Attributes Remastered: They Do WHAT Now?!

Oblivion Remastered reworked every Attribute in the game. Some effects were improved, others reduced. A bunch of new things were added. The Help tab clarifies some changes but I'm seeking to truly demystify all the Attributes.

Not quite a build guide! Just emphasizing the changes between the original and the remaster, and making sure the reworks are understood. So more of a builder’s notebook.

Let's discuss and marvel at how Willpower is a great Attribute now. And how was Magicka, Health, and Fatigue impacted by all this? As a cherry on top, let’s ponder the effects on build choices and core playstyles.

Before You Begin

Beat the UESP to this, woo!! I put a lot of effort into researching this, both with Google and hands-on console command testing. Literal days of testing at this point. So may this help your character creation and leveling choices!

A Brief Note on Leveling Changes

It must be mentioned that for every level up you gain 12 guaranteed points ("Virtues") in 3 Attributes of your choosing, and you can allocate up to 5 Virtues per Attribute. This means that all the tedious Skill micromanagement to survive the original Oblivion is GONE. Your stats are what you make of them, not based on what Skills you leveled up. In the original, this is the equivalent to "perfect levels" with maximum meta-gaming optimization. This is by far the most immediately noticeable change in Oblivion Remastered, and makes it hard to recommend the original on that merit alone.

So praise be to Talos! Pick whatever Skills you want as Major Skills, you're no longer being played for a fool because you did not pick and level an Endurance Skill to increase Endurance. Leveling up is no longer a nightmare, and this game is far more comfortable to play casually. Your Minor Skills also contribute to EXP now, just less than your Majors.

Prep Work For Diving Into Attributes

All of the Attributes provide their benefits when going over 100, though damage bonuses are capped (the same is true for Skills). Speed keeps making you faster, Strength provides more Carry Weight, and so on and so forth in the exact ways you’d expect. You can only level Attributes to 100, overflow requires external effects like spells or the Oghma Infinium.

For reading the Guide: Bold indicates new effects, and italics indicate effects that were modified from the original (or "OG").

Strength - "Loot Goblin’s Best Friend”

It’s a really nice touch that high Strength increases Health now, it makes Heavy Armor builds feel tankier.

• +5 Carry Weight per point.
  
• Increases damage dealt with most melee weapons (daggers and shortswords now excluded). This bonus is +0.5% per point, capping at 50%. Shield Bash erroneously ignores the cap.
  
• +Health equal to 2/3 your Strength, truncated. Unaffected by level.
  
• No longer increases Fatigue.

Additional notes...

• Feather is a cheap spell in Remastered that can be easily maxed to 100 Carry Weight for 120 seconds without going above Apprentice. This helps ease the burden on low-Strength players.
  
• Movement speed is still impacted by the proportion of your current Carry Weight compared to your max Carry Weight, so Strength is still a crucial Attribute to level.
  
  
• There is a single exception to the "Attributes past 100 do not contribute to damage" rule. And that's Shield Bash from Expert/Master Block. This strikes me as something that will be patched given it's a Remaster-original oversight, but abuse it while it lasts.

Intelligence - "I've Retired From Being Willpower At Home"

• +Magicka equal to 2x Intelligence (example: 50 Intelligence = 100 Magicka).
  
• Magicka does not regenerate as a percentage of Intelligence, meaning Intelligence has no bearing on your regen rate. The blue meter may recharge slower as you increase solely Intelligence, but that's because you have more Magicka to regenerate.

Additional notes…

No, seriously, only Willpower and the combat state affects Magicka regen. Not base Magicka, not your race, not most birthsigns (Atronach stunts it, of course). Only Willpower. Anyone who tells you otherwise is incorrect. I've done the time. Oh have I done the time. Psyche yourself for the Willpower section, it's a doozy.

It’s very easy to level Intelligence in the Remaster with the leveling changes, resulting in 100 in most Attributes around level 30-ish. With that in mind don’t pick Mage, Apprentice, or Atronach birthsigns just because you want to avoid leveling Intelligence. Pick them for their improved Magicka pools over other characters by endgame, meaning you can cast bigger spells than other characters. And consider the opportunity cost: the Lord birthsign is +15% resist to both physical and magical damage, huge for unarmored and light armored characters. Steed is a huge early dodge tank bonus.

