Did a search and couldn't find much on the subject. The first serious character I played was a two-handed warrior. I had heard it was best for damage and indeed it was. This time I'd like to make yet another warrior, but use a one handed weapon with a shield and use blocking more. It may not kill as fast, but I'm bored. My question is, how does it compare to two-handed? Does it take substantially longer to kill enemies? Is blocking with a shield even worth the trouble? He's level three - just don't want to invest time and points in a less than useful combat choice.

Unrelated, but I chose Breton this time just for the 25% magic resist. In Oblivion they were considered the "uber" race - does that still apply in Skyrim? I know the racial playing field has been leveled, but there still must be one that has a slight edge over the others.

Two-handed tends to be less powerful the more you use smithing. Since Everything from the Dagger, to the Warhammer gain a flat increase in damage from Smithing improvements (An Iron dagger gains +1 when upgraded to Fine, and so does an Iron Warhammer), the difference levels off eventually, resulting in a relatively small discrepancy in damage.

Bretons are still the "Uber Race", though Nords and Dunmer are very strong too.

strongest melee style is infact sword and board

whoever wants can argue as long as he wants about it, but it is. nothing makes the game easier, as long as it has nothing to do with sneaking.

That's how Elder Scrolls games have really always been. Even in Morrowind. When you had high Shield Skill, you could block everything (Until your shield broke)

I suppose this is why I'd argue again for Degradation in Skyrim, but it's just beating my head against a wall.

Probably a better example of "Sword & Board" Being OP is Dark Souls though. I'm convinced you can't play that game without Ironskin Exploiting, or a shield.

One Handed's way better. You can use a shield and it swings much faster, combine that with Enchantments and you'll deal a lot higher DPS.

Not to mention shield bash. Its like the Impact Perk for melee characters.

Thank you for the very useful post - I always max Smithing.

Thx to all you guys - I really had no idea one-handed could compete, let alone be better. I max enchanting as well, so having the extra armor piece with be great.

Then of course, there's dual-wielding. A DW power attack is insanity, especially if you use axes.

Yeah for sure one handed is better for the above reasons. I like putting skills in each, just to change things up when one style gets boring.

I should probably point out, two-handed isn't without some merit. The extended range of your swings helps, especially when fighting enemies with one-handed weapons, you can often bash and attack them without really taking any damage. To that regard, I'd say two-handed favors people in Light Armor, or with the appropriate perks to negate your armor weight, because you can deliver your hits and get out of range much easier.

Two-handed really fails against Magicians though. You're essentially naked as you attempt to close the distance on them, where as with certain Shield perks, or with Ward Spells, you can rush enemy casters with Impunity.

Two often-overlooked advantages of Two-handed weapons are the result of perks as well. Sweep is well known, but I can't really tell you in words how nice it is to cleave through 3 enemies at once, specially in situations like Falmer caves, where the little buggers come out of the walls and swarm you. Another advantage of Two-handed weapons is the final perk "Warmaster", which sounds very similar to Paralyzing strike, but this is where Bethesda made a mistake. Warmaster does not paralyze targets, it's a Knockdown effect, which means it works on many more enemies than paralysis, with the additional reach of Two-handed weapons, it's also much easier to execute the Warmaster strike as well.

So really, One-handed is better overall, but Two-handed is by no means "Weak". Alchemy is probably more important for a Two-handed user though, since both hands will be occupied by the weapon.

Two-Handed also works well with Heavy armor, provided you build for heavy burst damage. To that end you'd want an axe or hammer instead of a sword, since the build is meant to end fights quickly and those weapons do the most damage per individual strike.

As for mages: two-handed does not 'fail' against them, save through user error . You will need to stack magic resistance, though, since you won't have a perked shield to absorb the shots with. Restoration can actually be rather helpful here, since you can dual-cast a healing spell while closing the gap; with the Respite perk you can heal back Stamina as well, which means you can sprint while doing so and still be able to power attack once in range. Alchemy does have the advantage of not putting away your weapon, but unless you hot-key potions you'll have to pause to use it, and some folks hate doing that as it breaks the flow of combat.

The Sweep perk is invaluable when fighting swarming foes, such as Falmer, Forsworn, or Bandits, as it lets you kill up to 6 at once with proper placement. Even if it doesn't kill them it does knock them down, which gives you time to heal. Warmaster is a good perk, but gets a bad rap; it only works with backwards power attacks, which can be difficult to land, so a lot of folks write it off without seeing what it can do.

Overall, though, 2H is still inferior to 1H+Shield, since the OP left-side Block perks don't work with weapons. You also lose up to two enchantment slots, but that's not necessarily a problem given that shields have rather limited enchantment options to begin with. Without a shield it's arguable which is better, although the higher strike rate of most 1H weapons means they can land more debilitating enchantments in the same time period, which is invaluable for those wearing Light Armor and not heavily investing in Smithing.

Dual-Wielding blows both of them away once perked-up; although you're completely open to incoming attacks since you cannot block at all, you often don't need to block since they die before they can hit you. Casters are a headache unless you have really high magic resistance, but then almost all DW users invest in that because passive protections are all they have.

I have played with couple characters who used shield. Shield is very useful in Skyrim but it takes some time before player founds the best ways for using it. I found that block holding (as npcs always does) is worthless to use instead of it I like to use fast blocks - just swing my shield to block the hit when enemy is hitting. Timing for it is hard but it's enjoying and worth way to play. another thing I like to do with shield is to disturb enemy with bash (and power bash). With bash you can often stop an enemy who has started to make a power strike. Also you might notice that shield raises your armor rating and shields are able to hold decent enchantments such like resistance improvements against magical or elemental damage.

what? smithing + two-handed is MERCILESS.

