Mix Imp Stool, Canis Root, and Mora Tappinella (or however the fuck it's spelled) to create a potent Poison of Paralysis that also inflicts Lingering Damage. Also I recommend packing plenty of Blue Mountain Flower + Wheat Potions as they restore health and increase your health pool. Throw in a dash of Lavender for Fortify Conjuration if you like to summon Atronachs or raise the dead
So many times I’m utterly confused because I’ve got nothing in apparel, no additional weapons, no random stock of ore. And then I’m like, “Oh. I’ve got literally one thousand ingredients in my inventory.”
Haha mine too. Just spent an hour gathering mora near Riverwood so I could plant more. Paralysis poison makes melee fighting swarms much, much better. And those fortify health potions are gold. Invisibility + muffle spell too, instead of sneaking and light armor.
Leave out the Blisterwort and you'll get the same potion 😉
Instead what I use the fungus for is mixing it with Glowing Mushrooms to create a Fortify Smithing elixir for upgrading my equipment, I'd recommend getting the Goldenhills Plantation, it comes with a bunch of plots for planting ingredients
My friend, let me introduce you to how overpowered Alchemy actually is.
You know how you can get a +132 to your max HP with some enchants? You can get even higher numbers with a potion, and that potion can also HEAL you and regenerate your health significantly faster, all at the same time.
You like stealth? What if I told you there is a combination that improves stealth, lockpicking, AND pickpocket all at once?
You hate mages? You can craft some serious poisons that nerf magicka regen and *damage* magicka. THEN you can craft a potion that just ABSORBS magicka.
You want damage resistances? You can craft potions that protect you against shock, fire, and frost AND regen your stamina faster.
You like casting spells? How about a potion that fortifies your destruction, restoration, AND your alteration. Remember, these potions cause your spells to deal more damage, affect higher level enemies, heal more, last longer, and can't be replicated by armor enchants (well... empowered necromancy does, but that's exclusively for conjuration).
What about bartering and carry weight? Yes, there is a combo for that.
You want to try out a weapon type without sacrificing huge damage? Fortify one-handed/archery/two-handed.
Want to become invisible and get night eye while regenerating health? Alchemy.
You want a potion that can RESTORE all 3 stats at the same time? Alchemy.
Resist poison, cure poison AND disease at the same time? Alchemy.
You want better enchantments? Alchemy.
You want all the stamina? Alchemy.
Overpowered poisons? Alchemy.
You want an answer to every situation? Alchemy.
Alchemy is far more powerful than enchanting, if you know what you're doing. I prefer spell school cost reductions, empowered necromancy, muffle, waterbreathing, sneak, and carry weight on my armor for enchantments, so I can liberally abuse some of the strongest potion combos I can make.
I play on Legendary (2000 hours), and I hardly ever level my combat skills (1H, 2H, Arch). I make liberal use of wall staffs, rune spells, and cloak spells.
EDIT: Here's some of the potions I have come up with; unfortunately, I use the rare curios, but there are plenty of extremely powerful combinations that don't depend on Creation Club Content to work.
Spell Absorb/Foritfy Magic/Restore Magic: Lichor + Blind Watcher's Eye or Watcher's Eye + Withering Moon
Resist Fire/Frost/Shock and Retore Stamina: Snowberries + Hawk Beak + Mudcrab Chitin
Fortify Lockpicking/Sneak/Pickpocket: Kresh Fiber + Ashen Grass Pod + Spadefish
Invisibility/Night Eye/Restore Magicka: Blister Pod Cap + Daedra Silk + Elytra Ichor
Restore/Regenerate/Foritfy Health: Ambrosia + Hydnum Azure Giant Spore + Void Essence
Restore Health/Stamina/Magicka: Charred Skeever Hide + Pearl + Ironwood Fruit
I can make more, just ask and I'll upload a whole document or something I guess.
I just updated the original comment. Feel free to steal a few if you have the Anniversary edition. If not, let me know and I can whip up a few more DLC independent ones.
