Oblivion talk:Combat

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This article really needs to be cleaned up[edit]

For starters, magic and Hand to Hand are never mentioned in the article. Neither are staffs. In adddition, it is not very organized. --Dylnuge 19:20, 21 October 2006 (EDT)

Not to mention the first person. People, you all play Oblivion! It ought to be better than a Daggerfall article! Somercy 13:02, 6 March 2007 (EST)

comment on hand to hand[edit]

i think that hand to hand should not be mentioned as a major skill. its not cut out to be the sole means of attack and therefor not a good sole purpose of attack. that should be revised, i post this here because it shouldnt be here either, it has advantages and disadvantages like the others yes but its just not made to be used as a sole means of combat.

The great thing about an RPG like this is that you can choose to use it as your only mans of combat, whether you just never seem to have money for decent weapons, or just want to chalenge yourself. Much like playing a FPS and not using any weapons you pick up but rely on your primary 'infinite ammo' weapon. It may not be great compared to swords, magic or arrows, but if you think an enemy without fatigue is weak, than this can be a very good solution.

On the level of content[edit]

i think that most of this content is reletively low level oriented, that kinda sucks for some vets lookn for some extra tips, like myself. those tips on one shotting and if they dont die fire "one or two more"? lol i have to fire about 80 to kill a goblin warlord, no joke. mages arnt so easy higher up, you sneak hit them, they summon and heal themselfs. it takes more than prescribed and that could throw people off also if they are relying on these tactics for a good game through and through. these will start to fail around level 18 or so. maybe even earlier. perhaps some new tactics are in order. personally when fighting goblin warlords and in tight spaces i find them a HUGE pain (i'v been using my archer as example btw). us archers arnt that great with swords so those being my last resort, if you try to run around the cave you are also screwed (more enemies, bigger problem). so im thinking that informing our players of this would be a great asset.

I have added a short section on endgame play. The tactic works for pretty much everything, but you have to have Hatreds Soul. Chicken Slayer (talk) 16:02, 2 April 2015 (GMT)

Mastery of <direction> power attacks[edit]

Can someone explain the various mastery of standing|left|right|back|forward power attacks and how to take advantage of them? --Sbrockway 12:25, 25 July 2007 (EDT)

Moving while performing (or charging up) a power attack will allow you to direct the power attack in the direction you are moving. The only one I find useful is the forward power attack. Move forward while charging the power attack, and the power attack will be directed forward as a lunge. Useful for hitting enemies who like to backpeddle and shoot off arrows. --Saruuk 17:26, 25 July 2007 (EDT)

NPC combat skills[edit]

When your blade, blunt or hand to hand skill increases, does the same happen to NPCs? Or does it only increase when you level up? Also, can Goblins be disarmed by the side power attacks, and can they be controlled with command humanoid, or do they count as creatures? --Merco 09:36, 2 September 2007 (EDT)

NPC skill levels are determined strictly by their level. For some NPCs that means that their skill levels are fixed for the entire game. For other NPCs, it means that their skill goes up when the player levels up. See NPCs for details about NPC statistics.
I would assume that goblins can be disarmed by power attacks. Skeletons and other weapon-wielding creatures can, so I don't know of any reason why goblins would be treated differently.
I haven't tested whether goblins are affected by Command Humanoid or Command Creature. You could try testing it yourself in game and then adding the information to the spell pages. --NepheleTalk 23:49, 3 September 2007 (EDT)

Will a fortify hand to hand enchantment make the everscamps attacks more powerful, or are their attacks considered something else? 68.166.64.48 23:08, 27 November 2007 (EST)

Creatures that do not use weapons have a fixed attack value that only changes when they do power attacks, in the case of Scamps that would be their shoulder-ram-attack--Pwijnands 11:06, 11 June 2008 (EDT)
Looking at the Construction Set, I'd say yes, fortifying Hand to Hand should work, since it's considered a Hand to Hand attack by the CS, but I can't say for certain that that would work. --Robin Hood (TalkE-mailContribs) 12:17, 18 June 2008 (EDT)

Arrow catching[edit]

This is probably a foolish question, but can you (the player) catch arrows that are fired at them, whilst the arrow is in flight? --Merco 13:01, 9 October 2007 (EDT)

In the article on Oblivion:Things_to_Do_When_You%27re_Bored#Fun_with_arrows|Things to do when you're bored it hints that it would be possible. - Korunox 18:15, 19 February 2008 (EST)

Arrows vs. undead & summons, enchanted arrows[edit]

OK, I can understand the confusion on these subjects. Here are my thoughts and experiences. Firstly, I can quite easily believe that any arrows you shoot into enemy summons will disappear when the summoned creature is unsummoned. With non-summoned undead, I have successfully retrieved arrows from zombies. With skeletons, arrows tend to 'bounce' off, and I have been able to find them lying on the floor in the vicinity. I have no experience of shooting arrows at ghosts, but I would imagine the arrows would also drop to the floor in the vicinity.

