Favorite Dual Weapon tactics and techniques

[Riothamus]

Did a search on similar topics and didn't see one so decided to start it.

I've been experimenting with dual wielding stuff and found that, with weapon choice, variety really is the spice of life

Obviously dual daggers allows for some impressive DPS, but I wasn't really happy with the combat range. Even in light armor it's harder to get out of the way of that warhammer (i.e. if your not backstabbing) coming at your face, and as I'm prone to use range and distance to my advantage I've been switching between weapon styles pretty often.

For a decent damage to speed balance I find dual axes work pretty well, but the real meat is with a dagger in the off hand and sword/axe/mace in the primary. The mid range weapon in the right hand offers a decent enough range to power attack and stagger, while still being far enough away to maneuver. Once the opponent drops guard the dagger can light them up (3-4 hits, even 5 at times) and still give you enough to reset for their counter attack. With this technique I find myself using the Dual Flurry less and less, pretty much only in emergency situations when I'm getting mauled by multiple opponents. That way I can save on stamina and not be a sitting duck.

I've even gotten in the habit of keeping several daggers of different enchantments at the ready for different encounters, all pre-poisoned towards the specific enchantment/situation. Having the multiple daggers at my disposal allows me to not spend nearly as much time in my inventory trying to sort through potions to get to the right one for the right situation. The only one I really need to worry about it keeping the weakness to poison on the mid range weapon.

So I generally bounce between Sword and Dagger for speed, Dual axes for balance, and Mace and Dagger for power.

What other techniques/tactics do you guys use?

[LtAscott]

I use sword and axe, with crit and bleed damage, the sword does the brunt of the work with axe power attacks to stagger and bleed. i usually 1 hit anything with the double attack flurry, other than that i use bow sneak attacks as my opener to take out magic-users first (my bow has paralyze so even if they dont die in one hit i usually have time to close the distance and take out the mage before anyone knows whats happening.) also ive found slow time to be pretty OP when ur using my sword/axe combo, not to mention it looks bad ass and its what id do in real life, i dont really like daggers.

[Gideon Dragontongue]

I prefer a sword in the primary and dagger in the off-hand. They attack at roughly the same speed (accounting for the fact that the left hand moves slower than the right) and you have essentially the maximum DPS possible. Steel or orcish weapons are best for this, because much higher and you're attacking too slowly.

I'm also partial to dual axes, which can do a lot of damage very quickly and can essentially lock your opponent into a stagger at higher levels.

[The Raven]

W+M1

[Dark Spark]

I will admit that my dual-wield setup of axe+dagger comes from a cosmetic roleplay consideration: the dagger in the off-hand having been concealed in the folds of the robe/dress/armor in order to justify its non-appearance on the character model.

I go so far as to keep the concealed dagger mapped to the left hand when my character goes undercover in civilian garb, all while disabling the right-handed weapon, to make her appear to be unarmed as she walks down a city street at night.

[Dohva.]

I've never had good luck with dual-wielding weapons, but yes with magick. That's my version of it.

[Pilaf The Defiler]

When Skyrim was first announced, and it was revealed there was dual wielding, I immediately decided my main was going to be a lightly armored Nord barbarian with two war axes.

That worked out very well for me. I put plenty of points into stamina as well as health, and I took perks to decrease stamina used for the Power Attack which is really the bread and butter of the two handed melee build. Three or four of those were enough to finish the final boss off pretty easily. It usually takes only one or sometimes two to finish off an average dragon or humanoid dungeon boss. It doesn't hurt that I mastered smithing and enchanting and have Legendary Skyforge axes with Shock and Fire spells on them.

[Isildor]

My first character wielded two war axes almost exlusively. I've got a couple of curved swords to use with a ranger builld I'm planning.

[Pilaf The Defiler]

My first character wielded two war axes almost exlusively.

How did it work out for you? I found that bleeding perk very useful in some of the tougher boss fights, especially against dragons.

[Nevastar]

I usually use two swords, but sometimes I'll use two daggers and wear clothing instead of light armour.