Dual wield and AP question

[luke]

What is happening when I dual wield? Look at these graphics

http://imgur.com/zlDIE0N - using just FP
http://imgur.com/mINwbpS - using DoSP and FP

I thought dual wielding would cause more damage. All it's doing now is limiting me to one swing per round. That's lame. I already put charwood skill points into dagger. I should have done sword and shield.

I also have SoSR SotS and barbed dagger.

[rijackson741]

The path to dual wielding is a rocky one indeed! You should read the skill description. With no levels of the dual wield skill the attack cost is the sum of the attack costs of the two weapons. You also only get to use 25% of the off-hand weapon. So dual wielding is not a good idea. With one level things are better, but IMO it's still not worth actually dual wielding. I stuck with a weapon and a shield until I got both levels of the dual wield skill. Then I never looked back

Skill points in dagger should not influence your choice of sword and shield vs dual wielding. The dagger proficiency works with either dual wield or sword and shield.

[luke]

Okay, so dagger training at Charwood also helps swords?

I guess I'll do sword and shield until I have enough skill for two dual wield.

What weapon should I be using? I'm level 25

[rijackson741]

"Sword and shield" is kind of misleading, because it's really "Any weapon and shield". So training in daggers, swords, blunt weapons, will all give a bonus if you wield a weapon with a shield.

You have DoSP and FP. Against monsters that are susceptible to critical hits, DoSP is better. Against monsters that are immune to critical hits the balanced steel sword is as good as it gets.

[Kokuma]

well,
in my build, i used flagstone's pride& strong tower shield until i maxed out my dual wielding skill (at 36, cause i put a skill point at bark skin early in the game, and a point in more criticals and two in fast combat, which with jewel of fallhaven, allows me to attack a whopping 4 times in one turn! without missing out on increased fortitude skill, you can max out dual wielding at 30) for the criticals
after that, i used the dagger of shadow priests, with the flagstone's pride. for crit immune mobs, i use two balanced steel swords, its the best non-crit sword currently in the game.

before you get either flagstone's pride or the balanced steel sword, fencing blade is also a good choice to go along with your shield

[luke]

Where do l get the balanced steel sword

[Eleusis]

Where do l get the balanced steel sword

Crossroads tower

[Kokuma]

Where do l get the balanced steel sword

you have to help the girl at the top of the tower

which means you have to be strong enough to kill the river troll