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[squishynoob]

As you know, characters only use one of their weapon to attack.
But is it possible that they use both to parry?

I tried some arena tests, 20 v 20 (all orcs, modded creature, sized 120,000).
One team was dual wielding two weapons of the exact same type, the other was using only one of that kind of weapon.
Besides that, both teams had no armor or training.
First I tried the longsword, then great ax, and finally maul.
In all of the tests the dualwielders won with 6-9 survivors (30-45%).


Then I tried taking control of a dualwielding dwarf, and fought against a one-wielding elf.
Despite the low agility, my dwarf managed to parry almost any attack, while the elf (who had average agility) parried less than half the strikes.
Both characters had armor, so incapacitation very small if present (mostly brown wounds).

What do you think?

[tfaal]

Interesting bit of dwarven science. It's also realistic as well, from what I understand.

[squishynoob]

Now we need to know how well two weapons work against enemies with shields.

Not very good it seems 

Again 20v20, 4 matches.
The dualwielders only won one, and with only three survivors.
The shielders won 3 matches with 9-15 survivors.

Apparently
shield+weapon > dual weapon > one weapon.

[tfaal]

What kind of skills did those test subjects have? As far as I know, parrying is based upon weapon skill, so if you have a soldier who's trained with a weapon, but not in the use of shields, a second weapon might be a good alternative. There is also the rather unlikely fringe benefit of being able to continue fighting after your dominant hand is rendered unusable. Some additional testing should also be done when it comes to counter-attacks; if you get double the counter-attack chance with a second weapon, that could provide a significant benefit.

[Confused111]

This would probably balanced out if Toady added in attacking with offhand weapons/shields, which would not only be helpful, but would also be awesome. Since most of my adventurers manage to use two handed swords with one hand, I could go around kicking all kinds of ass.

[Sowelu]

Also useful against stuck-ins.  Just keep swinging with your other weapon.

[Eagleon]

Glad to hear shields are still more effective - people only used parrying weapons when a shield was too cumbersome/silly to haul around, just in case.

I've successfully used the dual wield combination of a knife in primary hand being dropped after scoring successful stuck-in, then following up with more strikes from a larger weapon that's less likely to get stuck. Seemed to be fairly effective to me, and pretty bad-ass to boot ;(

[Neonivek]

Shields are still godly though.

[zwei]

Glad to hear shields are still more effective - people only used parrying weapons when a shield was too cumbersome/silly to haul around, just in case.

Indeed, historically, dual wielding was more of "oh well, guess it is better than to have the other hand completelly empty". Something you do when you were not really expecting to fight (but when dagger+edged weapon was apropriate to wear) or when you wanted to be covert.

[Neonivek]

Well there are reasons to keep one hand empty... >_> it is just that DF doesn't simulate that very well or at all.

[Stardrinker]

You get weapon skill-ups when you parry with the appropriate weapon. Easy way to test this would be to equip two different kinds of weapons and use danger room spears. If only 1 weapon type gets experience then you don't parry with both.

[Another]

It was not mentioned that shields were historically used against all kind of projectiles from arrows to thrown weapons. Realistically you don't have much chance to parry an arrow with any kind of weapon.

I think that bows and crossbows are a little bit underpowered in current version of DF and shields are not nearly as useful as they could be because of that.

It could be quite effective to carry weapons with different damage profiles (cutting, piercing, crushing) to be prepared to deal with different enemies.

[squishynoob]

You get weapon skill-ups when you parry with the appropriate weapon. Easy way to test this would be to equip two different kinds of weapons and use danger room spears. If only 1 weapon type gets experience then you don't parry with both.

Indeed, a new test proved this...

Two weapon skills raised during combat.

[kilakan]

so if you duel-weilded weapons you would skill up twice as fast?  That's great.

[squishynoob]

so if you duel-weilded weapons you would skill up twice as fast?  That's great.

The off-hand weapon gets you skill only by parrying; as you can see, my dwarf used the ax for both attack and defense and by consequence it skilled up fast in it. On the other hand (pun intended) the sword was used only for defense and sword skill got only to "novice".
Even if you gain weapon skill faster, remember you are paying shield skill for it.