Interesting video. He says that your right hand attacks are 15% faster than your left hand attacks. That may be true. But then he says that, because of this, alternating right and left hand attacks is slower than just repeating right hand attacks. This is not true at least not in my experience. I can definately alternate attacks much quicker than I can do a repeat attack with the same hand.

I always thought the trick to dual wield was to press both buttons at the same time, not take alternating swings.

There is actually a bit more to dual wielding than just spamming both power attack buttons. First off, stamina is important , but don't neglect health either. You will inevitably take hits, so you need some staying power. You have several attacks: main hand attack, off hand attack, main and off hand power attacks, standard two weapon attack, two weapon power attack, and a "flourish". The last move is done by initiating a two weapon power attack, releasing, and then performing a standard two weapon attack. You will strike a total of four times. Note that the "flourish" is considered a regular attack, and so will be interrupted by blocking. However, it works wonders on creatures. You can also cancel a regular attack into a power attack, which, when combined with Dual Flurry, can be a very fast and reliable way to do damage.

Power attacks are your friend. The off hand sword or dagger power attack strikes very quickly and can break a guard or stop an enemies' attack (consider this your "block"). Generally speaking, the off hand power attacks tend to be more versatile than the main hand counterparts. For instance, the off hand forward power attack is much easier to direct, as is the off hand critical charge. If you cancel a regular off hand attack into a backwards power attack, you can actually hit your opponent without any additional footwork. While I still caution against the Paralyzing Strike perk, the off hand technique makes it much more useful.

Footwork is important,too, especially with fellow dual wielders (mostly Forsworn) and two handed weapon wielders. Skirt forward slight to provoke an atack, move back, and then hit them with a forward off hand power attack. You can then proceed to shred your opponent as he/she staggers. You are not a tank, so do not think you can just stand there and take the punishment.

Finally, if you attack with your off hand when your main hand is mid strike, you will perform your next attack almost instantly, regardless of perks. The timing is extremely difficult to nail, though.

All in all, dual wielding is a ton of fun once you start to harmonize your weapons. Give it a try...once you get the hang of it you might really come to appreciate it.

just do it.... if you don't like it quit playing the character. i didn't do one for similar reasons, plus i had problems with the glitch in switching weapons or to casting.

then i tried one and figured out that if you have a bow hot keyed, manually equip your two weapons, then all you have to do is hot key unequip your bow after sneak attack and the game automatically equips your melee. if you ever equip a spell though it will mess that up, so I had to adjust to play without spells, which wasn't a problem.

to get some of what you want to accomplish only use the dual power attack for tough fights, but still take the perks and the E. Fury. I was amazed at how fast you can kill stuff, like a Draugr Lord dying instantly, health bar doesn't go down, just disappears immediately, draugr go flying....

for run of the mill fights use weapons alternately, and I like to do one handed power attacks on stuff when you can kill and get the cut scenes. I have never had a cut scene occur on a dual wield power attack. i also like the left hand only power attack while moving forward. If you time it right it looks really cool, and the enemy just sort of pauses in confusion.

Do you own Skyrim on PC? If so you can get the Dual Wield Parry mod. It allows you to block with all dual wield combinations ( so long as a weapon is equipped in the right hand).

Your power attack speed is based off of the weapon in your left hand. So if you have a dagger in your left hand and mace in your right, you will have rediculous power attack speed for a mace. Combine that with flurry and it is rediculous.

I do that too, but it gets boring doing that all the time so I do quick alternating swings sometimes too.

EDIT: Plus, like Adonis5 explains in post #28 above, there is a lot more to dual wielding than just standing there and hitting both attack buttons at the same time.

Dual wielding sounds useless if you aren't doing power attacks. It is alright I guess, but I'm more of a 2 handed guy.

On a warrior I wouldn't dual wield. The damage per second is not that much higher, and you loose the ability to block. I know they say you can double the damage... but I haven't seen it, you can hit with both at the same time but you will be attacking slower if you do.

On assassins it is a must. Dual dagger sneak attack with x15 damage.... that means x30 damage. You can kill a dragon by snipping his tail..... their tail tip is like guard's knees.

I played a dual wield assassin. The sneak attacks took down anything with ease. When I did end up in a fight I often found myself just swinging with one dagger most of the time. Trying to swing with both in combat was to cumbersome and took my attention away from dodging out of the way of enemy attacks. Of course they were also daggers so you had to be really close to an enemy to hit with both at the same time.

