So, I know Sacred Gold is an old game, but I generally play old games it seems, so I've been playing this a lot lately.
I've read extensively here on the forums, and everything I've read indicates that the bonuses for Dual Wielding and Weapon Skills (Sword, Axe, LHR, etc.) do NOT stack. Based on the stats the character screen is showing me, this is correct. If I have a single point in Dual Wield and have TWO points in Sword Weapons, if I'm dual wielding 2 swords, the attack and speed bonus of Dual Wielding is the only bonus that applies and the higher sword bonus is ignored.
So far, so good. The problem is that this is NOT the case when considering Dual Wielding and Blade Combat. I believe the Dark Elf is the only character that can actually learn the Blade Combat, so that is what I'm basing my post on. If I put a point into Dual Weapons and then wield 2 blades, the game correctly shows the speed bonus of the Dual Wield skill. However, if I then ADD the skill Blade Combat, the character screen now shows the attack speed and the combined bonuses for BOTH Blade Combat and Dual Wield ... even though everything I've read says they don't stack. They certainly are stacking on the character information screen!
However, it gets more complicated than that. I've tested the following with a Dark Elf, a Daemon and a Gladiator, who are the only characters that can get Dual Wielding early on. For the following, no weapon or dual wielding skills have been selected. When using a blade weapon, each attack animation results in a double hit, as if the character was dual wielding but with only a SINGLE BLADE WEAPON in the weapon slot. So, it seems that when using Blade Weapons, regardless of whether you are using Dual Wielding or not, the game treats attacks AS IF you were dual wielding.
But, wait ... there's more. The character display will show the damage of a character with a particular weapon. In the photos below, the axe weapon damage indicates a damage of 35-52 and when you add the 12% damage for 1 point of Weapon Lore, it exactly matches the character screen damage of 39-57. Actually attacking something shows floating damage numbers consistent with these information displays.
These images and attack data are no surprise. But, now let's consider Blade weapons. Here's photos showing the stats of a single blade weapon:
Now, you can see that the displays do NOT match. I read a single comment (no idea where) about how with Underworld, Dual Wielding was re-balanced to lower the damage to make single weapon usage more competitive. We'll assume that is the case and that is why the character screen shows a lower damage number than the weapon stats. The PROBLEM with this, is that when you actually go out into the countryside and hit something, the floating damage numbers are much higher than shown on the character screen and INSTEAD are consistent with the number show in the weapon display. Kill 7 or 8 wolves showed damage numbers ranging from 22 to 31. Again, this is with ZERO points in both Blade Combat and Dual Wielding.
Now, let's consider Dual Wielding blade weapons. Staying with the same single blade weapon as above, the 1st photos show the character stats with a single point in Blade Weapons. The 2nd photo shows an additional single point in Dual Weapons:
Both the Attack Speed and the Attack stat are higher with the same single blade weapon equipped. So, the Dual Wield bonus is being displayed even though no weapons are being dual wielded. This seems to indicate that combat with blades is considered dual wielding by default. Now, let's add the 2nd blade:
Here's the stats for the 2nd blade weapon. Note that the higher Attack Speed to due to now having the Dual Wield and Blade Combat skills. But, in this case, I've put these photos because I want to see the damage stat. Now to equip both weapons:
It's not an EXACT match, but the combined damage of 31-41 is pretty close to the combined individual damages (32-42) as displayed on the character screen. We'll consider the discrepancy due to rounding. However, when we actually go and hit something, the damage figures remain with the range previously noted of a single weapon equipped, 25-32 give or take. This actually makes sense because each weapon will only hit for it's own damage value and the character screen is showing the overall damage of both weapons, but obviously there are some issues with that.
So ... and it's taken a long time to get to this point, but ... here are my questions. Which is these bits of information is wrong? According to what the screens are showing, Dual Wield clearly stacks with Blade Combat. However, the damage figures in combat don't match the actual damage done by the weapon. So, is the character display screen bugged and showing incorrect information? It clearly is wrong is regards to the damage, but what about the Attack stat and Attack Speed? Is it just showing higher numbers but not actually using those higher numbers? If that's the case, then perhaps Dual Wield really does NOT stack with Blade Combat in actual use, even if the information screen seems to indicate that it does. And, if I'm going to get double attacks wielding a single blade weapon, is there any reason to actually select Dual Weapons. I have not currently spent the vast amount of time it would require to see if the various bonuses from two weapons being dual wielded affect each other or not. Perhaps the 2 skills don't stack, as indicated everywhere I've seen, and just the information displays are wrong. But, then equipping a single blade weapon has a very similar effect to dual wielding. Too bad the Dark Elf is the only character who can select Blade Weapons and get the advantage of that peculiar behavior?
Any comments or thoughts? Anything I did wrong? Thanks for making it this far.