Just started to play a few hours ago at max difficulty. My idea was to do a heavy armored dual wielding warrior and it was nice and all at the start. But once I reached first dung, without block or any sort of cc mobs with 2h weapons started to hit me way too hard and I had to skip a lot. Switched to sword&shield and I am unstoppable ball of steel now. Even dragon fell on first try.

If you want to build a warrior who uses one or two 1h weapons, at low levels shield is your best friend. I can imagine once you pick up more health and armor, switching to dual wielding may become an option, but at low levels ... shield is so effective. Health, steel crafting, 1h weapon damage, heavy armor = effective&awesome so far.

I'm playing right now, level 5 and I still can't decide if I want to go 1h + shield or 2h. To tell the truth, I've been killing stuff rather easily at master with 2H weapons but then again no magic during a fight. I mean I can uneqpic weapon, use magic etc. but it's not the same.

For me the 2h weapon was a bit slowish, so I decided to do 1h from the start. The shield blocking is fun and knocking enemies with the shield = pure win. But I haven't spent any perks on shield. I will see if my survivability improves and will give dual wielding another shot at higher levels before I commit to either. The perk that gives 50% resist to fire, frost etc when blocking with shield is very sixy however. Dragons breath ... you raise shield and just walk towards him anyway

Killed the dragon first try.....I wanted to, but I also wanted to see what happened when I ran under him and tickled his belly.

The ass scooped me up and bit me in half. Well worth the loss

I do agree I found it a little rough duel swords.

I dual wield and it is awsome, just move its not hard to dodge attacks. Also there is a one handed perk that increases attack speed while dual wielding by 25% and the next rank makes it go up another 35%, 60% total dual wielding is just fun to me

I think it's dumb that you can block if you are holding 1 sword, but not if you are holding 2. It just doesn't make sense.

I already opened a post for it but ill ask here again
can someone post his dual wielding build?
what perks do you put where? and how do you ration your stamina - health, is it like 1 point in stamina for every 3 points on health?

Hey OP, does your stamina drain when you block with a shield (if so how much)? Also how much dmg reduction are you seeing? If you hold block do you get the same benefit as timing it?

With only 2 hours of gameplay, I also felt it become much easier once I got a shield. Dual looks so much cooler though...

People are still saying its stupid? You realize how OP it would be right?

I don't see why. And I don't see why that matters. Make the block less effective than a shield block (heck, make it have no effect at all). It just feels awkward that my character can't do it at all. There's no freaking reason at all to take away something that a real person can actually do as if it is somehow physically impossible. It makes combat feel like a menu game and not a real-time role-playing game.

There's no reason it would be overpowered unless the mechanics aren't balanced well. Deleting the feature is a bandaid for not properly balancing its effects. It's an out, and it feels cheap and poorly done.

I don't think that blocking drains your stamina. If you use the block attack, that cost a bit, but much less than standard power attack. The dmg reduction ... When dual wielding, you have to avoid 2h attacks, because you can't take more than 2-3. Not at low level. When using shield or just when using single 1h/2h weapon, you don't have to avoid, you can block. You take some damage, but you can take 5-6 hits that way. And more importantly the block attack works as a short cc, which allows you to be very agressive without any real danger.

Also ... what's the advantage of having 2 weapons at low level anyway, once high enough you get the speed up, that can be nice, but at lower level ... I don't see it. WTB parrying dagger for my off hand.

Okay, hers my strat for dual - DUAL WIELD IS VERY POWERFULY. (btw I play on master, so I either use what works or die horribly horribly

Basically, I use 1h+shield for 80% of the time, however once i'm in a position where I've got nearly full stamina, I will shield bash "open" the enemy, as soon as the bash lands - equip your dual wield weps. Then go for a double power attack (get a second in if you've got the stamina left) and back to sword and board. No this isn't the most immersive of functions, but this is the real use of the skill - fantastic damage at carefully selected openings (makes sense really!)

Hope you're all enjoying this fantastic game!

I'm playing DW and enjoying it a lot.

I find it specially amusing when an enemy with a 2H sword tries to hit me and I just step back, he wings into the air and I counter attack.

How op it would be ? As op as being able to parry with your 2h weapon ?


I was doing the dung while dual wielding and it was a pain, so I dropped my off hand dagger and started to block wielding just one 1h weapon ... so much easier. Then I picked up a shield and stopped running from stuff

From what i've heard, the reason you cant block while dualwielding is due to the animation used to block: Grabbing the hilt of the sword/axe/mace with Two hands. And since both hands are holding a sword, you'd have to drop one of either to dual-grab the hilt of one... thats why you can block with 2-handers and single 1-handers..
(If i'm wrong.. please be gentle i havent been able to play yet, so i still going by what i read on the forums.)

Could be that, plus the fact that they'd need a new control to do that. I don't know how this works on consoles but on the pc, In every case you can block, you have one mouse button available to do that. When dual wielding, you have both buttons assigned to striking with each weapon. They'd have to figure out something different for that particular circumstance. And I'm sure, at some point, someone just got lazy and said... hey, let's just establish this as a disadvantage of dual wielding since it's usually such a popular build.

I can see how this can work ... you don't always need to block stuff. I don't wear shield agains weak enemies either. Not when I can just charge them and heal up afterwards, works fine since I don't use magic for anything but healing.

I'm playing dual wield daggers, and I tend to get my [censored] handed to me in straight up battles.

Most of the time I'm sneaking around and use a double dagger sneak power attack(which seems to kill almost anything). However when I do get caught out in the open and during the day, I can't stand my ground with dual wielding. Maybe I need to learn to dodge better.

Plus I'm having difficulty leveling the One-Hand skill. It does seem doing sneak attacks raises both sneak and the weapon(I think I got a level up for both skills on one attack, could be wrong). But my sneak skill is at 70, and my one hand is at 29.

I would like a parry type option during combat, it does feel wrong to just take the beatings dealt to you.

ffs its a single player game it cant be op. if you people think duel wielding with parry is op then duel spells should be completely removed, that is the most "op" thing in this whole game.

Good to know thanks.

With the speed perk dual wieldings pretty decent before that though it's a little tough.

One handed is definitely the way to go. You have the option to use a shield, magic, carry a torch, etc. One handed just has so many more positives. Every time I hear "dual wield" I cant help but think of FPS "noobs" thinking how cool it is. I tried out dual wielding and remember doing a really nice move with both weapons that really devoured a bandit but not worth it at all. Its funny, I barely used magic in Oblivion but now I find myself one handing it with a spell in the other hand.

So after discovering the sword&sheild awesome I decided to do it again for real from the start and rerolled.

Stats - doing 3 hp 1 stamina. Perks - 1h weapon, heavy armor, block, smithing and a bit of resto magic.

Playing on max difficulty and very fun. Hardest mobs that do a lot of dmg I bash&slash ... for that a bit of extra stamina is very helpful. Also switched from swords to axes ... swords are unnecessarily fast for how I play. Bash&slash means you stagger enemy with your shield bash which interrupts his attack and then you hit him with your weapon before he recovers. After one hit you bash him again

I have used two handed the whole game so far (level 16, 17 hours played) and I love it.
I can one hit a lot of opponents, and make short work of bass types. Add in heavy armor and the orc racial and you are unstoppable. Bash right through blocks and still take a big chunk of health.
Blocking perks help too!

Nothing like a good killing animation when you are using a 2 handed weapon.