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If you’re looking for apure-carnage, weapon-intensivemelee build inOblivion Remastered, you’ve come to the right place. While equipment choices will often hinge upon raw stats and enchantments for additional damage sources (Bleed’s a big one!), your choices of Race, Birthsign, and Class are all vital fixtures that are locked in place from the moment you’ve finished the game’s tutorial.
As such, we recommend the following baseline parameters. We have focused on our main approach in this guide, but offered a few tweak ideas in case you’re looking for something a bit more nuanced, a bit more hybridized, for your playstyle.
Our Best Melee Build In Oblivion Remastered
Race
Redguardsmake for the best melee race overall, whileOrcsare tankier. We’ll focus on Redguards for our melee build advice, but don’t hesitate to look into an Orc instead if you don’t mind sacrificing some of that melee expertise in favour of bulk.
This works out nicely formultiple diverse approachesto melee.BladeandBluntare tapped into for separate types of melee weapons, whilstLightandHeavyarmor complement different approaches to protection. Light Armor is best for those who wish to be speedier; Heavy Armor is the obvious ideal move for anyone who wants to maximize their ability to withstand dozens of blows.
Athleticscan help mitigate the relative slowness you’ll succumb to if you follow the Heavy Armor route, and surprise - Redguards gain a bonus to that one as well.
Playing a Redguard means maximizing meleeat the cost of magic, as you’ll gain+10 to both Strength and Endurancebut-10 to Intelligence, Personality, and Willpower. A lower Personality score will also make things a bit more difficult for players who wish to exercise a silver tongue in diplomacy.
But it’s well worth the trade-off if you want pure survival and ample opportunities to smash foes' heads in with ease. Speaking of survival,Redguards are far less likely to succumb to Poison or Disease.
What’s more,Redguards have Adrenaline Rush,a unique power whichfortifies Strength and Endurance by 50 points for 60 secondsonce per day. It does the same forAgility and Speed, making you all the swifter in your killing sprees.
Birthsign
What about yourBirthsign? This one’s pretty straightforward. Our choice is theWarrior.
While theWarriorisn’t the most glamourous choice, itsstraightforward bonusesare both remarkably savvy:Fortify StrengthandFortify Enduranceprovide10-point bonuses to each. These are constant, makingfor the perfect attachment to melee builds.
Class
As it happens, the answer to the best melee class is also, in our experience, theWarrior. Bit of a pattern there.
In fact, it’s more than a bit of one. TheWarriorclass provides bonuses to Strength and Endurance. If that sounds familiar, congratulations: you’re reading this guide in order.
Combining theWarriorBirthsign andWarriorClass means you’ve got twice the excellence in each of these two stats. Tag in the Redguard race, and it’s thrice the boosts. It’s hard to beat that.
Warriors have bonuses to the following skills:
You’ll note that, unlike with the Redguard, Warriorsdon’tget a bonus to Light Armor on top of that Heavy Armor boon. If you’re following our build recommendation, this does make your Heavy Armor bonus the more impressive one, but there’s no reason to discard the Light Armor approach altogether if it suits your playstyle more.
Alternative Approaches
If you’re keen onadding magic to the mix, rather than relying strictly on physicality as our guide is generally geared toward, then theSpellswordclass is tough to beat.
Its reputation among fans is strong, and not for nothing;it will give you bonuses to Endurance and Willpower, as well as these skills:
Spellsword isn’t even a bad idea if you opt for a magic-fixated race like aBreton, as it gives you a nice hybridization build to shore up your weaponry perks. But it is still a powerful path forRedguardsandNords. Maybe not so much for Stronghold-version Orcs, however, as they get penalties to Intelligence.
