Who does it work for?

The Fighter (KO% and Berserk), and Rogue (up to 4X Backstabbing), seem to be the obvious choice.

The Bard, Gadgeteer, and Ranger are only average at melee combat, so they shouldn't dual-wield (These 3 classes have Medium Armor, and average Hit Points).

The Valkyrie has a skill bonus to Polearms, so shouldn't dual-wield, as she isn't exceptional in that. The Lord does have a bonus to the Dual Weapons skill, but isn't going to be doing near the damage of the Fighter or Rogue dual-wielding. I wonder if the Lord's 125 skill to Dual Weapons matters after 100 skill. Even still, the Fighter and Rogue are going to far outclass the Lord in damage.

I assume that the Monk uses Dual Weapons skill for Martial Arts. If so, Dual Weapons skill is a yes.

The Ninja can dual-throw for auto-penetrate and instant kills. Also, they can dual-wield in melee with 2 swords. Again, yes.

The Samurai gets the Lightning Strike ability, but only if wielding a single Sword, as far as I know. Does anybody know if dual-wielding affects this?

Okay, the way Dual Wielding in Wizardry 8 works is this:

When a character wields two weapons they get a penalty to their weapon skill when attacking with those weapons.

With no points in Dual Weapons, the weapon in the primary hand attacks with only 50% of its skill. The weapon in the off-hand attacks with only 25% of its skill.

The Dual Weapons skill mitigates this penalty. Attacking with a Dual Weapons skill of 100 means the weapon in the primary hand attacks with 100% of its weapon skill (the penalty is completely negated), and the off-hand weapon has a penalty of only 50%. So having Dual Weapons at 100 means that there is no down side to using an off-hand weapon as your primary weapon attacks just as well as if it was your only one.

Unlike most skills, there is no benefit to having the Dual Weapon skill at higher than 100, so Lords have the advantage of advancing this skill faster but get nothing more once the skill is at a base of 80 or more.

Worth pointing out that when you are starting out, your 1st-level Fighter with Sword of 12 and Dual Weapons of 5 will have a sword skill of 6 instead for his primary weapon when using a weapon in his off-hand. A skill of 6 is still plenty at first level to score hits. Since Dual Weapons will advance at the same time as weapon skills, the penalty isn't as bad as it seems.

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No one is really sure what causes Lightning Strikes to activate, but yes, it can activate when you wield two weapons; my Dual Wielding Samurai gets lightning strikes just fine. I haven't compared how often she gets it to how often she would get it wielding just one weapon.

And yes, when Monks and Ninjas use Martial Arts this counts as using two weapons. Generally though both Monks and Ninjas are better off using actual weapons.

The Berzerk and Backstab abilities mean that fighters and rogues will do very good damage when dual wielding - they do very good damage when not dual wielding too. You play a Lord not because you want to do great damage (though they can still be quite good) but rather because you also want spells. Late game the spells can be really important.

Your primary casters can't advance dual weapons, but you could still give your mage two wands. This would not be to use them as weapons but rather to have access to both magic abilities the wands have. With a primary caster you should be trying to cast spells all the time anyway.

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Some classes should not bother with using Dual Weapons.

* Valkyries can try using dual weapons but will be worse off than lords at the start. But Polearms are good and there are a number of ones worth using, so usually it's better to use those.
* Rangers and Gadgeteers should use missile weapons almost exclusively. There is no disadvantage to using missile weapons when you are in melee range.
* Bards can develop Dual Weapons and are surprisingly good fighters because they don't have a lot of other skills they need to develop. But they can't use any of the good off-hand weapons aside from some wands. I prefer to give them a shield instead.
* A Priest built as a battle priest still can't develop Dual Weapon skill at all. Though since they can load up on mace skill at first level, one common trick is to switch to Lord at second level.

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A lot of what should determine whether you should dual wield depends on what weapons you plan to use. This will be limited by what items are available in the game. Generally the best idea is to use the same type of weapon in each hand, since this will cause that weapon skill to rise faster.

* Maces & Flails has the best off-hand weapon in the game by far (though there is only one of it that you can get for sure). This should probably be your weapon of choice for both Fighters and Lords. However the selection of maces in the early game is weak.
* Daggers are all off-hand weapons. Many of the best daggers in the game are limited to Rogues only.
* Swords has only two off-hand types: the Wakizashi and the enchanted version. Only Samurai can use these. But it's just as well, because Samurai can't use the good daggers or maces in their off-hand. There are a couple of decent daggers that a Samurai can use, but they aren't significantly better than the enchanted wakizashi.
* There is one axe that can be used in an off-hand: the Bearded War Axe. But it isn't particularly good and in fact axes in general aren't very good. The best axes are all two-handed weapons anyway.
* Polearms are all two-handed weapons.
* Staffs and Wands has a variety of decent weapons though some are two-handed and others are not. Many of the wands have good status effects even though their damage is light. The most famous one can only be used by a faerie ninja.
* Thrown weapons are all usable as off-hand weapons except for slings. The problem is getting enough of them; if you intend to Dual Wield throwing weapons you need to buy up just about every one you find.

