If you have to get close up when taking Sneak and Archery, something is wrong. You should never so much as need to fight up close. Especially if you decide to use a companion. Choosing two forms of damage to Perk out is not advised, and choosing to use multiple forms of damage Unperked is silly, as Perk investment make or break skills. Without Perks, skills are more or less worthless (with respect to damage oriented skills especially).

On my current thief I use one-handed but it is really lacking since I use illusion to make people kill each other (it is very awesome). But I am also working on pickpocketing so I can take peoples equipment and plan on making Riverwood walk around in thier undies. I would say Archery mainly and one handed second for you.

Archery is fun, I took all the perks in the tree. Sneak I maxed out, but I skipped the final perk, as I thought this might be an "I win" button. One handed is cool, the dual wield and daggers is fun, and the game becomes a bit like "Hitman". I liked just running around in combat with dual maces, with the bypass armor perk maxed out. It is a good way to fight heavily armored foes. Pickpocket is a good way to get rich fast, and get a ton of cool gear early, but you have to invest in it heavily. Speech can be cool if you just go up the left branch, as this will make you extremely rich, which in turn opens up great gear early. I only went into smithing for the light armor, up to glass, but really, I would have been fine if I would have stopped at elven.

You will need both but I prefer archery personally and I also like to use detect life with theif characters.

You do not need both. Either or is perfectly viable. Archery is superior however in all regards. The only reason you would take both is a playstyle choice only. If you want to do both, you can - but you are not gimping yourself by choosing either or, but rather you are gimping yourself if you choose both.

I say both because ideally you'd want to use a sword for melee combat which you can't always avoid as a bow isn't the best up close.

I have never been in a situation where I cannot avoid melee combat. I am completely undetectable and can break combat. Even if I didn't break combat, all you need to do is run and kite stuff ad nauseum. In small confined spaces, an arrow to the face will kill everything in a hit out of sneak. Combine that with Stagger chances and Paralyze Enchant, it is an utter joke.

Yeah, ideally both are great to have, but in practice you'll find that in tandem with sneak you will hardly ever have an up close and personal fight.

Archery and sneak are just omgwtf, everyone is dead and no one saw me do it. Sure, occasionally you'll deal with some up close fights... but its so easy to run off and hide. Then just come back, rinse..lather..repeat.

If you enjoy pickpocketing, then one-handed is where its at.

If you enjoy looting corpses and no one being the wiser, archery is your thing.

You can do both, but I would think that more often than not you would be leaning heavily on archery. Its just really efficient, and about the only time you will even feel pressured in combat is fighting a dragon or retreating to hide.

God, I don't understand how people complain about archery in this game.

The only bad thing I have to say about Archery is that their arrow system is [censored]. Why you could not fletch arrows at release is beyond me. It doesn't even matter however, I don't even care what arrows it uses as even Iron Arrows are one-shotting NPCs.

I'd say both, it's really fun owning everything with marksman, but it's so much mote satisfying to sneak up with a dagger and slit their throats. I usually use a dagger like the Blade of Woe for sneaking, then 2 swords like chillrend and the nightingale sword dual wielding for combat

Yes, this.

Also, pickpocket is really quite powerful once you've leveled it (shame on me for save reloading constantly at low levels) as it results in having so many lockpicks that the lockpick skill is pointless (it is pure convenience... faster lockpicking is the only real benefit) and you get to disarm a lot of opponents before you really have one hit kill backstab ability (on Master difficulty without the shroud gloves).

I really like the dynamic of using archery in the open or at long distances in bright/big interiors, but relying upon stealth kills dual wielding indoors/close quarters. Combine this with alchemy and it is a lot of fun. I've always been a hoarder of potions in other games, but I'm able to craft so many good poisons and buffing potions with this character that I'm chugging them constantly to give myself an edge.

I keep a tank companion with me kitted with enchanted ebony armor in order to hold dragon aggro on the ground while I stuff them full of poisoned arrows. Sometimes feels like cheating as my companion feels a bit overpowered to be able to go to to toe with a dragon for an extended period of time with no healing on Master, but that is a structural game mechanic that I find it hard not to abuse. Could I run around for 5X as long chugging potions and slinging arrows to kill every dragon, yes. But, why bother when my companion can just hunker down with a shield and take a swipe occasionally while I finish off the dragon?

This is my first play through so its hard for me to judge how much I'm abusing the companion model, but at level 47 I'm starting to feel like the game is becoming too easy. With Sanguine (ability to summon a powerful ally) and a tank companion... there really isn't much I can't handle. Add to that the Nightingale powers and some of the equipment I'm going to add from Dark Brotherhood and I'll be ready to pretty easily solo as well. Especially once my alchemy skill is capped.

Shorter answer to the original question though is, in my opinion, both. Mostly for added fun and diversity of game play based on the situation. I think both would be critical if soloing and honestly, the perks you'd save by not investing in archery or one handed would make you even more overpowered if allocated to enchanting or illusion or something else.

I thought I read in other posts that daggers don't benefit from one-handed perks, can anyone confirm/deny?

They do not.

i like one handed im not big into archery

Perks work. Enchants do not.