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So ive recently started an orc shaman, His skills are:
major: one handed, destruction and restoration
Minor: enchanting, smithing, conjuration and light armor.

And i was wondering which is a better choice war axes or maces, im having a hard time deciding

Going with waraxes !!

He's an orc, axes.

i'd go with left hand forsworn or orcish war axe (eventually dragonbone) , right hand mace of molag bal

I dual-wielded waraxes with my first character, a Nord. I've read some good evidence that specific perks for axe, mace and sword don't actually do a ton in this game, though, so feel free to mix and match. You might wanna research the effectiveness of those perks or lack thereof. The evidence against them doing much is compelling.

Mattbott wrote:i'd go with left hand forsworn or orcish war axe (eventually dragonbone) , right hand mace of molag bal

just saying, some people might not want to become the champion of the god of rape... he's kind of a dick lol

Meridia is a bit of a killjoy, too. I mean, the undead enjoyed life so much that they came back for a second round. And then along comes Meridia and her persecution of the mobile deceased.

As to axes, my last ranger never upgraded past Iron. Everything else was too clean and polished to look like both a tool and a melee weapon.

For the shaman, a Honed Ancient Nord War Axe would do nicely.

Between the three weapon types and their perks, I'd think that maces have the best with their ability to overcome armor protection. Axes have the worst, as bleeding damage simply means the target dies a little later (I want them dead now!). Swords have a dice roll for extra damage which is nice, but not too reliable for a real furball.

Dark Spark wrote:Between the three weapon types and their perks, I'd think that maces have the best with their ability to overcome armor protection.

In theory, yes. Practically, though, the NPCs in the vanilla game have a rather low armor rating anyway, due to their lack of armor perks and them mostly wearing low level armors, which are not improved by smithing, either.

Spark wrote:

Mattbott wrote:i'd go with left hand forsworn or orcish war axe (eventually dragonbone) , right hand mace of molag bal

just saying, some people might not want to become the champion of the god of rape... he's kind of a dick lol

very true, but there are loads of vampire fans around, so it doesn't bother everyone. But it is a big career choice for a shaman to have to make lol



my first hero had a legendary honed ancient nord war axe and it compared very well damage-wise to the other weapons he picked up on the way. I also enjoyed how it's gold value was so low

I was a big fan of dual wielding weapons until I stopped to think about it one day. I tended to use a sword in the right hand and a dagger of some kind in the left. But I honestly couldn't think of a time I actually used the dagger unless I was disarmed and lost the sword some how.

So I decided to make a change and start playing a spell sword type of character. Sword in the right hand and spells in the left. Typically I will use either fire or lightning destruction spells and jump to restoration when I need it. I got to like it. It gave me some distance damage without having to use a bow and my sword was ready to finish off my enemies when they got close.

Of the two choices I think I would go with Axes myself. Maces are just too dang slow for me.

Also, I suggest having only 3 minor skills rather than 4.

With the ability to make skills Legendary, I suggest doing whatever you want.

I've leveled Alteration to 100 six times with TK and fast travel

I found that overall a shield was more useful than a 2nd weapon, Also duel wielding power attacks don't have much range and quite often you end up swinging for the fences and hitting thin air. If You want to duel wield though the best option is a dagger in the left and anything else in the right, the off hand determines the attack speed of duel attacks so naturally a dagger is the quickest. That said though I found duel wielding maces was pretty brutal, its slow but they have a great stagger rate.

At the low end of the spectrum (iron) there's no difference in "DPS" (axe: 8 damage x 0.9 speed = 7.2, mace: 9 damage x 0.8 speed = 7.2), reach is the same, but the mace has better stagger (1 vs 0.85 for axe). At the high end of the spectrum (dragonbone), the axe has superior "DPS" (axe: 16 damage x 0.9 speed = 14.4, mace: 17 damage x 0.8 speed = 13.6), but the mace still has superior stagger, and again, reach remains the same.

Edit: It might be worth noting that the sword has the lowest "DPS" at the "low" end (iron), but the highest "DPS" at the "high" end (dragonbone).

I heard there was a game exploit where both weapons swing at the speed of your offhand weapon. Is that true? If so does anyone use a left hand dagger and a slower weapon in their right hand? There's a few good daggers that would be perfect for that, not to mention just making one yourself.

Also that might be BS and I can't remember where I saw that info. I never dual weild since it's boring to lose the block and bash game mechanics, so I never verified this.

I've seen that too but it's unverified. Personally, I'm a bit skeptical.

Oh, it's true. Stick a dagger in your left hand and do a dual-wield attack. Then do the same with an war axe in the left hand. With both the normal scissors-move and the spinning power attack modes, the movement is faster with the dagger than the hatchet.

logansrun wrote:I've seen that too but it's unverified. Personally, I'm a bit skeptical.

Its not unverified at all, its pretty common knowledge that thats the case

"Common knowledge" or not according to the wiki its unverified

logansrun wrote:"Common knowledge" or not according to the wiki its unverified

Well well. I believed it was common knowledge and verified as well, until I read up on it.

From the One-handed page:

"Attacks with the primary (right) hand are 10% faster than those with the off (left) hand.[verification needed]"


And from the Combat page:

"Dual-Wielding is a fighting style where one-handed weapons are used in both hands and blocking is prevented. While it should theoretically double damage output, it only increases damage per second by 33% because attacks with the weapon in the "off-hand" (typically the left hand) take 50% longer.[verification needed — see talk page]"

logansrun wrote:"Common knowledge" or not according to the wiki its unverified

So nobodies bothered to verify it? doesn't mean its not true, im more inclined to believe the fact that ive seen it with my own eyes and heard this opinon from several other players.

Nobody said it wasn't true. I said it was unverified, which it is. I'm always skeptical of unsubstantiated anecdotes, especially if I haven't taken the time to test it. It's unverified because there's no hard game data that's been presented to substantiate or validate the claim.

logansrun wrote:Nobody said it wasn't true. I said it was unverified, which it is. I'm always skeptical of unsubstantiated anecdotes, especially if I haven't taken the time to test it. It's unverified because there's no hard game data that's been presented to substantiate or validate the claim.

Why do you need hard data to believe? just use your freaking eyes.

I agree. You can verify something by checking it yourself. Though this is the kind of thing you would think there would be some proper documented data available for...

ElderSkillz wrote:I agree. You can verify something by checking it yourself. Though this is the kind of thing you would think there would be some proper documented data available for...

Its always possible of course that It doesn't actually increase the speed of attacks and the fact that I think it does skews my perception and makes it appear to be the case... funny thing the mind really.