You may have noticed that dual wielding doesn’t seem to be all that common in Baldur’s Gate 3, even though it’s something you can quite easily do. Simply drag and drop another one-handed weapon into the secondary weapon slot and, boom, you’re dual wielding! The real question is whether you should be dual wielding. Is it actually any more powerful than wielding a single weapon?
Is Dual Wielding Any Good in BG3?
Once you have two weapons equipped, all you need to do is press the R key to toggle dual wielding on or off. You can dual wield any weapons that are tagged as Light, and most 1H weapons fall into this category; think daggers, clubs, short swords, and similar.
Unlike many other RPGs, however, dual wielding in Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t necessarily a straight damage increase over using a single weapon. Instead, you’ll get to use both weapons, but you’re also using your action for the first strike and your bonus action for the second attack. This means you’ll lose out on being able to disengage, jump, shove, or use any other bonus action while dual wielding. The second strike is also less powerful than the main attack because the Strength or Dexterity bonus your character adds to their weapon attacks only applies to the main weapon, meaning the off-hand attack is a bit of a wet noodle when it comes to damage.
I’ve found the extra damage from the second strike to be decent in the early game, but it quickly loses its value as you progress. More often than not you’ll find yourself much better off using a shield in the offhand for the extra defense and capabilities and gaining back your bonus action. Using a 2H weapon is also better in my experience; the damage has better scaling and, again, the bonus action can be crucial in so many situations. Unless your build is hyperfocused around dual wielding, I would advise against using it in general as you’re better off with other setups.
That’s it for dual wielding in Baldur’s Gate 3. There aren’t many benefits to dual wielding other than getting an extra off-hand hit in, but it comes at the cost of a bonus action and the damage is much lower than a main hand attack, so it’s not really worth going for. It’s just one of the helpful things to know about getting the most out of this epic RPG, so make sure to take a look through our full set of guides for more tips.
