Weapons with mixed attack types in a chain?

I recently installed the Armory mod and took a look at weapon stats.
Some weapons are really simple to understand & use like the Executioner Sword where you spam Light attacks to fight hordes and you spam Heavy attacks to fight powerful enemies.
And the Push Attack is often useful and powerful though costs stamina.

But some weapons got really mixed up Light and Heavy attack patterns that i dont understand how to use.

For example the Tuskgor Spear has two single target light attacks then a cleaving attack then again a single target attack in its light chain.

The dwarf Hammer first has two cleaving attacks and then two single target attacks as his light attack chain.

And the elf Sword has two cleaving attacks and then one single target attack as her light attack chain.

Siennas Flaming Flail light attack chain has two cleaving attacks then two single target strong attacks.

So what is the point in having these weird mixed attack type chains?

If i need a tuskgor spear light cleaving attack i most certainly cant spend time on first doing two pointless single target attacks just to reach that third attack that has cleaving.

And if i need some quick single target attacks with my dwarven Hammer i certainly cant waste time first doing two cleaving attacks before i get to the 3rd and 4th attack which are single target armor piercing.

And as Sienna if i need some armor piercing damage from my Flaming Flain i certainly wont be spending time first doing two weak cleaving light attacks just to reach that 3rd and 4th light attack that has some armor piercing.

It’s a matter of experimentation on what attacks chain into other attacks. For example, hammer on bardin has armor piercing heavy attacks. So you can chain heavy, heavy, light, light to chain into lights 3 and 4. Either find some guides or do some personal experimentation to find optimal combos for each weapon. Not all weapons are perfect so some weapons do have “dead” attacks that it is always beneficial to animation cancel. But that’s generally not the case.

Push attack → light stab → heavy sweep is your horde combo. From memory heavy stab → light stab is your single target combo.

Push attack → light attack → light attack is your horde rotation. Sleezy already listed the single target combo

I’m not 100% on this one but my usual go to with the weapon for elites is to use heavy attack 1, block cancel, repeat over and over. Has the advantage of staggering everything around the elite which is nice for safety.

I’ve almost never played elf sword so can’t help with that one.

You do push attack and first 2 lights for hode control, for armor the first heavy chains in in the light 3 stab i find the best combo.