Enchanting (Skyrim)

The more powerful the enchanter, the stronger the magic he can bind to his weapons and armor.

Enchanting is a skill in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Enchanting falls under The Mage play-style. As such, this acts as The Mage's crafting skill as opposed to The Thief's Alchemy and The Warrior's Smithing.

To enchant items, first an item with a pre-existing enchantment must be disenchanted, using an Arcane Enchanter. The item is permanently destroyed after doing so. Henceforth, the character can imbue items with that quality using filled Soul Gems. Soul Gems also restore the depleted enchantments of weapons, with the perk Soul Squeezer giving additional effect to this feature. The quality of soul gem used for weapons determines the amount of charge the weapon has to begin with, while on armor and jewelry it determines the magnitude of the enchantment.

Leveling
The following actions raise the Enchanting skill
 * Disenchanting items.
 * Enchanting items that do not currently possess an enchantment.
 * Using Soul Gems to recharge weapons (Soul Siphon does not count).

If the player owns Azura's Star (gained from the quest The Black Star) he can enchant a weapon with Soul Trap for 1 second and recharge it after every kill for cheap and easy progress. To learn the Soul Trap enchant, once a certain level is reached (tested at level 14) merchants such as Ulfberth War-Bear will sell weapons with the enchantment on them. If the merchant does not have a weapon with the enchant, wait 48 hours so the merchant restocks his/her supply. These weapons can be found in the world but it is easier to buy the weapon from a merchant. These weapons can then be disenchanted to learn the enchantment. The enchantment can then be used as often as desired to enchant or recharge a weapon with Soul Trap.

Enchanting an item appears to give the same skill regardless of materials used. A cheap method to level enchanting would be to craft Iron Daggers, or use found items from adventuring, and enchanting using Petty Soul Gems before selling for the cost of materials. If you are trying to maximize your gold return from the items you are enchanting in order to buy more soul gems, pay attention to the value of the item as you place enchantments on it as some enchantments raise an items' value more than others. Note: the quality of soul gem used in the enchant does not affect the skill gain, so Petty Soul Gems are the best way to go.

Since Enchanting falls under the Mage play-style, activating the The Mage Stone will increase the speed the skill levels at.

You can also obtain a Rested Effect from sleeping in a bed for an additional bonus to skill gain. Note: Rested Effect does not stack with the Lover Stone's +15% skill gain, but The Mage Stone will.

Books
The following is a list of books that raise the Enchanting skill:


 * A Tragedy in Black
 * Catalogue of Weapon Enchantments
 * Complete Catalogue of Enchantments for Armor
 * Enchanter's Primer
 * Twin Secrets

Training

 * Sergius Turranius at The College of Winterhold teaches up to Expert level Enchanting.
 * Hamal in Temple of Dibella in Markath teaches up to Master level Enchanting(after completing The Heart of Dibella quest).

Obtaining Enchantments
Players do not start with any Enchantments, but Altmer, Imperial, and Orc characters gain a +5 boost to Enchanting at the start of the game. To gain enchantments to place on items, you must first disenchant a magic item. This destroys the object but allows you to use the learned enchantment for enchanting your own items.

Weapon Enchantments

 * Absorb Health
 * Absorb Magicka
 * Absorb Stamina
 * Banish
 * Fear
 * Fiery Soul Trap
 * Fire Damage
 * Frost Damage
 * Huntsman's Prowess (Bonus damage to animals)
 * Silent Moons Enchant (Burns target if the moons are out)
 * Magicka Damage
 * Notched Pickaxe
 * Paralyze (Chance on hit)
 * Shock Damage
 * Soul Trap
 * Stamina Damage
 * Turn Undead

Enchanting Perks
The following are the perks that become available to select as the skill is leveled up

Note: it will usually be more worthwhile to take an extra rank in Enchanter vs. taking something like Fire or Frost enchanter unless you've maxed out Enchanter already.

Notes & Tips

 * Staves, quest items and some unique items cannot be disenchanted. (Example; Staff of Fireballs, Dragonpriest masks)


 * The Shadowsight, Shadowstrength, Shadowstrike, and Shadowthrive enchantments are learned from disenchanting Linwe's Armor, Linwe's Boots, Linwe's Gloves, and Linwe's Hood. The Blessing of Mara is obtained by disenchanting The Bond of Matrimony after you get married. Yes the table is correct, these enchantments cannot be placed on anything. This may be a bug either in that the enchantments may not be intended to be obtained, or that they are unable to be placed on anything.


 * The Player is able to rename their enchanted items, so they can easily identify their different custom handcrafted items.


 * Enchanting can allow for a player to have Smithing improved items be +100% better at 100 enchanting skill. This allows a player with little skill in smithing to have Legendary or higher armor/weapons when used with an Alchemy potion that enhances smithing.


 * With the Alchemy skill the Player can make potions that increase the effects of the enchanting skill. This allows for imbuing even stronger enchantments on an item past what 100 skill and 5/5 Enchanter perk normally allow. Using the +20% Enchanter's Philter makes a +46% element resistance into a +51% resistance for example.


 * With the perk Extra Effect the player can choose up to two different enchantments for one item in enchantment selection. The enchantments must be different, i.e. you cannot stack two + healths or two fortify magics. The power of enchantments will be determined by the size of the Soul Gem used and not be influenced by each other. For example you can enchant both a +40% One-Handed Damage enchant and a +25 Light Armor enchant without affecting their strength.


 * Enchanting "Fortify " at 100 skill level and 5/5 Enchanter perk with a Grand soul results in a 25% casting cost reduction for that school. This stacks additively; meaning that with 4 items (chest, ring, amulet and head) you can cast spells in that school for free.


 * A very good way to make money and get skills up is to smith iron daggers for very little cost, then enchant them raising their price well above their initial base value of 10. If you use Absorb Health as the enchantment with a petty soul gem the dagger's base value goes up the most; Banish and Damage Stamina result in a slightly lower value, but are eaiser to find. Then you can sell the daggers back one at a time with ease. This method increases your enchanting, smithing, speech and not to mention the money in your pocket.


 * Another decent method for getting your enchantment high is to get the Transmute Spell (Alteration) which can be found at the Halted Stream Camp. With that spell you can transmute iron ore into silver and then gold ore. You can then smith gold jewelry and enchant it yielding a rate of return on gold coins when selling. This method does take time however to convert your iron ore to gold ore. This grants increases to alteration, enchanting, smithing, and speech skills with this method.


 * Another method is to purchase boots, clothes, gloves from clothing stores (for 2g each) and enchant them. Armor takes less time between enchantments because you do not have to select how many charges on the item.


 * Helms can be found with resistance to elements as loot, but an enchanter cannot make a helm with elemental resistance. The same "rule" also applies for carry weight and other enchantments; You can find items in game that the player can not make.
 * It seems that the value of enchanted items goes down as Enchanting skill increases. See this discussion.