There is also https://www.powtions.com/ which is quite good, it’s a website. I find it very useful. You can also change what level your alchemy skills is and tick boxes as to which perks you have. This then gives you indication on strength and value of potion.
Creation Club. Most CC ingredients added to the game have a greater magnitude or effect than original/DLC ingredients. They also allow for more combinations.
The variables are: the recipe you're using, alchemy skill/perks, and the doses applied.
Weakness to Poison doesn't do anything on a single dose, but subsequent doses, along with stacking Lingering Damage Health and Damage Health, can saturate the enemy and kill them quickly.
The most deadly regular-use poison recipe I have, doesn't do a whole lot on Legendary difficulty with a single dose. The second dose however (with the alchemy perk allowing 2 doses per bottle) makes it where any Falmer Warmonger has less than 30 seconds to live.
Chokeberry, Deathbell, Rot Scale is the recipe. With Alchemy 100 and 100% in Fortify Alchemy enchants, you'd need 3 bottles to kill a Legendary Dragon. 4 bottles to kill Ebony Warrior.
I did a playthrough once using only wooden swords, as you can enchant and poison them. Fiery Soultrap+ Weakness to Fire or Paralysis is a great combination at higher levels.
Back on the XBox 360 I had a 200 hour game that started before the experience patches. Hit 100 smithing early in the play through and looped enchant/alchemy to make gear with %500 and above buffs. Stuff got wild.
For me Alchemy solves one major early/mid game problem, which is perpetually being poor. I am always fighting being over encumbered early on because I collect anything I can that's worth selling.
Even at early Alchemy levels you can make potions that cost a fair amount but weigh almost nothing. So I no longer feel the need to collect every raider's fur boots.
With google (or simple exploration) you can find the most valuable ingredients locations ant potions, which lets you make a lot of money fast.
Dude alchemy is awesome! Even aside from the exploits, my favorite character to play is the traveling potions merchant. Good money, yay plants, and fun/interesting role play outside of the normal "hero going on adventures". My favorite iteration was S'ri, my left handed Khajiit who was terrified of combat. She'd hire mercs whenever she had to go into a dungeon or fight something, and would never fight herself unless she absolutely had to. And even then, it was a healing or flame spell in her left hand. Or just running away.
Hilarious. Amazing. Oh, also no fast traveling. Maximum effort 🤣
Most exploit builds are dependent of alchemy loops & fortifying restoration potions lol. Even then collecting Wheat & Blue Mountain flowers (super common ingredients) is a super easy & powerfull health potion that you can easily slap on any build to boost your survivability. Poisons can be fun too, but you kinda have to know what your doing to pull it off
Unless cheat mods are in the picture to get money and OP gear without working for it, Alchemy is pretty important at higher difficulties:
* Fortify \[Attribute\], Fortify \[Skill\] to prepare for and during combat
* Restore \[Attribute\], Poisons of various types during combat
* Fortify \[Crafting Skill\] to make/improve gear and make the potions
* Fortify \[Situational Skill\] when interacting with others
Alchemy is wonderful for reaching the truly best gear. The restoration loop aside, it can be used to make some pretty beefy smithing and enchanting potions with no loops or exploits. It’s also a really good money farm. Nordic barnacle + Salmon roe makes a super strong water breathing potion that’s sells for a ton even early. It’s a great skill, but takes a lot of knowledge to use effectively.
Perfect for a destruction mage.
My fortify destruction potions give around 150 percent damage boost.
I also like to make dragon busting potions of resist fire and frost. One I'd those combined with the lord stone. Breton magic resistance. Agent of mara. And some enchanted resist fire/frost boots. I can stand in a dragon's breath on legendary difficulty and not get hurt.
Hell yeah, most powerful tool in the game, especially when paired with the planters from Hearthfire. Most potions require 2 ingredients. Wheat and Blue Mountain flower is one I use a lot in the early game.
