How I Do Melee

I figured that if I described how I do battle in Oblivion others might benefit. So here's how I do it right now.

I'm a melee fighter. I wear heavy armor, a one-handed sword, and a shield. That's about it. I have two spells on standby: One that damages my opponent at a distance, and another which heals myself.

After three or so days of playing I've come up with a nice tactic. In most cases when an enemy begins charging at me I take out my sword and then put up my shield. After he does his first hit on me I put down the shield and slash twice. Immediately I put the shield back up. You can easily do this by:
Hold right click -> Wait -> Undo right-click -> double left click -> hold right click
That means that right after you double click you hold the right button. Don't wait for your attacks to go through, the game will still do them and then proceed to block.

Battles usually continue like that. Enemy smacks me, I smack back, etc. Since the enemy just attacked his shield isn't up which leaves him open for my double slash.

Something to note: Once you've found your fighting style, stick with it. Your character will automatically get better at what you do. If you move a lot, you'll gain speed. If you slash a lot, you'll get better at that.
At first I could not do a double slash, but with time my slashes became faster allowing me to hit more.

Now there's some more to note, and this is the tricky part. When I'm battling I move and circle a lot. I don't just attack right at the front of my enemy. When I strike I side step to whichever side my enemy's weapon is on. In other words, the unprotected part. The other side is the shield, and you really don't want to be attacking the shield. If I'm lucky I can get up behind my enemy and slash three or four times instead of twice. But be careful! The worst thing you can do is to leave yourself open. While it's important to defeat your enemy quickly it's far more important to keep your shield up when your enemy strikes. If your shield is down you'll get smacked right in the face, taking both damage and kinetic force. You'll get pushed back, stumble, and then you'll be subject to another open attack. Play it safe!

While fighting in the arena I've sometimes taken out melee fighters in a matter of seconds because they were so slow. I'd block their attack, dodge to the side and get behind them for some juicy back attacks.

Another note: If you don't know, the longer you hold the left mouse button the more powerful your attack, but the longer it takes. Doing a quick tap is a slash, holding it down is a big lunge. I never lunge because it takes too much time and thus leaves me open to attack. My enemy's are usually quicker than that and can block the attack.
There are times to use it though. If you've just made your enemy stagger back then you can use that opportunity to do a big attack.

And that's about it. The more you do it, the better you and your character get. Sometimes I'll get into the "zone" and can really lay the smack down on my enemies. With perfectly timed shots I can get in the maximum number of slashes. This was especially important when I was battling some undead skeletons. Those guys were fast! At first I could only do a single slash. It was just a back-and-forth battle, but that wasn't going to do because I was taking too much damage and thus had to wait around healing myself for far too long. But with careful timing and movements I was able to get the upper hand and beat these suckers. Sometimes I even got in some special attacks! So, keep at it, and you'll eventually get the hang of this.


There are millions of ways to do battle. You could go two handed with this same technique. Just block with the sword and do one big attack. You could focus entirely on movement and attempt to dodge your enemy's attacks. That is possible, I was doing it against some big, slow ogres in Pale Pass.

A final note: Training is good. Lots of time in the Arena is both fun and increases your battling skills. Just try to keep your equipment in shape.