quick daggerist - what to do with other hand?

[atan59]

Long time lurker, first time poster - here we go.
Oh, and had played on some earlier beta in a previous phone, so this is a second character, on a fresh install.

My incarnation of Andor's brother, appropriately called Xor, has currently reached level 33 and has 2 skill points available, as he's a bit confused about his options.
He likes his Quickstrike Dagger, which currently enables him to attack 6 times per turn, or 3 times and flee (or 4 and flee if he feels like wearing both coward's boots and villain's armor). He spent a lot of level-up points in Damage, which affects each of these strikes.

The main conundrum now is what to do with the offhand:
- dual wield? These forums convinces me that dual wielding 2 QSDs is a waste of skill points, and I like to have my 6 attacks, which I'd loose with any other weapon, so apparently not.
- shield? almost all shields give a penalty to AC, and I don't care about BC anyway, since my goal is to kill or flee.
- just leave that offhand empty already?

Current "base stats":
HP:69, AC: 120, AD: 19

Current skills:
- 2x Increased Fortitude, which were taken as soon as possible, saving up if necessary
- 2x Combat Speed - combined with JoF allows 6 strikes/turn with QSD
- 2x Evasion - for better fleeing and moving past monsters - plans to go all the way to 4x eventually

Currrent proficiencies:
- 1x dagger
- 1x light armor

Current items I'm happy with:
- Quick Strike Dagger
- Jewell of Fallhaven
- 2x Villain's ring
- Lightweight Chainmail
- Vacor's Boots of Attack
- Fine gloves of swift attack

Current items I'm looking to replace:
- Leather cap
- Crude wooden buckler

I have 2 available skill points and level 30, so I could use them on a combat style. That's why I'm posting here for advice now... although I feel that for this build combat styles won't give any real benefit, and I'd probably be better off just getting my 2 last levels of evasion, which I really want.

Also, I have no regeneration/corpse eater, and I'm fine without them. When I need extra health potions I just spend some time with the gargoyle trainers, and I get enough meat from just walking around, plus buy lots of bread and some cooked meat once in a while. After evasion 4 and possibly a weapon style, I imagine I could invest in the resistance skills, or in magic finder (since I had no luck in the gargoyle cave until now...), or in the prerequisites for cleave.

Anyway, my questions are:
- is there any point to dual wielding? (vs. having 6 attacks with full personal damage)
- is there any point to using a shield? (when wanting to maximize attack chance and damage)
- err... I probably missed a good hat; there should be one somewhere, I suppose. Blerg, this isn't even a question.

[Zukero]

For the hat you could try to grind for the extraordinary Valuga's shimmering hat. It could suit your style despite the -2AD malus...

[rijackson741]

You are right that dual wielding 2 x QSD is not worth it. A Remgard combat shield has 11% BC, which goes to 14% BC with the light armor proficiency, and 1 DR. The AC cost is only 3%, which seems like a good trade off to me, even for a very attack oriented build.

[atan59]

@Zukero: Thanks for the tip! I didn't know about that hat... or the area where it can be found for that matter. Will try to find it.
@rijackson741: That shield sounds quite good, and a good motive to finally go and discover Remgard (one of the three areas of the current beta I have never been to yet[*], the other two being the Charwood mine and what is refered to in this forums as the "Green Maze" - none of these existed when I had first played the game in a previous beta )

[*(edit)] that I'm aware of - there may be more, who knows

[Duke]

Welcome to the boards! No to dual wielding. And I'd go with cleave and keep adding points to your AD. And you are going to want to get to Remgard for some sweet equipment upgrades, or at least some better options. There is the hat Zukero mentioned and those same dudes drop an armor!
The advantage of the remgard shield is the Damage Resistence.
Also, you will have to choose whether to get best necklace in the game, marrowtaint, or be able to upgrade that shield. There are some good posts on here about your build style, search for Fiernaq and check out his stats. he rocked the QSD build pretty well.

[atan59]

Thanks for all your tips. I've been to Remgard, where most of them pointed to, and chose the path that led to an interesting replacement for the JoF - plus got some nice extra gear in the process, including the suggested shield.
Meanwhile, I stuck to Evasion and for the near future will follow the cleave path ('though "Magic Finder" could be tempting, seeing as I found none of the special items you guys pointed to, nor the one that's supposed to drop at gargoyle's where I've been more than a few times to spend time gathering potions).
I'll look up Fiernaq's posts to see how he handled this style (apparently he favors just 3xEvasion, but I opted for 4, as being 100% certain I can flee anytime is quite nice).

Edit: A nice side-effect of looking up Fiernaq's post was to figure out how to properly make a signature in these forums, despite apparent character count restrictions

[Tristan]

Xor .. an entirely logical choice & my favorite hero name of all I've seen posted here. Well-played.