Essential Skyrim Mods: Melee Combat

Skyrim's vanilla combat system leaves much to be desired, especially if you are a player in 2025 AD. You cant help but compare it with the combat system of modern games like Elden Ring with its variety of weapons while in Skyrim you must have wield the same old sword/mace/war-axe. The movements and animations are monotonous and in fact the first irritants in the immersion into Skyrim world. The enemy AI is dumb and the NPC AI is even more dumber, especially when comes to fighting dragons. Really dude, you want to face off a dragon with a dagger? Did you even ask the blacksmith to temper it to epic level atleast? So why must you persist with this game which is over a decade old?

The answer? Modding. Thankfully, the modding community around Skyrim has managed to bring about a fresh breath of air into a decades-old game. Now the mods have proliferated so much on Nexus that various combinations of these mods called modpacks are now recommended to enhance the experience. Since there are many combat animation overhaul mods which let you add Elden Ring style combat moves or any other style you may fancy, we are going to stick to the basics which will let you have an enjoyable playthrough with the vanilla combat system in Skyrim. Lets talk about a combination of these mods which will enhance the combat system in Skyrim.

Note: All these mods work on the Skyrim Anniversary Edition 1.6.1170 version. Please check the compatibility with Special Edition versions before installing.

1. Dismembering Framework

Skyrim's default combat system is clunky and very very dated. This mod spices it up with more accurate hits that result in, you figured it, dismemberment. No longer will a downed enemy still have all his limbs attached if you deal a mortal blow. Depending on the placement, the strike will lop off an appendage like an arm or a leg. In the above screengrab, you can see the fate of the Draugr which dared to accost me, the Dragonborn while I was cleaning one of the many dungeons that dot the Skyrim countryside.

The mod achieves this purportedly by integrating into the Skyrim game engine rather than through scripts which may slow down the game on systems which have less than optimal hardware to deal with the 100's of mods that you are invariably going to install. This mods and its sister mods, DF-Official Creature Asset Pack & DF-Official Humanoid Asset Pack are must haves for any adventurer stepping into the world of Skyrim and looking to slay.

NexusMods: Link

2. True Directional Movement

True Directional Movement revolutionizes the movement of the player character in third person perspective, allowing fluid movement in any direction when striking at multiple enemies or even if just moving about. True Directional Movement, or TDM in short, also will allow a host of features such as target reticle, ability to make homing projectiles,target headtracking and more. No more firing off icicle or fireball spells and watching it miss the entire backside of a dragon as it swivels to face you.

NexusMods:Link

3. Precision - Accurate Melee Collisions

Precsion is a pretty much a default mod that you should have enabled. It just does one thing and that is making the strikes and hits with melee weapon more realistic. All targets within the sweep of the melee weapon will get hit and receive damage. This is unlike vanilla Skyrim combat system, where the targets may be many but the system assigns the damage to a single target, usually the one standing in front of the player.

This allows for a most realistic and satisfying combat mode. Precision is also the base for other mods that add effects like sparks when two melee weapons strike each other. It is an essential dependency for many other mods that you may like and add to your playthrough like combat animations so you can add this mod to your mod list pretty much early on.

NexusMods:Link

4. TrueHUD

Vanilla Skyrim has an unfortunate way of rendering the enemy health bars: sticking them right to the top of screen below the compass widget. When you face any group of enemies, only the health bar of the enemy that you face in front will be displayed on the top. The other targets may be on their last legs but you would never unless you finished off the one in front of you. Then again the cycle repeats with the next target.

True HUD adds floating health bars above the heads of all the enemy targets. It also shows health bars of other NPC actors. It has a option of keep the default Skyrim status bars of Magicka, Health or Stamina or keep them stacked to one side like The Witcher 3. They can be even scaled to show the amount with respect to each other.

TrueHUD, like Precision, also allows its functionality to be used by other mods, such as the status bar that shows the stamina or the stagger condition of the hostile enemy. This allows you to time your strikes to get that sweet critical damage bonus or trigger a killmove cutscene for dramatic effect.

NexusMods:Link

5. Know Your Enemy 2

This mod is an overhaul of various humanoid and beasts' resistances and weaknesses. It updates their resistance to all weapons, fire, frost shock, sun, poison and disease. Each creature/humanoid that you encounter in Skyrim will have appropriate weaknesses that can be exploited to deal damage and quickly triumph. You can inspect an enemy to gain details about it's weaknesses and then use the appropriate weapon or spell to beat it. Those pesky dwarven automatons no longer will trouble you if you have the counter-weapon or spell equipped.

Add the The Dragonborn's Bestiary mod and the relevant [The Dragonborn's Bestiary and KYE2 Patch] mod and you will have an auto-saving diary in the main menu that records the weaknesses of the various creatures that you slay.

NexusMods:Link

6. Modern Combat AI

This mod overhauls the AI governing enemy actions, making them more hostile and likely to take you out if your shield is not up or if your stamina has run out. It was designed to work with mods that make Skyrim combat more brisk and new, but it works with the vanilla Skyrim just fine.

With Modern Combat AI, combat should be a more engaging and tense affair, making you want to block more and tire enemies out. This naturally will help you develop a melee-focused build, leveling up Block skill and One Handed/Two Handed Skills. This is a breath of fresh air in Skyrim, which typically favored stealth archer builds so much that it's a staple meme in Skyrim player community.

Health, Stamina and Magicka replenishing potions will no longer just take up space in your inventory. You will find your self chugging potions mid-combat after taking damage, which is an ideal game balancing feature. Since Skyrim enemies level at the same level of the player, the damage is proportionally scaled so the player character doesn't feel overpowered at higher levels .

NexusMods:Link

Keep checking this article for more mods suggestions as they will be updated here once I use them in my playthrough.