Hope this has been useful.

My understanding is that this has been shown to be false; dual wielding past 100 does have an effect. I believe Lightning Strike can only activate if you made a melee attack the previous round, so if you want this to trigger, you need to keep fighting in melee (and not, say, spend a turn casting a spell). I disagree. Not every party including one of those classes will want to be using missile combat with them.

Consider that the Gadgeteer's Omnigon has its disadvantages (no Strength bonus, can blind enemies which often does more harm than good), and that Gadgeteers don't get any sort of bonus with other ranged weapon.

Also, Rangers can use Diamond Eyes and have the Dual Wielding skill, making them potentially viable dual wielders.

The Fighter has BY FAR the best hit points and armor selection in the game (tied with the Lord and Valkyrie, who will trail behind the Fighter in levels). Therefore, a shield is too defensive. Also, a two-handed weapon isn't taking maximum advantage of their KO and Berserk abilities. A Fighter dual-wielding has the potential to KO the enemy, then Berserk on top of that, inflicting X3 damage with both weapons (Diamond Eyes should definitely go to the Fighter).

The Rogue is a Tier 2 character, meaning that their max swings and attacks won't max until level 34. That being said, they can still Backstab for 1-4X damage. Obviously, a shield with the Rogue is pointless, with Stealth and Reflextion. They can't use the big two-handed weapons. Dual-wielding is the only way to go, Sword and Dagger.

The Ranger, Bard, and Gadgeteer are not impressive in melee, having Medium Armor and average hit points. Neither the Bard, nor the Gadgeteer, has access to good off-hand weapons, so should go Sword and Shield. The Ranger can dual-wield Mace and Flail, but won't be nearly as good as the Fighter (who makes a Ranger a front-line character anyways)? The Ranger should go Polearms if non-Mook, and Sword if Mook.

The Valkyrie should go with Polearms (she gets a bonus to this), as I did with mine, as a flank character, who can hit the front lines from extended range.

The Lord gets a bonus to Dual Weapons skill, but won't be doing the damage of the Fighter and Rogue (both of these classes can max their Dual Weapons skill anyways). Even if the Lord gets a slight bonus above 100 Dual Weapons skill, the damage just won't be there.

The Eastern classes do their own thing, which I am unfamiliar with.

Interesting!

If so, since the point of Dual Weapons is mitigating the penalty, Dual Weapons at +100 probably does nothing for the primary hand since the penalty is completely eliminated at 100. But if the math holds for the off-hand, this would mean that your off-hand skill could get up to 56.5% of normal instead of only 50%. Nice, though not a huge difference. Yes, that's true.

After a bit of research it seems that you start at level one with a 7% chance of lightning strikes and this increases based on level until 20 where you have 12% which is the max. It's just a random chance.

FYI Even though I get lightning strikes normally with my dual wield samurai, I have never seen it with the off-hand weapon. You don't have to build these classes that way... but I have a hard time imagining why you would want to. The lack of strength bonus on the omnigun is more than compensated for by its status effects, its ammo versatility, and its high rate of fire. A well-developed omnigunner is often the party leader in kills by the end of the game. People tend to dislike the omnigun mainly because of how weak it is at early levels.

Blinding enemies and having them run away can be irritating, but getting one enemy out of several to run away does still help you win fights, so "more harm than good" is really just being impatient.

But since the Gadgeteer can manufacture Tripleshot Crossbows, I have seen it argued that they should go into bows instead. These weapons are good enough that the lack of a skill bonus might not matter. Frankly my gadgeteer build tripleshots for the other characters but still uses the omnigun for herself.