I’ve less to say about the Magicka racial bonuses. They’re still strong options and the opportunity cost is much lesser. Sure Breton is still the best but usually races are picked for their fashion or roleplaying merits. Plus, that’s not a change. 😉

I mention all this in the Intelligence section because birthsigns and race are often used to ignore leveling Intelligence, especially Atronach. And I’ve been asked about them quite a few times.

Willpower - "Wait, I Can Be Great Now?!"

This is, far and away, the most changed Attribute in Oblivion Remastered and the entire reason I made this guide.

• +Fatique equal to 2.7x your Willpower, truncated (example: 100 Willpower = 270 Fatique). Formerly, it contributed 1:1 to your Willpower.
  
• No longer regenerates as a percentage of your Magicka per second.
  
  
• Willpower speeds up the rate at which you gain a tick of +1 regenerated Magicka. Higher Willpower = faster tick rate. This rate is slowed in combat (roughly halved), and casting magic prevents regen until 2 seconds after the spell activates.
  
• 0 Willpower now 'stunts' Magicka, preventing regeneration (unlike OG which had a base regen of 0.75% at 0 Willpower)

Additional notes...

Willpower is now by far the biggest contributor to Fatigue. Sacking Willpower for an Atronach build has a consequence now, wow!

Willlpower won’t replace potions in combat due to the penalty and Vitals regen stun (which I’ll cover later), but it does create value that was missing in the original.

Given Magicka regen is solely on Willpower's shoulders now, lowering Willpower is now far more impactful as a debuff effect as you can significantly slow/stop regen. Consider this next time you're fighting a particularly strong mage. Sure there's Silence, but how often is Absorb/Damage/Drain Attribute resisted?

How fast does Willpower regenerate Magicka now? Here's some eyeball testing using a stopwatch for a 100 Magicka character, also solving for Mps (Magicka per second) in an out-of-combat scenario. Please bear in mind, that means these are NOT exact and are FULL of human error.

• 30 Willpower (lowest natural): 62 seconds, or 1.61 Mps. 12 seconds faster than OG.
  
• 40 WP: ~39.75 seconds, or 2.52 Mps. About 1.62x faster than its OG counterpart.
  
• 50 WP: ~28 seconds, or 3.57 Mps. Woah we're getting somewhere, and it's 2x as fast as OG.
  
• 60 WP (highest starting): ~20.75 seconds, or 4.82 Mps. 31 seconds faster than OG!!
  
• 70 WP: ~16.5 seconds, or 6.06 Mps.
  
• 80 WP: ~13.25 seconds, or 7.55 Mps.
  
• 90 WP: ~11 seconds, or 9.09 Mps.
  
  
• 100 WP (highest natural): ~8 seconds, or 12.5 Mps. That's over 4 times faster to fully restore than the original! In combat, it's ~17.75 seconds or 5.63 Mps.
  
  
• 150 WP: 4.75 seconds or 21.05 Mps. In combat, ~8.5 seconds or 11.76 Mps. This is roughly equal to 4 Transcendent Sigil Stones spent on worn armor with Fortify Willpower (+48).
  
  
• 208 WP (all armor enchanted with +12 Fortify Willpower): 2.5 seconds or 40 Mps. In combat, 5 seconds or 20 Mps. Lorkhan have mercy!

Stendarr's Grace Guides Me: The Willpower Chart

We can clearly see that, even with human error, each point of Willpower is worth more than the last. The more you put in, the greater output you receive. According to Excel, the line of best fit for Mps is a polynomial (as in: Willpower is exponential). With my data the algorithm is around... 0.0008x^2 + 0.0329x. No constant, otherwise 0 Willpower would slowly restore or drain Magicka.

My stats for nerds (1 and 10 Willpower was so slow I recorded a lower amount of Magicka and multiplied the time, which is why the prediction is farther off for time):

Casting Fortify Willpower: The Meme Under Fire

Because I had this question: how impactful is a 100 point Fortify Willpower spell? Is it worth it for combat now? (Assuming 100 Restoration & equal base Willpower, plus a 50% regen penalty in combat)

Fortify Willpower costs 4.35 Magicka per second of duration at 100 strength, and 200 Willpower regens 13.5 Mps in combat. That's +9.15 Mps more than if you hadn't cast the spell, and it's +20.9 outside combat. It takes ~47.6% of the Fortify Willpower's duration for the spell to pay for itself when casted in combat, and drastically faster outside combat. So if you want to cast Fortify Willpower for faster Magicka in combat, you should preemptively cast before combat and wait to regenerate all the Magicka spent before engaging.

