You’re standing in a damp corridor in Bleak Falls Barrow. A Restless Dead Draugr is screeching in your face, and you’ve got a choice. You can hide behind a shield like a coward, or you can swing a slab of iron the size of a dinner table. Honestly, Skyrim two handed weapons are the soul of the game. They’re loud. They’re messy. They make you feel like a god-king of the north. But most players just pick up the biggest axe they find and start clicking until things die. That’s a mistake. You’re leaving half your damage on the table and dying way too often to stray arrows.
Weight matters. Swing speed matters. If you’re just looking at the base damage number in your inventory, you’re playing a losing game.
The Speed Gap: Greatswords vs. Battleaxes vs. Warhammers
It’s all about the "weapon speed" variable in the game code. Most people think a Warhammer is just a Greatsword that hits harder. It’s not. It’s a completely different rhythm of combat. A Greatsword has a speed of 0.75. A Warhammer is a sluggish 0.6. That 0.15 difference feels like an eternity when a Bandit Chief is mid-swing with a power attack.
I’ve seen players get frustrated because they keep getting interrupted. Look, if you’re using the Volendrung—which is technically a Warhammer but somehow swings at the speed of a Battleaxe (0.7)—you’re playing a different game than the guy using a generic Iron Warhammer.
Battleaxes are the middle child. They swing at 0.7. They’re the "safe" pick, but "safe" is usually boring. If you want to actually survive on Legendary difficulty, you need to understand that Skyrim two handed weapons aren’t about the first hit. They’re about the stagger. If you don't stagger the enemy on that opening swing, you're probably going to eat a face-full of Frostbite Spider venom while you're recovery-framing.
Why the Skill Tree is Kinda Lying to You
Let’s talk about the perks. The Two-Handed tree looks great on paper. You see "Deep Wounds" for Greatswords and think, "Oh, critical hits! I want that."
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Stop. Don’t do it.
The way Skyrim calculates critical damage is fundamentally broken for high-level play. It doesn’t multiply your total damage; it only adds a percentage of the base weapon damage. By the time you’ve upgraded your sword with Smithing and have a few Enchantments, that "critical" hit is adding maybe 12 damage. It’s pathetic. It’s a waste of a perk point.
- Limbsplitter (Axes): Adds bleeding damage. Again, it’s tiny. It doesn't scale. Late-game enemies have hundreds of HP; 3 damage per second for 6 seconds is a joke.
- Skullcrusher (Warhammers): Now, this is the real deal. It ignores 75% of armor at rank three.
Most enemies in Skyrim don't actually have high armor ratings—dragons and giants have zero—but against Ebony Warriors or high-level bandits, Skullcrusher is the only perk that actually changes the math of the fight.
The Reach Advantage Nobody Uses
You have range. Use it.
Most players walk right up to a Draugr and start swinging. Why? You have a massive reach advantage. A Two-Handed weapon generally has a reach of 1.3, while One-Handed swords sit at 1.0. That 0.3 doesn't sound like much, but it’s the difference between getting hit and staying clean. You should be backpedaling. Swing, step back, swing. If you aren't dancing, you aren't using Skyrim two handed weapons correctly.
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Think about the "Sweep" perk. It lets you hit every enemy in front of you with a sideways power attack. This is where the Greatsword shines. Because it’s the fastest, you can proc that sweep and clear a room of skeevers or low-level bandits before they even touch your health bar.
The Daedric Artifacts: Not All Hammers Are Created Equal
If we’re being real, the best Two-Handed weapons in the game aren't the ones you make at a forge. They’re the ones you pry out of the hands of dead cultists or receive from bored Daedric Princes.
The Ebony Blade is a weird one. It’s a two-handed sword, but it benefits from One-Handed perks in earlier versions of the game (though patches often mess with this). It swings faster than any other greatsword. If you fully "charge" it by betraying your friends—which is dark, even for Skyrim—the life-leach is infinite. You literally cannot die as long as you are hitting something. It’s the ultimate "I give up on strategy" weapon.
