What is your way to level up enchanting?

How do you come to filled soul gems?

My personal way is to buy empty soul gems and then use bound weapons to trap souls.

That means the usage of the bound-sword until my char can buy the bound-bow.

About the bound-sword:

In combination with casting calm on a wolf and then sneak-attack him, sneaking levels fast.

In combination with casting fear on a mud-crab and then hunt it, one-handed levels moderate.

About the bound-bow:

Mammoth have grand souls. So, look out for a Mammoth and a place the Mammoth can not reach. Make sure there is no Frost-Troll or Bandit-Group.

Shout from the place at the Mammoth. Cast an atronach within your shooting-range, so the Mammoth have something to fight and will not just run away.

Only problem with this:

If enchanting is at 100, and all the perks in the middle-tree are used, it is possible to create an outfit with healing- and destruction-costs lowered to zero.

Then, my char could go throw dungeons, casting with one hand a ward and destruction with the other...

... but that would be pretty stupid for someone with no skill in destruction, but a lot of skill in sneaking and bow-damage.

So, what do you do? And how does this work with your build?

Does anybody play a dark vigilant? So, using an outfit like the Vigilants of Standar, just with the Mace of Molag?

Just a regular weapon with Soul Trap/Fiery Soul Trap. Its got to be one of the easiest things to level up I got to 100 before I knew it. And I don't kill mammoths if I want a grand sould I go killl a dragon priest or one of the tougher draugr. Or use the Black Star, Azura be damned.

Its certainly possible to reduce magicka cost to zero it requires four enchantments on four separate items though which could be useful if you're looking for a battlemage type build instead of the usual ultra-squishy type I guess.

Only my mage character use Enchanting and she's working her Atronach/Draemora Lord to the death to fill her soul gems.

I never buy soul gems, only what i can find (there are some free to pick soul gems at the Collage).

PS: I forgot to mention Soul Cairn, the amount of soul gems you find there is absurd. https://youtu.be/e-44qWaLW-M?t=10448 an example of such a journey.

I tend to use the Azura's Star / Fiery Soul Trap combination, recharging every time I capture one. The enchantment stays on the original weapon if it suits the character, or else is moved to whatever they prefer. Azura's is not the black variety, as I find enough empty black soul gems for the few times I want to enchant something special.

Buy empty soul gems, hunt wolves/mudcrabs/drauger (not poor harmless mammoths). fill with bound sword/bow. Mine for iron/gems. Transform to silver. Smith jeweled rings/pendants. Enchant the jewelry and sell to buy soul gems. Repeat.

If I find a filled grand soul gem I enchant a ring/pendant with resist element or magic and keep the current strongest one I have and sell the lower powered one. Jewelry is light. I can carry one of each type of resist and change as needed. Armor gets fortify whatever.

I must be the only one to buy filled soul gems. I buy every petty and lesser soul gem I come across. I'll even buy common soul gems, if I've still got stuff to sell and the vendor is broke. Money is too easy to acquire so I never worry about it.


Then I spam enchantments on whatever I have. Sell it. And continue adventuring.

You are just the first one who tells about it here.

But what is your way of making that much money? A high speek-skill? Alchemy? Enough stamina to carry every peace of armor you find (on the death bodies of your former enemies)? Connections to the Thieves-Guild? Or just a very high level?

I do too. Especially because manually filled soul gems of certain values are ... broken. They don't stack up like other objects do so you may find yourself carrying 118 separate soul gems that have to be deposited individually.

Prowler's Profit (a perk from a Thieves' Guild side quest) will have you swimming in gems in no time. Plus, once you're at a sufficiently high level, Draugr drop lots of Ebony weapons that will clear a merchant out like nobody's business.

Also, if you want to make money enchanting, I'd forgo enchanting jewelry and enchant iron daggers with Banish if you have it. It's a very valuable enchantment and sells very well.

Find something with fortify sneak and turn thousands of 50 bucks silver rings into 900 bucks sneaky rings using small gems. I don′t think I′ve ever bought a soul gem, soul trap is nice to level armor and conjuration, or I just use a secondary weapon of my main type to trap souls.

I just disenchant and recharge stuff usually though.

