or pommel bashing them instead of stabbing or slashing them. Conversely this is one of the strengths of the pick. It only has one attack option and it is generally always devastating so the dwarf simply isn't given the option to try to pommel bash those goblins to death instead of using the blade.

The opposite is true when you adventure. Since the player controls the attack style it means the larger the number of different attack options a weapon has the better it is since the player will choose the best attack style for the job at hand. Swords have a wide array of different attacks to choose from which in this case becomes a strength rather than a weakness.

For a reanimating biome I'm not even sure what would be optimal these days. Zombies and blunt damage have changed so much since back when I tested everything. My guess is that a Morning Star would be pretty decent?