One thing that bothers me greatly having played through Morrowind, Oblivion, and now Skyrim is how much two handed weapons get the shaft in Skyrim. By that I mean, unique weapons or what uesp.net classifies as artifacts. By my count, only three two handed artifacts (or unique weapons) exist in Skyrim: Wuuthrad, The Ebony Blade, and Volendrung. Wuuthrad is unimprovable, so it is essentially worthless as a unique weapon, even though it is extremely sweet looking. Same goes for the Ebony Blade, although the bulk of its weapon damage comes from its enchant, however, it suffers greatly from the fact that its power is derived from one handed perks, so I am uncertain if I should even consider it as a unique weapon. That leaves us with Volendrung, which is one of the sweetest looking weapons in my opinion, but it like all unique weapons suffers from the painful oversight in development where you can only improve it to a flawless level (using only Blacksmithing sans enchants and potions). At least it can be improved, so it is justifiable to use it, and it is as I said, very sweet looking.

My whole issue with this scenario is the fact that in Morrowind, we had TONS of unique two handed weapons that were powerful and fun to use. Because blacksmithing didn't exist at that point, each weapon was useful on its own merit. Remember Umbra and Chyrsaemare? I can't recall specific two handers from Oblivion, because I mainly played using one handers then, but I do recall Umbra in that game as well along with others. I know Umbra is out of the question because of lore, but the weapon offerings in Skyrim feel less than underwheling. It is bothersome most because there are so many nice one handed weapons. Mace of Molag Bal, Dawnbreaker, Keening, Mehrunes Razor, etc. I know that items you smith and enchant yourself are more powerful, but I don't make my weapon choice based upon maximum effectiveness. I choose my weapon based upon aesthetic primarily. As long as it isn't crippling to use, I don't mind sacrificing a small amount of damage to carry around a weapon every joe schmo bandit can't wield as well.