Enchanting, Blacksmithing, & Alchemy ExplainedEnchanting, Blacksmithing, and Alchemy are all very useful skills to master (I personally don't use Alchemy much at all) Enchanting allows you to add powerful magical perks to all your gear and jewelry. Blacksmithing allows you to create every type of light armor and heavy armor. And alchemy allows to create powerful potions and deadly poisons.
Enchanting ExplainedFirst off you will need one of the following:
- Access to arcane enchanter (you can find these in nearly all Jarl Palaces, Long Houses,Wizards Quarter, or if you purchase a house you can buy one to be put in your house)
- x amount of filled soul gems. 1 soul gem = 1 enchantment and so on
- Any item with a magical perk (once you disenchant an item it is destroyed but you keep that magical perk as an enchantment forever)
- Any non magical item to add an enchantment too
Where to get Soul Gems:
- Exploring
- Geode Ore Deposits
- Can purchase from nearly any merchant (filled soul gems are much more expensive then empty)
How to capture a soul:
- Cast the Conjuration spell Soul Trap on an enemy and kill them (can receive this skill from a skill book or Conjuration skill tree)
- Use weapons that Soul Trap Enchantments to kill your foes
- Use bound weapons and have the skills Soul Stealer unlocked (can receive this skill from Conjuration skill tree)
Type of soul gems:
- Petty - creatures below level 4
- Lesser - creatures below level 16
- Common - creatures below level 28
- Greater - creatures beloe level 38
- Grand - any soul besides Humans
- Black - Any soul
How to level enchanting up quickly:
I found the best way to quickly level enchanting up is to get the skill Soul Trap and also an item with soul trap enchantment. I liked to use a bow because I killed many animals for their souls and it is easier to get them from a range so you don't spook them. Also casting soul trap spell increases your Conjuration so you get to level 2 skills at once. I stock piled on any and every soul gem I came across, also collected iron daggers. If you have a house or access to a chest for now stock pile everything in there, I usually waited until I got to around 100 soul gems and iron daggers and then enchanted them all so my enchanting skill went up 30-40 levels in 1 sitting. (Iron daggers are the easiest item to smith so you can get smithing and enchanting up at the same rate and sell enchanted daggers to merchants and make some nice coin, will explain smithing below)
Smithing ExplainedFirst I'll briefly go over the different smithing stations and what each does:
- Smelter - Turns mined ore into ingots
- Tanning Rack - Creates Leather/Leather Strips from animal hide
- Forge & Anvil - Crafts armor, weapons, and jewelry
- Workbench - Upgrades armor and shields
- Grindstone - Upgrades weapons
As you level your smithing up you will be able to unlock perks in your skill tree thus rewarding you with different and better armors of the same class (light and heavy) aswell as being able to upgrade weapons and armor more efficiently. Each type of armor and weapon requires a different recipe to create the item which will be listed in the game. At the beginning of the game I'd advise getting a pick axe so you can mine ore, turn it into ingot, and use it to create new items. I'd also advise collecting animal hide to create leather. The best way I found to level smithing up is by creating iron daggers. You will need 1 iron ingot and 1 leather strip, these are very cheap to buy, and common to find throughout the region. Just like enchanting, stock pile iron daggers, iron ore, iron ingots, leather, and leather strips. Iron ore can be turned into iron ingots at the smelter and leather can be turned into leather strips at the tanning rack. If you a lot of coin to spare you can fast travel around Skyrim to all major cities where there is a black smith and buy all his leather strips and iron ingots, then fast travel to the next city and repeat. By the time you do a full circle of the region more then likely a day will pass and the first black smith should be stocked up on his iron ingots and leather strips and you can repeat the whole process again and within a few hours black smithing will be to 100. ( I traveled to Riften, Riverwood, Markarth, Solitude, Dawnstar, Whiterun, and Windhelm) With all these newly crafted iron daggers you can use them to enchant them and get Enchanting and Blacksmithing up at the same time. Time consuming, but rewarding.
