How To Dual Wield in Baldur's Gate 3

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Want to know how to Dual Wield in Baldur’s Gate 3? Besides a wide variety of unique classes, weapons, and spells, Baldur’s Gate 3 offers players a variety of combat styles. Maybe you want to cast powerful spells or take a two-handed ax and destroy everything in your path. However, melee combat can also be elegant if you master Dual Wield. This fighting style involves using two Light weapons at the same time. But nothing is perfect, so we are here to tell you about the Dual Wield in Baldur’s Gate 3.

What Is Dual Wield in Baldur’s Gate 3

Image Source: Larian Studios via YouTube Arekkz Gaming

As we said, Dual Wield is the ability of characters to use two Light weapons at once during the battle. This type of weapon includes Clubs, Daggers, Short Swords, Hand Axes, Light Hammers, and others. It allows you to take two or more hits (for example, if you’re playing Rogues) in one turn.

Dual Wield is available to most characters, but some classes can use it earlier and more effectively. Thus, if your character has Dual Wielder Feat, it will gain a +1 bonus to Armor Class while holding a melee weapon in each hand.

How To Dual Wield in Baldur’s Gate 3

First, open your character’s inventory by pressing I on your keyboard.
Next, pay attention to the Melee cells to the left of your character icon. If you can already Dual Wield, you will see two empty slots. Place two Light weapons of your choice in these slots.
Press R to toggle between melee weapons.
With these settings, your character will use both weapons during combat.

All Advantages and Disadvantages Dual Wield

Speaking about the advantages of Dual Wield, it is worth noting the following points:

Increased damage you can deal in 1 turn. Often two weapons have a higher total damage than one more powerful 2H weapon.
In addition, you can get two unique effects at once if using an enchanted weapon. At the same time, 2H weapons will only give you one bonus.
Also, the chance of hitting the enemy will be higher. And even if the first attack misses, the second attack will surely hit the enemy.

As for the disadvantages of Dual Wield, there are a few of them:

First, Dual Wield does not give you an extra turn. You only automatically use your Bonus action as the Attack action. This way, you can’t do anything else during your turn.
Also, in the later game, the bonuses from 2H weapons are much higher than the advantages from Dual Wield.

To sum up, Dual Wield is a good solution for fully DPS-oriented characters. Characters like Rogue can land up to 4 to 5 hits per turn with the right archetype and specific equipment. But you should skip this mechanic if you want more varied gameplay.