Multiple animation blueprints or multiple state machines

Hello guys. I was wondering how to tackle this. I have a character witch has multiple locomotion animations. And i was wondering what is the best way to do it.

I can think of two ways

  1. Have animation blueprint for each type example: unarmed, sword and shield
  2. Have nested state machines

While the second approach sound more like the better way I am starting to worry about what a mess that single animation blueprint will be when i have like 5, 6 or more weapon types.

Advice needed :). Thanks in advance.

I know this is an old question, but I’ve worked with something similar, using one animation blueprint, and simply used switch statement and select lists of different animations for different weapons, this allowed me to use one blueprint and simply select from a list of animations based on some name or tag of the weapon.