I'm not going to lie and say that's good. Whenever you cast a spell, your regen is stunned. If your goal is to rapid-cast spells, you won't see much benefit to this trick. If you want to naturally regen huge magic explosions, you're still going to need potions but this does accelerate that style quite a bit. It's not worthless but it is niche and requires forward-thinking.

Agility - "Wait, I'm Meta Now?!"

Between the Fatigue regeneration rate, improved bonus to Fatigue, and bonus damage to shortswords, Agility is shaping up to be the best Attribute in Oblivion Remastered that isn't named Endurance. The changed design philosophy of Fatigue is a huge factor for Agility’s value.

• No longer affects Stagger chance when hit (see the later Fatigue summary).
  
• When Staggered or Knocked Down at 0 Fatigue, you regain a percentage of Fatigue scaling with Agility after recovering.
  
  
• Now increases your Fatigue regeneration rate. Like Willpower, this effect is not percentage based, so high Fatigue can make regen feel slower.
  
• Increases Fatique by 4/3x Agility, truncated (example: 100 Agility = 133 Fatigue). Formerly, Fatigue was increased 1:1 to your Agility.
  
  
• Now increases the damage of Daggers and Shortswords. Also increases the damage of Bows. Both scale at +0.5% per point, capping at 50%.

Additional notes…

The Restore Fatigue spell is your best friend for melee combat, even with Agility’s Fatigue regen effect. In fact, they go hand in hand and stack together impressively. While you can forego Agility with custom Restore Fatigue spells, especially if you’re avoiding Shortswords (reminder: Chillrend is a Shortsword), I still highly recommend Agility for melee characters. Pure mages can dump this Attribute though.

Agility is harder to make a chart for than Willpower, but appears to scale linearly. If I find a good method, you'll find a chart or formula notes here in the future.

Speed - "Zwish?"

You'd think I wouldn't have much to say, but Speed is much more important in Remastered because some enemies seem to be able to Sprint! The ability to effectively backpedal and create space is crucial for a mage or non-tanky melee build, and even a tanky build wants to buy time. If you want to restore Fatigue passively to bounce back, you can't just hold up your shield. Thus, Speed becomes your bestie to stall time for your Vitals regen.

• Increases player movement speed.
  
• Decreases time spent fast traveling.
  
• Does not affect jump height!

Additional notes:

Players now move faster overall due to reworked player movement.

Player movement speed is also influenced by Athletics and the proportion of current Weight to Max Carry Weight, with more of an effect than you’d think.

Unclear if player height (decided by race) still affects movement speed. Haven’t tested, and the player height universalization bug makes me wary right now.

Players can now Sprint, which also appears to be affected by the Speed Attribute and Athletics Skill. Still, this should make low Speed feel less bad.

If you want to achieve “maximum zoomies,” cast a Fortify Speed spell that is paired with a Fortify Athletics effect even for a short duration. Pair with a separate max duration Feather spell. You’ll thank me later; casting a speed up spell to get around the world feels good and it levels your Restoration/Alteration as quick as your feet. It takes ~3 seconds to transition from spell activation to beginning a Sprint, if that helps you decide spell duration.

Endurance - "Behold, the Shattering of the Leveling Meta's Chains"

Another amazing change that shakes up the Attribute and leveling meta.

• +Health equal to 10% of Endurance, multiplied by your level minus 1. This bonus is now retroactive to previous levels too, rather than snapshotting your current Endurance each level. Additionally, this bonus is no longer truncated immediately so it can occasionally eek out extra Health.
  
  
• +Health equal to 4/3x Endurance, truncated (example: 100 Endurance = 133 Health). Not affected by level.
  
• Now provides Health regeneration. According to Belial in the comments and some modders, the regen rate is 7.5 + 1/3 Endurance per second, starting 6 seconds after combat ends. In combat, the Endurance bonus does not apply.

Additional notes...

I've heard setting your Endurance by console commands causes bugs with the retroactive Max Health bonus.

I'm not going to explain the old version of Endurance. Let's just say it was total spaghetti, and you gain more of a benefit to Health now.