Some say it is pure offense, but it's a counter-strike game to me.
Forget about your foes' standard attacks, your armor will soak that.
Stand just out of range of a standard attack (don't move!) then the AI will (predictably) fire off a power attack, step back to dodge this; then step in and fire off a single attack of your own.

I tried this out at level 4 against a snow troll. I had superior steel longswords; and I fought in my skivvies to make it more interesting.
He would have one shotted me (but he couldn't hit me).

And don't bother with dual attacks.
I prefer light armor and light weapons.
I can move quicker to dodge and lighter weapons cost less stamina if you choose to power attack.

I would love to see parrying implemented though, in fact I would give up power attacks to be able to parry.

Excellent advice, guys, thanks!

I really appreciate the breakdown of tactics to use. That is exactly what I was looking for, and hoping to find. It's very reassuring to see that the combat can apparently be more than button mashing.

Now I'll have to see whether my skills are up to it!

Duel wielding is nasty powerful with the right weapons and perks.

Does the Duel Wield parry-mod (or similar mods) work with "Weapon in one hand and a spell in the other hand (= Sword and Spell-Style)" as well?

Dual-wielding needs it's own skill tree with a variety of perks to make it viable for me, I'm an assassin and I even think having just one dagger is easier than messing around with two, I just leave my other hand empty...

I am on PC, so I could in theory get mods. But I'm waiting until every scrap of DLC or expansion has been released first. Don't want to get mods just to have to uninstall them when a new patch is released or something.

Anyway, my interest in dual-wielding is now piqued. I'm thinking about giving it a serious try. Still fiddling with a character concept, so I figured I'd post here and see what others thought.

The plan is for a sort of "Shadowdancer" character (based loosely on the Pathfinder RPG prestige class of that name). I would take the following skills:
One-handed
Light Armor
Sneak
Illusion
Enchanting

I wonder if Illusion will be just overkill if I already have Sneak. Of course Illusion would be handy for crowd control.

Enchanting will likely be a minor skill; just enough to slap a decent enchant on each blade.

I'd use dual swords, for reach, and avoid daggers; my concern is that if I go with Sneak + daggers, there will be very little incentive for me to actually do any stand-up fighting, as I'll just be slitting throats all day long. The concept with this character is to use Sneak so I can basically choose my fights. I might not perk it up very much, actually. Just use it to assess the situation and decide who/when to attack first.

I need some form of ranged attack, so either Archery or Destruction - just as a very minor thing, to get a first shot off.

Race is undecided. I'm thinking Redguard or Breton most likely.

Thoughts?

It's just as mundane as slashing with a 2h weapon but it's more damaging.

Dagger in left hand for dual attack and dual power attack speed.

that video completely changed my mind about dual wielding, I've never even seen that shout and it is amazing to me, and the perks too, I really want to make a dual wielder now, probably left hand sword and right hand mace, my current char is a sneaky archer so I want something completely different, my first char was a one handed warrior in all heavy armor but I got bored of him after a little while, but I really wanna try this out, possibly Orc because dual wield + the shout + perks + Berserker Rage would be absolutely insane, but then again it might make the game too easy, maybe with the role playing concept I can make a dual wielding scimitar pirate that uses skills such as pickpocket, one handed, maybe light armor but Idk how well I can tank then, but that idea kind of reminds me of Cervantes from Soul Calibur, a dual-wielding pirate captain

E/ I wish my PC could run Skyrim so I could make my character wear Pirate clothes or armor with mods

Looks like a good build to me. Similiar to the build I have got going right now, except I am perking smithing up the heavy side so I can eventually get well-smithed deadric swords and daggers (using skyforge steel at the moment). And I am not perking enchant at all (since I am perking smithing).

I also am not perking light armor, although that is the armor my dual wielder wears. Only fur and leather armor, he concentrates on moving quickly and not getting hit. I may eventually put four perks into light armor to get the weightless and stamina regen. But probably won't put more than one perk into the 20% perk. I kind of like the feeling of being fragile if I get hit.

Illusion plus sneak is not necessarily overkill because they do different things. Sure, if you are concentrating on the invisibility/muffle spells, then the muffle/shadow warrior perks are kind of redundent (and vice versa). If that is what you are going for, my advice is that it would be more fun to have one sneak character that perks to Shadow Warrior and a second nightblade character that relies on illusion/muffle spells instead of the left branch of the sneak tree. More variety and replayability that way. But you get Frenzy with Illusion and that goes really well with sneak cause you can sneak to a room of bandits and watch them battle out with one another. And that works well with pure sneak. Again though, maybe mroe of a nightblade thing. I have both, so my nightblade is only perking the right side of the sneak tree but he is also perking all of the non cost reduction illusion perks and perking enchant for any needed spell cost reduction.

