Ok, most of my characters are ranged. Either magic or archery. So I want to do one with dual wielding, but I can't make it work without spastically mashing buttons. I don't get it. Do you hit both triggers at once? One at a time, alternating? Or leading with a few thrusts right, then use left? I don't know why, but it's feeling very awkward to me.

Any tips would be appreciated!

If you hit both buttons at once you get a double attack (which looks rather cool). Otherwise I have found it to be just a matter of spastically mashing buttons one after another.

Repeatedly hitting both at once does the dual chopping attack, the speed of this attack is the same as the weapon in the left hand. In theory, putting a dagger in your left hand and powerful mace (or sword for reach) in your right lets you both swing the dagger normally, and swing the sword or mace at the same rate as a dagger. Combine that with elemental fury as well for hilariously fast mace spam.

Otherwise, it's useful for using your right hand as a normal weapon, then using your left as, for example, a soul trap or for paralysis.

Simult Clicks = Double attack
Hold Both Triggers = Dual Power attack (3 powerful swings)
Left/Right Click = Single attack with opposite hand (odd at first, as you'd think it the corresponding, but left click is for the main [right] hand, right click for off [left] hand)

Once perked, double power attacks are the way to go - add a stealth attack with those perks and few creatures survive one round, and almost none survive two. It's harder work without stealth, but still pretty lethal, and quickly so. Don't bother with individual attacks with each hand.

Thanks, guys! Very useful info!!

Are you sure about that? For me right trigger is right arm, left trigger is left arm. Unless you're on PC, which you may well be. Even so, that's weirddd.

Dual wield was something i was looking forward too in Skyrim, but i havent tried it on any characters yet, lol.

I'm not a big fan of it....maybe I'm just too uncoordinated to make it work right

Also if you hold both attack buttons for a power attack, you get different moves depending on which way you push the stick (forward, back, left, and right). I think they all look pretty cool.

Edit: I'm just learning how to dual-wield myself.

You're not really missing out much. The only time I really dual wield is when Theryn runs out of magicka. Two daggers are better than one. But then, if you fight predominantly melee, you'll be wanting to block.

Yeah, PC is reversed. Left mouse button = "primary" action = right hand. Comes from back before dual-wield, when yeah - left mouse is attack, right mouse is block, in just about every game ever.

I'm on PS#, so it seems to be responding left/left, right/right.

Also you want the lighter weapon in your offhand (left). The speed of swings is determined by the offhand while power attack stamina use is determined by the main hand (right). I dual wield same weight daggers but at one time I tried dagger in offhand and sword in main. Put out a good amount of damage but it wasn't working very well with shadow warrior perk. Otherwise perked dual wield daggers are still very deadly.

I use dual wield combined with heavy armor.
Might be handy to have a good protection if you can't block.

Yeah it always felt weird to me and blocking & bashing are just too useful to me.

Yeah, bashing is one of the most overpowered abilities in the game. Don't bother blocking normally, it's useless, but you can just bash as an enemy is power attacking and completely stop his attack, then follow with your own.

Dual wield is good though, I second the notion of always attacking with both weapons. You usually won't need to block because you'll kill everything before it can attack you.

*facepalm* I should have thought about that. Thanks for clearing it up though. I play on Xbox, and it's been too long since I played any games on pc.