Skyrim:Enchanting

Skill: Enchanting
Specialization: Magic

Enchanting is the ability to add magical effects to items such as weapons, armor and clothes. Increasing this skill increases the amount of charges on a weapon or the quality of the enchant on the armor. The Enchanting skill tree has a total of 9 perks, requiring a total of 13 perk points to fill.

In-game Description: The more powerful the enchanter, the stronger the magic he can bind to his weapons and armor.

Skill Perks

Enchanter

Fire Enchanter

Frost Enchanter

Storm Enchanter

Extra Effect

Insightful Enchanter

Corpus Enchanter

Soul Squeezer

Soul Siphon

Enchanting Perk Tree

Perk	Rank	Description	ID	Skill Req.	Perk Req.
Enchanter	1	New enchantments are 20% stronger.	000bee97
	2	New enchantments are 40% stronger.	000c367c	20 Enchanting
	3	New enchantments are 60% stronger.	000c367d	40 Enchanting
	4	New enchantments are 80% stronger.	000c367e	60 Enchanting
	5	New enchantments are 100% stronger.	000c367f	0 80 Enchanting
Fire Enchanter		Fire enchantments are 25% stronger.	00058f80	30 Enchanting	Enchanter
Frost Enchanter		Frost enchantments are 25% stronger.	00058f81	40 Enchanting	Fire Enchanter
Storm Enchanter		Shock enchantments are 25% stronger.	00058f82	50 Enchanting	Frost Enchanter
Insightful Enchanter		Skill enchantments are 25% stronger.	00058f7e	50 Enchanting	Enchanter
Corpus Enchanter		Health, magicka, and stamina enchantments are 25% stronger.	00058f7d	70 Enchanting	Insightful Enchanter
Extra Effect		Can put two enchantments on the same item.	00058f7f	100 Enchanting	Corpus Enchanter or Storm Enchanter
Soul Squeezer		Soul gems provide extra magicka for recharging.	00058f7c	20 Enchanting	Enchanter
Soul Siphon		Death blows to creatures, but not people, trap 5% of the victim's soul, recharging the weapon.	00108a44	40 Enchanting	Soul Squeezer

†	Specifically, this affects Fortify Health, Regenerate Health, Fortify Magicka, Regenerate Magicka, Fortify Stamina, and Regenerate Stamina.

Skill Usage

For details on available effects, see Enchanting Effects.

You Will Need

• An enchanted item from which to learn a new enchantment or an already learned enchantment.
• An item (weapon, armor, clothing, jewelry) that is not enchanted that you wish to enchant.
• A soul gem with a soul trapped in it.
• Access to an Arcane Enchanter.

To learn an enchantment

• Disenchant an enchanted item with the Arcane Enchanter to learn its enchantment permanently.
• The enchanted item is destroyed when you disenchant it.
• You will only learn the effect, the magnitude is unimportant.

To Enchant an item

1. Use an Arcane Enchanter.
2. Select the item you wish to enchant.
3. Select the enchantment you wish to apply.
4. Select the soul gem you wish to use. The level of the soul held in the gem, your skill, and whether an enchanting potion has just been quaffed all affect the amount of charges on a weapon, or the quality of the enchantment on apparel, see Effect Charges and Strength for a detailed description.
5. You may name the item if you wish
   1. Type F if you wish to name the item. Type the new name. Hit enter when finished naming it.
   2. Press the Y button to enter a name.
   3. Press the Triangle button to name it.
6. Select the Enchant option from the menu.

