How to dual wield heavy weapons in Assassin's Creed Valhalla

Assassin's Creed Valhalla has taken a serious departure from the more traditional skill trees found in past installments of Ubisoft's role-playing game adventure series. There's an extremely powerful ability that lets you dual wield two-handed weapons like great axes.

Any player building a melee-focused berserker will want to unlock this ability as soon as humanly possible, but AC Valhalla's skill system makes it difficult to figure out how to get the perk quickly. Here's how to get it.

The Viking-themed skill tree has a lot in common with the ability constellations found in Bethesda's Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The major difference being that Valhalla requires gamers to spend experience points to reveal abilities further down the tree, which means newcomers are navigating the web blindly from the get-go. You start at the center and somewhat casual move outward.

Heavy Dual Wield is found deep in the Melee side of the talent web and lets Valhalla protagonist Eivor equipped a two-handed weapon in each hand. Heavy weapons are the slowest and heaviest item archetype, meaning Eivor will swing slower and spend more stamina to attack and dodge. But what they lack in speed they make up for in explosive damage output.

There are four types of heavy weapons: Dane Axes, Greatswords, Hammers, and Spears. Each comes with their own special ability that can be used by holding the Left-Hand Action button (L1/LB/Q). Having access to two heavy weapon abilities means players can decimate either huge groups of enemies or target single bosses with a few well-placed lunges.

Here's how to get Heavy Dual Wield so you can turn Eivor into a blender of death.

How to get Heavy Dual Wield

You'll need at least 22 skill points to access Heavy Dual Wield in AC Valhalla's talent tree. Here's the fastest path you can take up the Melee branch to begin dual wielding heavy weapons.

How dual wielding works

Heavy Dual Wield gives players access to all-new weapon animations and slightly alters AC Valhalla's combat controls, as well as limiting the amount of Stamina Eivor has at their disposal.

• Main Hand Light Swing (R1/RB/Left Mouse Button) will let loose a slash using both weapons you have equipped.
• Main Hand Heavy Swing (R2/RT/Shift + Left Mouse Button) will unleash an executioner's swing right in front of Eivor that will stagger strong enemies and likely kill any weaker opponents caught by it.
• Left Hand Block (Tap L1/LB/Q) will allow Eivor to parry incoming attacks with the weapon in her off-hand.
• Left Hand Special (Hold L1/LB/Q) lets Eivor use her off-hand weapon's special ability. For example, Dane Axes make them begin to spin dealing massive damage to anyone around them and Spears deal a single, piercing blow directly in front of Eivor.

Wildly swinging your weapons will result in not having enough Stamina to dodge away from a fatal blow, so be mindful about your positioning and ration enough Stamina to at least dodge once if you're in a dicey situation.

Other skills to complement Heavy Dual Wield

Rushing Dual Wield right off the bat will give you access to an incredible amount of burst damage early in the game, but there are ways to make it even better.

Right after acquiring Heavy Dual Wield you'll want to skill into Dual Swap. This will let you quickly switch between having a weapon in your main hand and off-hand, which invaluable since Eivor can only use a weapon's special ability if it's in their off-hand.

Berserker's Mettle keeps Eivor from taking Adrenaline loss when they take damage, which means players will be able to use special Abilities more frequently.

Finally, Terror has a chance to make weak enemies around Eivor cower in fear after another enemy is hit with a Stun Finisher. This is extremely useful in raids, since it can reduce the amount of attacks players need to dodge and gives them more time to wreak havoc with Heavy Dual Wield.

Best heavy weapons to dual wield

Choosing what heavy weapon archetypes to dual wield is a matter of preference, but Inverse suggests opting for a Dane Axe and Greatsword for maximum cleaving damage. This combination decimates groups of enemies but still deals a devastating amount of damage to single targets.

Most importantly, two of the best weapons in AC Valhalla — Sepulcher Axe and Excalibur — fall into both of these categories, so ideally in the end game you'll have both of them at your disposal to conquer England.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla is out now for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, and PC.