Most powerful defensive skills available from the start of the game?

[InDarkestNight]

I've been trying to figure out how I could handle all the overpowered enemies added by Skyrim Imemrsive Creatures and Skyrim Underground. I got owned by them playing a light armor two-handed build. I then went full tank. Heavy armor, block, one-handed, restoration, and archery (the latter I mainly need for fighting dragons, I never liked how paladin builds never seem to have ranged abilities). This didn't help though; even being as tanky as I could get, using the better weapon, and having more perk points than usual due to Elemental Dragons, I still struggled against things. Things took too damned long to beat down, and even with all my defensive skills enemies were still one-shotting me from full health. It seems like nothing I do mattered. I then thought about using illusion so I could just straight avoid fights, but then I realized that a lot of the enemies added by these mods are undead and daedra, meaning I wouldn't be able to affect them until my illusion was at least rank 90.

Its stupid that I'm having to deal with this. Why do all creature mods make their creatures so stupid op? Why is there not one that creature mod that's in line with vanilla? Yeah, I could turn down the difficulty, but that brings all sorts of issues (such as followers not being affected), and it would make the vanilla creatures a joke. I've thought about installing High Level Enemies to put vanilla creatures in line with the mod-added ones, then turn down the difficulty. I don't know if that would really work though since HLE doesn't technically do anything until you get to level 10, and with SiC installed I've never gotten that high, seriously.

Honestly, I just need to learn to live with this. I've never done a full playthrough on any difficulty higher than expert. Hopefully legendary players can help me out here. I've been thinking hard about what skills are really useful and which are not. Here is my conclusion:

one-handed & block + two-handed: The dps increase from two-handed is less than the damage reduction you get from using a shield. They may hit a bit harder, but the trade-off just isn't worth it. Two-handed CAN be op if you can get a weapon with absorb health and do sideways power attacks on multiple enemies, but one-handed is still better. Even going dual-wielding is better, since the dps is actually worth it.

archery; combat archers aren't viable because the dps is trash. Even the dps of a daedric bow is less than that of an iron dagger. Seriously. Its sorta necessary for fighting dragons though, which makes it worth it, though NOT as your sole offense.

Light armor: It is not defensive, despite what one would assume. In terms of armor rating, in the early game you may as well not be wearing any. Its only useful for the late game perks, including the ones that help you make it as defensive as heavy. Against mod creatures though, its just not viable.

Heavy armor: it slows you down, and has worse perks in the long run, but you just need that armor. Of course, it may not make much difference. As I said even wearing it and blocking with a shield I could still get one-shot from full health. So maybe it doesn't really matter. Doesn't do much to help me though.

Illusion: being able to calm and fury these OP enemies would be great, but as I said many of them are undead and daedra so I wouldn't actually be able to do this more than half the time. Don't know how much invisibility would help, but its the only thing that would really help me here.

Conjuration: I thought maybe I could just summon enemies to help me. However, this isn't legendary, they're just as weak against my foes as I am. I see no reason why they wouldn't just get one-shot too.

Alteration: Resist magic would surely help. Paralysis could be useful since it has no limitations on what it can be used on. This honestly may be one of the more useful skills.

Destruction: dual impact, what else is there to say? Shock damage also would help against spell casters and dragons I guess.

Restoration: useless against things that can one-shot you. Maybe the magic regen would help, but nothing else.

sneak: Though normally considered one of the most broken skills, the mod enemies are just too damned strong for me to one-shot. I found myself being forced into open combat so much, I was hardly even leveling my sneak. Most of the points I did get came from starting sneak attacks.

Smithing: better weapons and armor would help, but I'd also level myself in the process grinding it to the top. Its also only really useful for warriors.

Enchanting: better for more character types. Fortify health could help keep me alive. Sadly, again its useless at low levels and its hard to grind it because of all the components you need.

Alchemy: useful for all character types, and can offer any buff. It even offers unique buffs in the potions that magnify spell effects. Oh, and you got health potions too for what that's worth (not much in a game where half of everything is one-shotting you from full hp)

So, what do I really have? Everything only offers a marginal benefit at best. I have tried to play legendary in the past, but I never got far. What I ended up doing was just letting my follower tank for me while I pumped dozens of arrows into every single enemy. Unsurprisingly, I quickly got bored with that.

WHat can I really do here? How do people handle legendary? I just don't get it...

[LilRedMonster]

Immersive creatures ' welma monsters have given me some level of gamer ptsd on par with going through the teleport in the original doom's last level of the first episode. lol.

My suggestion/shitty solution to your creature mod issue is.... get more mods. level the playing field so that the odds are not so much stacked against you all the time.

Combat archery not working? Try the Bow rapid combo mod and you will find yourself going full Grammaton cleric on them foos.

1h and 2h combat not working? Ditch vanilla combat and just blindly chuck yourself overboard into the vast ocean of MCO and moveset mods.

Magic f'n sucks? Mods like Apocalypse and Odin will give you spells worth the magicka investment. You'll be shocked to find yourself summoning s#*! thougher than you are, blasting critters into bits with fun-er destruction spells and maybe even stumble upon an illusion spell or two that put most offensive spells from any other school to shame... like Death Howl. God damn do I ever love starting a fight with Death howl.