Daedric Smithing:
You can make some really cool looking and powerful items smithing Daedric items. You must have Ebony smithing unlocked as well of having smithing at level 90. To smith Daedric items you need ebony ingots, Daedric Hearts and leather strips. If you plan on Deadric smithing hold onto any and all Daedric hearts you come across because they are not as common. Below is a list of recurring, random recurring, and one time only locations to collect Daedric hearts.
Recurring:
- Shrine of Mehrunes Dagon - 4 Dremora spawn once in a week (game time) and you can get 4 here each time
- Enthir at the College of Winterhold - has 2 that restock every few days (game time)
- Jorrvaskr - Kodlak's room
- Hall of the Vigilant - On a table at the far end of the room, respawns at the start of each month (game time)
- Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary - Babette has 2
Random & Recurring:
- Alchemist Vendors
- Apothecary's satchel (rare)
- Enemy spellcaster (rare)
- Drelas' Cottage - check the barrels
- Bolar - an alchemist in Narzulbur
- Vigilants of Stendarr (rare)
- Bard's Leap Summit - loot a hargraven (rare)
- Under Saarthal - during this quest one may be found in the apothecary's satchel under the table where the Psijic Order is first encountered
One Time Only:
- Waking Nightmare Quest - in the labatory within Nightcaller Temple
- The Black Star Quest - 3 Dremora mages you kill
- Deadric Relic Quest - Velehk Sain will drop one if killed
- Locate Reyda's Remains Quest - your reward is 3 ingredients, one of them may be a heart
- Shalidor's Maze - one can be looted off a Dremora Valkynaz after you kill it
- Forbidden Legend Quest - one can be found on the corpse of Daynas Valen
Below is a list of locations with an abundant supply for Ebony ingots:
- Gloomboound Mine (southeast of Windhelm)
- Redbelly Mine (north of Riften)
- Shrine of Mehrunes Dagon (respawn every 7 days game time)
- Top of The Throat of the World
- Shor's Stone
- Markarth's Treasury House - in a safe
- Wreck of the Brinehammer (between Dawnstar and Solitude)
Alchemy ExplainedFirst off you will need the following:
- Access to alchemy lab (can be found in alchemy shops, private studies, sometimes inns, court wizard quarters, and can be bought to be put in your house)
- Ingredients, which can be found exploring or bought at alchemy shops in any major city
All ingredients have a primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary effects. You can discover effects by either eating the ingredients or combining ingredients with other ingredients. After you find different effects of ingredients you can now combine specific ingredients to make specific potions that you may want/need. At the beginning stages though it is about exploring which ingredients do what. You can also find recipe books exploring or purchase them from merchants that will tell you how to make certain potions or poisons. To level up Alchemy simply brew potions in the alchemy lab, the more valuable the effect is the more valuable the potion is, which in return will cause you to level up quicker.
The effects below will contribute the most value to potions then others (these are in order):
- Paralysis
- Damage Magicka Regen
- Invisibility
- Slow
- Fortify Carry Weight
- Regenerate Health/Stamina/Magicka
One ingredient that must be mentioned when creating a valuable potion is the Giant's Toe. When using a Fortify Health potion the Giant's toe adds almost 5 times more to the base value of the potion. If your skill is high enough 1 potion can reach a few thousand gold. Below are recipes for the best potions to sell that include the Giant's Toe:
- Giant's Toe + Bear Claws + Hanging Moss
- Giant's Toe + Creep Cluster + Wheat
- Giant's Toe + Blue Butterfly Wing + Blue Mountain Flower
Below are the best receipes for the best potions to sell that do not include the Giant's Toe:
- Chaurus Eggs + Garlic + Vampire Dust
- Chaurus Eggs + Luna Moth Wing + Vampire Dust
- Chaurus Eggs + Luna Moth Wing +Namira's Rot
- Deathbell + Dwarven Oil + Salt Pile
- Creep Cluster + Mora Tapinella + Scaly Pholiota
If you want to "cheat" alchemy to level 100 you can also go to Whiterun, go to Arcadia's Cauldron, talk to Arcadia and have her train you in alchemy, then pickpocket your gold back. You can do this level 1-75. Then go visit Babette in the Dark Brotherhood and do the same thing 76-90. There are 5 skill books and 3 quests for Alchemy that will take you to 100.