In many other MMOs, a weapon's listed DPS statistic was a good indication of overall performance and a good way to compare the relative value different weapons. Unfortunately, this is not the case in LOTRO. DPS is a statistic that is almost a red herring in this game. Instead, the stats that matter are Speed, the Average Damage of the listed damage range (which you must calculate for yourself), and both the Min and Max damage values of the listed damage range.

.Speed determines how often the ticks of your auto-attack cycle occur and how much delay occurs between queued active skills. Note that the effective Speed for dual-wielded weapons will be an average of both weapon's listed Speeds.
.Average Damage is calculated by adding both numbers in the weapon's listed damage range and dividing the result by 2. Average Damage is the most important factor in determining how much damage most of your weapon-based active skills will do. Any skill that uses the keywords "main-hand" or "off-hand" in the skill's tooltip description is basing that damage component on the full listed damage range for the weapon in your main hand or off hand, and therefore the Average Damage of the weapon is the best indicator of how much damage will be done for each "swing" of main-hand or off-hand damage generated by that skill. The important point here is that a fast weapon will have a high DPS value but a very low Average Damage value, and therefore your weapon-based attack skills will not deliver nearly as much damage as a slow weapon with the same exact DPS (or even a lower DPS) but a much higher Average Damage value.
.Min damage is the lowest value in the weapon's listed damage range. This value is important because it determines how much damage that weapon will do when it's equipped in your off-hand slot.
.Max damage is the highest value in the weapon's listed damage range. This value is the most important factor in determining how much damage some of the Burglar's weapon-based active skills will do. Any skill that uses the keywords "max damage" for either the main-hand "swing" or the off-hand "swing" will use that max damage value every time the "swing" hits successfully. For these skills, a weapon with lower DPS but a higher Max value will generate more damage from such skills than a weapon with high DPS or high Avg Damage but a lower Max damage.

Dual-wielding is available to Champions at level 1, Burglars at level 10, and Hunters at level 20. Dual-wielding works much differently in LOTRO than it does in most other MMOs:

• Your effective Speed becomes the average of the Speed value of both your weapons (add both Speed values and then divide by 2). For example, if you have a 2.3 Speed weapon in your main hand and a 1.7 Speed weapon in your off-hand, your effective Speed is 2.0. It does not matter which weapon is in which slot; the effective Speed is the same with either possible combination. There are not separate auto-attack "ticks" for each weapon. Both weapons always attack on the same tick. Our two hypothetical weapons in the previous example would always attack together on a 2.0-second auto-attack tick rate. The weapon in your off-hand slot is capped to hit for the lowest value in the weapon's listed damage range, plus or minus a small percentage (usually just a point or two on either side of the lowest listed value). This means you generally want to put the weapon with the highest Min damage in your off-hand slot, but this advice should be weighed against all the other considerations covered here. The offhand weapon can still crit at a normal rate (with no penalties for being in the off-hand), but it crits for roughly double the capped off-hand damage range. For example, a 9 - 13 weapon in your off-hand usually hits for 9 points (sometimes 8 or 10 points), and it crits for around 17 points, give or take a point. The off-hand damage reduction mechanics described above affect only your auto-attack damage. All of your weapon-based skills that mention bonus damage based on your "off-hand" weapon are not affected by this damage reduction. In other words, if you have a skill that uses the "max damage" of the off-hand, and your off-hand weapon's listed Max Damage value is 10, then the bonus damage from that skill is based on a value of 10.
• For Champions only, the Fervour threshold of your various weapon-based active skills is lower (usually by one point) when you dual-wield than when you are wielding a single 1H weapon, a 1H + Shield, or a 2H weapon. When dual-wielding, the Fervour cost will be listed as a flat cost like "3 Fervour" in the skill's tooltip description. When you are not dual-wielding, the Fervour cost will be listed as a cost like "Requires at least 4 Fervour, but Removes 3 from Fervour", which means the skill still only costs you 3 Fervour, but you need to attain a threshold of 4 Fervour to queue the skill.

One of the most confusing and oft-debated aspects of LOTRO game mechanics is the general question of whether faster or slower weapon setups are "better". Specifically, this usually revolves around a debate about dual-wielded weapons versus 2H weapons, but can also apply to a debate about whether guardians are better-served by 1H + Shield setups versus 2H weapons.

Some general rules of thumb for choosing a fast or slow weapon setup

The preceding sections explain why it can be sometimes complex to answer the question "which is better for me: 1H + Shield, 2H, or dual-wielding?" In general, however, there are some rules of thumb that are safe to apply to most situations. Be aware, though, that in edge cases there could be exceptions to these general guidelines:

• Guardians who are tanking for a group must rely on many active skills to generate as much threat as possible, particularly their shield-based skills. For this reason, a very fast 1H weapon + shield is often the preferred tanking setup not only for the shield mitigation (and the fact that you need a shield to use your shield-based attacks), but because the faster animation times of the 1H auto-attack ticks means less delay between your queued active skills. The faster you can fire off your active skills, the more front-loaded threat you can ultimately generate. Of course, the downside to this is that you'll also burn power at a faster rate, so you might have to pace yourself or rely on Blue fellowship maneuvers or on a Lore-master or Champion to replenish your power
• If you are fighting easy single foes ("white" or easier) that are not close together, you might kill faster with a dual-wield setup (if you're a class that can dual-wield), because you'll sneak in more auto-attack damage and because you'll be able to spam your skill executions faster. The main consideration here is whether you have time to regenerate your power fast enough between fights, because you'll burn energy faster this way.
• If you are fighting multiple mobs in a fast-respawning area, or harder single foes ("yellow" or harder), or signatures/elites of any sort, you might be better-served by a slow 2H weapon even if you can dual-wield. This is primarily because your power will last much longer and you are getting more damage per point of power spent.
• Burglars will generally do best with a dual-wield setup that focuses on weapons with a high Max value in their main-hand slot and a high Min value in their off-hand slot.
• Champions and Hunters that are dual-wielding will generally do best with a setup that focuses on weapons with a high Average Damage value in their main-hand slot, with the off-hand slot weapon choice being made according to the following two factors:
  • For fights that you expect to be short, putting the fastest weapon possible in your off-hand slot will make your effective Speed as fast as possible.
  • For fights that you expect to be long, putting a slower weapon with a high Min damage value in your off-hand slot will decrease your power burn rate and yield slightly higher auto-attack damage and "off-hand" damage "swings" from some skills.