I have a Wood Elf and use Bows exclusively. I am leveling up my Enchanting and do not use magic at all. What is the best way for me to trap souls without casting the spell? By best I mean easiest without having to swap to a crappy weapon to last hit kill things to trap their souls. I plan on Enchanting my Bow with Fiery Soul Trap maxed out to have 1000 charges, but I am concerned that I will kill things BEFORE the Soul Trap effect is applied. I kill virtually everything in a hit, so I am not use if I need to use a weaker weapon to apply the effect then swap to my primary bow to kill the target? Any help is appreciated. My Enchanting is ~70 from just disenchanting however I have yet to find a Soul Trap weapon

If you have soul trap effect on a weapon it will trap the souls of mobs you one-shot.

There are only two ways to do it, cast the spell or put it on your weapon. If you don't want to do one, then it's the other. There are some weapons that already have it on there, Mace of Molag Bal comes to mind. Pretty grim quest required to get it though.

if you one shot things with a bow it still soul traps

its not like you need two hits one to apply the effect and one to trap the things soul.

i farmed mudcrabs, wolves and deer and the like one shotting them with a soultrapping bow.

tbh though im really leaning towards the conjured weapon for general soul trappings in a future build.

3 point spend at you always have them at hand, they do the same dmg as draenic and dont take up bag space.

You haven't found a Soul Trap weapon yet? Really? I find them all the time. You'll get one, don't worry. As for you main concern, you can't kill something too fast to soul trap it. In fact, one hits are better. Just make a soul trap weapon that only lats a second and you'll get more charges out of it.

Give a Soul Trap bow, some arrows and some soul gems to Lydia and then just take the loaded gems after she fills them. With me also doing it, we're not having a problem keeping our weapons charged.

The Khajiit who camps outside Whiterun has soul-trap weapons at times.

Or just buy soul trapped gems with the obscene amounts of cash you're rolling in at lvl 40.

This is the best way. There is a glitch that involves putting stacks of soul gems in your followers' inventory. If they manage to get the kill and soul trap the target, it will fill the entire stack at once.

I keep a soul trap enchantment on my L hand/off hand weapon. I only use the dual weapons periodically when I want to stock up on filled gems. I end up with more than I know what to do with in a matter of minutes.

Craft a bow that applies Soul Trap if the target dies within 1 second. That's all you really need, and you can use it for a very long time with the 1 second rule. Why 1 second? Because you aren't going to really be doing damage over time with a bow. You will usually be 1 shotting enemies to begin with.

Thanks for the replies.

Easiest way.

Enchant a sword with Soul Trap for 2 seconds, will give you a lot of charges if you use a high leveled soul gem (Grand for example).

This way, it'll save a lot of charges, and will still have the same effect.

To be able to enchant something with Soul Trap, you had to have Disenchant an item that had soul trap to learn the enchantment. I am finding VERY few enchanted items in my few dungeon crawls - and never one with soul trap on it. Where did you find such an item?

This ^^

Soul trap effect on a weapon is by far the easiest method

I find them all over. Also check merchants. Your mage merchants tend to carry soul trap items.

I get most of mine via a dagger with a 1 second soul trap enchant, that's all you need if you're getting a one shot sneak attack kill, and at that enchantment strength the charge lasts forever. I also buy filled grand soul gems from vendors almost every time I see them - the vendors usually don't have enough cash to buy all the loot I'm carrying, so buying a couple soul gems at 600 to 1100 gold each lets me offload a lot more stuff in exchange for something pretty useful (course now I have two dozen of them sitting in a cabinet somewhere, but better safe than sorry.)

I carried steel dagger with soultrap enchantment. In battles I made my enemies almost dead with a battle axe and then during bleeding damage I hit them with the dagger.

This is exactly what I did. Realized that mob was dying quickly so I cranked down the duration of the soul svck to increase the number of charges. Much better way to do it, dont need nearly as many SGs. Also, I am well geared for the most part, having made much of my own gear, I carry 2 swords. My main sword is unenchanted, just well crafted. It never runs out of a charge.=P And for the big tough fights I have the same wep with chants on it to boost dps when needed.

And since the SGs weigh half a pound each!!!!, alot of my carryweight issues went away!

My assassin rolls around with ghostblade, mehrune's razor, my special RP-friendly Blackmyst family heirloom dagger and a simple ebony dagger enchanted with Soul Trap for when I need to harvest some black souls. 1 second is all you need, gets you like 1500 charges.

My Bound Battleaxe does a pretty sweet job.