Skyrim One Handed Skill

Types of One Handed Weapons, Perks, and Trainers

Skyrim's One Handed skill determines your damage with 1H maces, swords, axes, and daggers. The skill features numerous perks that can modify how weapons and power attacks behave. You can choose to dual wield, or go with a sword/shield or a sword/spell combination. This guide will teach you several trainer locations, perk assessments, and a list of all crafted weapons and their damage values.

One Handed Leveling
Every level gained in the One Handed skill will increase your damage done with these weapons just a little. You can use the Fortify One Handed enchantment, or potions which accomplish similar, to boost this beyond level 100.

XP gained per swing is based on the weapon's base damage. You won't want to use any other boosts when trying to train the skill, as your targets will die faster causing you to lose potential XP. Daggers are best because of their attack speed. It's even better if you can dual wield two daggers.

During the Dark Brotherhood quest line, you receive the horse Shadowmere, who can be beaten mercilessly to train 1H weapons. There are other options, such as training by hitting your followers (limited use) or using Conjuration to summon familiars and daedra to beat upon. Ultimately, your best bet is to simply play Skyrim, get into combat, utilize the various trainers here and there as you level, and keep your damage coming from the 1H skill so that it can stay ahead of the growing power of your opponents.

One Handed Trainers
At Dushnikh Yal, an Orc Stronghold Southeast of Markarth, you can find Chief Burguk, who is the master trainer for One Handed. Amren, who has a house in Whiterun, can train you up to level 50. To access an expert trainer, you'd need to join the Companions, but Chief Burguk is more than enough.

One Handed Weapon Types of Skyrim

There are four classes of 1H weapon to choose from in Skyrim. Each has its advantages which come from perks, and distinct speed and weight values that determine how fast the weapon can be swung, and how much stamina is drained when using a power attack. A weapon's chance to stagger an opponent is determined by its class (of the four listed below), not the item's specific weight.

Daggers
Daggers certainly play nicely with dual wield, although there aren't many perks that affect them directly here. They deal the highest sneak attack damage (with a Sneak perk) and do not alert opponents with noise as other weapon classes do. They are the fastest weapon type, and due to their low weight do not stagger opponents.

Swords
Swords are slower than daggers, but still offer decent speed compared to the other types. The reach is much larger, and swords carry a decent chance to stagger opponents with power attacks.

War Axes
Slightly slower than swords, dealing larger damage and taking more stamina to power attack. They'll stagger a bit more often than swords thanks to their increased heft.

Maces
The heaviest, and slowest of the one handed weapon types, has the largest chance to stagger an opponent but will cost the most stamina doing so. With the perk for these, you can crush armored enemies easily, giving them a higher damage output late in the game.

Craftable Weapons List

This table shows the weight and damage value for each type of weapon, in all types of material available in Skyrim. Dragonbone weapons require Skyrim's Dawnguard DLC be installed. You'll also need to be level 100 in Smithing and take the Dragon Armor perk.

One Handed Weapon Skill Perks

It's unlikely you'd ever want to invest a full 21 points into this skill. Armsman will boost general damage, while the specializations come in handy when you're using your favorite weapon type. Of the three, Maces have the best perk overall. Even if I'd invested some points into Maces, a good sword could still come along and see use for a while. By the end of the game, I'd be smithing and enchanting a Mace to maximize damage.

Armsman (5 ranks 20% Each)
(level 0/20/40/60/80 One-Handed Weapon Skill required)
If One Handed weapons are to be your primary source of damage, you'll want all five ranks.

Bladesman (3 Ranks, 10/15/20% Crit Chance for Swords)
(level 30/60/90 One-Handed Weapon Skill required)
This really isn't very good, as the critical damage doesn't seem to do what you'd expect with very high damage weapons late in the game. Early on, it's quite OK, but this diminishing value certainly affects my opinion on investing three points into this perk.

Bone Breaker (3 Ranks, ignoring 25% armor each for Maces)
(level 30/60/90 One-Handed Weapon Skill required)
Much better, but only against armored foes. It will do next to nothing (or nothing at all) against enemy casters and the like. However, most other enemies have armor and this will effectively raise your DPS more than the other perks here. Maces also stagger the most, but will require stamina for you to power attack many times in a long fight.

Hack and Slash (3 Ranks, adding more bleeding damage to War Axes)
(level 30/60/90 One-Handed Weapon Skill required)
This is perhaps better for Bladesman for reliability. War Axes are already good weapons, this just boosts the damage you can do by a bit. After a swing, you'll watch the opponent's health bleed away a little. Sometimes this makes up for one more hit in combat, letting you switch to another target while the original bleeds to death.

Dual Flurry (2 Ranks, 20/35% faster Dual Wield Attacks)
(level 30/50 One-Handed Weapon Skill required)
If you want to dual wield, you already know you need this. After all, you can't block, so whirling your blades through enemies as fast as possible is essential to survival.

Dual Savagery
(level 70 One-Handed Weapon Skill required)
Bigger, more powerful Dual Wield power attacks. Makes a huge boost to your damage, so long as your Dragonborn has the stamina to keep them swinging.

Fighting Stance
(level 20 One-Handed Weapon Skill required)
Reduces the stamina cost of power attacks by 25%. Helps you in the long fight.

Critical Charge
(level 50 One-Handed Weapon Skill required)
Sprint forward, then hold down the attack button (work on your timing) to charge at the enemy and deal a big critical hit. A great way to close the distance and smash your way into melee combat.

Savage Strike
(level 50 One-Handed Weapon Skill required)
Standing Power attacks (the normal kind) do 25% bonus damage and have a chance to decapitate enemies. This is one means of unlocking the decapitation killing blow animation, which works on humanoids.

Paralyzing Strike
(level 100 One-Handed Weapon Skill required)
Tap backward, and hold the attack button to deal a backward power attack (good when enemy is advancing on you) that has a 25% chance to instantly paralyze the opponent for several seconds. Incredibly powerful when you can pull it off, which may take some practice to get the timing right.

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Caden says...

Wood elves 1h skill is 15 not the best but good

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1st May 2016 12:05pm

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