Hey everyone! I belong to the group of people who are still patiently waiting for the PC port of DS2 to release.... I'm trying hard not to get spoilerd too hard xD

Anyways, I'm not exactly an expert when it comes to soul games and much less when it comes to Dark Souls 2, obviously. I really dig dual-wielding weapons.. it just seems much cooler than going with the boring sword and board build (even though I imagine it is a WHOLE LOT easier to get through the game when you can actually block...) so yeah I am already kind of concerned... because as I said I really am no expert and struggled with DS1 already (only got like halfways through..).

My actual question however... whenever I saw gameplay of someone who dual wields, they always had these ugly... cloth and whatever armors on. And looks are quite important to me and I'm really digging some of the more heavy armors that look just a little bit more badass. But I am not sure how that's going to affect my dual-wielding capabilities? And also, what stats would I need to level up primarily to be able to effectively dual wield things as well? Because I really have no idea of stats or anything, for that matter.

What would you recommend? In terms of armor, weapons, stats and quite possibly, beginner class? Or should I scrap my idea of dual-wielding and do choose sword and board after all? (that is my second choice). Thing is, right now, I am just not sure what benefits dual-wielding has. Since having a shield to block attacks with just seems a LOT easier and much more beneficial?

Also, if someone wouldn't mind to chat a little, perhaps you can give me your steam name or skype or whatever, I'd love to geek talk about DS2 a little haha. The wait is killing me!!

There only seems to be two rolling speeds this time around, and the fast roll req is quite generous, so you can wear pretty much any armor set you want and still be able to roll around fast. I recommend just going a warrior route and dual wielding straight swords.

@steadyingmeat: I think instead of roll speed they've added roll distance. So if you have a really light weight you roll a lot further, but I've been playing the game with my equip at 100% so I have no idea how it works.

I'm like you, I do care about damage reduction, but visual appeal is more important to me. I'm wearing not-that-great armor, the Royal Soldier set, just because I really dig how it looks. Armor has no effect on dual wielding. Heavy armor as the name implies, does weigh more though. The game has an Equip Load that determines how much weight you can have equipped (items in inventory that you do not have equipped do not count). If you go over 70% of your max Equip Load you will start to 'fat-roll'. Which means your roll will be slower and has less invincibility frames. Rolling is used a lot to dodge attacks, especially of some bosses. Some people don't roll at all though. If you're not using it, there is less reason to care. However, it also slows your stamina recovery speed, which is something everyone probably cares about. Stamina is used for everything. Swinging attacks, arching the bow, casting spells, rolling, blocking, parrying, everything.

You can just increase your max Equip Load through leveling though. A stat called Vitality increases your max Equip Load by 1.5 each level if I'm not mistaken. So if you level it a bunch, you will be able to be very agile even in heavy armor. Downside is that you needed to level a specific stat for it, which meant not leveling other stats. It's a viable option though, if you want to be agile and wear heavy armor.

More on point: dual wielding has nothing to do with heavy armor. So in short: no, heavy armor does not affect dual wielding. To my knowledge, there is no stat that directly affects dual wielding. You can just choose to dual wield and do it. Some weapons have special moves when held with 2 hands, but there are no flashy combo's with two different weapons as far as I know. The point of dual wielding is that you can use a great sword in one hand (slow but powerful) and a dagger in the other (fast but relatively weak). You won't be limited by either of the two options in the heat of the moment. You can also dual wield daggers of course. You can have a dagger with a Bleed effect and one with a Poison effect and use both of them in the hopes of bleeding and poisoning your enemy at the same time. You can also dual wield great swords if you want. So you can have two different weapons with two different effects in the heat of the moment at the same time. There is no point in dual wielding two identical weapons.

You can try dual wielding, but if you're really a newcomer, you are going to miss your shield without knowing it. Shields are essential to start learning the game. You can equip 3 weapons in each hand and switch between them on the fly. If you really want to try dual wielding, I'd say equip a shield in your off-hand as well so you can switch to it as needed.

And sure, I'm down for some DS talk. Steam id is the same as my screen name here.

I wanna make an important point here. The game never tells you but there's a difference from equipping two weapons in both hands and actually dual wielding. From what I can tell you need 1.5 times the requirement stats for each weapon to "power stance" and then you hold Triangle/Y button and if you met the reqs your character will shift each weapon's grip instead of wielding the left hand weapon with two hands. This makes it so the left bumpers and triggers will attack with each weapon at the same time.

