balrond DualMastery
A simple mod allowing for dual wielding any onehanded weapons with it own skill
About this mod Author’s original text
⚔️ Balrond Dual Mastery
Current documented version: 0.3.6
Balrond Dual Mastery adds a dedicated dual-wield combat system to Valheim. It allows the player to use two supported one-handed weapons at the same time, with independent weapon calculations, custom paired animations, a dedicated Dual Mastery skill, multiplayer support, and compatibility layers for other animation/skill mods.
Multiplayer: the mod is required on the server and on all clients joining that server.
✨ Key Features
- Dual wield two supported one-handed weapons.
- Dedicated Dual Mastery skill (SkillType ID 874298).
- Independent primary-hand and off-hand weapon calculations.
- Custom paired guard, combo, and secondary/power animations.
- Off-hand damage, force, resource cost, and XP scaling.
- Configurable primary and secondary animation-speed multipliers.
- Animation-authored SPEED events supported by the paired clips.
- Primary and secondary paired attacks aim toward the cursor/crosshair.
- Fast pair replacement through a configurable local grace window.
- Configurable local modifier for replacing only the off-hand item.
- Separate holster positioning for paired back weapons.
- ServerSync support for gameplay settings.
- Optional shudnal/ConfigurationManager integration through standard BepInEx config metadata.
- Soft compatibility with BetterArchery, WindstridesBowAnimations, OdinHorse, and SkillsReworked.
- No dependency on BalrondExtraSkills.
Balrond Dual Mastery is not compatible with other mods that implement their own dual-wield ownership for the same player hands.
⚔️ Dual Mastery Skill
The mod registers:
Name: Dual Mastery
Skill ID: 874298
Accepted compatibility aliases include:
DualMastery
Dual Mastery
DualWield
Dual Wield
BalrondDualMastery
874298
By default, successful paired attacks raise the Dual Mastery skill.
When SkillsReworked manages skill 874298, SkillsReworked owns progression and attribute mapping while DualMastery continues to own the combat effects.
BalrondExtraSkills is not required.
⚔️ Combat Behaviour
Primary attack
While a valid pair is active:
- the paired primary animation set is used;
- primary and off-hand damage are calculated independently;
- the off-hand strike receives the configured mastery and balance multipliers;
- attack direction is aligned toward the cursor/crosshair;
- the authored SPEED animation event controls clip cadence, with the configured Primary Animation Speed applied as an additional multiplier.
Secondary attack
The paired secondary attack:
- uses the custom paired secondary/power animation;
- applies its own resource surcharge;
- applies the configured secondary damage multiplier;
- aims toward the cursor/crosshair;
- uses the authored SPEED event plus the configured Secondary Animation Speed multiplier.
The normal weapon-specific alternate attack is therefore replaced while the Dual Mastery pair is active.
🗡 Equipment Rules
Dual Mastery owns only valid supported paired layouts.
A pair normally consists of two compatible one-handed weapons. Spears keep their special handling so vanilla spear throw behaviour is not replaced by the paired system.
Items that are not valid paired weapons — for example bows, crossbows, two-handed weapons, tools, staffs, and similar non-pair items — end the paired state and follow their normal equip behaviour.
Pair Swap Grace
Local setting:
2 - Equipment / Pair Swap Grace Period
Default: 1.0 s
Range: 0-3 s
Example with an active pair A + B:
- select weapon C -> temporary A + C;
- select weapon D before the grace window ends -> final pair C + D.
Set the value to 0 to disable the grace behaviour.
This is a local player input setting and is not ServerSync-locked.
Replace Offhand Modifier
Local setting:
2 - Equipment / Replace Offhand Modifier
Default: LeftAlt
Hold the configured modifier while selecting:
- supported one-handed weapon -> replace only the left-hand item;
- shield -> replace only the left-hand item;
- torch -> replace only the left-hand it
Install & use Install: BepInEx plugin
- The archive from playbuff is the mod itself — usually a BepInEx plugin (a .dll or a plugin folder once unzipped).
- Recommended: use a community mod manager (such as r2modman) — pick this game, import the mod, and the manager sets up BepInEx and its dependencies for you.
- Manual route: install the BepInEx loader in the game folder, then drop the unzipped .dll or plugin folder into BepInEx/plugins/.
- Launch the game — the BepInEx console logs every plugin it loads; seeing this mod in the log means it is installed.
Mods with listed dependencies need those installed too, or they will not load. Options are usually changed in-game or in the plugin's config file. In multiplayer, the host and every client need the same mods installed.