Lvl 12 monk with Ninja Spy II. Got improved critical shortsword (from spy), improved critical bludgeon, and two-weapon feats. This brings the threat range of handwraps to 19-20 and shortswords to 17-20.
So: two weapon choices for you to pick from here. Which do you think would destroy the training dummy most quickly?
1) Lvl 4 handwraps. +1, with flaming and pure good. So basically: handwraps +1 +2d6, nothing special on a critical hit.
2) Dual wielding. Main hand: +2 icy burst shortsword (lvl 10). Off hand: +1 icy burst swordsword (lvl 6). So that's +2/+1 +1d6 on a hit, plus an extra 1d10 on a critical, with a 1 in 5 chance of a critical.
Answer:
Single-wielding the +2 shortsword (for comparison): 150 secs.
Dual-wielding shortswords: 122 secs.
Handwraps: 76 secs.
Which to me says, if you want damage, make it handwraps. They're a hell of a lot cheaper (especially as you don't need 2 of everything), and do more damage. I mean, swortswords aren't even slashing, so they're no more effective against zombies than handwraps.
The only reason I can see for dual-wielding would be if you wanted one or both weapons for special effects, eg. paralyzing on the off hand and cursespewing and stunning on the main hand.
Am I missing something here?
I also dug out my original starter handwraps: 85 seconds.
Subject: Ninja Spy - handwraps versus shortswords 
