Dual Wield is useless

[Evilllamas]

When I'm dealing with several enemys with bows etc, a shield would be nice...

When I get close though, nothing gets time to hit.

I'm light armour wearer, so when they do hit, I die.

[valxm]

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.

 

The hot-keying issue happens when you have two identical weapons. You need to name them slightly differently (the game sometimes renames them though). The permanent solution is to make two identical weapons but with slightly different number of enchant charges (but same effect value at least to the extent of the game diaplay's integer rounding). Since I did this the game has stopped stacking them or renaming them. The only issue is that when switching to a single left-handed item (works fine if switching to dual spell or bow) you need to re-add the left-hand weapon manually after switching back using the shortcut you bound for the right-hand weapon. But Q + right-click is quick enough if you are not constantly switching.

 

Multiple enemies are a lot easier with dual wielding than with sword and board I think because the 3-hit power attack (4-hits if using sword + dagger?) attacks everything in front of you, so you just have to position yourself so that you have enemies in front and not at the back, and then power attack so everything is staggered and dies without hitting you much. Personally I use swords because they swing so much faster than maces (more enchant procs and more frequent staggering) and have longer reach than daggers. Spamming power attacks non-stop and almost never using normal attacks requires only some character planning:

1. +stamina regen from the Light Armour perk. (and I have an additional one on boots)
   
2. power-attack cost reduction from One-Handed
   
3. reduce power-attack cost further by putting absorb stamina enchant on each weapon
   
4. You can also boost damage from power attacks if you want. I only got the dual savagery perk from one-handed and not the one that boosts standing power attacks because of the poor balancing. Might be worth getting both once balancing mods come out. I also did not use any weapon specialisation perk for this reason. Power attacks stack with sneaking as well, and because I am lazy I just power-attack/sneak with swords instead of daggers.
   
5. Sufficiently large stamina pool because even with absorb stamina power-attacks have a net cost. I went 150 MP, 250HP, rest stamina. I also have +70 stamina on boots (about 500 total now I think)
   
6. If you are lazy like me I recommend using 100% destruction cost reduction gear (I use 28x3 +17, not sure if 25x4 works). MP cost reduction also affects weapon charges and absorb health/stamina is classed under destruction (NOT restoration as per the wiki, another set of gear thrown away...). Otherwise you have to charge weapons extremely frequently, which is most aggravating.
   

 

If you still have issues about getting hit when there are multiple enemies due to bad positioning or ranged attackers or you cannot be bothered to dodge melee (the mob animations are very very slow especially for maces and two-handed weapons, so you should be able to dodge 2 to 3 melee attackers), you can add more damage mitigation (much more efficient than high health). Because you can't cast without switching weapons, and I am lazy I went armour (smithing) + magic resistance (breton+ agent of mara + 2/3 alteration perks + 22% enchant) + absorb health (on weapons). I don't even get to 567 armour because I am using glass instead of dragon to save a perk and only have 2/5 of the +armour perks. I also have 82% magic resist (max is 85%) for universal elemental damage resistance, but no fire/frost/electric resist so that doesn't help against dragons supposedly. Absorb health on weapons is enough to fight them in melee and tank the breath, however, if using a weapon that swings fast enough. This is the only time when damage mitigation is not enough and you need enough HP to not die. Edit: The lack of damage mitigation against dragons if you don't have specific elemental resists (waste of slots to have this only for the Cliff Racer 2.0s) can be made irrelevant if you let your horse tank (I would say companions, but they are so bad in this game both in their characterisation/writing and AI, especially for stealth characters, that no sane person would have one). Also use the stagger from Clear Skies (has same effect as that from Unrelenting Force on dragon breath) when you see the breath animation start.

 

Don't use alchemy to boost smithing/enchanting or it becomes too overpowered. I did use the elixirs sold by alchemists for some enchants to hit break-points however. Don't put +one-handed on armour or you will kill too fast. I did some of those things earlier and had to respec, removing perks and adding others, and throw away all my gear. I use the enchants for convenience like the destruction reduction although the only destruction spells I use are runes as a poor man's trap, since the damn game has no traps for sneakers (hope mods fix this).

 

If you just want to sneak (not in broad daylight) and assassinate without having to deal with multiple enemies, then the solution is Shadow Warrior. You can supplement this with some alchemy and make the lowest duration invis pots (plenty of materials). No need for long duration since you just need to break aggro. You can also go dagger in one hand and invis spell in the other but yet another stupid design decision in this game is that pots act instantly without requiring weapon switching whereas battle-mage or rogue-mage type spells don't get any cast-time reduction perks and require you to use a single weapon.

 

Yet another solution for crowd control is to spam paralysis and/or mass paralysis but it's extremely overpowered (like most things) and makes the gameplay even more boring. Mass paralysis also takes 3 million years to cast and if you are not doing from stealth/invisibility you will get interrupted. A better crowd control solution is unrelenting force (indoors) and clear skies (outdoors). Clear skies doesn't stagger indoors. Don't use the amulet of Talos and/or the blessing of Talos with clear skies unless you can restrain yourself from spamming it too much. Given you only need the level 1 and that has a natural recharge of 5s, with amulet+blessing you could AoE stun every 3 seconds outdoors...

Edited December 12, 2011 by valxm

[tazmo]

totally agree, dual weild is absolute cr*p. luv to use a shield to bash in the face of your opponent, it does a fair bit of damage but more importantly is the stun effect it causes allowing you to finish them off with your weapon.