When I play a character that does enchanting, I first start looking in all merchant's inventories for "Waterbreathing" items starting at level 10 and also stash away all of my jewelry loot. If I happen to find one (about 3 out of every 10 enchanting characters), I can then create cheap (soul gem cost-wise) waterbreathing items: rings, necklaces, and circlets. They all just cost a petty soul gem, since there is no variables to it. I think there may be one or two items that have "muffle" on them, but I can never seem to find tham

Now, with armor and clothing mods, enchating can get out of hand, quickly. Many mods add enchantable pieces. My favorite armor mod (Ashara Princess of the Woods) adds belts, armbands, and knife holders along with separate upper and lower body armors. Add enchantable cloaks to the mix, and one can get "overly enchanted"

I think muffle can only be put on boots, and it's a pretty rare enchantment, although I got it in Bleak Falls Barrow on my first character. But Waterbreathing, Disease Resistance, and Poison Resistance are all hard to find too because they're part of the same loot list, so once you graduate to one it becomes next to impossible to get the next. I try and hold off on leveling until I have an ample treasury, then go to the shop in Solitude and keep trying to get the right stuff again and again.

I buy both empty and filled lesser and petty soul gems. Usually using a soul trap spell when I come across wolves, mudcrabs, or sabre cats. While dungeon crawling during quests I usually pick up any daggers I find and wind up enchanting damage stamina on them. Easy, fast money. Later levels I use banish daedra on the daggers.

For the protocol:

At level 1, every drauge-boss has an weapon with the frost-damage-enchantment.

You can buy weapons with the stamina-damage-enchantment and turn-undeath-enchantment. This two brings the same value which is higher then other available enchantments.

Then comes the absorb-health-enchantment, topped by paralysis and then banish.

With a very low enchanting-skill and a very less soul, banish may bring less money than paralysis. But with an average or high skill, banish brings so much more money, that it feels like a bug.

Waterbreathing and muffle are just there, so the value of the used soul and the enchanters skill does not matter much.

As far as I remember, Sneak and Fortify-Carry-Wight are the most valuable enchantments, if a big enough soul is available.

Interesting here:

In Whiterun, there is Adrianne and her husband, the owner of the drunken-hundsman and of course Eorlund Gray-Mane, who are buying enchanted weapons.

In the Collage Of Winterhold, there are no smiths, but a lot of mages who are buying enchanted closes and jewels.

So, I'm making now suggestions, based of your preferred kind of enchanting, where you let your enchanters live.

If one thing I'm mistaken him, please tell.

Thanks to AIBQuirky for mentioning the armor mod. I've not noticed it before, but installed it now.

Cloaks Of Skyrim and Arise-The-Black-Sacrament do add dis-enchantable gear. Surly, a lot of other mods do too.

Many mods do add pieces of armor that allows to wear more enchanted pieces of armor.

Even Become a Bard gives you the enchantable Wanderer-Lute.

I see enchanting as a skill that benefits my character after level 15 or so. That said, I spend my first 15 or so levels on my build and disenchant just about anything I get my hands on. By then I will have a house or some place to go and with an enchanting table, stored soul gems, and equipment I found or made. I also think its important to have the improve enchanted armor perk before I start enchanting. Also by then I will have plenty of septims to purchase enchanting training. [Side note: I never thought training should go towards leveling ...]

Another reason to wait is that the higher level you are the more likely you are to be able to fill grand/black soul gems. IMHO its a waste of time to use any other type of soul gems for enchanting. Mammoths are one way to fill grand gems but you can also fill them with falmer shadowmasters ... which is really ... interesting... Anyhow, the Dawnguard DLC -- as mentioned above -- produces many gems and shadowmasters ... I walked away from the glacial crevasse with 75 filled grand soul gems. That is more than enough to go nuts enchanting. Black soul gems are easy, of course, all you need to do is drop a bandit or other bad humanoid. I combine this with buying them and it's worked really well for me. Usually I do not have enough septims to buy all the grand gems I can so I often trade for them. Of course Azura's star is a must. I think I made the white one once.. but once i made the black star I never went back.

One exception to my 15th level mark is a bow enchanted with soul trap. This is my go-to way of filling gems and I make or find one of these as soon as I am able. I don't see the point of spending a perk for bound weapons when I can enchant one. I created many characters and usually I can find a hunting bow with soultrap on it on the roof of the Bloodlet Throne. It's not always there but most time it is.

-- AIBQuirky: LOVE the nod to BG! I might dig up the Minsk portrait and use that for my profile pic.