I am level 25 and currently having problems with a bandit who is also level 25 - I simply stand no chance against her bulky warhammer (or axe, I'm not sure).

I always did pretty well hiding behind a shield and heavy armor, but I cannot even block the attacks - I always hear the sound of weapons hitting flesh (yuck!) and I'm instantly down to 1/3 or 1/4 of health when hit by a power attack. I have put way over hundred hours into this game, I think I knew how to block, how to shield bash, how to power-bash... But this time I have a feeling I'm doing something terribly wrong.

Ideas?

What is your armor rating?

Are you shield bashing to disrupt the bandit's power attack?

Move a bit. Don't stand there toe to toe and let yourself be pounded into the ground. Shuffle left, right, back, in, out.

I dunno, I also generally svck at blocking which is why I just went all 2h weapons with my current character (yes I know you can block with a 2h weapon, it's just so much more frustrating when you have a SHIELD and still svck at it ).

My last character was sword and board all the way, though, and I will say that switching to third person view when fighting did seem to help me with my blocking and bashing, I was able to dodge and time things a lot better I think. But I still never leveled up in blocking as far as I thought I might given that I was always trying to use it. I'm not a veteran of games like this by any means so just getting used to working the buttons properly was a factor early on.

I do like having a shield and it's very satisfying to bash the crap out of somebody with it, I actually killed someone with shield bashes once, even got a killcam for it which was very cool. I didn't even know that was possible until I saw my housecarl Argis do it on a previous playthrough and I was like, WTF dude, how in the world... I mean, I never even saw him strike with his weapon, just BAM BAM BAM and that was it. It was awesome. I never quite got that powerful with it, though.

The armor rating was also rather borked, the Mask of Clavicus Vile said it was going to boost my armor rating by 46 or so and actually increased my armor rating by almost 100. My full armor rating was about 230.

Blocking is my highest skill with about 75 or so. Most of the time, it works well (as long as archers don't aim for my legs or head), but I was in no way able to block that big weapon at all. Maybe because she swings it over her head and bashes me on the same?


And yes, I often use shield bash but not frequently since it costs so much stamina.

I think this is entirely normal. I've gone through this situation too. I often have trouble with two-handed wielding bandits around level 20-30. You are not getting enough damage reduction even with successful blocking because the bandit's damage output is too high for you. You will find it easier to deal with strong bandits later as your armor rating goes up more. Armor rating of 230 is normal for your level, but it may not be enough to deal with high damage output enemies like this.

At this point, you need to not get hit too many times before killing him. There are several ways of dealing with this:

1. plenty of healing potions and/or food.
2. try to stagger him with power bash or power attack. and keep power attacking so he doesn't have chance to attack you. Use shouts if you have them. do you have vegetable soup? if not keep quaffing stamina potions
3. keep your distance, keep dodging and kill him slowly with flames. You will find that keeping distance from him and not getting hit is possible if you focus more on not getting hit. this will work even if you never used destruction magic and your magicka is at 100. It's going to be a long battle though.

Hold the block button, don't just press and release. Face your attacker, some times they will simply get past to your flesh but with enough leveling of the skill it'll be minimal.

Also, if you see that they're winding up for a major attack, consider hitting the attack button while blocking and it'll disrupt the power attack.

Please elaborate.

So I'm getting that "Weapon hits flesh" sound and not the "bonk!" since the bandit is extremely strong and deals a lot of damage? Not because the weapon does hit my head instead of my shield?


I'm still confused about armor rating in general (what do those numbers really stand for), but that's probably stuff for another topic.

If you are getting the weapon hits flesh sound, then it probably means the block was not successful. I've notices this myself with weapons with wide sweep like two handed hammer or a troll sideswipe. They hit you from the side and if you are blocking the front, the shield misses.