The dual weild in gothic 3 was superb as the block was quite effective and allowed you to immediately strike back. come on Bathesda sort this out..!

[Vindekarr]

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.

 

Dual wielding greatly increases DPS for warriors-it's actualy very useful in situations where DPS is important. The speed and damage buffs for leveled up Dual Wield make it a very valuable offensive option. That being said, it's mostly an option for tanked warriors-just because it's not useful for your fragile stealth character, doesn't mean it has no function for everyone-I frequently use it to rapidly beat down swarms, as it lets you carve through weak swarmer with far greater ease. Get both perks in dual wield speed, then compare shield and dual wield attack rates, there's a big diference, and with a major damage bonus thrown in aswell, it's quite useful if you can live long enough to take a few swings, especialy with maces.

[pastafrola]

Dual wielding worked fine for me. I was a light armored archer with a lot a perk points to spend, so I went all the way with the dual wielding stuff.

 

I had one of my weapons enchanted with absorb health just in case.

I use sword/axe comination and a dagger for stealth kills.

 

The problem is that you must have all the perks. You must equip a shield until then.

 

An extra benefit, stealth attack with both weapons (x15 dagger and x6 sword) kills almost anything

 

 

How I beated dungeons, camps, caves, etc:

You have to move a lot, strike (both hands) and step away, wait for the right moment to make that power attack.

When fighting groups quickly look for the weakest target, they should die with 1 or 2 double attacks. Always attack and step away.

 

Use your shouts wisely:

 

Ice form nullify their number advantage

Elemental fury/Marked for death, for fast killing the weak

Become ethereal to escape forcing them to circle obstacles and disperse

Unrelenting Force is good for spamming power attacks while they are down but the others shouts are better.

Edited December 26, 2011 by pastafrola

[KratosAurion777]

Honestly dual Wielding is suicide ...

 

You can't Block , one of the most important point In Skyrim if you wanna survive , And it mean you don't have any magicka resist ( with the perks and the enchantment ) you could get from the shield .

 

Kill before be killed i guess ...

 

I guess some shout can help , and Play Orc ( for max dps with the once per day ability ) or breton (resist magicka ) can help to .

 

I can't imagine myself go Dual Wield versus a dragon with the deadly dragon mod ... or against master Mages ( even in vanilla version ) .

Edited December 26, 2011 by KratosAurion777

[Khorak]

With heavy armour and my usual magic resist stacking (if you know what you're doing, the shield perk is pointless....just a waste of a point since you've maxed magic resist), a shield isn't anywhere close to being a necessary choice for tanking for me. Doesn't even need to be heavy armour, it just makes lower levels easier before everything starts hitting the armour cap anyway. I've been running a dual wielder and it's an fun alternative.

 

Personally, I don't see there being any real difference in viability between two-handed, dual wield or shield. Certainly a shield is easier if you're not a good player, but any idea how the game works and how you can build your character makes it ultimately a matter of preference as opposed to being the only way to go. Hell, with two-handed I often just plain forget I can block anyway. Don't need to really.

[HadToRegister]

I've actually been lucky with this.

 

I make sure I have 2 identical weapons that stack, I favorite the stack, then in the quick menu I assign 1 to the stack.

The only thing I have to watch out for, so I don't erase my dual wield assignment, is I can hit 3 which will have me draw my sword and have a heal in my left hand,

but I have to make sure and hit 1 again, so I am dual wielding the swords, before I "sheath" them, or switch to a bow with 2.

 

Unfortunately, I can't upgrade them, because then they won't stack and I can't assign them to one hotkey anymore.

 

The interface should have hotkeys assigned this way:

 

Hotkey 1 Left

Hotkey 1 Right

 

Hotkey 2 Left

Hotkey 2 Right

 

etc....

[Anatorax]

Dual-wielding is nice, because it allows to kill enemies very quickly. Just for illustration: ran into a dragon priest in a dungeon, got closer by dodging spells, stunned him with fus and unleashed 5-6 power attacks. Had to drink one health and stamina potion in between, because he did manage to hit me with a lightning, but that's it. The poor thing was gone in about 15 seconds. I also tried hitting it with one sword (when ran out of stamina) and I was taking only 1/30th of his health. Don't know how I would deal with that.

 

Although I find DW better suited for one-on-one fights. I cannot dodge three opponents simultaneously and playing on master means that I die in 3-4 hits. Then I just sneak and take them out one by one. I don't know how it is possible to play with shield or two-handed on master - there is no way to get past the early levels when your block still does a crappy job.

[FavoredSoul]

This has not been my experience.

 

I dual weild Meridia's Undead slaying sword + a Magic Damage enchanted glass dagger. I'm level 44 and I still only wear Elven Armor.

 

ALL Draughr are laughingly effortless once you have Meridias sword and I (blind) managed to get it pretty early on in the game.

Pretty much any creature can be slain dead within seconds with consecutive power attacks. 1-4 power attacks have owned pretty much anything i've ever encountered, Al'Duin, the Dragon Priests and the very strongest of the Draughr up to a few more; I have health and stamina at 300.

I realised a long time ago that attacking dragons from their flank stop them from doing any kind of damage to you (so long as you continue to move when they try to spin around; the slow time shout really helps), and also stop them from being able to use their instant death head bite attacks.

 

 

Fighting mages is a different story. I get owned by mages. Lots.

 

I'll go master difficulty on my next playthrough (or whatever ups the challenge heaps) I want the game to be hard.

Edited December 26, 2011 by FavoredSoul