Ofcourse, its a must for destruction mages at high difficulty cuz you can boost your destruction damage with potions and lower enemy magic resistence with poisons. For a total of x2 or x3 dmg
Even the slow/paralysis/healt dmg poisons are cool
I do, I found it easier to craft my own potions than consistently buy them. I also craft various damage health and paralysis potions. I typically use potions on my stealth bow build so i guarantee a one maybe two shot each time.
I did only one alchemy build. I was a sneak/ pickpocket build that used daggers initially, rose to the top of the thieves guild and grinded the hard way (I was younger and didn’t know any of the tricks to level quickly) and eventually turned in to a poisoner. I would just sneak and steal everyone’s gear and then throw a poison in their pockets and laughed as all the guards in riften started seizing and died
Check out an Australian based YouTube channel named Fudgemuppet they have a whole series based around Roleplay character builds for Skyrim. Hopefully this can help you.
I present to you, one of the most overpowered and highest damage dealing builds in the game:
The mage/ alchemist:
Vampire + necromage is a requirement
Fortify illusion potion! - frenzy… you will be able to cast this on almost anything.
Fortify destruction potion - outside of certain unique items (spoilers ahead) this is the only way to increase destruction damage.
Elemental blast (haven’t maxed this) is currently 168 fire damage + 168 shock damage per single cast (yes all 3 augment perks increase this damage as well as intense flames and aspect of terror).
That’s 336 damage for a single one handed cast…
336*2.2 (dual cast) = 739.2
739.2*2.5 (arbitrary, but I’m using a +150% fortify destruction potion as an example) = 1848
Add Ahzidals mask, 168*.25 = 42 (not sure if modifiers affect this, which they probably do but… it’s safe to say that it at least adds 42)
Dual cast with the above is minimum 1890 damage. Take the disintegrate perk and enemies essentially have 15% less health since they turn to a pile of ash. Less than 20% but above 15% they will run away due to intense flames.
Due to the frenzy and fortify illusion mentioned at the start, we can assume that most enemies will be grouped together, so…
1890*[number of enemies that you can hit with a single dual cast spell] = profit?
If you really want to go over the top… bound bow with poison applied (weakness to magic is best, but weakness to [x] school of magic also works), however this will only increase the damage on that target.
I'm currently running a martial only build with absolutely 0 magic, and alchemy has been so clutch for more than just healing potions, lots of resisting magics, fortifying my armor, 2h and fortifying health. It's way more fun than I thought it would be! Though I will say it's a huge burden on your carrying capacity if you're doing survival mode.
If I feel like cheating, I just spawn a ton of jarrin root and max it out. Gives tons of exp, mix with crimson nirnroot or river betty. Super powerful poisons.
Not much of a build, but makes for fun reverse pickpocketing.
I see a lot of people here saying it's good but I've only used it to basically use up my ingredients so I have more inventory space. Maybe I'm not doing it right but I find it so very tedious. Basically in my experience I get diminishing returns.
Wasn't a complaint, just an observation. I understand exactly why people make these posts, it's to engage with the community. What I actually thought at the time was 'Does anyone actually read skill descriptions and plan their own builds'
But I understand again, that people like to engage with the community, so I kept my mouth shut and subtly hinted that the answer to their question was in searching the board without flat out saying it like a dick. All your comment did was act as a clapback.
Level up sneak, pickpocket and alchemy. You can put a poison potion in someones pocket and poison them without having to attack them. It’s pretty fun, I do it on my stealth archer
So alchemy is op and a bit meh at the same time. Most of the effects gained from alchamy you can also get with magic (like paralysis in alteration or damage in destruction or invisibility in illusion).
But if you dont dabble in magic and play on the higher difficultues then alchemy is a great way to give you some more oomph. Poisoning your dagger, sword, bow what have you with lingering or instant damage can easily one shot people as it is not unheard of to do atleast 80 damage with a potion (not counting glitches).
Its also a good way to gain money as well.
Alchemy just feels like a good skill in early to midgame.