Then there’s The Longhammer. You find it in Liar’s Retreat. It’s a plain-looking Orcish Warhammer, but it has a hidden trait: it swings 33% faster than a normal Warhammer. It’s the highest DPS (damage per second) Two-Handed weapon in the entire game. Better than Daedric. Better than Dragonbone. If you enchant that thing with Elemental Fury or a high-level Chaos enchantment, you become a human blender.
Blocking Isn't Just for Shields
You can block with a Greatsword. You should block with a Greatsword.
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I know, it’s not as effective as a Shield. You’re still going to take chip damage. But the "Quick Reflexes" perk in the Block tree works even when you’re holding a Battleaxe. When an enemy does a power attack, time slows down. This gives you a massive window to sidestep and land a heavy blow of your own.
Most people ignore the Block tree when they go for a Two-Handed build. That’s why they think Two-Handed builds are "glass cannons." They aren't. They're just "heavy cannons" that require better timing.
The Smithing and Enchanting Loophole
Let's address the elephant in the room: crafting. If you spend three hours looping Alchemy, Enchanting, and Smithing, any iron greatsword can deal 500 damage. At that point, weapon choice doesn't matter. But assuming you're playing a somewhat balanced game, your enchantment choice is vital.
- Absorb Stamina: You only need 1 point of this. Seriously. As long as you have 1 stamina, you can perform a power attack. A weapon that absorbs 1 point of stamina per hit allows for infinite power attacks.
- Paralyze: Great for Warhammers. Since they're slow, knocking an enemy flat on their back gives you time for three "free" swings.
- Chaos Damage: If you have the Dragonborn DLC, this is the gold standard. It has a 50% chance for each element (Fire, Frost, Shock) to deal damage.
Survival on Legendary Difficulty
On lower difficulties, you can just tank hits. On Legendary, a single bandit with a war axe can end your run. When using Skyrim two handed weapons, your armor rating needs to be at the cap (567). Since you can't use a shield to boost that rating, you have to rely heavily on Smithing or heavy armor perks like "Reflect Blows."
Don't forget the shouts. Unrelenting Force is the obvious choice, but "Become Ethereal" is the secret MVP. Use it to close the distance against mages. Mages are the natural enemy of the Two-Handed warrior. You're slow, and they have ice spells that drain your stamina and slow you down even further. Become Ethereal, sprint up to them, and then deliver a sprinting power attack (Great Critical Charge) to end the fight before it starts.
The Fashion vs. Function Debate
Look, the Daedric Battleaxe looks incredible. It’s jagged, it’s glowing, it’s intimidating. But the Dragonbone Warhammer actually has the highest base damage in the game (28). If you’re a purist, you go Dragonbone. If you’re a roleplayer, you go with whatever fits your aesthetic. Skyrim is easy enough that you don't need to min-max, but knowing the numbers helps when you're stuck in a dungeon with three Death Overlords.
Actionable Next Steps for Your Build
- Go to Liar’s Retreat immediately: Grab The Longhammer. It is objectively the best Two-Handed weapon for any build that values speed.
- Ignore the "Bleed" and "Crit" perks: Put those points into "Barbarian" for raw damage or the "Block" tree for "Quick Reflexes."
- Get the Elemental Fury shout: It doesn't work on enchanted weapons, but using it with a refined Dragonbone Greatsword makes you swing faster than a one-handed dagger.
- Focus on Stamina Regen: Wear the Lady Stone or eat Vegetable Soup. Vegetable Soup is broken—it grants 1 stamina per second for 720 seconds, which, as mentioned before, means infinite power attacks.
- Learn the "Step-Back" swing: Practice hitting an enemy at the very tip of your blade's reach. If you can master the spacing, you'll rarely take a hit in a 1v1 fight.
The Two-Handed path is about commitment. You're trading the safety of a shield for the raw power of a heavy hitter. It’s about timing, spacing, and knowing when to let the hammer fall. Stop playing like a tank and start playing like a duelist who happens to carry a sixty-pound piece of sharpened steel. Once you get the rhythm down, there’s nothing in the game—not even a Legendary Dragon—that can stand in your way for more than a few swings.