When I first saw the Skyrim preview I was excited about duel wielding and couldn't wait to make a melee class that focuses on dual wielding. However, after digging around for more information, I came across some things that have changed my mind.

At first I wanted to duel wield. Now I am afraid it will be terribly boring.

It is confirmed that we will be unable to block or parry while dual wielding.

It is confirmed that acrobatics will no longer exist, so we will be lucky if we see Journeyman (50) acrobatics dodge moves from Oblivion folded into another skill. The only possible option I see is putting it in Light Armor, and that's a stretch.

Pete Hines tweeted in response to a question regarding the ability to dodge (which only makes sense for a light and fast dual wielder) that there will be no dodge roll in Skyrim, but he also said "you either hit or you don't" which lends to the conclusion that Pete misunderstood the question and thought the question was referring to a chance-based dice roll like in Morrowind. Still, this answer came dangerously close to "you will be tanking damage if you want to dual wield."

It is confirmed that you will not be able to kite enemies by running backwards, as backwards movement speed has been slowed.

Why is this bad? Because it essentially means you have no defensive abilities when wielding two melee weapons, which means you don't have anything to do other than mash triggers, pause the game, and drink potions. Blocking is a huge part of combat in Oblivion and looks to be that way in Skyrim as well, because blocking an enemy's attack will stagger them and give you free hits on that enemy. You can see this in the 3 part gameplay trailer, where the player picks up two swords and goes against an enemy with a shield. The enemy blocks one of the player's attacks and the player staggers backwards, and the enemy gets a free hit off. Yea, the player kills the enemy in about 2 or 3 hits, but notice a couple of things here. First, the player is not rapidly chopping the enemy up, emphasized by the block that the enemy makes which staggers the player, so the increased attack speed which would come from having two weapons to attack with instead of one is not in the slightest made apparent here. Second, it is obvious that the player killed the enemy way faster than will be intended in the real game, if you look, when the player takes damage, their health bar barely moves, it is obvious that this gameplay trailer was played with tweaks in place so that the player didn't die in the middle of the demonstration, thus wasting time and being unable to demonstrate everything they wanted to show.

So from this information, this is what we can infer that a dual wielding playstyle will look like. You will approach enemies, either using stealth if you are playing a rogue type character, or by running up if you are playing more of a "barbarian" type. Then, you will engage them by mashing your triggers. You will likely not continue mashing triggers for significant DPS, because if there are multiple enemies, you will be getting hit like crazy and staggered backwards thus unable to freely attack. Also consider that the enemies will be blocking, and to avoid staggering, you must not attack when they block. So you will likely just turn around and sprint away, take some potions or cast a healing spell, then run back in and spam your triggers some more until you get staggered and the group of enemies beats your face while you are unable to protect yourself even by moving. At this point, you start to feel drowsy, because this playstyle consists of button mashing your two triggers and then pausing the game and healing yourself, and repeating this cycle. Soon you will fall asleep, and the cats that are fighting in your back yard will no longer be an insomnia-inducing problem.




Here, I will counter some of the weaker arguments against this type of opinion that I have seen made before.

A: You haven't played the game yet so you don't know if that is even how it will work.
R: I am free to infer how aspects of the game will play based on released information and make judgements based on that. If IGN, Gamespot, and similar companies can write articles talking about what parts of Skyrim look good or bad, I can do it too. I acknowledge that I may be wrong, but again, that does not in any way lend that I am not free to speak my mind.

A: Dual wielding would be overpowered, and other setups would be weak compared to it if you could dodge or parry.
R: False. Two handed weapons can parry, and yet they do significantly more damage than sword and board setups. In addition, why in God's name do you care if it is a bit easier for me, hundreds if not thousands of miles away from you, to complete the game when I am dual wielding than it is for you to complete the game playing as a sword and board class? It is a SINGLE PLAYER game. I am not going to suddenly appear in your game world and ruin your progress by doing work on your face with an overpowered class that you have no chance of defending against, so what the heck does it matter if one class is slightly more powerful than another? Besides, look at EVERY previous TES game. In almost all of them, sword and board classes have been the EASIEST classes to use because they have been the most powerful.

A: I want to dual wield, but I don't want the game to be too easy and being able to block or dodge might make it easy.
R: Being able to block or dodge would give you more than two buttons and a control stick to push during combat, meaning dual wielding wouldn't be a complete snooze fest because you would actually have to make decisions and time your attacks, dodges, and parries during combat. In addition, if you think that would make it too easy to be able to do that, then use the difficulty slider. Derp. Game too easy for you? Turn up difficulty.

A: The game is too late in development to change anything.
R: I wouldn't be talking about this on these forums in the first place if I thought I was going to get something changed. There are much more effective ways of communicating with a development company than posting on the forums that they do not read. I am here to share my opinions.

A: There are no free buttons for blocking when dual wielding, and certainly not for dodging.
R: For blocking while dual wielding, there could easily be a talent in the one handed tree that allows the player to use one of the 4 possible power attacks (done by moving either sideways, forewards, backwards, or standing still) as a parry or block. For dodging, there could be talents in Light Armor that allow you to perform a quick sidestep, a foreward roll, or quick backwards leap by simply moving in that direction and double tapping the jump button or holding the jump button, leaving a single tap of the jump button for simply jumping over obstacles.

A: Its not realistic to parry.
R: This is not only false, but also a ridiculous statement when you consider that you will be an elf casting magical spells against dragons. What do you think the hand guards on every single sword you have ever seen have been for? They aren't there just to look pretty.

A: Doing backflips looks stupid.
R: I can sympathize with that. But something other than normal-runspeed sideways movement to get out of the way of an attack, such as a fast sidestep manuever, would make combat much more interesting for dual wielders.

Well if you've already countered your own argument, I guess the thread is done.

