IE. ( Damage, speed of swing) ...i know the Duel Wield passive adds an effect... Is there anything else that does? Other than that everything is the same minus appearance?
The only difference comes from the passives (heavy weapons for 2h, twin blade and blunt for dual wield). Otherwise they're all identical in damage, speed, etc.
The others have given you the short answer. DW and 2H do the same damage and give you an equivalent passive for sword damage, axe bleeds, and mace penetration. A 2H weapon has higher stats, but DW gets a bonus from using 2 weapons, making them identical in that regard too. However:
* 1H+S has lower stats, nor does it have the axe bleed / sword damage / mace penetration passive. However it gains an armor trait bonus and armor enchant.
* DW gives you the option of adding crit by using dagger(s), which no other melee weapon type has.
* DW heavy attacks are quick to weave for the resource return. I read somewhere that heavy attacks are quicker than 2H, but that could be wrong.
* In the current patch, DW and 1H+S allow you to wear 2x 5-piece sets and a monster set. DW can outperform 2H for that reason. Next patch 2H will pull up to par in this regard.
* DW allows you to mix and match traits, for example 1x Nirnhoned, 1x Sharpened. Since DW gets most of it's stats from the Nirnhoned main hand weapon, I suspect that combination puts it ahead of a Nirnhoned 2H.
* DW allows you to run 2 enchants. Each enchant has a separate cooldown, if they are different enchants. You should do more damage with DW, due to the enchants. Furthermore I believe that, if you run an Infused off-hand weapon, that also reduces the cooldown of the main-hand weapon enchant to 2 seconds. This may have been a bug which is either already fixed or due to be fixed. You'd have to test.
Edited by fred4 on April 29, 2018 1:05AM
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