I want to get back into Oblivion but the stagger...

[Usernamehere]

I finished the game before. Back in 2015/2016 I had a full playthrough in which I completed the main story, many quests, and even the Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles questlines. My character has nearly full Daedric, some OP enchantments, very high skills, and uses a sword/shield combo with my sword being Dawnfang/Duskfang.

That said the primary thing I remember from my time with Oblivion is the stagger. Not being able to do damn-near anything with melee weapons eventually just forced me to adapt to using a sword and shield and just block everything, then swing at a stunned enemy. Raised Agility to decrease the likelihood of staggering as the internet suggested as well, but it didn't prevent it completely and half the time with my first playthrough I was just suffering through combat. And Oblivion's legacy since those days five years ago, is that it would have been my favorite Elder Scrolls game if not for that heckin' one single mechanic.

Fast forward to today and I'm considering maybe starting a new playthrough to, as the name would suggest, play through it again. Maybe come back to my first and mop up some things I didn't do (Like the mercenary guild questline that I don't remember the name of, Blackwood Company I think) but every time my brain just gives me flashbacks of being staggered by enemies or having to just sit there and do nothing while I wait for them to hit me so they get staggered so I can hit them without getting staggered myself.

So...is there a good way to get around this? Maybe a good mage build that will allow me to kill anything before it gets close enough to me to hit me and stagger me? Maybe a mod that disables stagger completely?

This game is legendary. I've played it through, and I really do think it really is the best Elder Scrolls game. But it's so irritating to play with a melee build.

Something else I remembered: When you reach 75 in the Block skill, you unlock the ability to shield bash and seriously stagger enemies only, whether or not you execute a shield bash is completely random chance, and so it does more harm than good by messing with the melee combat rhythm that you've been practicing through the entire game and ultimately does more harm than good

TL;DR This game is legendary and my favorite Elder Scrolls game and I want to play it again but the frickin constant staggering and recoiling ruins it for me and so I find myself strongly discouraged from ever picking it up again send help and maybe a mod to disable it

[Johnny Casey]

Let me first regard my thoughts on your inexplicable intention to keep on going for melee oriented build despite the fact that you've realized how much inconvenient it is to do so. You know melee weapons are bad(in terms of convenience) but want to keep using it, and I just can't figure out why.

Use hand to hand.

Your punch will not lock you in place if your attack gets blocked, unlike the melee weapons. You can just mash attack button all you want without being stuck in place by getting your attack blocked.

The counter punch with fist - which is essentially shield block with barehands - will give you enough time to react it to it so it doesn't harm your melee rhythm as much as with the shield.

"But fists are not doing enough damage as my sword would!" --- if you want the damage, you'd use spells instead, so don't even start with that crap.

[Halcyform]

Very tight quarters can be an issue, but you can try baiting attacks and avoiding strikes altogether. This is harder in very tight quarters, but this is very doable in more open areas.

Once your enemy swings and misses, counter attack.

If Oblivion didn't use that godawful leveling system, I'd recommend using bound weapons to annihilate your enemies. It's been awhile since I've played Oblivion, but my very last playthrough, I tried bound weapons. They quickly trivialized the game. Unfortunately, conjuration levels up quite fast and that'll cause you to level up too quickly. It's something to think about for later in the game, however.

Personally, I never had much issue with stagger outside of those damn clanfear things that keep jumping at you. The two handed sword wielding daedra can be an issue if they catch you in a tight spot as well.

[Usernamehere]

Originally posted by Johnny Casey:

Let me first regard my thoughts on your inexplicable intention to keep on going for melee oriented build despite the fact that you've realized how much inconvenient it is to do so. You know melee weapons are bad(in terms of convenience) but want to keep using it, and I just can't figure out why.

This playthrough was six years ago. My strategy if I remember correctly was to flip the mechanic on its head by using it against my enemies. It wasn't that fun you're right, but it was effective and that's why I stuck with it. Because it worked.

If I start a new game soon though I will definitely try to become a powerful mage. One that can kill anything before it gets close enough to me to stagger me.

Also I didn't know that about hand-to-hand not having stagger, thank you.

Originally posted by Halcyform:

Very tight quarters can be an issue, but you can try baiting attacks and avoiding strikes altogether. This is harder in very tight quarters, but this is very doable in more open areas.

Once your enemy swings and misses, counter attack.

If Oblivion didn't use that godawful leveling system, I'd recommend using bound weapons to annihilate your enemies. It's been awhile since I've played Oblivion, but my very last playthrough, I tried bound weapons. They quickly trivialized the game. Unfortunately, conjuration levels up quite fast and that'll cause you to level up too quickly. It's something to think about for later in the game, however.

Personally, I never had much issue with stagger outside of those damn clanfear things that keep jumping at you. The two handed sword wielding daedra can be an issue if they catch you in a tight spot as well.

Appreciate the advice. Again, probably going to try a better mage build if I can, try to adopt the strategy of "can't stagger me if it's dead before it gets close enough." Maybe use a sword and shield anyway as a contingency plan if it ever does happen.