Notes

• If you enchant improved armor, it may appear to lose any improved rating you may have applied through smithing (the UI will show it revert to its base specs). However, after enchanting the item - the item will in fact retain any improved rating.
• You cannot place an enchantment over an existing enchantment on an item, although with the Extra Effect perk you can apply two enchantments to the same item, but the two effects must be applied at the same time. For instance, the Blade of Whiterun cannot be enchanted with a second effect because it is already enchanted.
• Dual-enchanting an item with the Extra Effect perk only requires a single soul gem, and both enchantments are as powerful as either one would be on its own (i.e, the strength of the soul is not split between the two enchantments).
• The soul gem is destroyed unless you use The Black Star or Azura's Star
• Elemental enchantment strength on weapons is enhanced by your Destruction School bonuses. For example, the Augmented Flames perk will increase a fire enchanted weapon's damage, as will a Fortify Destruction potion.
• Enchanted apparel that reduces spell cost also decreases the total charge needed to use an enchanted weapon of that same school. It is possible to have infinite uses of an enchanted weapon while wearing the correctly corresponding enchanted apparel.
• The highest value enchantments for increasing the value of unenchanted items for resale when using Petty souls are Banish for weapons, Fortify Block for shield, Fortify Destruction for armor and clothing, Waterbreathing for headgear and jewelry and Fortify sneak for footwear (This may change depending on perks.^{[verification needed — see talk page]})
• If enchanting for profit, keep in mind the actual value of the increase is additive and not multiplicative, so the value (in gold) that enchanting adds is same regardless of the value of the item being enchanted. For example, enchanting an Iron Longsword with Turn Undead using a Grand Soul and all perks will result in a sword with the value of 513 (vs. the base price of 25), while an Orcish Bow enchanted with the exact same enchantment and under the same conditions will yield a new value of 638 (vs. the base price of 150). The price increases by 488 gold in both cases. Due to the way barter works in the game, it is more beneficial to enchant lower-value items for the purpose of resale.

Optimizing

When getting into end-game situations, or simply wishing to maximize your damage outputs, one can use Enchanting, Alchemy, and Smithing to do incredible things for both melee and ranged users.

1. Get enchanting, alchemy, and smithing to 100. Smithing is the easiest to power-level (before patch 1.5), with enchanting close behind. Use your 5 training sessions on Alchemy, as it takes the longest. If you can, grab any necessary smithing perks for your armor/weapon choices. If you have the perks to spend, grab all levels of the pure power perks (the first one) for alchemy and enchanting, and the insightful enchanter perk.
2. Buy or make a bunch of cheap sets of clothes or armor of any kind for: Hands, Feet, Body, Necklace, Ring, and helm.
3. Stock up on Grand Souls and certain ingredients by any means necessary.
   1. Ingredients for Fortify Enchanting (Choose any two of the four): Blue Butterfly Wing, Hagraven's Claw, Snowberries, and Spriggan Sap.
   2. Ingredients for Fortify Smithing (Choose any two of the four): Blisterwort, Glowing Mushroom, Sabre Cat Tooth and Spriggan Sap.
   3. Ingredients for Fortify Restoration (if you want to use the stackable Restoration 'glitch') (Choose any two of the five): Abecean Longfin, Cyrodilic Spadetail, Salt Pile, Small Antlers and Small Pearl
4. Make sure you know the enchanting effects you want on your final armor, as well as Fortify Alchemy and Fortify Smithing
5. At the Arcane Enchanter enchant one full set of Fortify Alchemy apparel. A set of alchemy apparel will have one item for head, neck, arm and hand. e.g. Circlet, necklace, bracers, and ring. (Alternatively, if you don't mind using the Falmer helmet glitch, you can wear one together with the mask Krosis or an alchemy enchanted circlet, giving you five alchemy buff slots instead of four.)
6. Then, wear the alchemy clothes, and verify using Active Effects that the enchanting effects are active. There seems to be a bug where sometimes enchanted items' effects are not active upon wearing. To correct just remove and then re-equip enchanted items. (At this point, you can also use the Fortify Restoration exploit, see notes below).
7. Now make some Fortify Enchanting potions using combinations of: Blue Butterfly Wings, Hagraven's Claws, Snowberries, and the Spriggan sap. Alternatively, there are two respawning Enchanter's Philters in the Archmage's Quarters at the College of Winterhold; these increase the strength of enchantments by 20% for 60 seconds.
8. At the enchanter, drink the strongest enchanting potion you made or found, and enchant a new set of items with Fortify Alchemy.
9. This works twice, but after two iterations the Fortify Enchanting potion will not increase the item's enchantment strength (xbox tested). You can also drink 'Fortify Restoration' potions and re-equip each set of Alchemy clothes before you make the next round of potions.
10. Make some final Fortify Enchanting potions, and some Fortify Smithing potions (using Blisterwort, Glowing Mushrooms, Sabre Cat Tooth, and Spriggan Sap) to get your enchanting back up to max, and enchant your chosen weapons and armor as you please.
11. Also, at the enchanter (and while your enchant potion is on) enchant a final set of cheap items with Fortify Smithing. Then, head to a smithy with a grindstone and workbench.
12. Finally, wear your smithing items and equip the Notched Pickaxe, drink your smithing potion, and improve any weapons and armor you have. You will, of course, need materials to do it, but most should be fairly easy to come by. You will probably reach the armor cap with any armor you're wearing, and increase your weapons to massive heights (more than 500), especially with any offensive skill enchants.

