Welcome to Gaia! ::

I swear I haven't even been playing this game for a week now and already I've got 86 hours clocked in. I'll break 100 hours by the end of the week razz

I used to play Skyrim like you, but then... everything changed when the fire nation attacked. I just got the Spellbreaker shield and damn that thing is a mage crusher. Those damn forsworn ravagers with their fancy magic icicles are no problem anymore. They don't even do any damage now LOL. These guys used to one shot me before I got my ebony armor and damage resistance buffs. Now I can just slowly walk up to them with a raised shield and shield bash them to death LOL. It also makes dragons a piece of cake. There is literally no one in the game right now that I am afraid to face.

LOL I remember in Oblivion I kept getting kicked out of the Thieve's guild for stealing stuff from my guild mates. No problem with that in Skyrim though since they pretty much let you jack whatever you want razz I also remember hand to hand was very much usable in Oblivion (on medium and lower difficulties). Not the case in Skyrim and I was rather disappointed since I used to love chasing innocent people around punching them in the back of the head XD I was also somewhat disappointed with "beast mode" in Skyrim. By the time I got along to finishing the Companions quest to get beast mode, I had enchanted ebony armor and a legendary blade of woe with 100 proficiency in sneak and nightweaver's band. I could one shot Dwarven Centurions with the shrouded gloves from the Dark Brotherhood questline and sneaking up on them is very possible with nightingale boots (I prefer them to the shrouded boots) and the right strategy. In fact, I have lower level enemies walking right up to me while in sneak mode so I can "backstab" them in the face XD I swear Skyrim's gameplay is so broken. But I guess that's part of what makes it fun. I once had to kill a foresworn briarheart as part of a bounty but since I had already completed the Malacath quest, the foresworn in the cave were all friendly to me. Allowed me to walk right up behind the briarheart, pickpocket his briarheart, and collect an easy sum of gold razz

Ah yes. The "brawls". They're awesome (especially since I play Argonian race which gets a slight bonus in hand to hand coupled with heavy armor perk that increases hand to hand by 20%). Unfortunately they're one time deals so you only get to fight a certain person once. After that it counts as assault and the guards start slashing your face off with a gigantic battle axe.

As per the Thieves' Guild and Dark Brotherhood, yeah they both really fell off the map since Oblivion. There are no more speakers and listeners in the Dark Brotherhood and no one outside of Riften even knows who the Thieves' Guild is. I did think it was pretty cool that you could summon Lachance's ghost though. I never actually used it though since followers just get in the way, but still pretty cool. But that story reminds me of stuff I used to do. When I first got the Wabbajack in Skyrim, I went around blasting random people with it. One person got turned into a mudcrab and started attacking his allies so they all turned around and slaughtered him in mudcrab form LOL.

But yeah no hand to hand bonuses, charge attacks are pathetic, no blocking like in Oblivion, pathetic range as always, and negligible difference in movement speed as opposed to carrying a dagger. There is absolutely no reason to use hand to hand in anything that's not a brawl really. I mean theoretically speaking, I could take the spellbreaker and kill a dragon using nothing but dragonrend and my bare hand since spellbreaker negates about 99% of the damage a dragon can do with its breath and its bite is easily dodged, but that's pretty much all it would be good for: is just messing around. It is very possible for me to one shot dragons (even mid-high level dragons like frost dragons though I have yet to test it out on an ancient or elder dragon) because of my sneak perks, equipment, and high damage dagger if I can sneak up on it though so in terms of comedy, it still falls short.

Oh no you get the summon lachance ability very early on. Shadowmere comes late game, but aside from the Dawnstar sanctuary, I think the final prize is actually Blade of Woe. It's the highest base damage dagger in the game which makes it excellent for sneak attacks. If you choose to just kill Astrid though, you can loot it off her body. As per Wabbajack, it's a lot more useful than it was in Oblivion. It has a chance for a random effect. There's fire damage, frost damage, shock damage, insta-kill healing, and transformation. Or at least, that's what I found.