Ok, so my first playthrough i used mainly two handed weapons as a strictly melee character. This will be my second playthrough, and I have created a kind of battle mage character, mostly spells with melee back-up. My question is about Dual wielding weapons; I cannot seem to accurately measure their damge output...

For instance, I have three swords in my inventory. Two one handed swords and one two handed sword.

On the inventory screen, It shows that equipping the two handed sword will give me a magic damage output of something like 12 - 57.

If I equip the first of my one handed swords, The magic damage obviously drops, to say something like 5-25.

Then when I equip the second sword, which has an output of 12 - 30 magic damage, The damage counter shows green, because it is better than the first sword.... so far so good.

Now comes the part I feel I am stuck with. When I Look just at my character stats on the inventory screen the damage output is 12-30. I thought it would be something like 17-55 (adding both together) or 9-27 (the average of both) or even something else entirely; not the magic damage of just one of the swords. Surely this can't be right? What am I doing wrong, have I missed something?

I have tried swapping the weapons to different hands, and unequipping every stat boosting item and looking JUST at the magic damage of the swords, but so far everything points to the two handed swords being more powerful... That would be fine but I have heard countless times that this is not the case, that dual weilding is in fact death incarnate...

Anyway that's enough out of me, any helpful pointers in the right direction would be great.

Thanks all,

Tinman21

Without investing points in Dual Wielding the secondary weapon only does 20% of it's original damage.

Put some points in it, and the secondary weapon penalty is lessened...

Ah ok.... I think I'll stick with two handed swords and spend my points on better spells..

Thanks for your help

Tinman21

Dual Wield is actually pretty amazing, but there are two things you should know.

First, there's a serious penalty for off-hand damage when you first start the game, but as you invest points in the skill the penalty lessens considerably and eventually you even get bonus damage!

Second, and I'm afraid this is not made very clear in the game, is that the damage you do is actually twice the number that is shown, because it shows the average amount of damage per hit, but of course you make two hits per attack: one with each weapon. So if it says you're doing, say, 10-25 damage, that means you do 10-25 damage with each weapon, which means you'll actually be doing 20-50 damage.

Bit complicated, I know, but in the end Dual Wield is a very good way to go (though there's nothing wrong with two-handers of course).

Thanks Tinman for asking this question ... I never played so far a Dual Wield Warrior, but I've experiment some time ago with 2 Axes drawing and was wondering about the damage values too .

Thanks Macbeth for the clear explanation !

Damage is pretty weird in the game anyway.

Doing around 1000 with my weapon regularly. Sure. Then Rush Attack at my current level is supposed to give 3x. And then the damage is 4000-6000. That's quite a bit more than 3x :S
(Shield and sword)

Great, thanks for the info macbeth, I was about to reply because I had a look at how much damage i was doing to an enemy with two swords equipped, and each tap of the button dealt 85 plus damage... I think I was relying to heavilly on the inventory screen telling me what damage I was doing, rather than looking for myself... Lazy I know

Thanks so much again, off to swap weapons....again

Tinman21

I still don't understand why the avg dmg doesn't change when you swap hands, as in ED. I discussed this in another thread, so I don't want to beat a dead horse.

Though it does pose a tenderizing capability...lol

Geez! No wonder I couldn't make sense of those numbers. I didn't think the damage was being done like that. I thought that number shown was the average of both your weapons and that both weapons had their own damage range. I'd still like the damage formula posted though because I couldn't figure one out that worked in all equip situations.

EDIT: Also why does your main hand become your off-hand when DW'ing. What I mean is if you use sword and shield you put your weapon in your left/main and the shield in your right/off-hand. But when you go to DW and put a weapon in your shield hand it gets no penalty meaning that became your main hand. Meaning what was previously your main hand is now your off-hand because it got the penalty.

If your DW skill is 10 or higher this is okay because your off-hand becomes stronger than your main, so your previous main hand(which becomes your off-hand when you DW) which has your, most likely, stronger weapon in it will become more powerful. Your main hand(previously your off-hand) is weaker which is okay since your probably putting a weaker weapon in it.

However before 10 the system is troublesome since you have to switch the weapons in your hands. Hope that wasn't too confusing.

EDIT2: When I'm taking about hands I mean in the inventory screen.

I don't understand why yours is doin' that. Mine functions the same with shld/sword or DW. The MH is the right hand in both cases. Even with one hand equip it is still the right hand. Maybe your character is just ambidex, or like Bruce Lee or something.

EDIT : I can't tell if the degrade is implemented right because the stats don't change to show it.

Dual Wielding is the best choice by far, and if you max our regeneration, life leech, anddual wield specialization. which i have done you pretty much can't die as long as your vitality ad strength are high as well. Which also adds to hp regen and of course more hp. Then i max wall of fire out which is i think one of the best spells in the game for dps (AoE).

With high level and right build you can make your character unstoppable, pretty much won't die.