I put together this set of instructions in a thread just a while ago, and realized it would make a decent tutorial to just stand on its own. This is the fastest way I know of to level alchemy. If anyone has any tips or tweaks that would make the method better, please let me know.


This tutorial centers around a useful web based tool called http://keke.itarium.ch/uploads/alchemy/

The URL is http://keke.itarium.ch/uploads/alchemy/

This tool lets you select all the ingredients you own, then gives you a list of the most expensive potions you can brew. As far as I know it's the best alchemy tool out there for making a profit, as it doesn't require you to figure ANYTHING out, like using one of the other tools would force you to do.

Preparation:

For the fastest leveling, you should first follow these steps:

1. Make or buy a full set of the strongest fortify alchemy gear you can get your hands on. Gloves, helmet/circlet, ring, necklace. Wearing these while brewing will make your potions more valuable and stronger, thus leveling you faster.

2. Fast travel back to the original three Guardian stones and equip the thief stone. You can change this back whenever you want. 20% faster alchemy leveling.

3. If you are married, go to your house or spouse's house and wait until late, then wait for them to lie in the bed. Now sleep in the bed to get the "lovers comfort" bonus, which grants an extra 15% leveling speed bonus to all skills.

4. If you aren't married, go to the local inn and spend 10 gold on a bed. Sleep in the bed and you will get the "well rested" bonus which will improve skill leveling speed by 10%


Procedure:

Drop your skyrim into windowed mode and load http://keke.itarium.ch/uploads/alchemy/ up on the right side of your screen. You can shrink the browser window to whatever size you need to be able to see it while skyrim is running.

To start, go to Arcadia in whiterun, and buy all the ingredients that cost less than 100 gold, and all the giants toes if she has them. If you want to wait the 48 hours to respawn the merchant's inventory, do it as many times as you want.

Now alt + tab over to your browser window, select all the ingredients you own, and click the "Show me the most profitable mixtures!" button. alt + tab back into skyrim, Create the top potion, then de-select any ingredients you have used all of, and click show potions again. Do this until Your potions are no longer coming up with a value that you're comfortable with(I stop at about 250), or you run out of ingredients.

Buy all of her ingredients except for daedra heart and void salts(they are uber expensive), Then sell all the potions you made(unless you have some useful ones you want to keep) until she runs out of gold. Now train alchemy with her, and either pickpocket your gold back, or sell more potions. You won't make a profit on your potions by training then selling, but it's a LOT faster than waiting 48 hours every time just to offload some useless potions.

If you want to keep leveling after this, wait 48 hours, buy her ingredients, sell some potions, wait 48 hours, buy her ingredients, sell your potions, and repeat until you run out of potions to sell. Then start brewing again. Don't forget to train with her every time you get a level up.



NOTES:

I recommend de-selecting Daedra Heart in the tool, and not buying it from her, unless you want to buy them to use for things later on such as the atronach forge or Daedric armor. I doubt you will make a profit brewing them into potions if you are buying them. I also usually de-select spriggan sap, as it's kinda rare and has both fortify enchanting and fortify smithing. Blisterwort and snowberries are easy as cake to get, so I hold on to my spriggan sap so I can easily make a fortify smithing or fort enchanting potion when I want.


I haven't had the privilege of doing much using Giant's toes, but Giant's toes utilizing their Fortify Health affect will make potions FAR more profitable than any other ingredient in the game, and thereby level you fastest. For reference, My first run-through with this method, I did not have any giant's toes, but I had nearly every other ingredient. I was missing probably ten ingredients total before starting. I did a grind from 41 to 63 alchemy just as a test of this method, and it took me about 1.5 hours. I did not have the lover's comfort, rested, or well rested blessing, and I was only using two alchemy items - one which fortified by 13%, and one which fortified by 17%

This is great. Thanks for sharing!

I Use Arcadia because she can train you to expert in alchemy, she has an alchemy table in her shop, and because I have personally seen her spawning Giant's toes. The downside is she only has 500 gold to play around with, making her a bad choice if you are looking for profit.

Does anyone know of any other Alchemists who meet the following criteria:

a. Spawns Giant's toes

b. Has more than 500 gold

(optional)Can provide alchemy training

(optional)Has an alchemy table available


The training ability is less important if your character is level 15 or higher, because character levels won't be coming as quickly. If you are doing this early, however, you will want to be in the same room as a trainer as traveling around to get back to a trainer will take up more of your precious leveling time.

Having an alchemy table is less important as well. You will not really be going from the merchant to the table and back very many times, as we are buying ingredients in bulk, then crafting in bulk, etc.