[Usernamehere]

I think I'm going to try it. Either get back into my old playthrough and do stuff there while raising Destruction, or start a new game entirely and try to make a good mage build that will allow me to use magic to crush anything before it can get close to me. With a sword and shield in hand as a contingency plan. Wish me luck.

[Usernamehere]

Running into trouble.

Using just Destruction without all the other schools of magic (or Alchemy) results in a greatly reduced ability to raise Intelligence and Willpower which in turn raise Magicka and the Magicka regeneration rate. I'm trying to mix heavy armor/sword/shield with magic so that I still have a backup in combat (when Magicka runs out or when enemies do manage to close the distance on me) but in the end most of what's going on is I'm unable to effectively level my magical abilities.

This must be that dumb leveling system people are talking about.

[Heimdall313]

Conjuration grows very fast (fastest skill in the game really, competing with Alchemy) and I use a Daedroth to pull some aggro to reduce my stagger lock dance, or to inflict damage as I am stagger locked. Clannfear are excellent to run down cowardly mages and archers, Daedroth / Frost Atronach is a better melee tank against bears, blade/blunt users, minotaurs, etc. that do not attempt to stay at range.

Two handed weapons, despite the Armor drop, do let you keep the Shield's enchantment (I have 25 point Shock Shield via Sigil Stone, for example) and the extended Reach lets you kite one handed weapons with adequate Speed/Athletics. Their DPS is bad (2-5 points above equivalent one handed weapon, but slower swing speed tanks your dps) but it is an option with high speed to "bob and weave".

Drain Spells are powerful and cheap. 100 Points Drain Health for 1 sec has very low cost, and if enemy dips below 1HP for even a second they die. Drain Speed spells are powerful snares, and can even immobilize some enemies. Burden is overly expensive, with low impact against NPCs, I strongly suggest using Drain Speed instead.

Paralyze for 1 sec is a free kill on anything not immune to it; but there are lots of immunities.

Agility determines your stagger vulnerability, while heavier weapons (warhammers) have higher stagger per hit than light weapons (daggers). Drain Agility lets you stagger lock foes.

If you need anything specific, I have literal thousands of hours on oblivion with many playstyles. Just ask. :P

[Usernamehere]

Originally posted by Heimdall313:

Agility determines your stagger vulnerability, while heavier weapons (warhammers) have higher stagger per hit than light weapons (daggers). Drain Agility lets you stagger lock foes.

Will having 100 Agility make it impossible to get staggered? Would it reduce the stagger chance to 0%? Or would it just make it incredibly unlikely but still RNG and technically possible?

Originally posted by Heimdall313:

If you need anything specific, I have literal thousands of hours on oblivion with many playstyles. Just ask. :P

All I want is the playstyle with the least possible amount of stagger and recoil, honestly. That's it. Would take a mod that gets rid of it, too - if such a thing exists. That's all I need to enjoy this game.

Edit: Actually I already am enjoying the game. The combat is just fine without the stagger. I mean heck I've finished the game before so I know what I'm talking about. Just don't want stagger. For the love of heck I want a 0% stagger chance and while we're at it no block recoil either would be nice.

[Usernamehere]

I've picked up three separate mods from the Nexus to try and fix this and I'm going to give them all a shot. If one of them genuinely fixes it, then we have our solution and I can play the game.

[Usernamehere]

Pathetic attempt by the mod community to fix this. I picked up three separate mods and tried them all out.

The first one didn't even work. Tried everything.

Second one didn't work to disable stagger entirely, it still happened, but about half of the staggers were now replaced with a much more brief animation that only removes control of your character for a split second. Not much, but it's something.

Edit: Second one isn't perfect but at least it genuinely is something, so here's a link for anyone else with this issue:
https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/37187?tab=description
Doesn't remove stagger completely but seems to make, according to my tests, about half of all usual staggers get replaced by a much shorter animation that only stunlocks you for about a split second.

Third one only works in third person and basically screws with the animations. In third person if you hit someone while blocking, your character executes a block animation themselves instead of a recoil. And if you get staggered, same result. But in first person, you still get staggered normally but it breaks the animation so you're basically installing a glitch that doesn't even achieve its intended purpose unless you're used to playing in third person which I'm not.

Edit 2: Mind you, these tests were run by spawning a Clannfear and letting him hit me over and over, so if the second mod seems to work so effectively against a notoriously stagger-happy enemy, then I imagine it'll have much greater success against your generic bandits and Dremora.

Also I didn't do any tests to see how it affects recoiling while hitting a blocked enemy, just stagger tests.

Edit 3: Just in case anyone actually loves third person and plays with it, the third mod works SPECTACULARLY ...Just not in first person at all.

[Innocent]

My favorite char in this game was a ranged assassin, using poison as main source of damage (arrows alone are hilariously low damage. Still, funny if you like to make porcupines out of your enemies). If enemies get close I would be in trouble, but generally they wouldn't :) You can apply the same concept to a powerful mage. Destruction is the obvious choice but don't discard things like Illusion: having your enemies fight each other or just sit there and drool is as effective as a giant fireball spell.

Originally posted by Usernamehere:

Pathetic attempt by the mod community to fix this.