Since the focus of a dual-wield class has little options for defense, you should focus on dodging. So instead of really light armor, you should look for medium armor and put points into Adaptability. Since power stance attacks can consume quite a lot of stamina, there's gonna be times where you can't really get out the way and have to tank the hit so it's better to be able to live through it.

Dual wielding requires a lot of good reads off the enemies attacks, a keen eye on keeping your stamina decent enough to dodge, and some investments in stats to be able to handle some of the better weapons (which the swordsman class starts well enough for), but I sure as hell felt like a badass for beating the whole game dual wielding. It also can stagger like a mofo so if you want to go for a tank like build, it's viable. I just prefer dodging.

@dragon4234: Wait, what? Holding down Y causes you to 2-hand your off-hand weapon. What is this 'power stance' you talk about? I haven't seen it.

Probably because you haven't had your stats high enough to enter power stance, but he's right, it's the same action (hold down Y or triangle). If you have 1.5x the stat reqs for each weapon you enter that stance. If not you will two hand your offhand weapon.

Yeah, I do not. I use the Katana which requires 16 strength or so? I only have that 16. I'll try it with some other low stat required weapons.

EDIT: I tried this and it works on some weapons but not on others. Can you only use weapons of the same type to power stance? I'm using the Uchigatana (requirements 10 STR and 16 DEX) and a Claw with much lower requirements. I have 16 STR and 40DEX. I should be able to power stance then right? But it doesn't work.

@zevvion: AFAIK they don't have to be the same "type," but they have to have an overlap in the damage outputs, so if you have a weapon that does "slash/thrust" then you can power stance it with a weapon that has slash, thrust or both - you don't have to have two straight swords, two clubs etc.

You need 150% of a weapon's requirement to dual wield in power stance. So if a weapon required 16 strength normally, you need 16+8=24 str to dual wield in power stance. The same goes for the Dex requirement.

As for equipment, you can wear whatever you want, just have enough Vitality (equip burden) to have <70% equip weight. There's some really cool lightish armors that are still pretty good (Llewelyn set, for instance, but that's fairly late).

The big pros to dualwielding come from which weapons you have equipped, finding a good power stance moveset you like is mostly trial and error but I would recommend using fast weapons (daggers, rapiers, curved swords, katanas) to take more advantage of their rapid attacks to better break poise, armour, and stack bleed/poison more efficiently in regards to stamina. As fast weapons tend to scale better with dex they are good to enchant with poison and/or bleed (or ideally find weapons that have them baked in) as dex ups the damage bonus of those status effects as well. You can dualwield heavier weapons but as people have said above that comes with a heavy stat requirement.

The cons are its lack of defensive options. You cannot block or parry when you dualwield so you have to rely on dodging or switching to 2h with your mainhand to parry. Because dodging is generally your only option for defense wearing lighter armour and leveling adaptability will help your dodge rolls. There are plenty of medium/light armours in the game that look cool, so you shouldn't worry too much about wearing rags your entire playthrough. You can wear heavier armour to be sure, if you level your carry weight enough or are comfortable with shorter dodges.

It is hardly a beginner build, but it can be very rewarding.

You need 2 weapons of the same attack type.

slash/thrust + slash/thrust = will work
slash/thrust + thrust = will work, you dual wield in thrust type
slash/thrust + slash = will work, you dual wield in slash type
slash + thrust = will not work
strike + strike = will work

etc.

You need 150% of all the required stats to enter power stance, look at the weapon with the highest required stats.

Man this is really helpful, I was wondering why I could only Power Stance with Daggers. I'm a wizard so I've put no extra points into STR or DEX beyond being able to swing longswords.

While swinging two daggers around I made a casual observation of the benefits of dual weilding without power stance. The dagger, with its short reach, will take a big step forward during its first attack in a chain and a shorter step forward in the second attack of a chain. Each hit that connects pushes an enemy away slightly so alternating between the first and second attack in rapid succession (which is what you do when you attack with the dagger a bunch) seems to eventually push your target out of your reach. When dualweilding two daggers you can alternate between the R1 and L1 buttons every attack. This allowed me to attack quickly while using the large step forward of the first attack in a chain every time, thus it was a lot easier to keep the enemy in range.

In short, you move more forward when alternating L1/R1 than just using one of them, and this keeps the enemy you're pushing back with your attacks in range for more attacks. I don't know how usefull this is outside of dagger use, since daggers are the only weapon I can swing enough times for it to matter.

Basicaly you can wear whatever armor you want as long as you have enough weight to handle them, since you need to keep under 70% to still be able to dodge, and you NEED to be able to dodge wh ile dual wielding. Aside from that, you can dual wield practically anything. I tried dual ultra greatswords at one point, it was really dumb, but pretty nice being able to do a double smash with the strong attack.