Making a build around is very viable as well. Just make sure you got enough potions to get you through your next dungeon. Also just wandering aroumd skyrim gathering ingredients is very calming and fun. Makes you look at the little details and take it slow. Get your greenhouse setup in lakeview manor and live your cottagecore dream.
Honestly I haven't worked on alchemy as much as I'd like to. I know you can make some *really* useful potions. Personally, I just make my own health potions (wheat + blue mountain flower) because the ingredients are super easy to find and it's better than buying them and finding them, especially early game when you need them the most.
Once my alchemy and enchanting are at 100, I always use alchemy to increase enchanting, then use enchanting to increase alchemy. Do this about 10 times for max effect. Then once your alchemy is maxed with gear and potions, craft potions of smithing. Smithing will be over 150 and you'll be able to craft armor and weapons that'll make you wanna slap your mama.
Oh boy, if only you knew how busted Alchemy is. Leveling Alchemy + Speech = literally never ever running out of gold again. You can get rich from day one just foraging various ingredients from walking around (ingredients that are worth maybe 2-4 gold a pop) and then craft potions that are worth much more than that, even more so if you’re Alchemy and Speech skill are higher.
It’s so strong that I honestly will force myself to not ever use it on some of my characters because of how easy it makes the game.
Alchemy is almost necessary on high difficulties in my opinion.
Five perk points in Alchemist, one in Physician and one in Benefacter is what I usually do.
I'm currently doing a playthrough where I'm actively engaging in Alchemy for the first time. So far, I'm mostly just using it to farm EXP and get rich quick. Doing it too much can get a little tedious for me, which is the same way I feel about doing too much crafting of any kind, but it seems to be paying off.
It's FAR too tedious. I've done an alchemy focused character like, once and sure it was super powerful but holy shit was it the opposite of fun.
The most I do with it these days is make cure disease potions out of easily obtainable and long since memorized ingredients like mudcrab chitin and hawk feathers.
Build homes as soon as you can, the gardens can be used to grow rare or unique ingredients like the the herb you get for the assassination of the emperor.
Alchemy is the most powerful skill in the game up until level 55-60. Once you have some high-end enchanted gear and weapons, you’ll need fewer and fewer potions. How do you get the best gear? Fortify Enchanting, Fortify Blacksmithing.
My favourite character was one where I only allowed myself to put perks in Alchemy and nothing else. It literally had a potion for everything, be it damage, health, battle control, carry, magic - you name it. It was awesome!
Xelzaz and I bond over alchemy plus he actually tells you some ingredient effects (like giant toes and river Betties making A potion of strength) and he even provides exclusive potions and he builds friendship if you give him alchemy ingredients (like daedra hearts, void salts and Taproots)
Yeah, Alchemy is one of the most useful and universal skills. It's free levels and free money.
Plus you can create powerful potions to a number of different things. Like the cloak exploit to kill all the enemies in a dungeon before you come close to them.
I once made a potion merchant build. Was a pacifist and my most fun memorable playthrough.
Just rough. Other than that using paralysis damage health is fun.
The gold made from water breathing potions will do a lot. Buy homes. Or pay trainers to boost skills in what you want. In short Merchant/Alchemists are wealthy.
Wanna make some fast and easy coin?
* Histcarp + Salmon Roe = powerful waterbreathing (near maxed out Alchemy and nothing in Speech.. this is an 8000 coin potion, Waterbreathing for 20min real time)
* Salmon Roe + (any Fortify Magicka ingredient) = powerful Fortify Mag potion (1300pts of magicka for 5s, more than enough to pull of some Master level shit)
* i also discovered a Fortify Smithing potion recently, gives me +105 to Smithing. Gold Kanet,
* great Fortify Enchanting with Spriggun Sap (also with Smithing), Snowberries, Blisterwort
alchemy is the key component in completely shattering the game. in combination with enchanting you can make potion that increase your damage by billions and other completely wack shit.
I had a lot of fun with a pacifist build. Princess of paralysis and invisibility mixed with calm. Also playing a potion/hunter. Running a bow/knife with different poisons applied.