Notes on optimizing enchanting:

• You can use these methods to increase your stats at any point, for any skill level, using this same method. However, you will benefit even more at higher levels, and should focus on leveling it, and your other skills up, before optimizing.
• Even more powerful enchantments can be achieved by using an exploit connected to Fortify Restoration potions. The potions will increase any Restoration effect on an item, including Fortify Skill enchantments, and, due to a coding glitch, this effect of Restoration Potions, whether intended or not, stacks. By taking a Fortify Restoration potion prior to equipping Fortify Alchemy and Fortify Smithing items (or by taking several Fortify Restoration potions, since this exploit works on potions as well) you can increase the Fortify Smithing and Fortify Alchemy enchantment strength on items. Because the effect stacks with each potion taken (by un-equipping and reequipping the apparel after each potion taken), you can increase these enchantments exponentially and make exponentially more powerful Fortify Enchant potions with the Fortify Alchemy apparel.

Tips on Soul Gems

• If a soul gem gets filled with a wrong type of soul, e.g. Grand Soul Gem (Petty), it can be emptied and reused by simply dropping it on the ground and picking it up.

• Your follower can act as your "soul harvester" if you give him/her a Soul Trap/Fiery Soul Trap enchanted weapon, and empty soul gems.
  • Note that many followers are bugged so that they will continue to use their low quality default bow instead of the one you gave them that would trap souls. See the Followers article for more information on this.

Skill Increases

Character Creation

The following races have an initial skill bonus in Enchanting:

• +5 bonus: Altmer, Imperial, Orc

Trainers

• Sergius Turrianus in the College of Winterhold (Expert)
• Hamal in Markarth (Master)

Skill Books

• Catalogue of Armor Enchantments
• Catalogue of Weapon Enchantments
• Enchanter's Primer
• A Tragedy in Black
• Twin Secrets

Free Skill Boosts

• +1 Enchanting reward (and other magic skills) from Pantea Ateia (Bards College) for completing the quest Pantea's Flute.
• +5 to Enchanting (and other Magic skills) by selecting "The Path of Magic" when reading the Oghma Infinium after completing the quest Discerning the Transmundane.

Gaining Skill XP

• Crafting enchanted items gives the biggest overall skill increases. The increase is a flat number per item.
• Disenchanting items gives widely varied skill increases, dependent on the effect learned and the magnitude on the item, with apparel effects generally giving larger increases than weapon effects. The base value of the destroyed item is irrelevant. However, only one item per effect may be ever disenchanted.
• Recharging enchanted weapons using Soul Gems gives small to moderate skill increases, based on the size of the soul used. It does not matter how many charges there are left on the weapon. Using The Black Star and a Weapon with Soul Trap effect, you can train by recharging the weapon after every kill without having to worry about soul gems.

The best way to level up Enchanting quickly is by disenchanting items - the more powerful the better - but will only get you so far. After that, you will have to advance by crafting items: acquire a huge amount of filled soul gems of any size and the same amount of unenchanted weapons (preferably the daggers from leveling Smithing). Enchant all of them with the most expensive enchantment you know (Banish if available, Absorb Health or Damage Stamina otherwise). Max out the Enchanter Perk as soon as new ranks become available. Don't forget to use The Mage Stone and the best Sleeping bonus available to you. If you leveled Alchemy before Enchanting (not recommended) use Fortify Enchanting potions. As a bonus, selling the enchanted weapons will most likely make all the money you'll ever need.

Achievements

One achievement is related to enchanting:

• Artificer (10 points/Bronze) — Make a smithed item, an enchanted item, and a potion
  • Disenchanting an item counts as making "an enchanted item".

Notes

• The Insightful Enchanter perk also affects new enchantments on clothing and jewelry, despite specifying armor in the description.

• The Fire, Frost, Storm, Insightful and Corpus Enchanter perks, as well as the Extra Effect perk, will not change existing enchantments, despite the description differing from the base Enchanter perk. This means you will need to plan your enchantments carefully, or be prepared to be craft or acquire new pieces of armor, clothing, or weapons as you increase your enchanting skill.

• The Fire/Frost/Storm Enchanter Perks increase the value of your Fire/Frost/Shock Resistance enchants though even if you have all three perks, the value of Magic Resistance Enchant (general Magic Resistance, not from a particular school) will not increase.

• The magical effects available for enchanting are not related to the spells that you have learned. This allows the enchanting skill to be independent of the other magical skills.

