Kind of a long post for just one weapon, but if anyone is interested in my opinion on a largely misunderstood weapon please continue.

For a long time I've been wanting to see what the Ebony Blade was like, and for a while all I could read about it was how terrible it was. But now that it's in my hands it reminds me a lot of the Chaos Blade from Dark Souls, which offered decent damage with good stat scaling but took away health from the player with each strike. Now obviously the Ebony Blade gives you health with each strike, but there are a lot of reasons why I think this is a weapon more for hard core players than beginners or casuals. One being its odd perk and skill relationships - It raises Two-Handed but scales with One-Handed, and is effected by perks from both trees. It makes the weapon good for players that want to get their Two-Handed skill up while having a high One-Handed skill, but not all too great for players who specifically want to use 2H weapons. Its main problem is its ridiculously low damage. Even with a high One-Handed skill, this weapon is relatively poor in the base damage area. Its worst con is the fact that you have to murder friendly NPCs in order to give the weapon better damage [racking up a large bounty if you aren't the sneaky type], and sometimes the base damage will not raise due to a bug in the game. For a level twenty weapon it has a lot of bad qualities, but I believe the good outweigh the bad. For example, it has the fastest swing speed of any weapon, allowing for some major DPS. Some of you may think the Longhammer beats it in DPS as well as the ability to be upgraded/enchanted, but take into account the Ebony Blade's best quality: It never runs out of charge. Even at its lowest form the Ebony Blade can dish out damage at high speeds as it constantly gives the wielder health. At its highest form, it is capable of keeping the player at full health in some of the toughest fights. As long as the enemy lives, the player will not be in danger.

I hope this encourages some of you to try it out. It may not be great in the beginning, but in my opinion it is well worth the grind.

Thanks for reading, please share your thoughts below. If I missed anything just let me know and I'll edit my post with credit to you.

I find it amazing for my spellsword/battlemage. The health absorb allows me to stand toe-to-toe with Deathlords and win, even though I have a lot of level-ups into magicka. The DPS is amazing. I do have a mod for it, so it may not be as good in the vanilla game.

It's junk unless you run a mod that let's you upgrade it.

I do as the OP suggests. I level 2H up by using it, and it's nice because it's only 10 lbs. As far as actually doing some damage though? It svcks rather badly..

I remember when I was helping take an Imperial Fort for the Stormcloaks and all I used was Ebony Blade. True I killed most of them, but it took sooooo long to do so! If it actually got a substantial DMG increase it would actually be worthy of a 2H char.

It does have terribly low damage, but if you get it to its fully restored form its enchantment more than makes up for it in my opinion. Two quick hits on nearly any NPC is more than enough to kill them, and high-level enemies like Dragon Priests and Deathlords are no problem either.

If you need a quick and easy way to get it to its full potential, I recommend doing either the Forgemaster's Fingers quest or the Karthwasten Mine quest to gain the Orc Tribes' favor, then kill them all. If you do it right, two camp's worth of Orcs ought to do it [Just stay away from Dunkish Yal if you want to train in One-Handed, the master trainer lives there].

It svcks? damn i just made a two handed char for it. What about the rueful axe? any other two handed weapons good?

thing is the Ebony Blade gets a boost for those who have perk points into 1h skill tree.

so...

Volendrung and the Longhammer are the two best 2-handed weapons.

What about Wuthraad?

The problem with Wuthraad is that it cannot be improved through smithing (bug).

if you're on PC you can access a second version of the blade stored in the 'qasmoke' test cell. Its damage is slighty higher but it carries a different enhanchement: the other one allows a player to attack NPCs without having them become hostile

Volendrung is the best two-hander for me. It has the speed of a greatsword, and unlike some other really good 2H artifacts (Wuuthaad, Ebony Blade) it can actually be improved.

I tried using the Ebony Blade late on my orc character and just found it to be kind of annoying. The never-dying enchant is cool but not being able to temper it bothered me endlessly. So I went back to my Nord Hero Battleaxe.

Volendruug is also amazing as hell. The Absorb Stamina enchant pretty much lets you power attack into forever.

But not as much as should be possible. Dawnbreaker suffers the same handicap. The improvements to these weapons are about as good as you'd get with say, 30-50 points in your smithing skill on steel weapons.

I personally like the Nord Hero Greatsword, Volendrung, and the Reufel Axe. Such a shame you can't improve the Headsmans Axe or Wuuthrad.

And... WTFFFF is a Longhammer?

I know, too bad. Dawnbreaker was also one of my favorite one-handers, I was a bit disappointed when I found out its tempering limit.
But still, I stand by what I said about Volendrung. It's pretty good in base, and the fastest hammer out there.

Highest 2H dps weapon in the game buddy.

The Ebony Blade is meant to be crappy. Mephala, the Daedric prince of deceit and the person who gives you the weapon, only made it so that whoever wields it will spread destruction and strife as they kill friends and villagers in a vain attempt to make the Blade remotely usable.

The Rueful Axe is the slowest weapon in the game.

And the enchantment is very specific and not too useful.

Longhammer is an Orcish Warhammer that is much lighter than normal, so it swings VERY fast, like as fast as a 1-handed sword, I believe. Unenchanted, too, so you can use it with Elemental Fury or enchant it like a normal weapon. It's in one of the toughest dungeons in the game, IMO. At least the first room is very tough.

It svcks? damn i just made a two handed char for it. What about the rueful axe? any other two handed weapons good?

If you really want to use a two-handed katana, it's your only option - and you can make it good enough with effort.
The Rueful Axe is completely lame. Bad enchant, slower than any weapon has a right to be, and you have to sacrifice a Daedric artifact (also, kick a puppy) to keep it.

Sweet. The best looking weapon in the game...
Yea thats what i was thinking. And whats up with ahtar (the headsman in solitude) and his freakin axe. Thats all he uses for me. I have to take it from him so he will use something better.

I completely agree. It's a real shame.

Y'all need to keep firmly in mind that anything even remotely associated with a daedra is NOT an "unmixed blessing".

[General Kael: is there an esoteric reason to your Lovelace quote, or that you simply enjoy that particular era's poetry?]