Building a melee gadgeteer is pretty strange and I feel like you would do this only if you wanted a more difficult game by trying things that weren't very optimal. Yes, they can, but it is still hard to imagine why you would want to. I suppose if you really wanted a melee hybrid that had the alchemy spellbook and didn't want a ninja, this is what you would do. But with their lighter armor requirements it is nice that the Ranger's key abilities still work when he is in the back rank. Well, a bunch of statements here and I don't entirely agree with all of them.
* Yes, the fighter has the best HP of any class. But that doesn't mean you don't want defense. Depends on your goal. If I am building a fighter whose job may include standing alone in the front rank while everyone else falls back to restore HP or things, then defense is just fine.
* I agree that the KO ability works best with the highest number of attacks, so Dual Weapons is the way to go to maximize that.
* Don't agree about Berzerk. It's just a damage multiplier, and two-handed weapons deal more damage. So a two-handed weapon that deals 50% more damage will do just as well with berserk as two separate weapons. I don't agree that a shield is totally pointless here, but Rogues can't use the really good shields so they are not as good as the "heavies" in that regard.

If the best daggers weren't cursed, I would say go with 2 daggers. Thieves' dagger in both hands is really great. But the trouble there is that you can't cast spells so not much you can do if the enemy is out of reach. However, if you develop your artifacts skill you could build a Rogue to use the various consumables that use that, like the various stix and amulets and such. That would give you an action when you know your enemy is out of range. I agree here... though I wouldn't bother giving the gadgeteer melee weapons at all. You can be in the front rank and still use ranged weapons fine. There is no penalty for being in melee range.

My bard is actually a really good secondary fighter. They don't have the advantages of the other classes but they don't need a lot of stats at the start so they can start with very good STR and DEX. I use a sword and shield build and it works well. If you are making a melee Ranger, yeah you could do that. But I agree with you that you probably want to use ranged weapons. Also agree, generally. Valkyrie is versatile enough that you could experiment with other builds, if you really wanted. Well, if you are Dual Wielding with Diamond Eyes, the goal is not just to deal damage but also fish for Paralysis and KO. They don't have the bonus KO that fighters get but maces already have good inherent chances. If you do the Priest 1 -> Lord switch then you start with a much better mace skill than anyone else. In my mind the priest spellbook more than compensates for the lower damage. I have never actually done the Ninja. Some people really like it but the thing that makes me shy away is just how many stats you need at the start. There's no race that can start with decent stats as a ninja. So they take longer to develop and also level more slowly.

The Samurai, on the other hand, I really love. The Mage spellbook means you can use your samurai to throw down those out of combat buffs like enchanted blade and missile shield. And you can give bloodlust to your samurai when you get to Arnika; the fact that you can cast spells means you can still do plenty of useful things when you are at range. Casting Noxious Fumes is usually better than using a bow thanks to the debuffs. He does more damage in melee than a fighter at these levels because bloodlust gives him the berserk ability, but he also lightning strikes with it. They are slightly limited in armor, but there are unique armor pieces that only work with samurai that make up for it. Can't use Diamond eyes though. But can use the only secondary hand swords.

I recently started a new game with a Lizardman Samurai (he started at level 1 as a mage to get a good start with spell skills and switched at level 2). It's kind of a weird build but the realm skills should compensate for the resistance penalties and the huge starting VIT compensates for the Samurai's lower HP. My plan is to use mana stones to compensate for his lower spell point recovery and I will buy all the stones I can manage from Crock. We will see how it works out.

Maybe because I'm making a melee party, but I still want access to the Ranger's auto-search or the Gadgeteer's ability to use gadgets?

Plus, of the hybrids that can use Alchemy, looking at only melee combat, and ignoring the Cane of Corpus, Ranger looks more attractive than Ninja. (Especially since Ninja levels more slowly, perhaps because of that Locks & Traps skill that I feel isn't, on its own, enough to warrant a slower XP track.) Except that the Omnigun is significantly hampered by the fact that one of the status ailments, in fact the one with the highest chance, is Blind, which is often undesirable, as it tends to prolong encounters by making enemies run away.

(One of these days I may mod the game to replace the blind effect with something else, like nausea (or irritation, if that's too powerful), that doesn't have those issues.) Except that:
* An enemy that runs away could pull other enemies into the fight.
* Area attack spells don't hit as many enemies if some have run away, and you might run out of SP faster, which is a problem for an MDP.
* After a while, winning fights is a foregone conclusion, so it becomes more important to win the fights faster and without using too many resources. Tripleshot Crossbow uses a lot of Stamina, and the Gadgeteer would probably want to save their Stamina for gadget use. I don't think so, as:
* Gadgeteers can equip Bloodlust, and nearly every other weapon a Bard can.
* Gadgeteers get an easily obtainable +20 Strength accessory.

Gadgeteers are really just as good as Bards in melee, minus the Bard specific equipment (which isn't that impressive, and you still have a +20 Strength accessory).

