Dual Wield is useless

[NephilimNexus]

I never bothered with dual wielding when I read that they can't block. Apparently no one Bethesda has never been to a medieval fair.

[haerual]

Dual wielding standing power attacks do the most combined damage out of anything in this game. Also, the movement and swing speed is much faster with dual wielding than two-handed, giving you a way to easily hit/run and avoid all melee damage completely. Pick the mace spec, it is ridiculously strong.

[Thoreai]

I never bothered with dual wielding when I read that they can't block. Apparently no one Bethesda has never been to a medieval fair.

It was done to "balance" the fighting, since dual combat is all about damage, now if you would also be able to block, one-handed would be kinda useless, though they executed it poorly since they havent given us the ability to dodge..so its all about pewpewing others while being pewpew'd.

[jy02521671]

Ive come to that conclusion after hours upon hours of gameplay. I use two Blade of Woes (pickpocketed Artmis for fun, glad I did later) and it gives me all kinds of trouble trying to fast hot key them. Anyway, I honestly think I would rather have a shield for those battles where you cant assassinate everyone immediately, than having no defenses, also since you only need one dagger to assassinate I dont see the benefit of using two weapons. Going to try the shield now, since I started the main quest line, and at 44 its brutal fighting dragons in light armor.

 

you made the right decision my friend

[Quiezel]

Dualwield is so powerfull. I use 2 1handed Daedra Mace. 110dmg Mace + Lifeleech is so hard ;D. The Damage is increadible.

I play on Master but its still to easy.

 

Lg Quiez

[Arcadiast]

i can`t confirm. Quite opposite in fact, i think dual wielding is almost overpowered. The Power Attack with two Mousebuttons is strong enough to kill most enemies outright or stagger stronger enemies so i can continue hacking and slashing quite fast on them. Combine all this with some moderatly smithed and enchanted weapons and voila...unstoppable.

 

Of course, you have to change your playstyle. Forget defense and dont get surrounded by to many enemies.

[barrynor]

Time stop + dual wield two nice swords + crit perk, flurry perk and extra damage for 1-handed power attacks = dead whatever.

 

But yes, 2-handed hammer users can kill you fairly quick... but before parrying, or blocking, there is one skill one can use manually... its called evading...when they start their power attack, step back, and then dart in right after they are done and wack em. Heavy armor helps, but not getting hit in the first place helps a lot more.

 

Note: circling around your enemy with timestop is kinda pointless, the attack seems to follow you around.

[saintjimmyz]

Besides, the whole concept of blocking with a weapon is unrealistic.

 

 

No it is not, the entire historical basis of dual wielding was for blocking with one weapon and striking with the other.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companion_weapon

 

The idea of swinging both weapons in combat for primarily striking 'dps' is an anime/video game derived trope.

 

Okay, you stand there with two weapons, Ill run at you with a warhammer, lets see you block (or parry) that. Parrying with an offhand weapon only works with dueling swords, from 17th century onwards. By that point, dueling swords had been thinned down by a huge amount to increase speed and manueverability. These dueling swords were fairly useless in actual combat though. Swords that were used to actually kill and maim largely relied on momentum, they were heavy and blunt. You cannot parry a mace, sword or axe when it is swung at you, any attempt at blocking is easily smashed apart.

[thestaub]

I don't know if it has been said already, but I'm going to say it anyway.

For successfull Dualwielding, you need to focus on it from the very beginning. And from what i feel it's still a pain in the ass until you reach a level something around 25.

I Put my perks in onehand, light armor and smithing and keep my armor and swords improoved all the time.

By now it os possible to kill fast. And a lot.

You also put points in health and stamina since your power attack is the most lethal thing there is. But it costs a huge amount of stamina. I think I went 2-3 Health on 1 Stamina. Restoration is also nice to have for the stamina reg perk and the avoid death.

 

I also recommend to focus on one weapon type and get the waepons perk (Crit for swords, Bleeding for axes and armor ignore for maces) Later in the game you can still pick the others.

My char is, apart from DWing most of the time also stealthy, which gets me close to enemys before the fight starts. Even kill some, 30x Backstab Damage with 2 Daggers One-Shots pretty much everything. Even dragons i imagine, if I could ver sneak up on one... :3

[Shantih]

Besides, the whole concept of blocking with a weapon is unrealistic.

 

 

No it is not, the entire historical basis of dual wielding was for blocking with one weapon and striking with the other.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companion_weapon

 

The idea of swinging both weapons in combat for primarily striking 'dps' is an anime/video game derived trope.

 

Okay, you stand there with two weapons, Ill run at you with a warhammer, lets see you block (or parry) that. Parrying with an offhand weapon only works with dueling swords, from 17th century onwards. By that point, dueling swords had been thinned down by a huge amount to increase speed and manueverability. These dueling swords were fairly useless in actual combat though. Swords that were used to actually kill and maim largely relied on momentum, they were heavy and blunt. You cannot parry a mace, sword or axe when it is swung at you, any attempt at blocking is easily smashed apart.

 

These duelling swords were far from useless for the purpose they served, i.e. duels. Modern fencing is derived from this form of combat.

 

By the way 17th century rapiers are not foils. They are meant to thrust but they are much sturdier and the blade itself is divided in different sections serving different purposes.

 

You can't really parry (or block for that matter) huge (but slow) weapons like warhammers, flails, morgensterns and the like. That is preposterous. Even a shield is not of much use when facing a huge morning star.

 

It is true that most swords are not meant for blocking in real life. Hitting steel with steel (like in the movies) will result in broken swords sooner or later.

 

The big flaw in the game is that it's fair to deflect attacks with anything provided you're using a one handed (or even two handed) weapon but that you lose the ability to do so when you're dual wielding.

 

There are parrying daggers that were created for the sole purpose of deflecting enemy thrusts and they exist in many cultures (western and eastern civilizations). There are things that are called swordbreakers for a good reason.

 

What is the advantage of using an axe in a fight? The main thing is that an axe is meant to take down the enemy's shield and the same thing is true of big combat flails.

 

Also there is a fundamental difference in western weapons depending on the historical era because of the different forms of armours. Slashing attacks don't work that well against enemies in full plate armour in which case you may want a really heavy and massive sword to be able to pack up a punch. There is also a reason why daggers and stilettos became so popular. Knights would carry these to finish off heavily armoured foes with a coup de grâce striking through the gaps in the armour for a merciful death.

 

There is also something that is called range and a reasons why polearms were so important in medieval times (and in ancient times as well). Someone wielding a halberd has a distinct advantage when it comes to keeping an enemy at bay. It was particularly effective against mounted troops. Voulges were commonly used against horsemen to cut the saddle straps and dismount knights. Halberdiers also carried short swords for close combat (because polearms are almost useless in close quarters).

 

So this is all very interesting but that is in no way accurately depicted in game. In fact the way the game works is not really satisfying when it comes to blocking. Dual wielding in Skyrim is all about setting up a DPS scheme like in so many computer games (no protection but high DPS which means that it's either kill or get killed most often you'll mindlessly cleave through enemies but you don't have any tactics involved in the process). I can see the reason for that in order to balance gameplay but there should be options to enable different fighting modes, switching between parrying and attacking when need be. This would be an improvement IMHO.

Edited December 12, 2011 by Shantih