The old version forced you to power level Endurance as soon as you created a character to survive level 20 and onward. It was one of the core pillars of the "leveling is hell" Oblivion experience by punishing you by over 100 points of Health for leveling Endurance late. Now that pillar has been dissolved. Hooray!

A 30 Endurance character regens 10.5 HP per second out of combat. At 100 Endurance, this is improved to 17.5 Hps. This makes Health regen strong early game, and weak endgame. This eases the burden of tedium and resources on early character levels.

Personality - "I'm Still Mostly Worthless"

Personality is still a bad stat because of the crafted 1-second Fortify Personality spell and how Fame contributes to Disposition, but still Personality appears to have a greater influence than OG. I have not tested this and with the cheese still alive, I don't feel bothered to.

• Improves Disposition of NPCs. Disposition influences haggling, unlocks dialogue, and supposedly improves the odds of meaningful rumors when asked.
  
• If high enough (when paired with Fame), many hostile enemies will no longer attack on sight. This requires absurdly high Personality and Fame to accomplish.

Additional notes...

As you gain Fame, your Disposition with (most) NPCs increases. This means that your Personality stat is also made redundant by the very act of playing the game and completing quests. The bonus is 3/10 Fame with a cap of +20, which is 67 Fame.

Buying/selling with shopkeepers also raises their Disposition, +1 for every 100 Gold in a single transaction. For instance, selling 50 arrows for 2 gold each will work, but so will selling that Daedric Greatsword for 1200 gold.

You can Bribe to increase NPC Disposition if you don't want to cast spells or play 'persuasion pie.' But that can get costly quick.

Personality being bad isn't something I fault Remastered for. Personality was just not well implemented in OG and unlike Willpower there isn't an easy solution to the problem. Personality just has too many built-in easy outs to circumvent, and even if those outs were removed the benefits of Personality are marginal. It’s just not a well-integrated system.

You weren't asking, but the best shopkeepers to sell to are the ones with high max Gold and a Novice Mercantile skill. Aurelinwae is my go-to, but there is also Rowley Eardwulf and Nilphas Omellian. ...Hey wait, these are all OG-DLC home NPCs. I don't want to hear any scruples about that, these NPCs are base game now. 😉

Luck - "Almost As Vague As Ever"

Unless you want a Luck gimmick, play as a generalist, crave a better early game, or wish to wield an instant-killing dagger, maybe don't level Luck. The Thief birthsign might be up your alley though.

• Luck in OG increased your Skills by 2/5 of your Luck points above 50, truncated (for example: 65 Luck = 50+15, 15x2/5 = +6 to all Skills). Penalizing Luck lowers your Skills by the same amount. This won't activate Skill Perks, cannot push a Skill over 100, and will not appear on your Character Sheet- only in the Skill's calculations.
  
  
• Luck reduces the chance of a repair hammer or lockpick breaking. Not as good as it sounds- consider Fortify Armorer or the Skeleton Key instead.
  
• Luck increases the Health of the Gladiator you choose in Arena betting.
  
• Mehrune's Razor has an instant kill effect, with odds equal to 5% of your Luck.
  
• Luck may have more undocumented effects buried in the game engine itself. If the hidden effects were noticeable, we’d have strong anecdotal evidence.

Additional notes...

• Luck does not affect loot.
  
  
• In OG: Luck did not boost Acrobatics, Athletics, or Speechcraft. Hard to say if that's true for Remastered. It's worth noting that these are the 3 Skills that still gave benefits for going over 100 in OG. So far, I can confirm that Athletics still grants benefits for going over 100.
  
  
• Luck starts at 50 for every race and origin.
  
• Luck only increases by 1 point per level, and costs 4 of your 12 Virtues. Level Luck tactically, as by level 25 or so its benefits are negligible for most builds.
  
• If you want high natural Luck: choose the Thief birthsign and create a custom class with Luck as a favored Attribute. This puts you at the highest starting Luck of 65, which is 15 levels of Luck!
  
  
• Luck's bonus to Skills is described in Remastered's Help section, thank goodness!

Vitals (Magicka, Health, Fatigue) - "What WASN'T Changed??"

Wrapping up how these stats are affected from Attributes, and the new state of these stats because wow did a lot change.

Regeneration is delayed by two exact seconds whenever you use that Vital. For instance, casting magic will pause Magicka and melee attacks pause Fatigue. Blocking an attack also pauses Fatigue, but holding block has no effect on Fatigue.

