Skull Crusher vs Ice Blade of the Monarch

[masternoxx1]

Skull Crusher 10-60 damage +5 attack
Ice Blade of the Monarch 5-50 damage +10-40 ice damage
Now looking at that you would think Ice Blade to do more damage at least some of the time but it does NOT.
Also it is of course slower and way more heavy and uses way more Fatigue when swung.
I think my blunt is at 80 and my longsword is at 70 or abouts.
I really wanted to use the Ice Blade but it sucks compared to Skull Crusher and I'm not totally sure why. Regardless it is obvious from the enemy health bar that it consistently does quite a bit less damage.
Yes I know about fatigue, certain enemies can resist frost, etc. Usually I am fighting cliff racers and making sure my fatigue is above 80% or so. I've tested it for hours...
I guess it is the combination of less fatigue and lower skill level but that seems pretty minor.

[psychotron666]

Are you pulling your weapon back all the way when you swing? The weapon range 5-50 is based on how far you pull back your weapon. If you just click the attack button, you'll do the 5 damage (modified by strength), if you pull it back all the way too will do the 50 damage

[76561199046499066]

Come on! The Daedric hammer with health absorption is the best weapon in the game! I only need 390 strength to kill the Mournhold High Wardens with 2-3 strikes without any retaliatory damage!

[masternoxx1]

I am doing a combination of both,
Hmm I'm not sure about that. I thought it worked more like, chooses a random number between 5-50 and then adds or subtracts a percentage depending how long you charged the attack.
And then it adds like 1 damage for every 10 points of strength.
I guess I should look that up hope I don't see any spoilers.

Oh holy crap you are right, it is not based on random numbers,
it is different from oblivion and skyrim
wow thats crazy I played through nearly the whole game without knowing that.
TY

https://theelderscrolls3morrowind.fandom.com/wiki/Combat_Techniques_and_FormulasX
hope I didn't just make this already really easy game even easier. might need to adjust difficulty slider, been avoiding that til now

But the frost damage is random no? It says 10-40 ice damage.
EDIT - Yes the frost damage is random. Note to self, learn how to read middle of webpage and not just the top and then skim to the bottom

It's funny because most the game I was using the Bound Battle Axe (1-85 dmg) and probably doing 1 damage a lot of times and thinking it was just random.

I am already knocking enemies down all the time with the Skull Crusher not even charging half the time and they can't even get an attack off but even if they do it barely damages me at all,
Usually I do charge it for the first hit I mean why not, kind of then like to attack quickly after first hit but that doesn't seem to be the way to do it or hmm will have to experiment a bit.

Okay so that webpage doesn't mention fatigue at all, also has some spoilers about knockdowns, so dont read it

I can't find much info. Does low fatigue just make you miss more in this game and not affect damage?
EDIT - It appears that that is true, from a website formula, it does not affect damage.

Okay now I'm wondering how is the chance to knockdown / stagger computed because one site says it's based on weapon weight and the other site says its based on damage. In the game menu screen it also says it is based on damage. Of course it could be based on both. Then I will know everything about melee weapons in this game. Obviously I will be using a lighter weapon if it is based just on damage.