I was just reading http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Skills#Weapon about the skills of TESO and I noticed there's no skill for one-handed at all. There's skills for one hand with shield and dual wielded but what skill would it use when you wield only one weapon and no shield? I can't find any sense why one-handed would be left out of the game - not everyone is going to use shield or dual wielding.

You can always use a 2 hander. But no, there is no option for just a single, one-handed weapon. I have no idea what skills you would or wouldn't be able to use if you equipped yourself that way.

By using a one-handed weapon, even though you don't have a shield in the other hand, the one-handed weapon & shield skill will still improve. It's just that you will be blocking with the empty hand.

Maybe they could add a sworddancer/espadachim skill line further.

So One Hand and Shield is basically just merged one-handed and block skills instead of being a skill for specific fighting style? That would make sense even I do not see the reason why they are merged.

I tested this out for another poster on here the other day who asked about this.

You can use several of the skills from the 1H/S skill lines: Puncture, Low Slash and Defensive Posture (this one might be a bug).

You don't need a shield to use these and can build using them with a 1H weapon if you so choose to.

There is no option for a one handed style. Leaving out the shield is no option.

You can do it, but it's like playing without armor.

I agree with this, I think not having the shield is foolish, but the option IS there for people if they want to take it up.

And honestly, if you supplement with skills from other trees (you almost never really need more than 1 or 2 weapon skills on your bar anyway), you could make a 1H build work well enough to be viable I think.

Like I said in another thread before, I thought it was a pretty weird thing to merge them instead of having two seperate skill lines and take advantage of the opportunity to have a full set of one-handed skills and a full set of shield skills instead of half a set each. But I suspect it is a balancing decision. Having them seperate would mean having a whole defensive skill tree in addition to the offensive tree, no other offensive skill tree have that option and thus they merged them, that's what I think at least. So all things considered I think it's for the better.

Technically it works like that in essence since you can use more than half of the actives with just a 1Hander, but none of the passives function without a shield.

Precicely, What I was trying to say I guess is that the abilities that are at your disposal (albeit not at any given time) needs to be balanced to mirror that of the "shortcomings" of other offensive skill lines (that they don't have the possibilty to add defensive bonuses via shields).

Well, at least you can take some comfort in knowing that Puncture and Low Slash are [censored] ridiculously awesome weapon skills. Seriously some of the best for damage and utility combined.

True that, my fat khajiit is to be feared, he can inflict puncture wounds even with a mace, keep distance.

Thanks for the reminder, I'd tested this myself but never posted it.

Yep, just having one 1H weapon equipped does indeed count as sword and shield, whether or not you have the shield equipped (so, just to state the obvious, 2H abilities won't work).

Also, not only do many active abilties work without the shield, but I tested some passives that work without it too. Stamina cost reduction on S/S abilities works fine sans shield, as does increased damage mitigation while blocking. Funnily enough though, the one that increases damage does indeed require a shield to work.

Did you test shield charge btw? That'd be downright comical if that worked with just a sword. And regardless, the loss of a shield would still be a handicap, and would provide absolutely no benefits.

since you can freely cast with any weapon there is no explanation to need a 1h tree + off hand with spell.

That's cool. I honestly didn't test the passives (didn't want to spend the skill points since its not one of my main weapons), but since the tooltip specifies that it requires a shield equipped I just assumed.

... why exactly would you not put a second blade, or a shield, in the off hand?

I mean.... ultimately that just doesn't make any sense.

RP? Idk. I could see a somewhat effective battlemage build with it, but like I said before I honestly don't know why anyone would give up the shield. It brings extra armor, extra defense all around (block boosts) and access to a few rather good actives, as well as whatever enchants you put on the shield itself. Its missing out no matter how you cut it.

I could understand if they made it deal a little more damage since youre using bith hands on it.

but... roleplaying Skyrim? heh. seriously though I'm just not clear why even roleplaying that would make sense.

I mean, I get (somewhat) wanting a spellbook or the like, Diablo style. and I can get wanting to pair that with a Wand. but wanting to just leave your off hand unequipped seeems strange to me.

so, lets have there be a bastard sword. counts as 2 handed for skills, but has halfway between the damage and speed of 1h and 2h. a faster 2h could have advantages that would make it worthwhile.

Skills are not levelled up by what weapon you have in your hand - skills are levelled up if they are present in your action bar or not. So you can wear a staff and have skills on your bar that belong to 1h+shield, then it levels 1h+shield.

It is not the same as in the TES singleplayer experience. You gain skill-experience in this game by completing quests. Not for using the weapons you have equipped.

I,m not so sure about what you said since i seem to remember the skill line with the weapon i equipped gain level faster compare to other weapon.

While you are totally right that you gain more experience by having abilties slotted in your action bar. But you also gain experienced based on your equiped items, so you do gain more experience if you have a one-handed weapon in your hand compared to not having one equiped.

If you want to have minimum amount of equipment in order to keep your movement lighter. Or if you want to carry a torch so you would see also in the darkest places. I for one have preferred to play with one-handed and torch in many TES games. It's very valid way in dark dungeons and in Skyrim it was also valid in combat because you were able to block and bash with it which also set your enemy in fire.

In Skyrim yes, i always use 1 hand and spell offhand. But ESO? Thats just personal RP reason i think