I've been playing with a a dual wielder since I started this game, and while I'm not that far through the game, and therefore haven't experimented with too many different weapons, I've farmed every enemy I've come across into oblivion, and therefore, have heavy enough stats to power stance any reasonable combo I want.

First, I'll clear up two misconceptions I've read so far:

1) certain weapon combos DO allow for parrying when basic dual wielding, though will give you a very complicated parry with a very precise window of connection; not really recommended for anybody but gung-ho players. Additionally, there are weapons made with parrying in mind, and will replace the 'strong' attack with a parry animation with the same connection window as shield parries. Combinations of two of these weapons are the only combos that will allow you to parry in a 'power stance', as a free 'strong attack' command will be left unaltered on the right hand, resulting in a parry off the right hand.

2)'Compatible weapons' for power stance is a fuzzy subject, and should be decided more based on two weapon's attack types on am efficiency principle, but the game mechanics do not actually bar power standing of two unlike weapon classes. I.e.: I can power stance a thrusting spear and slashing falchion, but it's not recommended as the dual attack is limited to stabbing; something the falchion is useless at.

Alright, now I'll give my experiences and opinions on dual wielding by category.

Negatives of dual wielding:

1) No shield - yeah, kind of a huge bummer; I don't attempt boss battles dual wielding.

2) Redundancies: you'll find yourself wondering if you're wasting the potential of some of your weapons in a few classes - power stance or not. Without power stance, an attack from the right side will still have to recover before you can attack from the left side. Two identical attacks could be done at the exact same speed, perhaps with a combo, with just one hand. In power stance, you're just not going to use your left hand weapon as much as your right, and two handed attacks take more stamina, and more time to recover. Would two strikes from one weapon do more damage and take less time than a single strike from two?

3) You need to buy/find/upgrade TWO weapons for a build. especially in the case of titanite shards, this'll be a big strain on resources since there WILL be trial and error involved in building a weapon combo. (I'm using a strategy guide, and it doesn't cover the attack types mapped onto power standing, or little eggs like the fancy parrying if two base curved swords).

4) You're not going to effectively duel wield weapons that would normally fit your stat requirements. Power stancing requires that 1.5x modifier, after all.

Positives:

1) Dual wielding caestus. You probably thought the caestus was dumb when you saw it, but that was before you tried it in each hand. First, while the base damage is only 45 for this weapon, the stacking for both strength and dexterity are pretty impressive (without modification, these are almost better than my best, upgraded swords). Second, they're light. Really light. This is a good deal for dual wielders. Third: because they're light, they attack incredibly fast, and use very limited stamina, so, once you find an opening, you can overwhelm your opponent with a flurry of attacks (these are really good against other real life humans) Fourth: there are different attacks, blocks, and combos for one handing, two handing, dual wielding, and power stancing these weapons. Five: beat the game with your fists, bro

2)You can spread damage onto two weapons. This is good for fast, high dexterity weapons whose only drawbacks are low durability.

3)Power stancing allows for even more diversity to the way you play. Adding two more strong attacks suits the risk/reward style of dark souls well.

4) Damage output: looking for a way to overwhelm that pesky enemy? Try two simultaneous strong attacks from greatswords.

5) and on that note: breaking an enemy's poise is easy with two simultaneous attacks.

6) As stated before, you can combine two entirely different weapons. Wanna take out one dude with a great sword, while taking pot shots at his friends with a crossbow? Fine? How about lobbing sorcery grenades while fisticuffing the nearest wayward gentleman? I always knew you had class.

7) You're duel wielding: you're officially the hardest mother****er this side of drangleic.

I beat dark souls 2 a couple days ago, and put the game down after messing with NG+.

Your speech has made me turn the game back on and start a new character. Thank you, sir.

This is one of the few games with replay value that isn't exclusively precipitated from the ng+ mode. Dual wielding is cool and all, but this game is rewarding to the cavalcade of other builds, as well. I plan to do a challenge run after my completion, and I feel like this is the best money I've spent on a single player game in a long time.

I've been dual wielding from the start. I found the thrust/thrust ect. weapon matching isnt always true. The moveset for the Bastard Sword (thrust/slash) and the Murakumo (slash) are the same. Greatswords. but the Murakumo and the Curved Dragon Sword didnt work even though they are slash/slash. I also find it funny that people dis the Murakumo and praise the bastard sword, they are the same. ones good for even build and ones good for dex. Is there a list that defines movesets somewhere because that determines two handed power move abillity.