I went through a large portion of the game, on hardest difficulty, using only 2hand weapons for dealing damage and got so bored of hitting things for 5 minutes before they would die that I quit and haven't played since.....

I remember reading somewhere that at Master level you block 75% of a hit when using a shield, 50% when using a weapon (or your hands). Additionally, you still get the recoil effect that opens your opponent to attack. So yeah, it’s still a viable skill to have, even if you use two-handed weapons. Maybe not a major, but you should still put some time into it.

EDIT: duplicate post

You need a stronger enchanted weapon. Preferably one enchanted yourself.

I play on middle difficulty as its just right imo,

you said you tried a paladin? i made one a few days ago im playing it now, probably my favourite character, try this out, im getting on fine with restoration and alteration
Race:now, this depends on if you want to have loads of mana, or not much (but enough if you work on it) so redguard or breton
birthsign: warrior or the lady
Class: blade or blunt (i chose blade), block, heavy armour, restoration, akteration, armourer, speechcraft,

also if you have KOTN get the crusader relics, if you dont then whatever armour you can get, enchanted with sigl stones ot mages guild, i choose reguard and these are my current stats with all crusader relics, lvl 14.
health-292
mana-84 (but i have lots of strong potions)
fatigue-265
journeyman in all majors apart from armourer and block which are nearly, 75 restoration because of relics.
75 strength, 61 willpower, 90 endurance

:)

Usually by level 10 my characters have thier 3 preferred attributes at 100, i level efficiently

So for a paladin intending to use restoration i recommend getting willpower, strength, and endurance maxed by lvl 10-15. I say 15 because you should also invest at least 10-15 points in intelligence ( which is only 2-3 levels ), so they could easily be maxed by then. You'll find that your magicka will regenerate quickly enough to cast a heal spell, even if it depletes your magicka entirely, before your vast health reserve trickles down. By level 20-25, your intelligence will also be maxed ( dependent upon your ability to efficiently level, your class setup, and your race), so you should be able to restore as well as buff yourself constantly. Throw in a journeyman restoration skill and your fortify health spells will nullify the need to heal in battles; because you should have over 300 life, plus your fortification = Ogrish health reserves!!

The most important factor on your ability to use restoration is the restoration skill! take it as a major and role-play your character training, training, training, and more training. It'll be journeyman by level 5!

heal on target damages health of the undead a lot so i use spells like that there for. (this is because of a mod)

Morrwoind spells may heal a lot but don't forget, unlike Oblivion, your magicka pool didn't regenerate in Morrowind.
The heal spells at lower levels can be a pain, but don't rush into battle before you heal your character. I find it manageable if I just take a little time between battles to let my character's magicka pool regenerate and heal myself. I don't even use heal potions, unless critically near death. Using absorb magicka may help to lower a spell slinger's magick pool, but I doesn't help you much because your don't get back as much as you spend on casting the spell (until later levels maybe).

One beneficial, low cost, restoration spell could be the restore fatigue or absorb fatigue spells. If your character does a lot of melee during battle, it's gonna eat up your fatigue, making your hits do less damage until you regain your fatigue again. All the while you're taking damage. So if you restore your character's fatigue, you can do more damage to kill the opponent faster and the faster you're done the battle, the sooner you stop taking damage.

Even better yet, absorb your enemy's fatigue so you do maximum damage and make the enemy do minimum. Absorb enough of the enemy's health and they start falling down stumbling.

And at the highest levels, absorb health can become super overpowered. I've used it to go on a rampage against all the guards in the IC (of course I didn't save) and I easily kept my character alive. Even with four guards in melee battle against me at once and 3 or 4 more archers to boot, I still had no problems staying alive.

Just wish I could cast a restore fatigue spell on myself right now.

I use the early, weak heal as the default after battle while I'm skippin' through the forest pickin' berries. Just hold down the cast button & run along. You regen mana fast enough to heal yourself in no time. I only use potions during battle.

IIRC it did but not on the fly. You had to sleep.

When you get spells that healing over time, they are wayyyyyyyyy more effective and cost much less magicka
Also, Healing isnt the only thing restoration is used for. Buff spells can be used to boost your attributes, causing you to do more damage, have more total health, ect. Also you can even do damage with restoration with the drain health spells.

That's basically what I was getting at. That your magicka didn't regenerate on the fly. The way I usually restored my magikca in MW was restore magicka potions from the MG supply chest, until I could make them myself.

In Morrowind I had a restore health on use magical amulet. As magic did not regenerate before you slept you could not use it for everyday magic like healing yourself. However I enchanted some armor with constant effect restore fatigue and health constant effect, just 2 and one point / second, but it took care of minor injuries.

And yes minor healing spells work nice for restoring health after a fight in Oblivion. Benefit of high restoration is that it become more useful in combat, you are also able to create better buff spells. Absorb health is also nice.