Two handed or not twohanded...That is the question

[Stryke]

Evening All,

So Ive started skyrim for the first time but after playing all the online games FFXI, Wow and Eve Online i understand the basics of build creation. I just wondered what would be better from your experience.

Build 1
Two Handed Beserker

or

Build 2
One Handed Dual wield Tank

I know these are both similar but what in your opinion is best. the dual wield or the two hand?
I know about the heavy armor and the smithing perks, anything else worth going into?
I have used all my level ups (level 9 @ present and just got into first city whiterun?) in to Stamina and Health and my skill perks are around two handed one handed and heavy armour with a little into restoration for self heal incase of ass kicked?

Cheers in advance?

 

[Beran]

Very nice! I prefer 2h Beserkers, as I have more fun with them, and find the Dual Wield fiddly sometimes. I am starting a new dual wield character though, so i can't really advise you either way. Bit of a pointless post really

 

[Mikea]

I absolutely hate Dual Wielding, but Two handed is far too slow. If I were to redo my guy, I'd make him a spellsword, with a one handed weapon and a restoration/destruction spell. If you are hellbent on using one of these, go Dual Wielding, that will still give you the chance to change to a spellsword if you find you don't like it

 

[SaveVsBedWet]

I've gotta go with dual wield one handed over two handed every single time.

Not only do two handed weapons rape the character for stamina, they slow movement down and limit you to at most two enchantment effects and one base damage amount.

With my legendary Daedric mace in one hand and my similar war axe in the other, I have nearly 240 points worth of base damage, another 20-30 points worth of shock damage, and manufactured fear with which to offer enemies nay, customers of my dental services. That's in a single spin move. I can do two full ones before stamina reduces me to single weapon action and if I put the guy down in either of those two moves, I will be taking his soul to boot.

I can do nearly the same thing with my pair of daggers, except instead of fear I'm draining health and instead of shock I'm using frost, plus because the weight is negligible I can attack even faster and even more times. And they still do 70 damage base each.

I don't think any two handed weapon is going to match up to that by itself. Even if it does offer huge base damage.

 

[Grey Fox]

I do enjoy the 'Sweeping Strike' perk for 2-handers....hits everyone in front of you with a home-run swing

 

[Dagmar]

I prefer dual wielding. If you do either build right it's largely a style preference and to me the Two-Handed attack animations look slow and clumsy in comparison.

 

[Stickeesox]

Well 2H can kill entire groups with the same number of hits it would've taken to kill one enemy with the "sweep" move. For the most part, a 2H has almost always killed enemies, from skeletons to bears and trolls with one charge hit. Draugurs too obviously. For most bandits, just a swing will kill them.

I used to favor the dualwield 1H because the damage output seems higher. But its essentially DoT, where the damage is dealt during the course of a spin whereas the 2H is dealt in one hit.

2H is immensely more pleasing, but damage control is better with Dual wielding. You won't waste stamina overkilling, if you're trying to avoid waste anyway.

I waste stamina pretty often because like 1.1 uncharged hits wouldve killed them but I just don't want to deal with pressing R1 a second time.

While the whole pure damage approach is fun. A shield and sword can be equally fun if you can use it. Knocking an enemy on their ass while they're in the middle of a super charged hit is pretty enjoyable. "Oh, I'm sorry, were you doing something?"

 

[Stryke]

Thanks everyone for there replies. Gonna try out the 2 handed and spare points into one handed. already at 60 on both h.armour and block.

Best weapon for 2 handed and what enchantment?

 

[Teritus]

Why don't you just use one-handed and a shield instead of dual-wield?

 

[Stryke]

Just don't enjoy the whole standard setup. Love the idea of being some big brute or crazy axe wielding but job. More appealing.

 

[SawJack]

It sounds like you are working on the build that I use.

I went with two handed sword for my character. It is the fastest of the three 2H weapon types and I have found it to be absolutely brutal in combat. I tested out going with one-handed but got annoyed at the limited damage I was able to do: it just took too many hits to equalize a single swing of the 2H weapon. I agree that the sweep move is really nice when you are facing a group of guys in close quarters, and I'm immensely entertained when I behead an enemy and get to kick around their head on the ground. The stamina drain can be a bit of an issue early on, but once you get the perk to reduce stamina use that helps to mitigate it dramatically.

You are going to want/need to have some sort of ranged attack as well. I tried to avoid it but pretty quickly realized that fighting dragons with a sword doesn't really work. So I used a bow and it worked well because both weapons require both hands for usage, so it didn't feel like I wasn't really sacrificing any defense from switching between the two. However, I put no perk points into the bow (because I had wanted to save some for trying to switch to being a mage later on in the game).

I'd recommend that you work on smithing and enchanting skills as well. Those two skills and their corresponding perks are immensely helpful in the game, not only to get/create fantastic equipment, but to make some cash when it is a bit scarce earlier in the game.

 

[Stickeesox]

The greatest part of 2H weapons is that, while obviously some do more damage than others, the vast majority of them will still one shot. So it's personal preference.
I use an Ebony Battleaxe with my Ebony Mail for soulstealing, and an Ebony Sword and whatever shield I feel looks good at the time with a fire enchant (on the sword).

Edit: I removed a smily face. I didn't realize how stupid it would look.

 

[SawJack]

Yea, I've recently switched to all Daedric equipment. It looks cool and has the best base values for armor and weapons. With it all double enchanted it is pretty brutal, though there are plenty of things on Master difficulty that still don't want to die with a single shot.