Anyone here going the dual-wield route? I've been seriously considering it as I'm much more interested in being a whirling dervish of death. I know there will be some enemies that I will have to switch to some sort of ranged attack to deal with, but I'm not really a sword-and-board kinda guy. So if any of you have gone this route, do you have any advice in the way of perk choices, equipment choices, etc?

One of the main things I'm trying to decide on now is armor, should I go Heavy to offset my lack of defense? Or should I go Light to gain that stamina regeneration boost to help fuel more of my power attacks? Decisions, decisions...

I am a Dark Elf, use two elven daggers and have light armor. When you get the shout which increases your hit speed you're pretty much unstoppable.

Can someone explain to me the advantages of dual wielding? Without a high level perk, you are basically stuck with the same attack speed as a one handed weapon would, well unless you do the shout but it's not really a long-term solution. Sword and board provides much more protection.

I'm pretty much an archer, but dual wielding daggers is pretty cool.

I personally am doing a dual spec, I am level 14 with pretty standard equipment but I saved a lot of my perk points to get my One Hand up and dump some serious points into that early on and since you cannot block I am wearing heavy armor and running around the with the Steed guardian stone to offset the armor penalty without having to spend the point-there has been very little that can touch me the dual wield power attacks after they are upgraded are fast, can hit multiple targets and have a high chance to stagger the enemy I can pretty much wage into any situation and slaughter everyone, plus slicing dudes heads off with two swords is fucking sick.

I got attacked by a dual wielding assassin once while traveling. He got an arrow to the head just like everyone else.

I've been playing with dual swords and it works out fine. You have more damage output (I'm up to 64).

I use heavy armor and I also smith so I can constantly upgrade my gear.

I have seen no down side to this

@themangalist: dual wield gets you more dps, sword and board gets you more armor. So far in my play I have not seen the need to have a shield and my armor is at 228 (currently exquisite wolf armor, I will probably upgrade to dwarven at some point). As for attack speed the one handed tree ups your attack speed when dual wielding. It doesn't take long to get- I think its the second tier for dual wield on that tree and the other one handed perks affect dual wield as well.

@themangalist said:

Can someone explain to me the advantages of dual wielding? Without a high level perk, you are basically stuck with the same attack speed as a one handed weapon would, well unless you do the shout but it's not really a long-term solution. Sword and board provides much more protection.

I'm dual-wielding and I don't really need a shield. The trick is to upgrade the light armor perks to increase your armor rating. You can also add a point to a perk that increases your armor rating whenever you wear a matching set of armor. Dual Flurry increases dual-wielding speed by 35% in the first level and 20% in the second.

I dual wield, picked up all the 1h talents and I'm wrecking shit up with my dual power attack, to the point of nearly killing a dragon with it in one power combo.
Its awesome, even when wearing light armor ( I got confused for a second, somehow had it in my mind that light armour was a dual wield thing...too amazed by the game perhaps to care).

Thanks for the info guys. Seems that Smithing is a pretty good way to become dominant in this game and the weapons are linked to the armor skills in that tree, so it's like you pretty much have to go the Heavy Smithing tree to be able to smith Ebony and Daedric weapons. Based on that alone I'm thinking of going Heavy Armor and just trying to level it til I can get the perk to remove the movement penalty or just get The Steed standing stone. Of course, since Dragon armor is unlocked at Smithing 100 and allows you to make both Heavy and Light versions, perhaps you could theoretically go the Heavy tree and craft Dragonscale once you get to the top to have the best weapons and the best Light armor.

@max_mischi3f: You make a good point, but with either the perk or the standing stone that removes the movement penalty of armor I don't think it matters as much.

I'm doing dual-wield with heavy armor, high restoration and alteration magics. I like it.

If you're dual wielding then you need the perk the gets your a fast dual-wield attack speed. Go heavy in to stamina and get the perk that reduces stamina cost of power attacks. That dual-wield power attack, especially with swords is a fuckin' doozy so you'll be wanting to use that as much as possible.

@yevinorion said:

Of course, since Dragon armor is unlocked at Smithing 100 and allows you to make both Heavy and Light versions, perhaps you could theoretically go the Heavy tree and craft Dragonscale once you get to the top to have the best weapons and the best Light armor.

I like the way you think.