Wireless freedom, inside-out tracking, and the $399 price tag really make Oculus Quest 2 the easy choice for all mainstream VR users.  If you are in a country where Pico 4 is officially released, the pancake lenses and higher FOV makes it the superior choice with Virtual Desktop.  I am using a Quest 2 but it will also work with all other VR headsets.  I recommend Virtual Desktop over Airlink, and 90 FPS with SSW (Synchronous Spacewarp) always on.  It is just more consistent than Airlink for me overall, especially in higher resolution settings.

These game settings are recommended by most mod lists.

SKSE VR is a hard pre-requisite to any mod that involves behavior changes. 

SKY UI is just an undisputed massive upgrade to the default UI, and also provides the in-game MCM menu interface for all other mods. The VR version is just as essential.  I personally pair this with the Dear Diary VR UI which makes the UI look absolutely gorgeous.

Unofficial Patch is also a must have to fix hundreds of little bugs, VR specific patch is needed on top of it, be sure to follow the instructions to generate the patch and install it

SSE VR Engine Fixes fix a lot of little problems with the dated SSE engine.  

SPID VR - Used by several mods to distribute things to NPC's, a fundamental mod.

1) VRIK - Holster and gesture allow me to grab my bow from my back, fire an arrow from sneak, charge in and pull out my sword with my right hand while casting a minion/buff/heal with my left hand, without using any menu at all and it feels super smooth. On top of this you can see the rest of your body, even holstered weapons which even Half Life Alyx can't do! When I raise my hand upward to heal I honestly feel like a World of Warcraft Paladin and it is incredibly immersive. When I swipe my hand to the right to go invisible I feel like a Naruto ninja. It is just such a high impact mod if you take advantage of all the features and it is infinitely customizable. Get a comfortable load out and you will never touch menus in combat ever again!  You can add Spell Wheel VR on top of this if you want a VR friendly menu instead of gestures.  Be sure to download Shizof's VRIK patch for mountain flickering issue.

My Personal Holster & Gesture Settings:

Holster - Shoulder (bow) and hip (one hand melee weapons and shield), I switched to trigger press as I need the grip press for HIGGs.  Disabled haptics unless the holster is empty.

Hand Gestures
Y + Up - Heal
Y + Down - Summon
Y + Left - Buff
Y + Right - Invisibility
B + Up - Candle Light
B + Down - Clairvoyance
B + Left - Equip offensive spells that require targeting
B + Right - Shout

2) HIGGS - Allows you to grab objects with your hand as well as gravity glove just like Alyx, drink potions by holding them to your face, and grab dead characters and put them into various positions and strip off their outfits with your hand . . . OK I will stop here.  It is simply amazing how a modder is able to recreate a huge portion of Half Life Alyx's VR interaction in a game like this.  It puts Skyrim VR on a completely different level than a short, linear game like Alyx. 

3) PLANCK - An add-on to HIGGS that adds a mind boggling amount of physical animations and character kinetics.  Accurate melee feedback is amazing, walking in town and hold up a lady's hand, patting a dog, grab a guard by the neck while punching him in the face, open the jaw of a wolf . . . it is must have.

4) Spell Wheel VR - Allows you to use Blade and Sorcery style spell wheel to quickly grab a weapon or select a spell.  While this is slower than VRIK gesture casting, it also makes your character a lot more balanced.  Also comes with a handy wrist health, mana and stamina bar.  If you use Clear HUD VR to remove the main bars, it makes the game quite a bit more immersive.

5) Binaural 3D Surround Sound - The default Skyrim VR volume is way, way too low which is fixed with this mod, plus it gives you true 3D positional audio like the mod name suggests. I was shocked how bad the default VR audio was without this mod, this is an essential VR mod.  I also recommend Immersive Sound and Sounds of Skyrim to complete the audio experience.

6) Realm of Lorkhan - Great mod to skip the initial glitchy cart ride (especially with VRIK body) to create a character in seconds and get into a city of your choice.  I use the optional mod to remove portals in open world once I arrive.

7) Natural Locomotion - Forces you to swing your arm and run in place to move forward. While it is not quite as intense as say, Beat Saber on Expert or Thrill of the Fight, you do it for a hour or two at a time and you still burn a huge amount of calories.  I use the Oculus Quest thumb rest touch to trigger this and it is very intuitive.

