A player dual wielding weapons in combat.
Dual wielding is a feature released with the Evolution of Combat and is mostly a members-only feature. It consists of wielding two weapons, a main-hand weapon in the weapon slot and an off-hand weapon in the shield slot. Many main-hand weapons in the game have off-hand replicates (eg. off-hand dragon dagger), while others have equivalents (eg. Ahrim's wand and book).
Like two-handed weapons, dual wielding provides 150% the damage of a sole main-hand weapon, but the user lacks the defensive stats and abilities granted by a shield. Main- and off-hand weapons' hit chance is determined separately for auto-attacks, but with abilities only the main-hand contributes to accuracy.
Players may interchange which weapons they dual wield, even if the weapons are not of the same combat class: for example, one may wield an abyssal whip with an off-hand rune crossbow. When doing this, only abilities pertaining to the main-hand combat class will be available.
Some abilities require dual wielded weapons to use.
Non-members can dual wield magic weapons (wands, books, and orbs), or wield the diamond sceptre as an off-hand in melee combat if owned. Abilities requiring dual wielding are members-only.
Trivia
- Prior to The World Wakes, off-hand weapons did damage with Havoc and Decimate based only on their damage rating, not taking into account a weapon's speed.
- After a hidden update on 4 June 2013, off-hand exquisite weapons became non-wieldable to F2P players. Any off-hand exquisite weapons still equipped by F2P players lost all their combat stats and no longer functioned.