Without cheating? Doubt that.

Alchemy XP is awarded based on the value of the potion created. The only way you could get to 100 in less than an hour would be if you put on a bunch of Fortify Alchemy gear and then did the Fortify Restoraton potion loop, and started making potions worth TONS of gold.

I know this because I've been grinding Alchemy hardcoe lately (without using the cheat) by buying ALL of each alchemist's ingredients, using their alchemy table, and then selling the potions back to them. I've done this a good 15 times over th course of FIVE HOURS and I'm only to an Alchemy skill of 57. I've also spent hours looking for Paralysis, Slow, Invisibility, and Damage Magicka Regen ingredients because those potions get me the most XP... Finding the ingredients alone is time consuming.

If you just collect tons of the really common ingredients, like Mountain Flowers, then the potions won't give very much XP and your Alchemy starts to level very slowly.

I do alchemy as hobby in late game instead of early. And as a habit I gather alchemy ingredients and save them at home. So at some point when I decide to level up alchemy in late game, I can do it in one sitting, because I have tons of ingredients I have collected over the course of the game. I would have 500 chaurus eggs, 300 blue mountain flowers, 100 wheat, 50 giant toes, 200 luna moth wings, etc.

I agree.

Here's some ideas:

- Find or purchase schematics for weapon and armor types before making them.

- Pay a Blacksmith to teach you how to make them.

- Before leveled armor starts to show up in dungeons, broken pieces could be found... You could then "study"
the pieces, to learn how to make each one. And only when you've studied all the pieces can you make the armor.

- Melt down Items at the smelter (there's a mod for this actually).

- Allow for armor permutations. This would be AWESOME!
When you made a set of armor you could choose from one or more "base" styles, and then:
.... add pauldrons (left, right, none, both)
.... Choose either grieves or skirt (yes it's really called a skirt)
.... add ornamentation (horn, fur, skull, satchel, belt, etc.)
.... finish (polished, unpolished, high polish, painted)

I make a lot more silver ores with transmute spell than gold ores, because my aim is to use up all the gems that I collect in smithing.

Can anyone quantify the smithing changes in 1.5? I assume the XP formulas on the UESP leveling page are for 1.5, but what were they before?

Item value was not part of the equation. Making an iron dagger gave you same experience as making a daedric armor. And it was a very flat experience curve. You did not have to make that many more iron daggers to go from 99 to 100.

Before 1.5, you needed to make about 400 iron daggers to get to 100, after 1.5 you need to make about 2400 iron daggers. Making iron daggers is not considered most efficient way anymore. People make jewelry, steel plate armors, and concentrate more on improving high value items.

It's not so bad for me. I make leather armor and iron helmets from the stuff i gather hunting and mining and my smithing goes up fine.

I'm still on the fence on this one.

My current character is a Nord, and I upgrade all my armor/weapon loot before selling it, but my skill is still just under 30. At this rate it will take me forever to make better armor. Course once I can make better armor my skill can increase faster. The alternative, making jewelry, seems more like a glitch to me than the old way the Smithing skill increased. Just trying to image my big burly Nord standing at that large stone forge making little golden rings to increase his skill ... just ... no.

Its still skill in working metal

I know exactly what you mean! before i would grind just a bit to go up like 2 levels to make better armor for the simple fact that I make my own armor and weapons, so when i'm wearing orcish against glass... then i've got a problem here, so i would just power level to catch up then go back to making what i need. now it's harder.

But I know some jewelry smiths, and none of them can make an Iron Broadsword. It is just a totally different skill. In fact most the work in jewelry is with cold metal, you just hammer, bend, twist it into shape. Very little actually heat is used, just to solder some points. It is a completely different skill set between making jewelry and heavy weapons and armor.

To be honest, I'm surprised we were even given the option to make jewelry, especially considering all that you find in loot. Also consider the fact that you can't even make all the things that you can find in loot, what's up with that. Why give us the option to make some kinds of jewelry and not let us make others, granted they would have to give us copper ingots and etc., which just more strongly makes me wonder why we can make it at all. And now, after the Smithing skill change, it's like a glitch to level Smithing.

I actually love it the way it is now. It actually forces you to keep and use loot/armor that you come across and have to rely solely on that.

If you're having trouble increase it do this:

1. Warrior Stone+Well Rested

Having both of these active while Smithing will give you 30% faster increase.

2. Jewelry and Helmets

There's a misc. quest you can get from Palvo? at the Left Hand Mine near Markarth. He wants you to go clear Forsworn from the Kolskeggr Mine. This mine will grant you ALOT of gold ore/ingots to use for making Jewelry. So holdon to any garnets, amethysts, etc. with your life. Trust me Jewelry is the easiest way to get the skill to go up. Other than that, Leather Helmets. Requires the least materials to make and usually I can spam around 20 in each go.

My Smithing isn't even near 50 yet and I'm LV25. Used Imperial Armor (full set), then used a Dwarven set, now I upgrade to Steel Plate cause I finally found them. IDK for sure if I'll even get the Smithin Perks besides Steel/Arcane Smith. There's just too much more stuff I want to focus on.

That's a great implement, why? Because now every character you make won't have the whole Smithing tree perked out. Every character shouldn't be like that anyway..

Again, I LOVE Smithing now.

Don't forget you can also take the Lexicon back home for an always on increase in learning rate as well.

Personally I like buying up iron ore transmuting it to gold and creating jewelry. Too easy once you have a ton of gems to use.

Eolund Gray-Mane makes "shiny trinkets for your laaay-dee" out of his forge.

Not so sure it is a totally different skill
Nowadays yes but from what I've read of pre-modern Europe you'd be lucky to find anyone worthy of the name of jeweller outside Rome or Constantinople (excepting the Arab lands). So who'd you go to in Celtic Britain or medeval Germany to make you some jewellery. At least the swordsmith would have some experience in adding decoration to weapons.

I like having the ability to craft items, but I hate the limited number of perks they give us.

...harder? They didn't make it harder, they improved it. Stuff that's worth more is worth better XP now.

This is especially better for "those that don't grind". Because now they have more reason to make all the varied things that they want to, instead of thinking "gee, cheap dagger = same gain as that nice Orcish Cuirass I wanted to craft".


(And it's still easily possible to grind efficiently. Just need to take a moment to stare at the recipes and find new "best" ones to make, rather than just DerpIronDagger....)

Nope, i like it the way it is now ...

This is not true in vanilla Skyrim. The Ancient Knowledge perk doesn't do what the in-game description says it does.