Dual Savagery

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Good Golly Miss Molly! I might just have transferred my bow wielding sneak thief into a tank. According to the perk description, it grants +50% bonus damage, but that must be multiplied after all other bonuses are taken into account, because it sure looks like I'm doing a hell of a lot more than 50% more damage than before. I've used one handed weapons before, but this is the first time I went for this perk. (Previous characters were sword and shield.) Dropped a half health dragon last night with one set of power attacks - the first dragon I encountered after picking up the perk.

Btw, is it only me that finds it odd that when you power attack with two weapons your character attacks three times? The first swing is a swipe with the weapon in the left hand, then you get a conventional looking swing from the weapon in the right hand, and then you get a third spin attack follow through with the left handed weapon. Also on the wiki site, it states that the left hand - in theory the offhand for most people - is the more important weapon slot to consider. The left hand determines attack speed, and also attacks twice. So the decision there is whether you will benefit more from placing a fast attacking weapon in your left hand, or a higher damage, slow attacking weapon in your left hand. Most agree that it is most advantageous to go fast with the left hand and but the biggest damage you can get on the right hand, as slow won't matter in the right hand.

But the power of dual attacking seems to exceed the benefits of using a two handed weapon. This would have some implication in a future character of mine. I'm definitely doing a mage first, but after that, I was going to make a cleric type character, who was originally going to specialize in two handed, heavy armor, and use alteration and restoration magic - the two schools I won't utilize to any great extent with the mage.

The idea was to make a brick, with a very high defense, along with high elemental and magic resistance/absorption. But still have some melee offensive abilities. With this experience, I'm inclined to think that two one handed weapons may help achieve that end more than a big two handed weapon.

 

Not that I'm all that surprised, just about anything else giving you percent increases into just about anything is usually yet another percent multiplier figuring on the sum total of everything else. Makes the +50% bonus even more solid.

However, the thing seems to be balanced with the assumption that you only get two thirds of your damage from your main hand and just one third from your off-hand for a dual strike. So at least you don't get double (from two weapons) PLUS the 50% on top of it.

The weapon speed calculation makes me think of the famous "just about anything in main hand, Crom Faeyr in off-hand" deal from BG2. Altough this time, you actually get to wield the big one in your main (right) hand instead.