The three main types of melee combat
One handed
Two handed
sword and board

today were looking at the advanteges of duel weilding one handed weapons, and other things like shouts, armor, and enchantments to help you with it. the benifits of duel weilding two weapons are that you sacrifice deffence, that ability to block with a shield or 2 handed weapon, for more damage. however with the right gear and gameplay, you can be far more survivable without it.

What race should i be?
before anything play what race your happy with and like, if you dont like you race how can you stare it for hours of gameplay. also skill bonuses, while providing a short term benifit, are not as usefull as what abilities that race might have, so lets look.
Argonian Hist skin, recover health ten times faster for a minute, gotta love those emergency jet packs, other immunities are just gravy.

Breton Resist magic 25%. magic does alot of damage, and being able to negate large amounts of it goes along way, both in not useing potions, and not being dead.

Imperial I want people dead not calm, next.

Nord the best form of a fleeing enemy is a dead one. (who would have thought the would be an underwhelming combat class?)

Redguard recover stamina ten times faster for 60 seconds, as well as resistance to poisons. decent, but argonian is a better choice as far as emergency jet packs go.

Orc probobly the best damage dealing power in the game. double damage for a minute, as well as cutting in half all incoming damage? i dont know whats not to like. . .you are an Orc though? but with a sweet emergency jet pack.

what two weapons should i use?
well anyone can use anything, but to get the most out of your weapon you need to relise the core strength of weilding to weapons. attack speed, and the higher chance to produce secondary and special weapon effects. the higher damage of maces and axes looks tempting, but blades are were its at.

Blades
recive inherent bonuses to attack speed, as well as the abillity through perks to have a higher critical chance. high attack speed is the friend of anything that relies on chance. also under this catagory is mehrunes razor, that has a chance of killing anything instantly. a small chance, but if you like daggers and have a high speed, it can be a nice surprise when your fighting a pack of monsters.

smithing
by now everyone knows how awsome this skill is, and how easy it is to level. if you dont ill give you the breakdown real fast.
most of the strongest weapons and armor in the game can only be crafted by the player, namely dragon and deadric. as well as the ability to imrove the condition of your weapons in armor. no your weapons dont degrade in this game, and you might not care about upgradeing your weapons, but in some cases it can double the original weapons damage. every fighter should have this skill.
if you want to level it fast, buy yourself iron ingots and leather straps and make nothing but daggers, smithing levels the same no matter what you make, so its just about finding the cheapest thing to craft. cost may very from person to person, but expect it in the 10-20k region to max the skill.

enchanting
also another powerfull skill for any player useing weapons or armor (i asume most of you) shock, fire, and frost may seem like awsome things to put on your weapon, but were duel weilding here, not alot of deffence, so we want to kill fast and keep ourselves alive whilst doing it. drain health works great for this, especially with the fast attack speed we will be working with. when you get the ability to duel enchant then you can slot whatver element or bonus suits your need. frost slows enimies, fire does damage over time, and shock drains magic. as well as stamina drain and the like.

armor type
one can go with light or heavy, its prefrence really. however with the loss in blocking and a shield i recomend heavy, a full suit of legendary dragon or deadric combined with heavy armor enchancements will make up for the loss of a shield and the ability to block.

standing stones
most have interesting abilities but obviously focus on magic, stealth, and fighting, were going to look at 4 that i think help the most
Warrior- if you really want to level skills fast, here you go, i recomend this when leveling smithing, or until you find another that actually proveds an effect we can use to our benifit
Steed- never underestimate mobility on the battlefield. if your e devouted warrior you stay away from magic and bows, meaning you have to close the distance on those that like to hide and shoot from a distance fast, and still have the stamina to swing when you get there, this helps until you level your heavy armor enough to remove the restrictions it puts on you.
Lady- faster health and stamina regen. . your a fighter, whats not to like? located just west of the warrior stone early in the game too.
Lord - 50 points of damage resistance, 25% magic resistance. if your wearing heavy armor the damage might not help, but casters are strong against straight melee fighters, so the magic resistance is were its at.

Shouts
Lots of shouts in this game, if you have a weapon in both hand, then this is were any of you magic like abilitues or ranged combat is going to come from. most shouts in the game are all good, and can be used to great effect at some point or another but i will go over some i feel need to be mentioned for duel weilding. as this is one of your only froms of magic like abilities, i recomend the amulet of talos, as it cuts the cooldown time by 20% allowing faster uses

Elemental Fury -every fighter looks at this and drools, wicked fast attack speed? awsome! and indeed it is. However, you cannot use this with enchanted weapons, like our nice life draining of shock deadric longswords we made earlier. so while you are swinging faster, and therefore critting faster and the like, there are downsides, but i recomend keeping a plain set of good swords when you want to use this. and useing it on monsters with resistances and monsters that you just want dead fast (dragons and dragon priests, kill them before the can fly or float away and fast.)

Become Etherial -immune to damage for a short time, this is your secret emergency jump pack if things go Fubar. hide and heal or run away, also jump of a high cliff and activate it before you hit the bottom.

Whirlwind sprint -remember what i said about mobility? yeah rush that caster who thinks he is safe way over there.

Slow time -decnt shout to increase reaction time, but a slightly long cooldown, others are better.

Unrelenting force - first shout leanred, short cooldown and usefull for stagering enimies as you charge them, get in and get out before they can react, also good at stunning dragons and preventing them from sitting in the air breathing on you.



well there you go, hope you found it helpfull

bump, think i could put this in general?

good guide. I went with a sword and board because the board provides another piece of equipment to enchant magic resistance spells onto, and like you said, magic does a lot of damage. On master difficulty this may matter, but on adept, once you hit 100 skill and can enchant each piece of armor twice, you'll pretty much be unstoppable regardless. However, one sword does more then enough damage with proper enchanting and smithing, so whatever. Picking a breton will help offset the need for extra magic resistance.

sorry for late reply

i have yet to really try soard and board, i started but ended up weilding two weapons (again)
but maybe once i sit down and give it a good try i will write up a guid for it as well

Good post! and in practice, what attacking pattern do you recommend? more power attacks or less?