When applicable, download the 2K version unless you have 16GB or more VRAM for your graphic card.  It is really hard to tell between 2K and 4K unless you look at them side by side, the FPS you save really add up.

1) PureDark single handedly changed the Skyrim VR modding scene forever. His DLSS2/FSR2 mod, combined with Virtual Desktop's SpaceWarp frame generation is basically the equivalent of DLSS3. It allowed my very modest VR system to push the graphics far beyond imagination at extremely playable frame rates. PureDark also fixed the VR parallax shader so you see Skyrim 202x textures at work. It is most noticeably on walls, mountains, and rocks. PureDark's DLSS mod also allows me to turn off TAA for crystal clear image without shimmering from TAA!

My Settings:

1) VR ENB eye adaptation is currently broken with VR DLSS, so I am still using VR Performance Kit and DLAA.

Download VR Performance Kit, unzip to your Skyrim VR root folder and change the config YML file as follows.  You can increase renderScale (less FPS, better image quality) and sharpness as needed.

method: fsr
renderScale: 0.67
sharpness: 0.7
fixedFoveated:
enabled: false 

For your Skyrim VR Upscaler, be sure to change the INI file to DLAA.  This allows you to disable TAA in game to eliminate shimmering in trees and grass, and crystal clear images.  I disable foveated rendering in general, feel free to enable for more FPS if you are not bothered by rough edges outside of the main peripheral vision area.

#0 = DLSS, 1 = FSR2, 2 = XeSS, 3 = DLAA, 4 = TAA
mUpscaleType = 3

#0 = Performance
#1 = Balanced
#2 = Quality
#3 = UltraPerformance for DLSS/FSR2 or UltraQuality for XeSS
mQualityLevel = 0

#Use TAA for periphery outside of DLSS/DLAA rect
mUseTAAForPeriphery = false

[FixedFoveatedUpscaling]
mFoveatedScaleX = 1.000000
mFoveatedScaleY = 1.000000
mFoveatedOffsetX = 0.000000
mFoveatedOffsetY = 0.000000

[FixedFoveatedRendering]
mEnableFixedFoveatedRendering = false
  
2) SMIM is used in every list as it fixes so many bad looking mesh models in the game, load this before anything else.

3) With parallax shader fix, Skyrim 202x (2K version) is the best looking base texture for Skyrim VR.  It unfortunately does not have full coverage for DLC, Markarth and a few other areas in the base game.  I use Skurkbro's Retexture Project for these other areas, and give 202x priority to overwrite it.

4) Cathedral Player and NPC Overhaul - The 2021 version of Total Character Makeover and the characters retain the lore, just much better looking thanks to the more modern models and texture packs used. It also covers bestiary races and even generic NPC's like guards, bandits and necromancers which most other overhaul's just can't do!  It is also in my experience, more compatible with other mods, I experienced less bugs and no black faces with this mod compared to Wico or Diversity.  Bijin Series, Pandorable Series and Kalilies NPC series to make all important NPC's super gorgeous. These three series are designed to work together without overlaps, and are all built around the breathtakingly beautiful looks than lore. RS Children to make kids look a lot better.  I overwrite all of these with the amazing BNP skins (NSFW Nexus page, the author has skin for male, female and kids) and Race Based Texture to give each race a unique skin.

5) Cathedral Armory - Instead of downloading multiple mods on weapons, armors and clothing overhaul's, just grab this! A single pack gives you all the weapons and armors, it also comes with amazing meshes and reflections. This is a huge upgrade over vanilla and Johnny Wang did an incredible job curating the best of the best mods. Just check out the list of mods he handpicked to create this pack, it reads like a super fancy organic smoothie's list of ingredients.

6) Majestic Mountains and Blended Road are used by every mod list.   Folkvangr is used in just about every high end Youtuber showcase video thanks to the tall grasses and lush landscape textures.  If you have FPS to spare add Origin of Forest on top of it for some really nice 3D forest foliage, also a main stay for Youtuber forest showcase.

7) Ruins Clutter Improved - We spend a huge number of hours in Dungeons and Caves playing this game, this is an incredible texture pack that greatly enhances all the objects within these areas.  Rustic Series by Gamwich, Skyrim 3D Series by Mathy79, and JS Series by JohnSkyrim for some of the best sub-category texture packs ever made.

