I've been interested in shifting my build over to dual wielding for a little while now (I'm currently sword and board), but I'm not sure how well it'll work out for me. I'm level 35 right now (can't give particulars on my char and build because I'm at work).

I forged a couple of Skyforge daggers before I found out that they can't be improved any, which is mightily irritating. I went ahead and picked up the perks that make dual wielding 35% faster, I'm around 90 in sneak (still can't sneak up on Falmor, though; what's up with that?) and 70 in archery (so I'll be able to soften up most targets before they get to me).

I'm wearing the armor that the Dark Brotherhood outfits you with, and I've got an amulet that increases health regeneration by 15%.

I'm not really married to any of the things that I'm using right now, so I'm more than willing to switch up my weapons, use potions, etc. to make a build like this work better. I'd love to hear from some dual-wielders when it comes to what works, what doesn't, and whether it's awesome as I think it would be to rock two daggers or two swords or whatever the hell else can be dual-wielded.

it's working fine for me, except the early levels where I had to bring a follower to back me up, I like doing things alone.
the dual power attack while sneaking is a one-shot kill against almost everything, especially if you have the park that increases its power by 50% and the sneak perk that gives a 6x damage to sneak attacks. (I'm currently lvl36 with this build)

Very good with my sneaky character. I use sword + dagger, and if dual sneak attack doesn't kill it, a dual sneak power attack will. If it doesn't, it's an elder or ancient dragon

Also in a fair fight the damage output is quite respectable.

What are the benefits of using a sword and dagger versus, say, two swords or two daggers? Or axes or what have you, I'm not picky.

you always get the attackspeed of your offhand. this means with sword + dagger you hit as fast as you would do with 2 daggers, but do more dmg, because of the sword. only out of sneak though. most dmg in sneaking comes with 2 daggers i think.

I don`t get on well with dual wield at all. Shield and sword or two-handed sword.

Just not a Zingaran I guess.

I find it works well with enchantments.

I'm 100% one handed with full duel wield but I am still working up the enchantment tree so I can't double enchant yet.

On one sword I have fire damage and on the other I have soul trap so I constantly keep my soul gem filled.

I am thinking of spending a perk point on changing over to a mace as someone has said to me they are better than a sword. Not sure how true that is.

I use that setup only for aesthetics reasons actually, but the sword does help in dealing damage when sneak attack fails. Damage-wise it would best to sneak attack with two daggers, and two axes propably would deal most damage per second outside of sneak attacks. I didn't even know that attack speed thing

And i'm looking forward to using two Desert Eagles with this character's Fallout version come Fallout 4

It's crap. Dual wield is crap. I thought it would be sweet to carry Mehrune's razor in one one hand and Valdir's Lucky Dagger in the other. It is sweet, actually...in fact, it kicks ass. The problem is the hotkey issue. Until a mod fixes the inability to properly hotkey a weapon set, dual wield is just another broken feature.

It's not crap, the damage output is really high - even if you lose defense.

The issue you say anyway it's really annoying, you cannot even have 2 weapons with the same name in favorities because switching one of them makes impossible to dualwield without going in the item menu -.-

losing 5 seconds to equip a weapon? that's BROKEN !!! (sarcasm)

you haters are so funny sometimes...

Agree. The inability to hot key L/R combinations is a key failing. I would like to use sword/shield normally but go to sword/dagger when facing magical types. The UI is so clumsy that I don't bother.

P.S. I am not a power player. I modded in a main gauche as a shield and RP a duelist. What I have in my left hand amounts to a relatively bad shield with a point on it. Better than nothing though (this is how I played through Oblivion). If I had hot key combos available I could switch between defensive and offensive without even changing the 3d model in my left hand.

I'm not hating, it's stupid. Why can't I have a set of weapons assigned to a hotkey? If I have to go into a menu to use something, 99% of the time I just won't use it. I want to play the game, not hunt through Skyrim's schizophrenic Aeroglass menus.