Each armor rating point is worth 0.12% of damage. Plus there is hidden armor of 100 points if you wear any armor. With 230 Armor rating + 100 hidden armor you are doing 330 * 0.12 = 39% damage reduction. Maximum damage reduction you can get is 80% when your armor rating is at 567 or higher, because .12% * 667 = 80%

Blocking reduces the damage before the damage reaches the armor. Maximum reduction you can get is 85% I think. I'm not so sure how to calculate the damage reduction exactly, but I think you are probably getting 50% reduction or so.

Normal sword bandit probably does 20 points of damage per hit, probably. The shield reduces it to 10, then the armor reduces to 6. If you block, If your health is at 250, then the bandit has to hit you 40 times to kill you if you are blocking. You also regenerate meanwhile, so longer. They are not much of threat to you.

I noticed that a bandit boss with two-handed weapon can kill you with 3 or 4 power hits. If that's the case that means his normal damage output is 50 per hit and power attack is 100 per hit, which is fairly reasonable damage output from a skilled 2-handed opponent. If the opponent's damage output is 100, you are taking 30 points of damage even if you block successfully. If you miss your block, 60 points. So, against opponents who has high damage, it's often not a good idea to stand there and block. It's better to move back and dodge.

Thank you, that really helps a lot. Altough I really wonder why does it say "Armor rating: xyz" instead of "Armor: 35%", wearing armor shouldn't be rocket science.

I guess the difficulty slider also comes into play, I'm on the highest or second highest setting, guess that additionally boosts the damage enemies do.

Disarm shout

Those 2H weapons really hurt. I learned that on my melee character, too. You gotta stun lock them if you can so they can't get a swing in. Power Bash, baby.

Also shouts that disable them in some way- Ice Form, etc.

1. Devs like their equations to be treated as close to cryptic arcana as possible.

2. Master difficulty is your outgoing damage is halved, and your incoming damage is doubled.

Two handed enemies are some of the more dangerous enemies you can face, but are easy to side-step if they make a forward power attack and easy to back-step if they make regular hits. All you need to do is to move the camera in a way that makes your character look to the side and walk side-ways, instead of walking straight backwards while looking at the opponent. This way you move much faster backwards.

About blocking, I suggest getting a very strong fortify block enchantment on it. Otherwise it's useless at higher levels. About 40% extra block should do the trick. If not, wear an amulet that makes it a total of 80% more. Then you should be able to survive blocks again.


However, if you aren't blocking -at all- then I have no idea what's going on..

Do you have a weapon that does stamina damage? Or perhaps some stamina poison you can put on an arrow? Those 2H bandits swing hard and if you can knock their stamina down that can be a big help. Unrelenting Force and then beating on them whilst they are getting to their feet can help as well.

Do those even work? Because the magicka damaging poisons sure as oblivion don't stop mages from spamming spells.

Aren't power attacks supposed to power through shields? I think the idea is you're supposed to block the normal attacks and dodge the power attacks. Power attacks are normally easy enough to dodge since they're so slow. But not always. Sometimes you're just backed into a corner and can't get out of the way. The trick comes into guessing if they're doing a normal attack or a power attack and reacting accordingly, which isn't quite as easy as it sounds.

This is true. Power attacks are designed to break through a block. I'm guessing you haven't taken the Quick Reflexes perk. That perk is beyond helpful, since it slows the game to give you more reaction time during an incoming power attack. Bash when time slows and you enemy can't do anything really, since you always stop their power attacks, and block their normal ones.

Paralyze and Slow are great.

Oh yeah, they work. A very good way to slow an opponents power attacks. Magicka damage weapons I've found also work quite well in Skyrim. As stated above Paralyze works very well. Although it's a spell one might have access to or the ability to cast at lower levels.

I've only ever used slow myself, because the magicka poisons I tried were useless against mages. Never seen a difference when I've used the stamina poisons either.

i always use block on characters like this..it is the only way that my character survives.

one of the things about block is the timing. i have found that you have to stun them with

your shield as their arms go back. otherwise they can kill you with one shot.