So I've decided to take a break from my Wood Elf archer and start a new playthrough with a totally different race and a totally different build, so I went for an Orc.

I've just escaped Helgen and I'm about to leave Riverwood for Whiterun, but before I go any further, I need you guys to help me.. one-handed or two-handed!?

I honestly cannot choose. I like them both. I was thinking of investing in both skills and using only warhammers from the two-handed weapons and swords and war axes from the one-handed weapons, but would this be a total waste of perks and therefore, a bad idea?

Seeing as I'm going for a warrior/berserker build, there are only a few skill trees I'll be focusing on anyway, (Smithing, Enchanting, Heavy Armour) so all the thief and magic skills won't be used. Except maybe Speech..

So guys what do you think I should do? Choose between them or go for a bit of both? I really want to make a decision now early on in the game before I start levelling up and end up regretting it.

If you are going for a beserker build then a two handed weapon is a far better choice than one handed.

I prefer one-handed, as the weapons are much faster to use and you can have a shield in the off hand. Two-handed weapons are too slow for me.

If you're concerned about wasting perks, just make a backup save file before you do anything out of the norm. With a previous character, I leveled up two-handed weapons, but that was after I had already maxed one-handed and had a leveled character with a good health total and armor rating. It may be tough and slow if you try to use both at the same time.

There are definite benefits to each path, two-handed weapons have longer reach and deal more damage. A longer reach gives you a greater ability to avoid enemy counter blows, while dominating him with a more damaging weapon. On the other hand a sword and shield (or small axe/mace) gives you more damage per minuet and access to the shield which can deflect arrows and in some cases even magic.

If you are just learning melee combat, i'd go with the sword and shield. It's more forgiving when mistakes are made and down the road gives you some really nice perks. But a berserker to me is someone who forsakes all defensive ability for the sake of maximizing damage output. This normally means high alpha damage since you can't sustain yourself with a DPM weapon with the lack of defence. If you want to go all out berserker, i'd go with a two handed battle axe.

The only differences:

-One-handed can dual-wield for faster attack speed but zero defense.
-Two-handed can AOE with a side-swipe attack
-One-Handed offers a shield for better blocking
-Two-handed has higher DPH
-Weapon reach (two handed is longer)

So what you're saying is that I should pick one to max out for now and perhaps go back to the other later? I'm making sure my character has a good stamina rating anyway so my power attacks aren't as draining. Decisions decisions!

On my first PS3 character I played two handed all the way. Sword n board is better, you don't die as fast. Had to learn that the hard way.

It's up to you. If you stick with one, you'll level it faster than if you were leveling two types at the same time. You can then switch to the other later and level that up.

Power attacks and shield bashes always seem to eat up stamina, no matter how much you have. Weapons with absorb-stamina are your friend, and a decent stock of stamina potions.

I prefer one-handed dual wield, wicked damage output.

You could try both, I like one handed and two handed and always would fiddle around trying to choose but then decided I would use two handed weapons as the starting weapon for a fight and then swap to sword and shield if Im starting to take too much damage or swap to dual wield for a powerful and fast finisher. Its quite fun really.

Pick which one you like the look of more. I primarily used the Ancient Nord Battle Axe because it looked awesome.

Heavy armor, two handed, war hammers all the way. Wish I picked Orc rather than Nord for this build though...

One handed! Two is useless for blocking, plus you can get the shield effect. Try rockin a Mace of Molag Bal.

Put a compromise, 1.5 handed. Essnetially, you have one weapon in each hand, but you don't use the one in your left hand. 1.5 handed

With an orc character two handed+berserk+fortify two hand enchantments give sick damage scores. I lay waste to just about everything that way.

make sure you understand the loot.

2 handers get ALOT of guantlets that buff damage, so 2 handers will just DISH out the damage.

there arnt alot of gloves that boost 1 hander damage, but the counter to 2h is that you find shields with damage resistance buffs and magic resistances

Ug'lug my orc went two handed battle axe and does a sick amount of damage with a fully perked 2H tree. There wasn't much that could stand up to more than two power attacks, except dragons (usually between four and five hits), dragon priests and all but the highest level undead. Most everything else was one or two hits. But then I pushed his stamina to the limit and put stamina absorb on the axe as well as frost damage.