8) Azurite Weathers - The most modern, technically advanced weather.  Johnny Wang, GOAT weather author behind Obsidian and Cathedral, wrote a long post on the Azurite page about its technicals.  It edges out the classic Vivid/Truestorms combo just enough for me to choose this as the best weather for users who don't use ENB.  You can add Glamur Reshade to make it look as good as it gets without an ENB.  Please see the Weather & ENB section if you have a 3060TI or better. 

9) LUX for interior lighting and LUX Orbis for exterior lighting.  Incredibly dramatic shadows and lighting effects, and more importantly, the author included a huge number of patches with exterior/interior overhaul's like JK's Skyrim so it gets my nod over ELFX, especially if you use ENB.  He really put in an enormous effort into this mod and it is hard to not be impressed.

10) SkyVRaan - A tremendous solution to add water reflections back to VR water shaders.  I am running this with two additional mods from Scenery ENB's recommended water set up and it is gorgeous.  You don't have to actually use Scenery ENB to do this:

Ilinalta - Realistic Water Transparency(load Ilinalta.esp instead of SkyVRaan`s VRWatercolor.esp )
Improved Water Performance by pfuscher (for vanilla Water) overwrite when prompted

11) Happy Little Trees has been the meta for trees for good reason.  It has great looks, good performance, and a killer Dyndolod 3 LOD pack that drastically increases your distant trees.  It is simply the best all around tree solution today.  Be sure to get the HD reworked bark textures.

12) Dyndolod 3 - A pain in the neck to install, wastes half an hour every time you make major changes to your graphic mods, but it does drastically increases viewing distance to Zelda Breath of the Wild levels and reduce pop-in's.  Install this after you get a stable list of mods as this should be one of the last things you add to the load order.  Use 2K settings unless you have a very beefy system.   

• Install Dyndolod 3 Resources from Nexus, install BEFORE any other graphic mod https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/52897
• Install Majestic Mountains Dyndolod 3 LOD Pack after Terrain LOD Redone Redone https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/11052?tab=files
• Install Happy Little Trees 3 Dyndolod 3 LOD pack (I use Performance) after Majestic Mountains Dyndolod 3 LOD Pack https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/56907
• Run XLODGen to generate terrains: https://stepmodifications.org/wiki/SkyrimSE:2.0.0#xLODGen
• Install Folkvangr Grass Pre-Cache after Happy Little Trees 3 Dyndolod 3 LOD pack https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/78293
• Install Dyndolod 3, then run TexGen with 2K settings, zip the output and install AFTER Happy Little Trees 3 Dyndolod 3 LOD pack: https://stepmodifications.org/wiki/SkyrimSE:2.0.0#Run_TexGen
• Run Dyndolod with 2K settings, zip the output and install AFTER TexGen output: https://stepmodifications.org/wiki/SkyrimSE:2.0.0#Run_DynDOLOD
  

13) JK's Skyrim Series for a great city/town/interior overhaul.  JK really spent a ton of time making every location feel unique and distinct.  His work are absolutely gorgeous.  This does cost a bit more FPS so be careful if you are near the limit.

 These mods are safe to install mid-save, can be slightly dangerous to remove when mixed with other mods.  So create a clean save first!  

1) Enemy Evolution of Skyrim - Adds a ton of cool perks and spells from EnaiSiaion's mods to enemies, and it is completely script free for zero compatibility issues!  You can also check out Skyrim Revamped Complete Enemy Overhaul if you are looking for a more drastic change in enemy design.

2) Wildcat and full EnaiSiaion suite for fast paced, full flavor OR Blade and Blunt and full SimonMagus616 suite for slower paced vanilla+.  Wildcat gives you faster stamina generation, and much higher player damage on master/legendary difficulty than vanilla to avoid situations like 10+ arrows to kill a bandit.  They both have enemy AI changes, with Wildcat's being more aggressive and Blade and Blunt more defensive.  They both have timed block, enemy reach adjustments, and attacks of opportunity.  Wildcat adds injuries and health based stagger to the mix.  Wildcat has a full MCM for you to customize if you don't like any of the features.  SimonMagus's mods are minimalistic and more vanilla+, but +20% flat damage for me is just not as fun as the cool effects of Enai full featured mods like Ordinator (be sure to grab the VR Perk Extender to avoid crashes), Summermyst and Apocalypse.