Remember, all decimals are truncated at the end of calculation.

Magicka:

• Max Magicka is equal to 2x Intelligence plus race and/or birthsign bonuses.
  
• Intelligence has no bearing on Magicka regen, as regeneration is no longer a percentage recovery.
  
• Instead, Willpower speeds up the rate at which you tick healing +1 Magicka. Higher Willpower = shorter delay between ticks. This effect is exponential, very potent if Willpower is over 100.
  
• Regeneration is generally faster than OG unless you have high Max Magicka.
  
• Regeneration is slowed in combat. Roughly a 50% penalty.
  
• 0 Willpower now 'stunts' Magicka regen. Likewise low Willpower is punished harsher than OG, so penalizing Willpower is great for anti-mage effects.

In all, what does this mean? Well, it means Willpower is no longer a dump stat for many builds. The script is balanced, possibly even flipped depending on context. A medium Magicka, high Willpower setup for casting periodic spells is now a thing. Just remember that regen is paused after casting and slowed in combat, so you’re not outsourcing your potion chugging. This most benefits non-mage builds, who can now use cantrips like Restore Fatigue to maintain combat pace, and least benefits pure mages who are chugging potions either way (especially to regen even while casting).

Health:

• Max Health= (2/3 * Strength) + (4/3 * Endurance) + (1/10 * Endurance * (level - 1))
  
• Endurance's health per level is now retroactive, rather than snapshotting your current Endurance each level. Plus its decimal is no longer truncated early, so this can squeeze out extra Health.
  
• Now regenerates out of combat, scaling with Endurance. According to Belial in the comments and some modders, the regen rate is 7.5 + 1/3 Endurance starting 6 seconds after combat ends. In combat, the Endurance bonus does not apply.

Basically, Endurance does not have to be target-leveled early until it's maxed out anymore; level it at your leisure without long-term consequence. Strength makes you lightly bulkier. The regen outside of combat seriously cuts down on the need for using Wait, potions, and spells. And trust me, you’re gonna be leaning on that fact a lot.

Fatigue:

• Max Fatigue = (2.7 x Willpower) + (4/3 x Agility).
  
• Strength no longer contributes to Max Fatigue.
  
• No longer affects melee damage (and presumably, Skills) unless completely empty? (citation needed) This also means Fortify Fatigue does not increase damage anymore.
  
• Fatigue regeneration rate now scales with Agility, and is faster than OG in most cases as a result.
  
• To compensate for these changes, Fatigue drains faster from most actions. Fatigue drained by melee attacks is determined by the weapon's Weight.
  
  
• Now affects being Staggered. If you are out of Fatigue when hit, you can be Staggered or even Knocked Down by magic. This is not necessarily a bad thing; after you recover you gain Fatigue on the spot, which is almost always faster than your regen. The percent regained appears to be affected by Agility.
  
• Running (that is, 'default' movement speed) now slows your Fatigue regen by -75% instead of the OG penalties. This penalty is completely removed once you have the Apprentice (lv 25) Athletics Perk, matching Walking. How comfy and easy to access!
  
• You can now Sprint, draining Fatigue to do so. The Fatigue drain is reduced by Athletics, with the Perks signaling how much benefit you’re getting at that level. Overleveling Athletics with Fortify Skill can also ‘disable’ Fatigue drain before you earn the Master perk.

Paddle spam is dead! Not just because melees have combos now that pace attacks. Fatigue has become a proper resource to be managed, ala games like Dark Souls or Avowed. In fact, the Avowed comparison is rather apt: you can cast spells without interrupting Fatigue regen, rewarding the spellblade playstyle Oblivion always seemed to be going for. And you better leverage that, as Restore Fatigue has become one of my most used spell effects.

Rather than an annoying ever-draining bar to babysit in OG, Fatigue now ‘defaults’ to being full. Your Fatigue-costing actions are a risk you’re choosing to take. This is doubled down by the ability to regen faster while Running. In all, it feels so much better and more intuitive… minus just how heavily punished Blocking can be. Even high Fatigue builds can lose it all in seconds by blocking just a couple heavier attacks.

In summary: you want high Willpower as a warrior build, especially one using Block. Seriously, “just hold Block” will get you killed. High Agility is essential to stay on your toes long-term (quite literally!) and enables more aggressive play. Fatigue no longer modifying your damage as it drains means you can feel comfortable using the buffed Power Attacks, but you’re still punished for mindlessly consuming your Fatigue.

