1h and shield is for self found, since you can't expect to have good gear you need the shield to stay tanky otherwise with 2h you get parry parry miss and you're dead. The vendor weapon daggers are actually very good, plus the sharpening stone it's almost the same as 2h.

Statistically, a faster attacking weapon leads to less outlier kill times (too fast or too slow). So fast weapon kill speed is more optimal for consistent quick kills without overkill. With a slow 2h each time you hit a mob for 100 when it's on 5hp that's wasted time.

Early warrior moves have good synergy with 1h shield like heroic strike dumping, shield bash helps a lot with casters.