Skyrim Enchanting Guide

How to enchant items in Elder Scrolls V Skyrim.


Skyrim Enchanting is used to integrate your items (weapons) with special magical skills; they will increase the properties/skills of your items so their powers will last longer and more effectively.

For more help on Skyrim, you can read our Blacksmithing, Alchemy and Tanning Guide.

Skyrim Enchanting

Enchantment is a crucial skill in Skyrim that helps you get the best out of each item you use. You can learn this skill in one of two ways; by enchanting an item yourself or disenchanting an already enchanted item to learn the skill passively.

Sergius Turrianus; an Expert Enchanting Trainer, found at The College of Winterhold might be of some assistance

How To Enchant Items
You can simply disenchant an enchanted item by accessing any Arcane Enchanter, and you will memorize the skill. The item which you will disenchant is destroyed.

Requirements

  • You must already know an enchantment skill or have an item to test on.
  • The item which you wish to enchanted (un-enchanted item)
  • A Soul Gem. Petty, Lesser, Common, Great and Grand; these are the soul gem sizes. Each holds souls proportional to its described room. The Human souls which are equivalent to grand souls can only be captured in black gems. You can find a soul gem in the Whiterun Castle in Farengar Secret-Fire’s room near the throne. You can also recharge your weapons using soul gems.
  • Souls to fill the soul gem. Souls come in all shapes and sizes as all the creatures in Skyrim. Each soul has a particular area it takes up in the gem. Stronger souls, allow you to cast higher level enchantments and make you enchantments stronger.

How To

  • Access an Arcane Enchanter and select the item you want to enchant.
  • Select the enchantment type.
  • The quality of the weapon or the enchanted item is dependent on your enchanting skills and the type of soul gem you use. So choose the gem wisely and proceed.
  • You can name your item now.

To fill a Soul Gem with Souls, you must have the soul trap enchantment casted on your weapon when you kill a creature whose soul you want to capture. You may also use soul trap spell for this purpose; you can get it from Dragonsreach in Whiterun at Farengar Secret-Fire.

To Level Up your Enchantment Skill, you must gain more and more enchanting experience. You can do this by casting higher level enchantments that requires stronger gems as they reward greater XP. Or you can disenchant items as that grants XP as well. You can also gain it by recharging your weapons using soul gems.

What To Consider When Enchanting

  • The armor rating is shown as default (not improved if you have via smithing) while enchanting but it is added up after you enchant an item.
  • Use the Extra Effect perk to dual enchant an item with only one gem.
  • The Black Star and the Azura’s Star are not destroyed by enchanting.
  • Artificer is an achievement which requires Enchanting.
  • You may want to use a Fortify Enchantment Potion to boost your enchants

Enchanting Perks

Enchanter
The enchantments newly made will be 20% stronger from learning each skill mentioned below.

Soul Squeezer (Level 20)
The soul gems will provide more recharging Magicka.

Fire Enchanter (30 LEVEL)
The fire damage due to this enchantment deals damage over time. Works on your weapons and armor by +25%.

Frost Enchanter (40 LEVEL)
The frost damage reduces stamina and health. The enchantment works 25% stronger on weapons and armor.

Soul Siphon (Level 40)
With this enchantment, the weapon is recharged by a bit whenever you kill a beast or some other creature (not humans). This is turn saves recharge cost of weapon and make them last longer before every recharge.

Storm Enchanter (50 LEVEL)
The shock damage dealt because of this enchantment reduces Magicka and health. It works 25% stronger on weapons and armor.

Insightful Enchanter (50)
The skill enchantments on the armor are stronger by 25%.

Corpus Enchanter (LEVEL 70)
The enchantments (Health, Magicka, Stamina) on the armor are 25% stronger.

Soul Squeezer (Level 20)
The soul gems will provide more recharging magicka.

Soul Siphon (Level 40)

Tips

Enchanting will help you grab lots of gold and make your medium ranged weapons do a massive amount of damage. The base of melee and ranged weapons can be altered, also the rate of your mana/health regeneration.

You could go to the College of Winterhold and buy weapons/armor/gems from the Destruction trainer there, enchant them and then sell them to make a profit. You can repeat the process to earn more and increase your level.

Soul Harvester
You can get your followers to act as a soul harvester for you. Give your follower any sort of a Soul Trap and empty gems.

How To Empty A Filled Gem
If you accidently fill a gem with a wrong type of soul then you can simply empty it by dropping it and then grabbing it again.

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Ali is a passionate RPG gamer. He believes that western RPGs still have a lot to learn from JRPGs. He is editor-in-chief at SegmentNext.com but that doesn't stop him from writing about his favorite video ...