If blades hits at the same time, it's a parry. Let's say im dual wielding, and fighting a dude. He strikes me at the same time i swing my weapon(s), and we both stagger backwards. That's what parrying is, it reduces damage a bit and staggers both of you, if someone could post source i would be grateful but im too lazy

This. It's just complaining for the sake of complaining.

oh really? please I'd love to read how you are able to surmise that he is "complaining" to complain, Im all eyes right now.

I clap at this thread, thank you. :foodndrink: :tops: :clap:

Thanks for the bump. Now please explain where the hell you got that from?

Here is my argument: Dual Wielding is shaping up to be a snooze fest.

Where exactly did I counter that?

You've just countered your own argument.... I suppose this thread no longer needs to exist.

-Mr. Maric

All of your points have been addressed in the past five dual-wielding threads we've had.

Also, the best defense is a good offense, and there's not much better than double enchanted weapons striking for massive power damage.

Where was blocking and parrying confirmed to be out of the game for dual wielding? Not doubting you, I just hadn't heard that. If it's true I'm disappointed as well.

Maybe melee perks and abilities can spice it up a bit, but if it does end up being just continuously spamming sword attacks with no defensive capability at all then that will be boring.

It's easy

Dual wielding-100% damage, 0% defense
One hand+Shield- 50% damage, 50% defense
Two-hand- 75% damage, 25% defense.

I'll Cheers to that, While I wouldn't use a dual weapon wielding character anyways, (Magic wielder), I can easily sympathize and understand your plight. Hopefully this oversight in the gameplay can be caught and fixed with a small update relatively soon after the game comes out. But, unfortunately, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Else, for some reason this -FORUM- doesn't take kindly to anything not praising the game. Your points have been brought up before and discussed to dooms end, its gotten nowhere really as there is a preferences to anything. even with your buffer and safeguards to cover strawmen post I don't think thats gonna stop much

But I agree with your points, I'm not seeing the tacticle advantage here and its kinda going against Beths motto about not shoehorning in features just to say they have them imo

No, I addressed all the points made in the past five dual wielding threads. This forum locks long threads, which means I am free to make new threads on similar topics all I want because a search feature is useless for people looking to discuss a topic rather than search for an answer on boards like these.

Your second sentence also lends to my argument that dual wielding will be an incredibly boring sequence of spam triggers, pause, drink potions, spam triggers.



Also, I love all the kids that read the first reply instead of the OP, then bump the thread.

What was wrong with your other dual wielding thread that you created yesterday?

This does not address my point that dual wielding will consist of spamming triggers, pausing, drinking potions, rinse repeat until you are alsleep from boredom.



You will have to do some searching. You can find a complete list of skills, all 18 of them, and see that acrobatics (AKA the ability to dodge) is gone. You can also find a tweet from Pete Hines that says you will be unable to block or parry while dual wielding (though you can when you are wielding only one weapon, so apparently when you put another weapon in your off hand you just "forget" how to block.)




Nothing. It was great. I just wanted to discuss my opinion more in a fresh topic where I make the point that dual wielding is going to be boring more clearly.

your not taking into consideration how op duel-weilding will be when you have two sets of enchanted weapons or piosoned weapons or both. the truth is that duel weilding will demand a significant amount of stratagey to make it work. which isn't boring but challenging unlike OB sword sheild and magic combo.

Sorry that you dont like how dual wield is shaping up. You dont have to use it though.

I do like how its shaping up, and I cant wait to use it.

Explain to me again how dual wielding combat will be interesting? What can I possibly do other than move, spam my triggers to attack, and pause to drink potions? Assuming I am playing a melee character that dual wields and not some jack of all trades guy that is constantly switching out his setup to cast spells, shoot arrows, and all that on top of dual wielding.

WHILE I am duel wielding, what exactly makes the combat interesting when other alternatives allow me to do more than just slash with both hands, as I can cast spells, block, shield bash, ect when using other setups in addition to just mindless slashing.



I do want to use it though, and that is why I am disappointed in the lack of diversity that it appears it will offer. I am glad you will be easily entertained though.

If it had to be made balanced/realistic etc I would have prefered no power attack to no blocking but I'm probably the only one. Still, I would have preferred even more to not leave anything out..

TES really isn't known for its Character Mobility up until Oblivion where you were basically lubricated to the fourth power and .3 less G's to that of earth, dodging was possible but...didnt feel right, BUT it was possible if so much just to spam straft and if you had the skill req, to roll and the sorts


Now despite the fact that anims have been improved, we can't do that, a kind of back to square one kind of deal, not to mention backpedaling as welcome as it is to have been addressed, still doesn't sooth the fact that its either you've been hit or you have not been hit, I do not feel they thought this through extensively if you search you'll find Todd mentioned on 2 seperate occasions that dual wielding is a late feature, and when they put it in "it felt right" so they wrapped combat and magick around it, beats me that in all the time they had they did not allow you to block :shrug: false Dichotomy I suppose.


People keep saying you can attack faster than one handers, you can't you swing as fast and the only time "Double the damage occurs" is with Power attacks, I find this as equally trivial as Dual spell wielding. Cool to do two things at once, really not much else going on though.

Dual wielding is supposed to be for charging in, balls to the walls barbarian style. You're supposed to take damage with dual wielding. The point is that it's sacrificing defense for an incredible offense.

As to the point you made about Ait being overpowered, nobody would use any other weapon combo if dual wielding was so powerful. They would have wasted time making sword and shield combos and two handed weapons.

Here! Here! :clap:

Another thing that bugs me about the whole no blocking while dual wielding thing is that we can block with a one handed weapon with our right hand in the event we're holing a torch, but not a weapon. Why should the player suddenly become [censored], losing all sense of self-preservation when switching the torch out for another one handed weapon?