Every time I attempt dual wield weapons it doesn't go very well. I find it impossible to defend myself, especially when there is no way of lessening the blow of an incoming power attack.
The extra damage output you can get from dual wielding weapons just doesn't seem worth the extra vulnerability to me, although I don't know if this is because of my play style.
So I guess what I am asking is, is there a way to make dual-wielding an effective strategy for the core combat spec of a character? Or is it merely something that's a fun little add on to play around with every now and again?
Best Answer
I found dual wield doable (and fun) in a few ways:
The paladin could heal himself and the heavy armor negated much of the damage. Next to that I developed a knack for dodging incoming blows which makes fighting one opponent extremely easy. The sneaky character pacified (charmed) the attackers, snuck behind them and stabbed them. Both characters were played on master difficulty (I like the challenge), which means you'll have to be very patient (aka dying a lot) early game anyway, but when past level 35-40 it becomes almost too easy. The sneaky character had to hit multiple times though for killing anything above bandits since master difficulty gave enemies extreme amounts of health (or just nerfed your own damage).
There are plenty more builds to think of, but since you are indeed vulnerable to incoming blows you'll need some way to negate or dodge incoming damage. Skyrim provides quite a few ways to do this (armor, spells and actually moving your character out of harms way) so even an unarmored mage could pull off dual wield in theory. (That would make for a fun character btw: unarmored priest dual wielding maces.)