I also recommend a pack of additional VR essentials for combat:

No Stagger disables the poorly implemented VR stagger, where you can swing your arm but do no damage, it breaks melee feedback and really need to be disabled.
Blocking and Flash VR for block impact and sounds.
Dual Wield Block in VR for blocking in dual wield which is super immersive in VR.  
Crouch to Dodge for a good legs workout.
Archery makes bows and crossbows feel a lot better and accurate.  
Simple Realistic Archery VR to nerf archery a little bit by requiring you to reload between shots with a behind the shoulder gesture.  
Instant Equip makes pulling out weapons from holster / gesture a lot smoother in VR.  

3) AI Overhaul SSE - Provides an enormous amount of NPC interactions in cities.  Make the world so much more alive.  New dialogs, realistic daily schedules, fun animations.  In your synthesis patch, you can add AI Overhaul patcher to add the AI package to all of your NPC's, modded or not.  This is far better than outdated Bijin/Pandorable patches on Nexus.  You still need location patches like JK's if you use them, as these need to be patched manually.

4) Dynamic Animation Replacer - Incredible new animation engine now has VR version!  You will need to install DAR VR, AMR VR, and SPID VR.  Check out the list of animations included from my personal modlist.  I also use Verolevi's animation replacers.

5) Sunhelm - Adds need to eat, drink, sleep and stay warm.  Disables fast travel and combos very well with Convenient Carriage.  Adds a lot of immersion if you play Skyrim VR for healthy benefits and enjoy walking everywhere.  I stopped using it because eating/drinking is still more tedious than fun for me.
  

I recommend following Auriel's Dream's INI for a big FPS increase.  I use the HIGH version myself.

Contrary to popular opinion, a good ENB with a couple of effects disabled will only cost you 20-25% FPS, not 35-40%.  If you are not sensitive to frame generation technologies like Oculus Asynchronous Spacewarp (ASW) or Virtual Desktop Synchronous Spacewarp (SSW), you only need 45 FPS to hit the sense of 90 FPS.  Definitely give it a try if you have a 3060 TI or better graphics card, it provides a much bigger boost to visuals than ray tracing, and it costs a lot less FPS.

I have tried every single weather and ENB combo.  Here are in my opinion, the top four.  I have included screenshots from all four so you can see the stylistic differences.  I do long play throughs and I change weather/ENB all the times to give the game a fresh look.  Just go indoor, back up your save, and you can change weather/ENB without any issue with my Wabbajack list at top of this guide.

1) Scenery ENB with Vivid Weather and True Storms is the best made-for-VR ENB, period.  It compensates for VR's lack-of SE ENB effects with its own incredible foliage lighting, and added special effects such as wet surfaces during rain with very creative specular tweaks.  It also provides one of the most unique interior color palettes and skin shaders of any ENB I ever tried, going for a realistic, yet gritty look.  No other made-for-VR ENB can produce showcase videos that competes against the best SE ENB's from below.   

Scenery ENB does use a lot of bloom and dramatic lighting effects to make up for VR's lack of volumetric lighting, which can be a turn off for many.  It also has a very opinionated color palette.  For anyone looking for a "safer" choice, I recommend Rudy Cathedral or PICHO Azurite.

• Strongest foliage lighting in VR
• Extreme weather effects thanks to complementary mods
• Strong bloom and lighting effects
• One of the most unique color palettes of any ENB, it is gritty and realistic
  

• May be too over saturated or dramatic for some
  

Complementary Mods

• Vivid Weathers
• True Storms (Patch on Nexus)
• Supreme Storms SE (Patch on Scenery ENB page)
• Cresty's Distant Mists (Patch on Scenery ENB page)
• Volumetric Mists
• Morning Fog
• Picta Series - Improved Sky Meshes
• Dynamic Volumetric Lighting and Sun Shadows (Papyrus Version, Patch on Scenery ENB page)
  

2) Rudy Cathedral is the most iconic SE ENB VR from the GOAT ENB author.  It features rich, deep colors, incredible interior lighting from Zangdar's painstaking LUX tweaks, and maximizes Cathedral Weather's dramatic sunset and sunrise's.  My VR patch adds wet specular effects in rain, as well as a few other tweaks.  Everything just looks right when you use this weather/ENB.    

