Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-108.243.170.212-20140223152728/@comment-6518657-20150702010207

Zander10101 wrote: Opinion time: in most games I feel as though combat drags on, detracts from the story, reduces immersion, and is overcomplicated. (...) I'm thinking about playing through it again, but making some different choices and doing more side missions, but I liked how the combat was and was wondering if Orc was really the best choice for that or if Nord would be better. Thoughts/opinions, please? Depends on what you're going for, to be frank. I've played a similar character build myself, and I'll agree that Orc+Warhammer+Beserker is essentially the equivalent of going into settings and turning your difficulty to 'novice', except with a different menu.

For 2-handed combat, Orcs and Nords tie pretty cleanly. Nice thing about Nords is that their 50% frost resistance comes in handy when you're fighting mages - frost damage in high amounts is the bane of any melee player, I'd say. Battle cry is (go figure) somewhat different than Beserker Rage. Beserker Rage essentially gives you a 30-second period of time where you need to make sure everything in the room with you dies as quickly as possible, or else you might have a bad time if you're still in combat while it wears off. On the other hand, the Nord Battle Cry more or less works like a panic button to bring combat to a full halt, and enemies are vulnerable so long as you can chase them down. In summary, where beserker is more focused in increasing how many kills you can make in a short period of time, Battle Cry is more about survivability and getting out of sticky situations.

Along the lines of wanting to finish battles quickly: If you're going for flat-out damage output, a dual-wielding build will probably be a good bet. Problem with dual wielding is that it chomps through stamina faster than 2-handing, and it leaves you pretty vulnerable to anything that can't be stunlocked/outmanouvred with constant power-attack spam. As with most melee builds, mages that spam adept-level spells (casting ice storm 4 times in 6 seconds, anyone?) will be a headache unless you use shouts to get close.

If you really want a change of pace, I'll definitely vouch for creating a highly stealth-oriented character and using that to go through the Thieves' Guild and Dark Brotherhood questlines. If you want to give yourself an extra challenge, try to go full thief-mode and navigate bandit camps without killing anyone - obtain loot by pickpocketing and emptying chests while nobody's looking, etc. Fetch quests and many radiant quests such don't specifically demand that you kill anyone to finish the objectives, so it's quite possible to immerse yourself by being a strictly nonlethal thief - also you get to catch some funny scripted conversations and hidden dialogue bits between NPCs that you can't find while playing a more warrior-oriented build.

I could mention experimenting with a mage build, but I've found playing mages slows down combat and draws it out for MUCH longer than it has to - a 10-minute battle for a beserker will end up taking you 15-18 minutes as a mage, as you'll be constantly pausing mid-combat to scroll through menus and decide on what spells are appropriate for the enemies you're fighting.

Now in regards to the original post - lorewise, an average Orc warrior would likely overwhelm an average Nord warrior, but individual combat abilities hardly matter on battlefields where strategy and tactical advantages are the key to success. It's mentioned in the lore that while Orcs themselves are powerful, the 'Kingdom' of Orsinium is a fairly barren wasteland - constantly subjected to being razed and sacked by more organized outside armies.