Giant's toe + wheat makes for a very expensive yet easy potion , i try to spam it as much as i can

However , it's still useful to do as many potions as you can with whatever ingredients at the beggining , because once you know 3 effects for all ingredients , you level up quicker and can make many different powerful combinations with a wide array of ingredients (it's more time/money efficient , since making 10 potions in one go which sell for 200 each is better than making 2 potions which sell for 500 ) , so IMHO it is still useful to "try" combinations sometimes ( potions with 3 ingredients ) at the beggining of your alchemy leveling

I don't know who spams Giant toes , but from my experience , the Hag's cure , Morthal and Fakreath's alchemists have them from time to time . the ingredients i found the most "rare" is spriggan sap for fortify smithing (and enchanting ) , fortunately glowing mushrooms can replace it for mixing with blisterwort (which is common as opposed to sabre cat tooth )

There is a good mod that fixes gold issues with vendors.

Just gives them huge quantities of gold? That's not really a fix - more of a cheat. There are perks for that in the speech tree, and One vendor who will have 10k gold every time you visit him if you are willing to spend the perk. he buys potions too.

Depending on The location of their computer to their console, Xbox and Ps3 users can benefit from this method even more than PC users, as they don't need to keep switching the window focus, which really tends to screw up the rhythm of everything. Obviously they don't have the ability to get a mod like that either.

not bad, but I find it more enjoyable to just roam the countryside and harvest blue mountain flowers, and blue butterfly wings, two of the most common items in the game (in the top 10) They are plentiful both east and west of whiterun during the day. Usually at level 1 there aren't hard mobs around, but if there are, I use giant camps to lure the mobs into and the giants kill em off, or I'll just jump off a cliff or into a river, since many of the roads follow rivers. Along the way you'll find tons of other stuff too that you can mix.

You can store stuff in barrels for days if you don't have a house. I'd go get the steed stone first thing when starting the game.

Also, the combination of Blue Butterfly Wing, Blue Mountain Flower, and Giant's toe is worth much more than a giants toe and wheat, and probably easier to get. If you can play a first person shooter, you can amass 50-100 blue butterfly wings and blue mountain flowers in not much time roaming around whiterun (staying on the main roads unless you see the butterflies off in the distance, since the developers put most of the blue mountain flowers along roads)

Then spam the vendors for giants toes if you so desire. Or if you have conjuration, just kill giants for the toes.

Thank you for the advice stockwiz , i'll try to brew this right away , i didn't know this combination

Yes, that's actually the most valuable potion in the game.

Great post!

Babette spawns giant's toes and is the master alchemy trainer (up to 90 skill) sits right next to an alchemy table, and you can store alchemy reagents close by (Don't do this until you finish the quest line!)
All alchemist's have 500 gold by default.

Are you sure? Check out these recipes from http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1301419-alchemy-100-in-10-minutes

(Giants Toe Creep Cluster Wheat) <- highest value potion
Hanging Moss Glow Mushroom Glow Dust 726
River Betty Large Antlers Giants Toe 704
River Betty Large Antlers Creep Cluster 704
Spriggans Sap Glow Mushroom Glow Dust 667
Swamp Fungal Pearl Briar Heart 657
Vampire Dust Luna Hawk Feathers 644
Vampire Dust Chaurus Egg Garlic 640
Imp Stool Briar Heart Slaughterfish Scales 634
Scaly Phot. Mora Tap. Creep Cluster 633
Spider Egg Bear Claws Canis Root 620
Hanging Moss Bear Claws Saber Eye 620
Spider Egg Canis Root Bear Claws 620
Spider Egg Canis Root Hanging Moss 620
Vampire Dust Luna Skeevers Tail 620
Nordic Barnacle Vampire Dust Chaurus Egg 619
Nordic Barnacle Vampire Dust Luna Moth 619
Namiras Rot Vampire Dust Luna Moth 619
Vampire Dust Chaurus Egg Nordic Barnacle 619
Vampire Dust Chaurus Egg Namiras Rot 619
Vampire Dust Luna Chaurus Egg 619
Vampire Dust Luna Hanging Moss 619
Vampire Dust Luna Butterfly Wing 619
Swamp Fungal Tundra Cotton Briar Heart 612
Hanging Moss Bear Claws Nordic Barnacle 591
Hanging Moss Bear Claws Namiras Rot 591
Hanging Moss Bear Claws Luna Moth 591
Hanging Moss Bear Claws Hargraven 591
Hanging Moss Bear Claws Chaurus Egg 591
Salt Pile River Betty Scaly Phot. 578
Salt Pile River Betty Creep Cluster 578
Spider Egg Glow Dust Glow Mushroom 573
Spriggans Sap Nightshade Glow Mushroom 571
Hanging Moss Glow Mushroom Nightshade 571
Salt Pile Garlic Large Antlers 567
Purple Mountain Bear Claws Hanging Moss 561
River Betty Large Antlers Whisp 551
River Betty Large Antlers Hawk Feathers 551
Scaly Phot. Mora Tap. Whisp 548
Scaly Phot. Mora Tap. River Betty 548
Scaly Phot. Mora Tap. Hawk Feathers 548
Scaly Phot. Mora Tap. Giants Toe 548
Salt Pile Jazbay River Betty 543
Salt Pile Jazbay Large Antlers 543
Salt Pile Jazbay Deathbell 543
Salt Pile River Betty Taproot 543
Salt Pile River Betty Dwarven Oil 543
Salt Pile Deathbell Taproot 543
Salt Pile Deathbell Jazbay 543
Salt Pile Deathbell Dwarven Oil 543
Dragons Tongue Fly Amantia Creep Cluster 540