You find it acceptable to stop in mid action and go plugging through a menu? If you ever have the urge to get into business as a UI designer ... umm .... there might be a better career alternative for you.

This- because of the failure to be able to switch between a spell and my offand weapon without pausing the game and digging through menus EVERY TIME, I dropped dual-weild entirely. (Personal opinion: since spells are better/more adaptive (best offhand weapon is invisibility ))

That said if you do not use different things for your offhand (spells) it should be fine.

You can get around the hot-key issue by using the quick menu. Leave the hot keys for bows, shouts, and potions.

Nope- this still pauses the game. Try doing it everytime you switch between a spell and have to fight an opponent. It gets just as old.

That is where enchanting comes in, give them different enchants or rename them in the process and it is no longer a problem. Sure you cant hotkey them but it hardly busts your balls going into the favourites quick menu to get them.

I run with axes of all sorts 2 hand, one hand and dual weilding them. A couple of enchanted Skyforge War Axes are the buisness, can smith them (maybe one of my PC mods though) up to do some silly damage and looks good too. One with fire and the other with ice enchants.

You, friend, have an excellent build. I always, always advise that SnS builds invest in the dual wielding perks. It's only three perks, so it's not a waste, and it vastly varies your combat. You can go from defensive to offensive in a flash, and how offensive you can be, especially since you have Sneak! Also, kudos for fitting Archery in there; I never have room xD

Dual wielding is almost a must--I can't NOT have it with any build that uses One Handed, since it gives you such variety for so cheap a price.

Almost any combination of One Handed weapons is useful. Two maces deal great damage per hit, and daggers are insanely fast with the +35% speed bonus. You can mix and match to have good speed and good power without sacrificing much of either, like a sword in the left and an axe in the right.

A word about dual daggers, though:

Relatively speaking, they're only useful if you're sneaking. In regular combat, the dual power attack with daggers has only mediocre speed--so it's not very bad--but it also isn't as powerful as the larger weapons. For that matter, two swords will have a faster dual power attack if you have +35% attack speed. If you want to attack at your fastest, have a dagger in the left and a sword in the right. Not only will they both swing individually faster than all other weapons, but they also will have the fasted possible dual power attack.

When it comes to sneaking, two daggers is not always necessary, but handy. If you can sneak attack with one hit, then you're likely well-hidden enough to do so with three. At a low level and with only steel daggers (one fine, one unimproved), I was able to take down a giant. Normally, I only go about with one dagger, but that wasn't enough. So instead of attacking the big guy once and getting launched into outer space, I whipped out another dagger and was able to down him before he detected me. Remember, when sneaking, a dual power attack is faster than three individual hits, even with daggers, and all three of the hits from a dual power attack can be sneak attacks if the enemy doesn't detect you in time.

What? Equip both weapons and hotkey the one in your right hand. Problem solved. Works every time for me.

I did the same thing i was shield and sword and didn't find out about due wielding when i did i done twice the damage and all ready had a high 1 handed skill to level 3 so it was doing some good damage i would change to double wielding if you want to be a good assassins this is what i think there are other better way to help.

To me spending the 3 perk points on dual wielding is far better than any of the particular weapons perks(sword ,axe, mace)Having that much damage available when needed is a beautiful thing.I primarily use sword and board but dual wielding is very useful vs larger groups(Farkas and dustmans cairn comes to mind)

I'm currently (still) playing a dual wielding assassin. It's either 2 daggers or dagger with sword. I love sneaking up on people and decapitating them.

I mostly use the bow to snipe enemies though, especially if there's a lot of them.

yes I do find it acceptable, maybe there's better games for YOU to play, cause the TES series are always been like this...
and no, I'm not willing to be an UI designer, I'm fine being a system adinistrator in a big company

Due to the rather poor combat simulation in Skyrim I find dual-wielding similar to hitting the panic button. I just click until everything around me is dead, which is not in any way fun or cool. I play an archer right now, and I only use melee weapons for situations where people get too close to me.