• Best sunrise and sundown
• World class colors, everything looks just right for Skyrim
• Zangdar's tweaks for Lux is best in class
• Fantasy ENB with amazing effects, yet still has enough realism
  

Complementary Mods

• Cathedral Weathers
• Rudy Cathedral Plugin (400MB) and Zangdar version of the preset
• Rudy Zangdar ENB For Cathedral Weathers - VR Tweaks to add rain wetness, and a bit of brightness tweaks
• Volumetric Mists
• Morning Fog
• Picta Series - Improved Sky Meshes (get the Cathedral Patch)
• Dynamic Volumetric Lighting and Sun Shadows (Papyrus Version, Patch on Scenery ENB page)
  

3) PICHO Azurite is the best Azurite ENB.  It features PICHO's unbeatable character details, and Azurite sacrifices some of Cathedral's dramatic effects for unmatched visibility and eye comfort during gameplay.  It can be considered as a lighter color palette, more natural/organic version of Rudy Cathedral.  Korean BBQ vs American BBQ is the best way I would put it.  It has wet specular effects built into rain out-of-box.  Be sure to disable the postpass shader as it makes interiors 100% dark.

• Best character skin shaders
• Lighter colors than Rudy
• High visibility for gameplay
• More natural than Rudy Cathedral
  

Complementary Mods

• Azurite Weathers
• Volumetric Mists
• Morning Fog
• Picta Series - Improved Sky Meshes (get the Cathedral Patch which also works for Azurite)
• Dynamic Volumetric Lighting and Sun Shadows (Papyrus Version, Patch on Scenery ENB page)
  

4) NAT3 simply offers the most realistic color and lighting of any weather, and is easily the most realistic weather/ENB combo on this list.  The colors are warm and neutral, the weather effects are unique and dramatic, less saturated, it is the gold standard for an all-natural, organic ENB that tries to simulate real life.  It has to be experienced in game to fully appreciate.  Some scenes are straight out of a National Geographic magazine. 

While I have tried Berserkyr and PICHO NAT 3, I feel they both deviate a little too much from the classic NAT 3 formula.  Thanks to Patrys from Reddit, we are able to fix NAT 3's black interior issues in VR, and it absolutely deserves a spot on this list.

• Photorealistic, warm, and natural colors
• Unique lighting and shadows rendering with a lot of details, has to be seen to fully appreciate
• Intense weather effects, dark nights, dark dungeons, realism and immersion over gameplay visibility
• Effects like fog, mist, cloud and sky meshes are built-in and cohesive
• Exterior water and some scenes can be too dark due to lack of SE ENB features
  

Complementary Mods

• NAT3 Weather Plugin and ENB preset
• NAT 3 ENB - VR Tweaks
• Morning Fog
  

Common Troubleshooting

• Newer mods that contain DLLs using AE or SE 1.6 version of SKSE will not work for Skyrim VR, must wait for a proper VR version
• Check your plugin list for ESL's, they won't  be loaded, rename to ESP to work around this.  In general get ESP version of the mod if possible
• MO2 plugin LOOT sort is unreliable, make sure you sort the plugins right pane by hand to the same order of mods installed on left pane, make a back up of this!  A lot of strange things can happen like naked NPC's or missing lighting effects if you don't sort the plugins correctly!
• For 100% reproduceable crashes, disable all mods to see if you still crash, then re-enable section-by-section until you find which dozen or so mods is causing the crash, then re-enable mod-by-mod until you find the mod.  A texture pack can crash your game, I learned the hard way.  99% of the times it is a specific mod, not a corrupted save!
  

Legacy of the Dragonborn - Adds an enormous amount of new items, quests, and a museum to display all of your loot.  It is incredible content if you want play a character for hundreds of hours, or just want to have fresh new unique items to play with.  Comes with huge number of patches for all contents.  I stopped using this because collecting stuff is just not that interesting for me personally.

NordWarUA if you want premium quality, medieval armors.  I decided to go back to vanilla look but definitely give this total replacer a try if you like medieval!