Grasping the Ramifications on Buildcrafting

So how do all the gameplay changes, Attribute tweaks, and new philosophy on Vitals impact building a character?

Races and Birthsigns

Your racial choice now has a greater impact on your early game experience due to improved Attribute effects, but (usually) less impact on your endgame because of leveling tweaks. The always-optimal leveling system and Endurance retroactivity means it’s not hard to mold a character into what you want.

As for birthsigns? Well, because every level is now “optimized” and the soft level cap has increased, you’re ever-inching closer to 100 in all Attributes. This negatively influences birthsigns that boost Attributes if you play a single character all the way to endgame. In other words, most players won’t care that the Attribute-boosting signs are ‘weaker.’ It’s not that big a downside since most of your gameplay is GETTING to endgame.

• Thief’s unique bonus to Luck is now complimented by boosting the potent Agility and the always-lovely-to-have Speed stats. Thief represents spending 60 Virtues (5 levels) from the moment you make your character, plus 10 whole character levels dedicated to Luck (just like OG). Thief has always been my default birthsign if I cannot decide, and Remastered only doubles down.
  
  
• Lord was reworked to provide +15 Armor Rating and 15% Resist Magic, enabling bulkier unarmored and Light Armor builds. This is huge for mages, and hard to replace by leveling up or buffing yourself! +15 is simply just a big bonus too. This might be my new default choice for a character now, I’ll have to try it sometime!
  
  
• Mage and Apprentice suffer lightly from the Magicka regen change, but still grant big bonuses that should not be ignored. These birthsigns are effectively 5 levels into Intelligence for Mage and 10 for Apprentice. Plus they both raise your maximum possible natural Magicka. Do you need me to tell you that’s still good? Just don’t pick Apprentice unless you have an answer to the magic weakness, it’s a death sentence.
  
  
• Atronach builds from OG are harmed by the Willpower changes. It’s still one of the best birthsigns in the game, it just doesn’t get to eat the “Willpower is a dump stat” dessert at dinner anymore. Consider this birthsign carefully, and know that magic only becomes more of a threat the deeper into the game you go.
  
  
• Warrior and Lady are no longer overbearingly optimal choices due to the Endurance boost. Seriously, hooray for the Health retroactivity. Still, both are great choices until you hit endgame where all your Attributes are more or less maxed out.
  
  
• Lover’s 10 seconds of Paralyze means more in Remastered, where enemies generally stay on their feet for longer and are a greater threat. Yes I know the Serpent Doomstone exists and has no huge Fatigue cost.
  
  
• Ritual’s Turn Undead is a bit better due enemies having more presence. Still, opportunity cost knocks and a 200 HP heal is replaceable by just a few potions. Plus the Turn Undead effect is leveled, so it stops working later on. But, 200 HP is nothing to scoff at with how much a high Endurance build can struggle to top itself off.
  
  
• Serpent is still used for its anti-poison and anti-debuff cleansing, not its damage. Enemies are more prone to inflicting effects than in OG due to the melee Skill changes and can apply them through Block, so don’t sleep on a tide-turning ability like this one.
  
  
• Shadow is still bad and easily replaced. Shame it’s not a Chameleon effect this time around. While Invisibility is a better effect than OG as it enables stalling for Vitals regen, that’s something you want to recast and not just do once per day.
  
  
• Steed is still Steed. Originally I disparaged Speed from early game play experience, but the further I go into Oblivion Remastered the more and more I wish I could cleanly sidestep attacks mid-combat and effectively backpedal to disengage.
  
  
• Tower. I always forget about this one since it’s niche. Did you know it’s the only way to unlock crafting Reflect Damage spells without OG's DLC? 5% Reflect Damage also isn’t terrible. Anyway, it’s good for warrior builds who don’t want to get the Skeleton Key or deal with the lockpicking minigame. A friend of mine roleplays the Tower’s Unlock spell as bashing the lock with his weapon.

Choosing and Leveling Attributes

What’s the best Attribute now? Trick question strawman, here’s a trick answer. Let’s talk about the merits of each Attribute being maxed in a build.

Strength is as good as ever. Carrying capacity and weapon damage, ‘nuff said. The bonus to Health is great flavor and a minor way to blunt Endurance’s monopoly.