You don't have to wait for them to get into the bed >.>. You get this bonus every time you sleep in your bed if you're married. Sometimes your spouse won't even go to bed anyway, like in Solitude. My housecarl and spouse just sit around all the damn time.



Oooooh, really? That doesn't sound too hard to get together. I'll have to remember that one.

Creep clusters are fairly rare. I was wondering if this was a typo, since the other poster claims the butterfly wing was the highest.

Not to hijack the thread (much), but is there any reason why you would only get the standard 10% rested bonus as opposed to the 15% if you're in the house with your spouse (no lycanthropy or lady stone)?

Blue Butterfly Wing + Blue Mountain Flower + Giant's Toe appears to be the most valuable potion in the game. I've never actually tried to make it, I just used that alchemy immersion link and started messing around. Someone should confirm if indeed this combination works in game. If so, that's by far the most easy way to level up alchemy.

Not that I know of. Maybe you slept in the guest bed by accident?

Good thought, but no. It was the only double bed in the house (Honeyside). Perhaps it's a glitch.

Yes, I'm sure. (edit:DOH!) Giant's toe + Creep cluster + Wheat is one of many worth 852, While Blue Butterfly + Blue Mountain + Giant's Toe comes in at 868.

EDIT: It looks like The Giant's Toe Anomaly calculator got this one wrong. I tested all the recipes listed as being worth 852 on the list below, and they were worth more than blue butterfly + blue mountain + giant's toe. However, out of all the ingredients listed there, these are probably the easiest to obtain in large quantities. If you plan on going Giant hunting, you will likely be able to find blue butterflies and blue mountain flowers in the same areas you are going to find the giants. Equally easy might be River betty easily gotten from streams along with wheat which is available in copious amounts from any alchemist.


Blue Butterfly Wing + Blue Mountain Flower + Giant's Toe = FortConj (75) | DamMagReg (265) | DamStam (43) | FortHp (485) | Value: 868
Bear Claws + Creep Cluster + Giant's Toe = FortHp (485) | DamStamReg (159) | FortCarry (208) | Value: 852
Blue Mountain Flower + Creep Cluster + Giant's Toe = FortHp (485) | DamStamReg (159) | FortCarry (208) | Value: 852
Creep Cluster + Giant's Toe + Glowing Mushroom = DamStamReg (159) | FortCarry (208) | FortHp (485) | Value: 852
Creep Cluster + Giant's Toe + Hanging Moss = DamStamReg (159) | FortCarry (208) | FortHp (485) | Value: 852
Creep Cluster + Giant's Toe + Wheat = DamStamReg (159) | FortCarry (208) | FortHp (485) | Value: 852
Giant's Toe + Hawk Beak + Wheat = FortCarry (208) | FortHp (485) | DamStamReg (159) | Value: 852
Giant's Toe + River Betty + Wheat = FortCarry (208) | FortHp (485) | DamStamReg (159) | Value: 852
Giant's Toe + Scaly Pholiota + Wheat = FortCarry (208) | FortHp (485) | DamStamReg (159) | Value: 852
Giant's Toe + Wheat + Wisp Wrappings = FortHp (485) | DamStamReg (159) | FortCarry (208) | Value: 852


It's very slightly lower than creep cluster + giant's toe + wheat in value, but that recipe definitely looks to be the easiest to acquire the ingredients for.

You can easily collect truckloads of creep clusters in the hot springs area in between windhelm and riften.


Poisoners will want to save River Betties for damage poisons. They have the highest magnitude and make the most powerful damage poison.

Is this because they have the lingering effect? Other than the four specific effects of an ingredient, I didn't think there was any difference between them.

Oh, Honeyside does seem pretty glitchy. Once I saved in there and reloaded and all the furniture was gone and all my books and such were just sitting on the floor and I was a sad Orc panda. I left and came back in and all my furniture came back but all my items were just on the floor underneath them.

Vendors really should have worked like in Oblivion, where they have a set amount of gold they can pay for any given item.

Interesting - Is this similar to how the Giant's toe version of Fortify life is higher than any other ingredient?

Are there any other ingredients with a "stronger" effect than others of the same effect?

Yes on both accounts. There is a discussion about this under the heading "Ingredient Strength?" at http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim_talk:Alchemy