As for enchanted arrows, I don't think I've ever used any, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if you can't retrieve them even if you miss. You couldn't retrieve enchanted arrows in Morrowind. --Gaebrial 08:50, 12 January 2008 (EST)


I don't know how I can "legitimately" prove that enchanted arrows disappear. Anecdotally, when fighting Vampires in the Order of the Virtuous Blood quest at around level 10, the Vampire scout was shooting dwarven arrows enchanted with light and damage. I used the arrow-dodging technique and noticed that if I did not pick them up almost immediately they would disappear. I would say closer to 5 seconds. --J — Unsigned comment by 65.41.115.64 (talk)

Comment on Arrow-using[edit]

For as far as I understood, you poison the arrow you are going to shoot, instead of the bow. The article says otherwise. Also, it doesn't say that when you happen to miss the poisoned arrow, you have wasted your poison, which could be an unpleasant surprise for new players. Imporatant enough to edit? - Korunox 18:19, 19 February 2008 (EST)

The article is correct: you poison the bow, not the arrow. When you activate the poison you are asked whether you wish to apply the poison to your currently active weapon; if that weapon is a bow, then you are asked whether you wish to apply it to the bow. The poisoned symbol appears next to the bow, not the arrows. If you change your active arrows after applying poison, the poison remains active, because it is on the bow, not the arrows.
As for details about what happens when you poison an arrow, those details are covered on the article describing marksmanship as well as elsewhere. I'd say that the Combat section is just supposed to be an overview of the main advantages and disadvantages of each weapon, not a detailed guide on how to use that weapon. --NepheleTalk 12:16, 20 February 2008 (EST)
Hmm, okay thanks. It just seemed a little strange that if you shoot an arrow with a poisoned bow that the target gets poisoned instead of the bow-wielder. I guess I get sucked into the game much occasionally ;) - Korunox 12:37, 20 February 2008 (EST)

Cleaned up[edit]

Hey everyone, I edited every section of this article and think I cleaned it up pretty well. Feel free to read over and improve on it even more if you think it is a little lacking in some areas.

SilentScope126 19:46, 31 March 2008 (EDT)SilentScope126

Training[edit]

is there a place where i can do hand to hand fighting without getting arrested [not the arena] — Unsigned comment by 71.143.152.235 (talk)

See this and this. –RpehTCE 01:08, 20 May 2008 (EDT)

Slight logistical error[edit]

When discussing Magic's disadvantages, it says "More powerful spells must be purchased or made." Aside from the small array of spells awarded to the player at the begining of the game, Finger of the Mountain, Weak Fireball, Wizards Fury, and the spells that the Crusader's relics and the Dragonsword of Lainlyn give (and any others I've forgotten), there is no other way to acquire spells. Even then, the Crusader's relics and the Dragonsword aren't spells in the normal sense, as they require the player to equip a certain item, and the ohers mentioned aren't particularly strong (or in the case of Wizard's Fury, effective), especially at higher levels. So essentially this reads "More powerful spells must be obtained through the various normal methods of obtaining spells in the game," which kind of goes without saying. I propose that this be changed to read that "more powerful spells usually must be made, and require a high magic level and magicka pool," or something to that effect, unless someone can suggest a better re-wording or explain why the present one is best suited to the point. 70.248.169.151 18:56, 15 June 2008 (EDT)

You have a point. Though even powerful spells that are made don't necessarily have to require a high magicka pool...it just helps a lot. :) Feel free to take a stab at how you think it should read. Others will tweak it as necessary if they don't agree. --Robin Hood (TalkE-mailContribs) 23:56, 16 June 2008 (EDT)
Alright, changed it from "More powerfull spells must be purchased or made" to "More powerful spells usually must be made (requiring either access to the Arcane University or Frostcrag Spire with a working spellmaking altar) or acquired via Spell Tomes, which is not a reliable method due to the low chances of getting a specific tome." The wording on that last bit about the spell tomes seems a bit awkward, so if anyone would like to try and revise it so it sounds better that would be great. 70.248.169.151 14:33, 20 June 2008 (EDT)
Sounds reasonable to me! Thanks for making the change. --Robin Hood (TalkE-mailContribs) 13:18, 25 June 2008 (EDT)


Combat bug?[edit]

Somehow I've gotten stuck in some kind of power attack mode. No matter how long I hold the attack button, my attack animation is a power attack. I'm an archer for the most part, so a lot of the time I end up holding down the attack button in order to hold my arrow in place while I zoom in on a target. Could this have somehow confused some part of the game?--24.211.221.221 18:52, 16 September 2008 (EDT)