Intelligence is no longer a domineering Attribute for magic, but still crucial. I cannot understate how much of a change Magicka regen being point-based causes. High Intelligence is now not the only way to play with magic! The larger Magicka pool before leaning on regen is still helpful, of course, and you cannot cast spells that are too expensive to cast.

Meanwhile, Willpower has become a powerful all-class Attribute. Any kind of spellcaster can comfortably regen Magicka in and out of combat with high Willpower, whilst martial classes gain a massively boosted Fatigue pool. Given that actions drain far more Fatigue (particularly Block), having more to spend is important for sustaining the fight! High Willpower is perfect for casting occasional buff and debuff cantrips on more martial-focused builds without Magicka potions.

Agility is a dominant Attribute for melee now, with or without the bonus to damage. Fatigue regen is critically important in Remastered for melee combat, as it impacts both your defense and offense. The higher your Agility, the more aggressive your melee combat can be! However, it can be replaced with enough Magicka spent on the cheap-but-essential Restore Fatigue spell. Both are point-by and not percentage-of regen, after all, but only Restore Fatigue ignores regen stun. Stack both for a green bar filled at Skooma speeds.

Speed has gone from QoL Attribute to an essential defensive stat, even with the Run buffs and the added Sprint. It has a far greater impact on combat dodging because of the universal projectile speed increases and the generally improved enemy damage output. Plus it’s the only resourceless damage mitigation option, which is crucial to buy time for your Vitals regen. I know Acrobatics has a dodge move easily accessible to every build by spamming jump, but holding Block to use it is awkward and influences the enemy AI to delay their attack (meaning you get hit anyway, especially by arrows). And lacking Speed will always feel terrible. Token mention that Athletics also influences your movement speed and it should not be ignored.

Endurance is still a king, but the algorithm change means you don’t need to focus-level it early on. You can now level Endurance in response to encountering a Health management problem, rather than being screwed over 10 levels ago. And that just feels good! Still would be a good idea to level this up in advance, otherwise you’ll feel very squishy even in Heavy Armor.

Personality is still a bad Attribute, but having some feels better than in original Oblivion. Still, just cast that custom spell instead. Talk is, quite literally, cheap.

Luck is still strange. For a generalist playstyle, it’s a great choice for the all-Skills bonuses. However, it is taxing to level up, its rewards are much tinier than other Attributes, and its boost to your favorite Skills will wind up worthless once they near 100 (much easier to do from the leveling speed increases). Luck still seems to be the “pick the Thief birthsign and don’t touch it on leveling unless you know what you're doing” Attribute. Opportunity cost and all that. Still, don't sleep on Luck! If you are going to level Luck, make sure you do so from the very start of your character. It’s 35 levels to reach max natural Luck with the Thief + Luck favor start, or longer without.

Remastered’s Impact on Playstyles

Let’s flip the perspective around. How are the core playstyles impacted by these changes compared to the original?

Warriors will want to increase Agility and Willpower far more than OG, otherwise they will have serious Fatigue management problems (especially with Block involved). Heavier attacks don’t mess around with breaking an opponent’s guard! Being a Warrior is now all about pacing yourself and managing your Fatigue, instead of mindless paddle spam. Endurance and Strength are also still king though, no shock. Shield Bash looks to be rather OP but it requires a very high Block skill. Additionally, the emphasis on Willpower means Warriors may periodically cast little combat cantrips thanks to faster regen. And you’re going to want that, Restore Fatigue is a critically important spell now! Unless you’re delving into Alchemy, a pure Warrior avoiding magic is probably going to feel terrible.

Mages have more choices (and fun) now. For one, magic Skills level so much faster it might give you whiplash (pro tip: magic cost now contributes to EXP. Don’t bother with spam-casting a cheap training spell). The UI changes help. A lot. You can be less fragile with the once-foolish unamored playstyle thanks to Athletics preventing Fatigue regen penalties, Acrobatics’ more accessible dodge move, and the reworked Lord birthsign. All while being able to actually regen Magicka. And I’m sure the faster projectile speed feels good. Mages are still potion-drunk maniacs late game though, you can’t escape that due to the Magicka regen stun from casting a lot. Really harms high Willpower setups unless you’re only casting high-impact one-and-done kill spells, in which case Willpower is quite a helpful supplement to your potions. Don’t sleep on a silly hyper-maximized Willpower setup, Willpower gives you greater benefits for every extra point invested.

