Two handed for me. Once you get some damage on the big sword you start to get some pretty fine one shot kill animations. With the decapiate perk a lot of them are ... decapatations. You get critical perks and sometimes a boss will go down with one hit.

The big sword is slow but it hits very hard. Dragons are especially nice as they do not dodge well at all. I have had a few nice Dragon kill animations.

It's gotta be one handed for me.

Personally, I was in the same situation. I ended up choosing sword and board over two-handed weaponry. Not only did I find it more fun, I also found it to be far more effective in terms of finesse, damage output, versatility, and defense.

Honestly, I haven't found a reason, from a gameplay perspective, to use a two-handed weapon over a one-handed weapon + shield combination. The damage gap isn't that great and it's only shortened when one upgrades his weapon damage via the crafting trees. Two-handed weapons have more range, but they're much slower to strike and your movement is penalized to a large degree making that range fairly useless and a non-factor in most cases. Two-handed weapons can bash but a shield bash has more range, fires off slightly quicker, and has a much more effective stagger (Which is only made even more effective if you meditate on Fus).

Even if you don't mind taking blow after blow (Which most Youtube videos seem to suggest that a lot of people are content with just standing still button mashing and taking blow after blow), you're better off using Dual-Wielding. It's a far better choice in terms of damage output than two-handed weaponry. It's also a more versatile choice because you can switch out your second weapon for a shield and still be viable damage wise.

So essentially, two-handed weaponry falls short when it comes to offense and defense (And fun ... o.O... ).

Depends entirely on the race and six of my character. I can tell you what I don't like and never use though and thats maces and one handed axes.

Hmm now my Greatsword has been stroked a tiny bit more that my short sword but in my full Deadric kit my Legendary Greatsword hits at 120 now and the Legendary Sword hits at about 65. Now I have not heavilly stroked my stuff but my Greatsword hits way harder than my sword.

At the higher end of the scale the gap is far shorter percentage wise. I don't have concrete numbers with me at this point in time but believe me, it's far shorter. Why do you ask? Mainly because the damage that you can add to a weapon (Besides a Dagger) is far larger than the base differences between a one-handed weapon and a two-handed weapon. And by far larger, I mean the number difference is HUGE. Out of this world.

DawnBreaker (legendary smith) = op ,with that sword all nordic ruins are easy walk through the park...

By and large I prefer one-handed. In both hands. Dual wielding swords is a lot of fun, providing that you get your stamina pretty high.

Here's some rough numbers which may vary depending on your crafting skills, weapon skills, and perks. Anyhow, at the high end of the scale, a two-handed Daedric Greatsword only does ~16 percent more damage (Per strike) than a one-handed Daedric Sword. That really isn't much, especially when the numbers are already fairly high and when you consider all the other cons a two-handed weapon has.

I sure would like to know how you got those numbers. Now as I said a mild stroking is all I do. I do understand the Alchmey/Enchanting scam and avoid it. I have moderate Enchanting and medium Alchemy and have never looped them . My max over 100 smithing has been about 35% clothing and a 50% potion I found.

Anyway in my little world the big sword hits amost twice as hard as the little sword.

Daggers all the way, but there's something suprisingly satisfying in using two-handed weapons in Skyrim. I really like the look and feel of them. (specifically claymores)

Sword and board mostly, next character will be a two hander for a change

I do too. I even like that they're slow. To me there's a bit of strategy involved in using a slow weapon and that makes the slower weapon more interesting to me than a fast weapon.

I utilized the crafting skills, weapon perks, and weapon skill level. If you want to limit yourself that's fine, but that's hardly useful when discussing the usefulness of the weapon types. Might as well do player.forceav Twohandedmod Over9000! and say that two-handed weapons hit harder than one-handed weapons.

PS. You stroke too much.

Oh really. On a 125 hour level 40, yes it's a very slow to build character this one, ... I don't think so.

A 17% bracer, a 12% necklace and 10% ring with a found 50% potion is hardly spamming the game.

I did build some daggers but my epic "find all the ebony and mine it" took me a very long time. I built three complete sets of ascending armors on the way. As the Arch Mage, certainly not a huge deal, I have acess to essential building materials and I did all this on purpose to fulfill among other things, my goal of all Deadric kit for my Battlemage.

By tutorial, you mean Helgan Keep? No forcing to use anything there - about 2 minutes in I was weilding an iron battleaxe.

It wasn't a serious comment. It was light-hearted humor if anything. You kept using the word stroke so that's why I threw it in there. o.o ... *Shrugs*

Twohanded weapons for the first initial omg-we-have-skyrim rush character. And then some more of it, fiddling with other chars.

Their finishing moves look particularly good. Scewring your enemy with a Greatsword, or kneecapping them before clubbing their head with a Warhammer.

One Handed because I can dual wield. But if Dual Wield wasn't in the game, I'd probably choose Two Handed.

I still would like to know why my Greatsword is nearly twice as strong as my Sword with very similar treatment. According to you my 120 hit Greatsword should be about 16% stronger than my 65 hit sword.

Your numbers perhaps came from the usual place?

I've already told you. I utilized the crafting skills, weapon perks, and weapon skill level.

You are telling me nothing. The 16% ... where did that come from?

It came from comparing the weapon damage values? ... o.O ...

I have over 350 hours in this game and I understand quite a bit of how it works.

How come I have almost 100% for my number and you have 16%? The base damge of a Greatsword is about twice the base damage for a Sword. That seems to continue according to my experience with the crafting skills, weapon perks, and weapon skill levels I have experienced. Your contention that two handed weapons have a trivial advantage over one handed weapons is wrong. There is a significant difference.