What could be the case is that you are still in sneak mode. Attacks done in sneak mode only have one animation, which is similar in motion and duration to that of the standing power attack. It's unlikely that archery had something to do with it though. --Timenn < talk > 00:54, 17 September 2008 (EDT)
I too have a similar problem, any attack done in sneak mode is a power attack, but attacks made not in sneak mode can be made normally and as any power attack. I'm an archer that uses the zoom function a lot as well, so this problem may actually be more widespread. I've been playing on a 360 for 140+ hours, and reloading to earlier times reveal that my combat was not always this way. The major issue with attacking like this is the slow attack speed. Is there some sort of programming flag which determines which attack will be made in combat, and if so, is there any way to reset it? 124.171.219.100 09:12, 11 February 2009 (EST)
Like Timenn said above, there is only one animation for attacking while in sneak mode, and that's similar to the power attack. You don't actually do a power attack, just a normal attack - it's just that the animation makes it look like a power attack. And no, there is no way to change this, it's hard-coded into the game engine. --Gaebrial 05:00, 13 February 2009 (EST)
I've encountered this sneak bug as well, on several characters. In the early game, while sneaking I can perform both normal attacks and power attacks, though they do the same amount of damage. However, eventually my character will be unable to perform a normal sneak attack, and will only perform power sneak attacks. This isn't just a display bug, either, the fatigue cost of any sneak attack suddenly increases dramatically. Doing some testing with Daedric Daggers, all of my character's (bugged) sneak attacks appear to cost 39ish fatigue, which is identical to the fatigue drain of a normal Daedric Dagger power attack. However, on older saves of that character, and in freshly-created characters, the fatigue drain of a normal sneak attack is only around 8. Since the speed and fatigue drain of my sneak attacks becomes inferior, I'd obviously like to find a reason, if not a fix. 96.235.218.142 19:00, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm having another problem.....Whenever I get into combat my Oblivion freezes for a few seconds and the it gets into combat mode....when I finish Combat...it freezes again a few seconds....Why is this happening? it does the same when ambience music changes --Minnan1 01:15 pm , 22 May 2011 (EST)

I had this problem for over a year and was very disappointed in how little help is available. What I did finally discover is that it is related to the music changes. You can go into the Oblivion.ini file and change bMusicEnabled=1 to a 0 instead. This will stop all combat music, but it will stop the freezes also. I'm not sure if it works for the ambient music since I never noticed that being a problem in my case. Someone also mentioned replacing or repairing "quartz.dll" if you still want to keep combat music, but I don't have the technical know-how to mess with system files. Hope this helps!

Silence Poison[edit]

When fighting a Mage it's advisable to to use a silencing poison when their heealth is low. It often happens that mage's heal themselves when their health is low, and as a silence poison inhibits them of doing so, it is a perfect ace in the hole.

Stunned by Rats[edit]

This sounds ridiculous but a number of occasions over the last 4-5 hours of gametime I have been beaten senseless by rats in dungeons. I'm level 11, and the little git will strike, I get stunned, forced into a corner, and then repeat at length until I'm dead. My agility is 68 but no matter what Im equipped with I'm not quick enough to strike back, dodge, cast, or run away. Any tips on this, other than reloading and then spraying the area with fire until the little swine gets toasted? (I have overcome these foes, but relading and pre-emptive summoning / destruction seems a bit 'unreal')

Well it all depends, where is your diffuculty slider at and are there alot of rats? These might be the problem your trying to resolve. And besides as you level up minor enemies get stronger a.k.a. rats, mudcrabs etc. I always attract alot of rats to attack me so i can raise my light and heavy armor skill and not once have they ever stunned me. The Grand Champ 15:00, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Article clean up[edit]

I cleaned it up so that is done. If there is anything anyone wants to add make sure you keep it neat. Make new sections for stuff or add to the existing sections, hitting return and making something bold ona new line is sloppy and will not add it to the table of contents at the top.Cmdr 21:45, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Alchemy[edit]

why would -you cannot make potions with enimies nearby. go here it should go Here — Unsigned comment by Thedrunknord (talkcontribs) on 15 February 2010

Why not both places? (Although I agree that it's more appropriate on Alchemy than here.) --GKtalk2me 22:06, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

OK then why don't someone add it to alchemy?--Thedrunknord 22:26, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Feel free. --GKtalk2me 00:31, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Tactics with staves?[edit]

Ive been wondering, why is there no information on stave combat on this page? With azura's star and a bit of soul trapping and summoning, staves can be a pretty good weapon in combat as they have power, range and the abilty block. I think that this combat style deserves to be mentioned on this article. Any one willing to contribute? (im not a good writer, hence i havent embarrased myself with writing anything yet) — Unsigned comment by 88.106.14.131 (talk) at 23:37 on 26 August 2010

I added a small note about them here. Feel free to expand on that if you want. --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 23:56, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Wrong Information[edit]

"There are a plethora of tactics one could use with the game's various weapons, the most effective often depending on what attacks the foe uses. Different weapons have different reach, weight and speed characteristics; for example, longswords have a medium-long reach and are relatively light, making fatigue drain minimal. Maces are the 'longswords' of the blunt weapon category and are generally heavier, draining more of your fatigue per attack. However, blunt weapons in general often have higher base damage and weight, the latter of which causes enemies to be staggered more often." This is not true. Maces are lighter than longswords. Compare http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Weapons#Longswords and http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Weapons#Maces and see for yourselves. 75.62.150.151 02:44, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

What should I do when I'm knocked down?[edit]

Now my player is lying on the ground and keep been hitting by enemies. How can my player wake up? clicking mouse? press WASD keys?