Rangers can wear medium armor + Infinity Helm. You really don't heed heavy armor, even in the front row, in this game, and in my experience the encumbrance cost isn't really worth it. Or the Tripleshot Crossbow. (I'm pretty sure the KO ability works at range.) Except that, at higher levels, the best strategy to keeping up with healing is to get the damage to spread out rather than getting it all on one character. Single target healing stops scaling early (until Restoration, which is late game and not as easily available), while multi-target healing becomes better and better as you go through the teens.

I did a melee Gadgeteer last party, with a *Light Sword* and *Light Shield*. She had a Tripleshot Crossbow, to benefit from her Strength damage bonus. Way better than blinding or scaring the enemies off with fear.

The only class that deserves a Diamond Eyes in the offhand is the Fighter. The Rogue, Bard, Gadgeteer, Alchemist, Psionic, and Mage can't use this at all. The Bishop and Priest can use this, but would be better with something else in the main hand. The Lord, Valkyrie, and Ranger can use this, but are not going to be doing the off hand damage of the Fighter.

A Fighter dual-wielding is going to have far more opportunities for attacking the enemy than using a big two-handed weapon.

What about a Rogue with a *Light Sword* and Stiletto?

I disagree. Fighters aren't in every party, and not all fighters are dual wielders. (A polearm (or even Staff of Doom) fighter is an option, for example.) Also, Lord, Valkyrie, and Ranger don't have any other options that are nearly as good, making the weapon an ideal choice for one of them if one happens to be your dual wielder. (And Lords even get a bonus to the skill, while Fighters instead get a bonus to Close Combat, which is a less powerful skill.)

(Note that I prefer not to use Fighters, except as temporary stand-ins that will be replaced later (probably in Arnika), because they get too powerful; melee, I feel, is already too powerful in this game even without that Berserk bonus.)

Yes, Fighters aren't in every party. My last MDP, with a Bard, Gadgeteer, Priest, Alchemist, Psionic, and Mage, made me largely done with these simplistic classes. They are great for what they do, but are largely not adaptable to the big picture.

The big picture is to create characters that are good at melee, ranged, and magic. Though the Fighter and Rogue lack magic, their heavy melee damage (and decent ranged damage) give them a pass. The Valkyrie has a bonus to Polearms, and can cheat death. The Ranger gets a bonus to Ranged Combat, has ranged crits, and grants free Scouting. The Bishops have all 4 spelbooks (even though they level slower, it's more than made up for with a huge mana pool, and the ability to cast every spell in the game).

A Fighter with a *Light Sword* and Diamond Eyes would easily outclass any two-handed weapon. What Fighter uses a Staff of Doom? These should be for casters, with no better weapon options.

Who creates a Valkyrie or Ranger as a dual-wielder? The Lord, as a dual-wielder, I understand, but will be a watered down Fighter with Divinity magic.

Melee, Ranged, and Magic is like a Rock, Paper, Scissors game. Melee for bosses, Ranged for late game, and Magic to get you there.

A fighter who doesn't have high skills yet, but still has enough to get an extra attack when using a single weapon. Or one fighting enemies that are harder to hit. Also, note that the off-hand weapon only gets half the Strength bonus.

Also, for a fighter, it's actually hard to beat the Staff of Doom.

A "watered down fighter" is still more than good enough, because of how powerful melee is in this game, and Divinity magic is a huge advantage that fighters don't get. Keep in mind that, if nothing else, this eventually gives you a portal, as well as a revive spell in case your other casters die. (Not to mention this covers Armorplate and Magic Screen, if those spells are missing, and it also gives you Heal All eventually.)

There is only one guaranteed Staff of Doom (In the Mountain Wilderness waterfall). Others are farmable from Rapax Corpses. Two are next to Rafe's cell, in the Rapax Rift. There is also an underground bunker, in the same area, where more Rapax Corpses are.

You should be able to farm as many Staves of Doom as you want.

However, *Light Swords* are also farmable, from the Buccaneer Ghosts in the Bayjin Shallows. There are 7 ghosts, so 7 opportunities to farm *Light Swords* and *Light Shields*. Also, Jan-Ette can drop a *Light Shield*.

Since this party isn't concerned with *Light Shields*, we want our Fighter and Rogue to farm *Light Swords* from the Buccaneer Ghosts. The Fighter and Rogue should be able to do this, within an hour or so.

The Fighter, having farmed a *Light Sword*, and being guaranteed a Diamond Eyes in the off-hand, from the Mountain Wilderness tomb, should be out-damaging a Staff of Doom, something which is usually relegated to casters.