I'm really sick of this. All she does is resurrect dead mobs and drop ash piles into my save file. She won't let me give her weapons when I meet her, and I don't know of any way to change the skills or spells she uses. Please tell me there is some way to stop this from happening?

She's a necromancer, dude, there's not really anything that can be done. I have a mod that takes away her necromancy (it's for those who have compled DG on the Dawnguard side already), but she still has the conjuration skill to raise the dead. I could make a separate mod to make her a pure warrior, but even that may not work.

Yeah man, making a mandatory follower scripted to use resurrect is a crappy design choice. And when given weapons to use, she just puts them away and uses her spells. Good god Bethesda.

Yeah, that is part of the reason I created my mod for her in the first place, now she uses weapons when she's low on mana and doesn't always resort to raising the dead (she still does, but not as often, cos she's not a necromancer now).

Hmm, I gave her a very nice axe which she uses quite a bit. It depends on the situation, though. When Falmer suddenly spring out on us and she doesn't have any lead time, she goes with the axe and drain life. In the confrontation with Vyrthur she is forced to use the axe and drain life since there is nothing around to reanimate. Ditto for the Soul Cairn. If she's got any kind of lead time and there are bodies laying around, including chickens!, however, she reanimates something and goes with ice spikes.

I make sure not to give her any magicka boosting gear or potions so that she is forced to switch to either her axe or crossbow sooner than otherwise.

Anyone know if she uses any weapon type more frequently than any other type? I read that she doesn't use bows at all. Will she use a magic staff or 2 magic staves? Or will she switch those out too?

I gave her a daedric war axe of Fire and a staff of Flame (something along that line). She hardly ever resurrects things around me...if she ever does its one of my Draugr Deathlords that keeled over.

She does use bows and crossbows, but only after her magicka runs dry. Her preferred weapon for ranged attack is ice spike.

She's used a bow once in my game but that was when a Dragon Priest spammed Thunderbolt at her. Even then, she fired around 3 daedric arrows then switched to the staff and axe (occasionally she'd resurrect one of my draugr but not often).

I gave Serana a Dragonbone sword, and a one handed ring, she uses the sword in close quarters, and uses magic in long range attacks. I have also given her a bow and crossbow which I've seen her use, but not as much as the sword. She will use health potions if you give her some, however since she can't die, what's the point.

As far as her bringing her own dead thrawls to the party, I really like that part of her skill set. But I can see where that may be a problem for others.

Try using a different follower for a while.

I gave her a Daedric mace and now all she ever uses is the mace and the drain health spell, I as well was becoming annoyed with having to kill her zombie which in turn left ash piles all over the place. Which is why I gave her the mace so she wouldn't use the resurrect spell. But if your stuck with her reanimating things then I would recommend that you empty the ash piles, at least then it's an empty ash pile and not full of stuff that the game engine has to keep track of along with the ash pile.

I'm wondering, if I gave her fortify destruction rings, if she would use drain life more than resurrect. I will try using a Mace, I gave her a dragonebone [legendary] dagger and she immediately puts it away to dual-cast.

Ash piles in my game cleanup upon exiting the cell. No issue with save file bloat. I gave her a Dwarven Crossbow, she uses it quite often. Gave her a full set of Dawnguard armor, she won't wear the helmet though.

I can deal with it, but I do find the multiple ash piles everywhere quite annoying because of Serana. I gave her a Dragonbone Sword but she rarely uses it.

I'm running a NPC custom vampire mod as a follower on the PC and it looks like they all want to resurrect, if you want a vamp follower get used to it.

Serana used just about any weapon my characters gave her, she seems to prefer staves, but watch out if you give her the chain lightening staff, you will take some damage when she uses it. Serana will also use scrolls. Although I gave her enchanted armour, and jewellery, I never saw any sign the enchantments worked.

I never had problems with the ash piles she created, they all cleaned up eventually. My second character Aussie got sick and tired of Serana's dead things stomping around while she was sneaking though, in the end unless they ere actually fighting, Aussie would kill them as soon as Serana resurrected them. That they were usually some horrid bug got them rekillled the faster, I was sick of the things. My first character Braggen just put up with it, his sneaking skills were higher, he usually just left them as bait the better to pick off whatever turned up.

Hey just an update, I've found the best way to deal with this is to sneak past enemies. That is pretty obvious, but compared to the alternatives of giving Serana swords, maces and staves, all of which I've tried with little success. It seems that if your sneak is high enough (and I did have to enchant 4 different items with sneak and my boots with muffle) that you can make it through almost every Serana-mandatory part of the DLC without engaging in combat.

Staves and obsidian quality 1 handed weapons and up. I really don't mind her making zombies though. I see it as a 2 followers for 1 deal.. Kinda like when i turn an Acended Necromancer into a Dead Thrall. Often the ash piles are easier to find and loot then the bodies lol. My advise is fast travel to dawnstar and pay for a boat ride to the castle from there. once you drop her off you don't have to see her for a while

I wish Beth would just eliminate ash piles altogether. I'd prefer a raised corpse to just disintegrate entirely even if that could potentially mean missing the window to loot the corpse before it's raised by Serana (or any other necromancer).

Get your hands away from my moaning groaning shambling loot storage and their easy to find remains please and thanks.
>,> We'll just forget that I'm fond of using lightning spells to deliberately make said glowing, smoldering ash piles.

I'd be happy if Beth just patched out the ash piles...and the green glowing plasma piles in Fallout 3.

The problem has been around for a loooong time, and they still haven't fixed it.

The vampire mod I'm using turns my body to ash when I die, makes your own death more interesting.

I wouldn't mind, but we were in a fight with some forsworn on the bridge by Pavo's house along the road from Markarth, and although there were other more combat-ready dead she should have used, she resurrected a chicken. It did provide a comedy moment however!

I think the worst thing was when we came across a farmer on the road (on his way to Solitude to join the Legion) and he was killed by some wildlife - Serana raised him and he just carried on towards Solitude like nothing had happened - making horrible deathly 'urgggg' noises. That completely creeped me out!

Don't Ash Piles clean properly now? I seem so for me.. All the Ash Piles she made in my game is currently gone and cleaned up...

Btw, seriously? JUST REMOVE THE SPELL FROM HER LIST! Unless it is scripted to get added then you might need to edit the script or something.