Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - Enhanced Edition Dual Wielding Meele Doubt

Unfortunately because of a few conflicting answers I found, I am having a hard time getting a straight answer.

In dual wielding meele weapons - only 1 weapon gets the buff from single handed skill right? Or do both left and right weapon get the buff if you put points into single handed weapons?

Single handed does not affect dual wielding at all.

Wands affects main hand wands even when dual wielding (says so in the tooltip), but for all other weapons only the dual wielding skill matters.

Thanks - that is sort of a bummer. Wands seem to be getting way to many benefits compared to everything else.

Well, wands just suck outright as far as damage goes, so it doesn't matter anyway.

DW axes is easily the highest damage in the game. It doesn't need an extra 25-50%. Dual wands meanwhile barely even outdamage an unskilled staff shot at 5/5 dw 5/5 wand, and I'm sure you know by now that staff damage is pretty low to begin with.

The one and only reason to use dual wands is the stat/attribute bonuses. They roll all the same attribute bonuses a staff can, so wielding 2 of them effectively doubles that. You can't put a tormented soul on them, but I doubt you want str/dex on your wizard anyway.

I don't know about other weapons, just to give numbers about crafted weapons:

At lvl 19, crafting/blacksmith 5, with the wetstone buff:

1H sword: 148-231 (+1max ap) or 155-243
1H axe: 148-262 (7%crit) 148-262 (+1max ap) or 155-275

Swords are eliminated at first glance, and assuming 10% base crit, a dualwield gives
2 * 205 * (0.24 *2 + 0.76) = 508 avg
vs
2* 215 * (0.1 * 2 + 0.9) = 474 avg

The crit bonus 1H axes are the best crafted axes, two of them do 508 per attack average, for 3 AP (at dualwield 5/5), which is ~170 dmg/AP.
This base damage is used for skills, most of which use 4 AP.

2H sword: 286-392 or 274-375 (+3 STR)
2H axe: 225-403 (+7%crit) or 234-420

At 10% base crit, +25% from 5/5 2H,
339 * (0.35 * 3 + 0.65) = 576
324.5 * (0.35 * 3 + 0.65) = 551 (+3 STR, which is less interesting if you put tormented souls since it doesn't stack).
314 * (0.42 * 3 + 0.58) = 578
327 * (0.35 * 3 + 0.65) = 556

The non crit 2H Axe is the worst usually, the swords are good early, and the crit axe is the best especially when you have load of crit (it becomes better and better).
578 damages for 4 AP is 144.5 damage per AP.

In conclusion, dualwield does more damage for auto attacks (17.5%), and 2H more for skills (13.7% for whirlwind, rush, and crippling blow which is available every round at 15 STR, and way more for flurry since theorically this skill only uses main hand).
Given the power of the crippling blow, I think it's hard to say which is best. I'd go for 2H personally, especially if you have a rogue dualwielder that need rare bracers/belt that give dualwield bonuses and good stats.
Be aware though that dualwield is far more reliant, as crit damage will go to waste (but can give good surprises too), and as it only requires 3 AP per attack (more streamlined).
Also, one advantage of duelwield is that you can swap slightly more easily to one-hand and shield when (if) the situation requires it.