Pretty much this^. Plus there are shield bash perks which stagger the opponent quite consistently, thereby giving you the same stagger effect as a 2H weapon. Even better, you can then get twice as many swings in on them while they attempt to recover.

My last character wielded nothing but a warhammer throughout. It was great when it hit but it was clumsy and I flat out missed on a lot of power swings. There was also the matter of knocking the crap out of my followers on accident. That stuff doesn't happen with 1H and a shield.

If nothing else, a shield gives you an extra enchantment slot. Elemental resistance and a resist magic enchantment makes the shield an excellent active and passive protection against all types of enemies. Add in a bit of bashing, and once you master the right way to use it, almost makes things too easy.

My level 51 Nord uses a sword 'n' shield. She also uses Light Armor, Alteration (Stoneflesh spell and passive magic resist 3/3), Restoration (starting Healing spell, with the Regeneration (50% more hp healed), and Lord's Stone (25% magic resist). Spellbreaker is just awesome against mages, I love what it has become. Personally, I dont think you really need more than 1 point in to the Shield Wall perk (the first one), it only improves by 5% after the first. Light Armor's stamina regen perk is quite nice. Since you chose Breton, you could easily swap the Lord's Stone with something else, like the Lady's Stone (25% health + stamina regen).

I have gotten Smithing (pre-1.5 patch), Enchanting, and Alchemy maxed; also have pushed the equipments stats to the extreme, but I'm likely to go back to the older stuff. I did this more out of curiousity than anything, altho I can't 'unsmith' Spellbreaker (Im on Xbox). 550 damage and 1400+ armor is a little much.

I played a Sword/Shield character and on Adept I can say I probably would've done just as well without a shield. On Master, yes, a shield is invaluable, mainly for bashing, but on Adept and less... I think Two-Handed is better simply because you can 1 hit things before they even touch you. And if the first hit doesn't kill them, wearing Light Armour can allow you to back up and avoid damage.

But Daedric Warhammers look SO COOL.

if you can spare 3 perk points you can dual wield to keep the high damage output and then pull out your shield when you run into those stickier situations. Doing that on my current playthrough.

Fighting casters using shield or an open hand requires only a Ward Spell, or spell breaker. Fighting casters with two handed requires an entire suite of different perks just to close, and a lot of potions if your quarry makes good his escape. I prefer to just run up and pin casters with a Ward Spell.

Shield play in Skyrim is fantastic. I went into it thinking it would probably be boring but man was I wrong because it's great fun. On my warrior I preferred to use Maces. They were a bit slower but the damage was great and I loved the finishing move where you point the mace into the other guy's face. That was always satisfying. A fully smithed out 1h warrior is a death machine.

Hmm, lots of ways to take out casters as a warrior. The easiest is just brute force attack with magic + elemental resist. S&B or 2 hand can go that route. One hand warriors do have two extra ways - either a ward or elemental potency perk. Personall, I have never been impressed with wards. They are very effective in blocking dragon breath, but usually taking cover can accomplish the same thing.

The brute force method is not particularly exciting. Archery is a great option against mages for a warrior. Especially once you get the slow time perks. Works even better with a paralysis poison arrow or slow arrow. You could also use sneak. 2 Hand weapons still do x2 dmg on a sneak attack. Not many mages can surive a sneak attack power attack from a daedric war hammer! That should work well for you since you like light armor. But one hand + shield will win in the sneak category due to the x6 multiplier.

But generally the run around a corner trick works. Get the mages attention and then duck around a corner. Wait for them to come to you. Then launch a quick charging power attack. Two hand weapons have the advantage here because they dish out a lot more damage and they can stagger your target.


Late game though, the shield warrior is the best against mages hands down. Nothing compares to Shield Charge. LOL, mages worst nightmare is a shield charge from a warrior using Spellbreaker. Game over milk drinking mage.

Edit: Let me say though - sell me on wards! Are they really effective for you against multiple mages?

Never used any spells on my warrior except the base healing spell which I only used between fights to save on potion use early in the game. Later I never used any spells because I didn't need them. For mages I simply sprint to them, shield bash them to interrupt their cast and smash them with my mace. That's how you kill a mage, any mage. My warrior is a Breton and I used the Lord Stone so any magic they did happen to get off on me had very little impact anyway.

I just made my first Two-handed toon, and after spending a long time with a Sword and Shield i was quite supprised by how effective a Warhammer was Crude-but effective.

The answer to the OPs question is yes it does take longer to kill somthing, but it's also harder for them to kill you, as you have a shield and you can block just about anything.

The Two handed weapons deal massive amounts of damage but they offer almost no defense, but being a Two-handed warrior you probably know all this.

"Block, counter, bash! Hit them when they're down! They'll show no mercy, so why should you? Battle is about the offensive, about catching your foe early and never relenting"
- Eduardo Corus, Killing- Before you're killed

When making a Shield-Sword character you will notice you deal less damage, you will also notice if you Block you will recive considerably less damage, you will find startegy to be your ally and Magic to be less of an enemy. Battles will be longer and often more annoying, but you'll live more often but no fight will be ended with a single strike, however if you learn to use your shield as a weapon as well as your sword Victory will be yours.

P.S if you make a Sword-Shield character i adivse the slow motion Perk first and then go down the Bash line.

I have found this to be true too. However, two-handed is quite effective in the early game, but the usefulness wanes as you progress.

A high-level Sword and Board build is almost unable to be killed, even on master. I have fought off 4 Falmer Shadowmasters and a Chaurus Reaper simultaneously. 3 melee Deathlords and 1 archer, etc. etc. The extra enchantment slot makes an incredible difference.