For my dual wielder, I am also going for more of a thief build so I am perking pickpocket and not perking any of the spell schools or enchant. Well, I did put four points into restoration (Novice/Apprentice/Regeneration/Respite), just so I could get some healing and so I can sprint across the land and never run out of stamina (no fast travel here). I also turn off the HUD, so I have to really pay attention to know if I am hidden or not. Not having the sneak crosshair makes sneaking, sneak attacking and pickpocketing much more exciting. The gameworld gives you really good clues about whether you are hidden by watching NPC reactions.

Swords instead of daggers can be just as deadly for a sneak attack (not counting DB gloves) because the fortify one-hand enchant does not affect daggers. So, if your enchanted fortify one handed gear is good enough, your 6x damage with a sword can be about as good as 15x with daggers because your 1x sword damage can be more than twice as good as what you could get with a dagger. My nightblade (who enchants) only uses swords. My dual wielding thief uses swords (or sword/dagger) for tough fights but sometimes slits throats with a dagger.

Ranged combat? Yeah, you need it. Even unperked archery is deadly with the 3x sneak attack. My dual wielder is not perking archery, but carries a smithed hunting bow and uses it when he is in a situation that requires ranged attacks. Bows are also good for distractions since NPC's will go to where the arrow hits if you shoot one into a room from a concealed position. If you are playing a sneaky character bows will be more consistent than destruction. If you do go destrustion, you may want to get the quiet casting perk from illusion, otherwise you won't stay at all hidden when you cast your spells.

Ah, well, kind of long, but hope this helps.

Become Archmage of the College and face the Magical Disturbances. You need to duel wield to reduce the disturbance then fight the anomalies. Dual wield is essential at some points of play. i hope this does not count as spoilers.

no i probably cant sell you on it....


i was a terrible boy scout, never sold my cookies...

The only thing I have to say is this; Rashir Nashida my dark elf night assasin looks bad ass with two daggers.

Imagine as you're sneaking beside someone and he's holding two daggers, one dagger slits your throat while the other looks intimidating.

I use dual wielding against powerful magic users with all my characters that have invested into one handed. Rush towards them or sneak as close as possible and then use power attacks. Orchendor, dragon priests, arch-mages bosses... a volley of 3-4 power attacks with a weapon in each hand doesn't give them enough time to bring down the main character with powerful spells or to heal themselves back to 75% of their full health (I hate when the computer is cheating like that!).

Other than that, I think a shield is more useful in most situations.

Dual wield is broken in this game and I'm amazed that more people don't complain about it. Why in the hell did Beth include dual wield without the ability to hotkey weapon sets or at least assign weapons to specific hands????

It boggles the mind.
Boggles.The.Mind.

I admit that it is a little annoying, especially because when you smith your weapons you cannot even access them properly from the favorites menu (unless you enchant them), but I'd hardly call dual wielding broken just because of poorly implemented hotkeys and glitched favorites. That is like saying the whole game is broken because of the lack of an immersive HUD and dark dungeon options and not enough difficulty toggles/sliders.

Multiple enemies are the hardest to deal with, for a dual-weilder, since you have no 'sweeping attack' mode like 2H'ers have. You just don't have the defense to be able to take constant hits from multiple enemies, with no blocking. Besides having a melee companion that can (sometimes) help get some of them off you, I've found two things that help out here-

1) Use sneak to get close, and they will usually see and aggro on your companion first- let them engage your companion fully, then you can move in and pick off one at a time from the flank or rear, while your (hopefully strong and well-geared) companion takes most of the heat. If you play this well, you may never even get hit during the fight.

2) Illusion magic. This is my dual-weilder's best friend. 2 or 3 or 4 enemies? No problem. Cast Fury/Frenzy into them from range, and watch the fun. Move in when few are left, profit. Or cast Calm/Pacify to either reduce the number of active combatants you have to face at one time, or to chill out a single target so you can just walk up to it and get an easy kill. The Silent Casting perk really rocks once you get it, too. Then you won't even be detected when you cast your Illusion spells from stealth, and you can move in to engage at the time of your choosing. At level 90 of Illusion, you get a perk that even lets these spells work on undead/vampires/robots. Illusion magic really takes a lot of the heat off of dual-weilding players*.

* - and since you aren't putting any perks into blocking, you can use those perks you save to help work up Illusion!