Armor’s Mages Robes and JS’s Armored Circlets are great for a vigilant of stendar style without having to rely on alteration. And Left Hand Rings is how I pair with all of the new enchantments given by Summermyst.

A few of my best immersion mods are Undiscover Skyrim, Toggle Compass, and Better Heartbeats. Also worth mentioning Courier Delivers to NPCs.

Customizable Camera, naturally. And it’s worth including the links for potential future mod hunters: the Improved Camera beta (which back on old reddit was here and here), pointed to the plugin file ImprovedCameraSE-1.0.0.PR5.7z (for skyrimse version 1.6.353).

I have many more than these, but here are a few.

Sons of Skyrim - Probably the most impressive armor mod I’ve seen. While there are many high quality armor mods, so many feel more appropriate for a fashion show rather than Skyrim. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s nice to have such a quality mod that feels at home in the game. https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/68656

Skyrim Unbound Reborn - I have played the main quest once in my years playing Skyrim and haven’t personally been interested in playing it again. (Save the world hero stories don’t interest me too much) So it’s nice to play as a non Dragonborn. https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/27962

Missives - Since I don’t care much for the main quest mods like this give me more things to do in game. https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/17576

Jayserpa’s Quest Expansions - Having more choices during quests is always great, which I always felt was lacking in vanilla. His other mods are great as well. https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/users/5201727

Expressive Facegen Morphs - I always struggle creating a character I like and this provides more options for RaceMenu. Great mod. https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/35785

Grimacing with pain… I’m going to say that for the purposes of this question, I’m going to skip all the bugfix mods and the staples-of-everything mods like SKSE and SkyUI. I’m also going to skip the enabling mods like OAR and Base Object Swapper, because so much is built on top of them now that they’re requirements.

When I mod Skyrim, once I have the base layer in place, what do I always include even though I don’t need it?

True Directional Movement. This is so good that for me it’s now a base mod. I love that third person mode both feels good and looks good.

High-Poly Head and NPC makeovers using it. Hard to un-see the clonk in the old heads once you see the nicer ones.

QuickLoot. Massive QOL improver.

Any mod that adds cloaks.

ENB Lights. They make the game so pretty.

Ooh my first Lemmy post.

I’ll mention my new fave mod that I can’t imagine living without from here on:

Player Equipment Manager on Wheels.

This lets you quickly swap base outfits and add-ons to those outfits, complete with hotkeys and nifty menus. Everything about this mod just works, and it’s pretty simple to get the hang of.

Oh man, that’s hard to say

Wabbajack is pretty incredible, the ability to get a full working list with like zero effort is wild

As for mods themselves, I love Clockwork, the creepy emptiness of it is amazing