• It is possible with enchanting to cast spells without using magicka. This can be done by wearing multiple pieces of armor/jewelry with multiple enchantments that reduce spell cost of a certain school with a combined total of 100% (or greater, though this has no effect beyond 100).

• Items with enchantments that reduce the magicka cost of spells will also affect charge levels on weapons associated with that school of magic; for example, with Armor, Helmet, Ring and Amulet all enchanted with at least -25% Skill Cost in Destruction, Chillrend will have infinite charge.

• The destruction perks that increase elemental damage directly affect elemental enchants on weapons, also the effect is applied a second time when adding a second enchant. With all relevant enchant perks combined with destruction perks fire +50%, and shock +50%, and a store bought +25% to enchant elixir you are able to create weapons with 78 fire and 78 shock damage. Similarly, illusion enchantments are increased by Vampirism's 25% to illusion magic. This also stacks with the destruction perks if you make a Fire/Fear or similar weapon.

• A potion that increases destruction magic by X% will increase fire, shock and frost enchantments by the same percent.

• Other destruction perks that activate on elemental damage (such as Intense Flames) do not activate from elemental damage enchants on weapons.

• Enchanting a stolen item does not remove the stolen flag, as unlike in Oblivion and Morrowind creating an enchanted item does not actually create a new copy of the weapon.

• For an easy way to level Enchanting, get Azura's Star and an enchanted weapon. Recharge your weapon after every enemy and you can gain a level every other kill.

• Learning new enchantments increases the skill, Apparel Effects at a much higher rate than Weapon Effects.

• Learning all available effects while having the Mage Stone and the Lover's Comfort bonus will increase your skill from 15 to 59.

• If your enchanting skill is somewhat high, some guards will say, "Don't suppose you'd enchant my sword? Dull old blade can barely cut butter."

• Unlike in Oblivion, one is unable to apply a harmful enchantment to a piece of armor; therefore, a player cannot kill themselves or in-game NPCs via that method.

• Vampire players receive an additional 25% increase to the strength of any enchantment when the player has the Necromage perk. The added strength of the enchantment will show up on the player's "Active Effects" list.

Bugs

• Renaming - There is a bug that will remove the game's ability to recognize keystrokes from your keyboard when renaming an item you intend to enchant. It appears to occur when using the mouse during the process, so try to use only the arrow keys and [enter] to name your items. (PC)

• Renaming - Renamed enchanted weapons (of the same type) that share the same effects but with different names, will be named the same if you un-equip both.

• Sometimes enchanting a new item that shares the effects with an enchanted item in your inventory, will cause the item just enchanted to duplicate itself. This means you get two items, so you can sell one or give it to a follower.

• When enchanting items, the value of each item decreases as your enchanting level rises (as stated above). It is unknown whether this is a bug or an intended game mechanic. There are two fixes:

1. Save, quit, and then reload your game after mass enchanting. The item value should rise and now reflect their true value. ^{[verification needed — Conflicting reports.]}
2. Go to the Enchanter, select any soul gem, and select the same enchantment (if it's a weapon enchantment select the same strength/number of charges). There is no need to actually craft an item - just exit enchanting and the value is restored.

• If one disenchants Amulet of Mara or The Bond of Matrimony (items required for marriage or received as a reward after you get married), you will have an enchantment called Blessing of Mara (restoration spells cost 10% less, which is better than the normal one of 8%), but it seems there is no item on which this enchantment can be placed.

• The following can be disenchanted, but does not go on any item; Linwe's Armor - Shadowthrive (Increases your stamina by 15 points), Linwe's Boots - Shadowstrength (Sneaking is 15% better), Linwe's Hood - Shadowsight (Bows do 15% more damage), Linwe's Gloves - Shadowstrike (One-handed attacks do 15% more damage).

• Disenchanting Necromancers Robes give the Fortify Magicka effect instead of Fortify Magicka Regen effect.

• The Fortify 'Magic School' plus Magicka Regeneration enchant always gives 10% regeneration, instead of scaling with level or soul gem.

• The Fortify 'Magic School' plus Magicka Regeneration enchant when learned, sometimes does not allow you to learn the single fortify 'Magic School' enchant, so you will not be able to enchant head, rings, amulets with fortify 'Magic School'.

• If you enter an Arcane Enchanter in sneak mode when you exit you will no longer be sneaking but you will still be as low to the ground and slow moving as if you were still sneaking. This can be fixed by simply entering and exiting sneak mode.