Thieves will feel better to play. Stealth and the impacts of sound/light are more obviously pronounced with the stealth indicator than OG (or perhaps, are working properly this time), and the Stealth Skill Perk changes do a lot for you. Agility escalating damage on certain weapons means you can leave Strength untouched!! Plus, high Agility really makes you feel like an ambush predator waiting to strike then slip away again with the Fatigue bar. Now throw in Acrobatics’ dodge and no regen penalty on Running. You can play a slippery little snake who doesn’t rely on Endurance if you wished (though, I can’t guarantee that at endgame). Bows also feel better with the faster projectile speed.

Hybrid builds are weeping tears of joy. Oblivion was always designed to be a spellsword game, and the many tweaks enable that playstyle greatly. Willpower’s massive bonus to Fatigue, Strength’s Health increase, and Agility breaking the dominance of Strength for damage are huge. Of course, Willpower’s improved Magicka regen benefits this playstyle the most. The leveling system changes enable you to truly pick and play what you want without micromanaging. Additionally, the Vital regen stun from using an associated action enables you to hot-potato between magic and melee to stay on the offensive by juggling the meters. And with magic Skills being faster to level, it won’t feel like such a drag when you only use spells occasionally. Just remember that Spell Effectiveness for wearing armor is still around.

And overall, your resources are taxed more so than Oblivion. Now maybe that’s because my difficulty slider in OG was lower than the Adept setting in Remastered, but with how many potions I’ve crafted and yet completely emptied my stock mid-combat compared to OG’s occassional chug, I have to think it’s from broader changes coming together. This is a good thing though. I’m finally draining my cluttered potion stock for once and I am being humbled for ill preparation.

If you can’t tell, I like these changes! A lot!

[ODST05]

Sounds good, cheers.

[Shinespark]

@ODST05 If you’re doing a jack-of-all-trades with that philosophy your best bet would be to pick the most tedious skills to level as Majors. Also, to my knowledge, spell effectiveness is identically calculated.

[Vael]

Thanks for making this fun to read!

[ODST05]

This is great, thanks for all the work you've put in!

Quick question - if I'm going to play as a jack-of-all-trades, should I choose my least used skills as majors so they level up at roughly the same pace as my most used skills?

Bonus question - is spell effectiveness calculated the same as OG?

[Belial]

I found it in some random mod that removes the endurance health Regen

It's 7.5 base +1/3 endurance

6 second delay from being out of combat for the endurance part to kick in

As for the changes to block, that's very much classic Bethesda design. They take away some exploits but leave others you have to figure out and earn, such as Morrowind preventing going full reflect and absorb by making them multiplicative but allowing it to be additive in oblivion, etc. They took away some exploits but gave you a new OP tool in return

[Shinespark]

@Lyrdl I don’t mind stealth being buffed because it was an incredibly awkward playstyle that was quickly phased out. As for hand-to-hand: it was already a bad choice and making it worse was definitely unintentional (if true, I have no experience or knowledge). I expect a future patch to tweak the numbers on H2H and possibly change its Perks again.

Of all the Skills, the one I am baffled by is Block. Why is Shield Bash the one melee attack with infinite Strength scaling? Why did they bring back Skyrim’s infinite stunlock??

[Lyrdl]

Awesome write up, do you have any further thoughts on the impacts on specific skills like H2H having significant nerfs (nerfed sneak attacks, no fatigue knock outs, etc) and stealth damage being buffed otherwise?

[dieinhell100]

Wow I came back to this and see it's been expanded. I came to the same conclusion after running optimization on Python involving willpower bonus, duration, spell cost, and magicka regen (with the regen pause included). Generally, it's not worth bothering with fortify willpower, although it can be a decent restoration trainer spell since you are still regenerating your magicka back faster.

It *might* be worth pairing a small +10 fortify willpower with other spell effects that end up using most of your magicka anyways, but I never explored that far.

[Scooterboy]

Hey i have been looking everywhere, but have you or anyone else noticed a stark difference in how armour rating works in remastered?

i swear with 6 armour i am taking 6 less damage from enemies. but as i recall armour is supposed to be a % reduction not a flat one.

[Shinespark]

@Abrasax That’s not really any different from the original Oblivion though? Or perhaps that’s the complaint.