Duel just enhances vanilla combat system and improves AI with teamwork.
Deadly Combat (customisable via in-game spell) makes every hit stagger/interrupt, has timed blocking (but buggy for me) and improves "individual" AI.
I like DC because of the stagger. It's how it should have been - like in all other games, including Warband. If you start swinging your greatsword and the enemy hits you with a 1h sword first, you are interrupted. By the way, you can use both together: I load DC last (so DC features have preference) and without DuelPlayerProc.pex (as stated by LogRaam) and both AI enhancements fit together nicely. But, in my opinion, the best combination is
ASIS + DC (with PISE patch loaded after ASIS.esp). By the way, you can now use
ASIS' Automatic Perks and Spells (apart from AI) with
SkyRe. Download this guide by T3nd0 (
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/33995) and search the document for "asis". There will be a list that you should add to [PERKEXLUSIONLIST] in AutomaticPerks.ini of ASIS (you have to do this before running the ASIS patcher).
There's also
SkyRe's combat, which makes more drastic changes, but I haven't really tried it, because I just didn't like what I read in the description.
And then there's
Duke Patricks - Archery And Heavy Weapons Combat. In theory, it's the best I have seen. Some interesting features are momentum (like speed bonus in Warband), weapon reach dependent on the actual model of the weapon and body size affecting strength. I tried it a couple of times, but I had to give up because:
- Script lag was terrible - you hit someone in the face and he doesn't drop dead after 1 or 2 seconds later.
- Every swing consumes too much stamina - for me it was impossible to play.
If you manage to get it work properly, I'd love to know how, because, despite that, it looks like the best combat overhaul.
Both feel very clunky IMO. They try to add layers of complexity without really fixing the problems.
Indeed. No matter what combat mod you use, the game will still have those annoying bugs (attack-block transition, cancelling attacks, sprint getting stuck after swinging, etc.).
By the way, I have been playing the Dragonborn DLC for some days now, and I have to say it's much more fun than Dawnguard. They have done a really good job with this DLC.