Maybe be more gentle with your choice of words. These people do this for free you know, they don't owe you anything.

[Usernamehere]

Originally posted by Innocent:

My favorite char in this game was a ranged assassin, using poison as main source of damage (arrows alone are hilariously low damage. Still, funny if you like to make porcupines out of your enemies). If enemies get close I would be in trouble, but generally they wouldn't :) You can apply the same concept to a powerful mage. Destruction is the obvious choice but don't discard things like Illusion: having your enemies fight each other or just sit there and drool is as effective as a giant fireball spell.

So far it's actually going pretty good. Encountered my first Clannfear Runts in a fort and was able to kill them both before they could hit me with spells, so it's definitely a pretty viable support strategy. Also the mod is doing its job and staggering has become a lot rarer.

Originally posted by Innocent:

Originally posted by Usernamehere:

Pathetic attempt by the mod community to fix this.

Maybe be more gentle with your choice of words. These people do this for free you know, they don't owe you anything.

Yeah, you're right. I was honestly just a bit salty today and irritated about the whole ordeal dealing with the tech stuff, and it was exacerbated by some of the mods not working right.

But yeah I definitely owe thanks to the mod creators. One of them didn't work but that might only be because I didn't install it properly, one works flawlessly but only in third person which I don't use, and the final one that I installed seems to be doing its job as I've noticed staggering is now a lot rarer, as stated above. Really grateful those mods exist at all.

[Heimdall313]

Originally posted by Usernamehere:

Will having 100 Agility make it impossible to get staggered? Would it reduce the stagger chance to 0%? Or would it just make it incredibly unlikely but still RNG and technically possible?

No, 100 agility still eats staggers against strong enemies like Xivali, Minotaur Lords, etc., especially if you're getting batted back and forth between multiple enemies like a tennis ball. Fortifying Agility past 100 will reduce your stagger chance further, but iirc there is no actual zero-point that eliminates stagger entirely. Fortify Attribute is moderately expensive, so enchantments are probably better. Bow damage is capped at 100 Agility however, just like Blade/Blunt/H2H are capped at 100 Strength. Absorb Agility is also expensive, but DOES let you stagger lock enemies. But fortifying past 100 will help, just not eliminate. If you want brutality, try an Orc's Berserk power for -100 Agility on self.

All I want is the playstyle with the least possible amount of stagger and recoil, honestly. That's it. Would take a mod that gets rid of it, too - if such a thing exists. That's all I need to enjoy this game.

Edit: Actually I already am enjoying the game. The combat is just fine without the stagger. I mean heck I've finished the game before so I know what I'm talking about. Just don't want stagger. For the love of heck I want a 0% stagger chance and while we're at it no block recoil either would be nice.

If I can figure out what actually causes the stagger effect I'll see if I can mod something, but I work 50+ hours a week and have no idea what exactly to look for, so no promises lol.

[Usernamehere]

Originally posted by Heimdall313:

If I can figure out what actually causes the stagger effect I'll see if I can mod something, but I work 50+ hours a week and have no idea what exactly to look for, so no promises lol.

That would be absolutely incredible if you manage to figure out the actual formula and get something like that working to reduce stagger chance to 0. I would love that.

[Turtleswatter]

I use hand to hand with a high power drain spell. It's a lot of fun and I don't seem to suffer from the stagger effect you do. I hope the mods work for you though.

Having said that, the second best fun I had in Oblivion was stealth archer. It's OP in my opinion. Get your alchemy up and poison your bow. Use your stealth to change position and you have a lot of fun playing cat and mouse with enemies.

Super charge a dagger for stealth close range kills and you're unstoppable.

Mind you, I also use under-levelling where you don't necessarily take every opportunity to level up as it comes. I decide when I do it. It takes a lot of that pressure from the world levelling problem off you and I use the difficulty slider to a) Push it up when I'm not sure whether to level or not and need a bit more challenge and b) Drop it down a bit when I levelled and I shouldn't have.

That ensures that you get the exact amount of challenge that is enjoyable for you without the spreadsheet min/maxing that some people enjoy.

[Usernamehere]

Originally posted by Turtleswatter:

I use hand to hand with a high power drain spell. It's a lot of fun and I don't seem to suffer from the stagger effect you do. I hope the mods work for you though.

Having said that, the second best fun I had in Oblivion was stealth archer. It's OP in my opinion. Get your alchemy up and poison your bow. Use your stealth to change position and you have a lot of fun playing cat and mouse with enemies.

Super charge a dagger for stealth close range kills and you're unstoppable.

Mind you, I also use under-levelling where you don't necessarily take every opportunity to level up as it comes. I decide when I do it. It takes a lot of that pressure from the world levelling problem off you and I use the difficulty slider to a) Push it up when I'm not sure whether to level or not and need a bit more challenge and b) Drop it down a bit when I levelled and I shouldn't have.

That ensures that you get the exact amount of challenge that is enjoyable for you without the spreadsheet min/maxing that some people enjoy.

Could you in theory not level up and then raise all skills to 100 and get a +5 to everything in the next level up but then you can't level up any more?