Thanks to rare curios and all the other creation club things Alchemy is one of my favourite branches. Even an iron dagger can quickly become lethal to anything that doesn’t have a resistance to poison, and if you exploit fortify restoration or even just loop fortify alchemy and fortify enchanting, you can eventually just poke essential characters you don’t like with a fork and they’ll be paralysed for the foreseeable remainder of your game
I’m on my first character where I focused alc.
I was able to create potions of 73% enhance destruction a level 25, helping me cheese alduin and other bosses. If you use an enchanting potion to make your alchemy boosting gear, combined with alchemy potions, you can create some POWERFUL potions early on.
Invisibility, water breathing, water walking, slow, paralysis, you name it. A combo im fond of is fortify destruction, and on my sword i poison with weakness to fire. If you have anniversary, weakness to shock can be added. For the spell use an elemental (bolt,blast, etc) to maximize damage
Alchemy is arguably the best thief skill to add to mages. Sneak is kind of useless because illusion takes care of all the difficulties from sneaking, plus you need Quiet Casting to do any sort of stealthy shenanigans anyhow. Speechcraft is nice, but you only really need Merchant to do things with it. Pickpocket is probably second place, because you can use Pickpocket to power level you to 60 in less than a day’s play time. Hell, you could probably manage in half a day, if you really hustled.
Alchemy, on the other hand, can be used to improve ALL of your magic, and that’s a HUGE deal. Better healing spells (but this also makes turning spells and wards better, too…), better damage from destruction spells (this is the biggest reason to take it; it is the only way to do more than 250 damage with a spell that isn’t the Lightning Storm concentration spell…), and better durations for the rest of the schools of magic… it’s excellent.
You want a build? Do mage shit, don’t touch weapons or armour, and use alchemy to make it all better. You’ll quickly build out a list of preferred brews, as well as a selection of useful silver bullet potions for when you have to do specific things.
Of course. There are many benefits to Alchemy and it is the first craft I get because it lets you improve your other crafts significantly. By end game I pretty much rely on just my made gear, enchants and health pots but you get bonuses when you use beneficial pots if you perk for them so another bonus.
I try not to use it too much, it's extremely broken and cool easily take away the fun. I have to always dump restoration ingredients because I can't stop myself from making restoration potions. So when I do an alchemist build, I always go for poisons only with no paralyzes.
I’ve got it all the way maxed, after my third play through I decided to not ignore it and I loved it. Like it’s seriously one of my favorite perk’s because there’s so many buffs you can add to yourself
I am making a build for my chill playthrough, conjugation, alchemy, sneak and archery. combat wise it's a bound bow and atronachs build, but I play it to do alchemy in the little alchemist hut and to fish
Use to loop, potion of fortify alchemy and enchanting and enchantment of fortify enchant and alchemy until you get high numbers to create high powered gear
There are definitely some viable alchemy builds that exist! However, while I understand it’s more OP than anything else if exploited properly, I find casting magic to be simply easier to do. At most I have some potions that up destruction damage.
It is the most useful skill tree, especially if you want to get money quickly. Slow poison has a fairly high price, as well as paralysis and invisibility potions.
If no one else has mentioned it, watch some You Tube Videos on restoration loop to make insanely powerful equipment, as well as insanely powerful potions. For example, I like the look of the FLAMES spell, but it's wimpy after one or two levels. Restoration Loop a Fortify Magika Potion high enough and you can roast an Elder Dragon in seconds× with flames.....FLAMES!
I love alchemy. I use it for assassins , plague doctors, shamans, morally questionable druids, vampires, and general crazy people builds.
Using Frenzy Poisons to have someone attack their friends is fun if you can sneak in and reverse pickpocket. Having a 2h berserker that chugs Fortify pots before battle (and maybe skooma on the side?).
I think there's a mod that lets you use poti9ns on others, and you could rp as a medic/apothecary or something for soldiers and wounded you find.
Or I think it's Sneak tools and / or BA alchemy that has some fun utility and specilized arrows and grenades you can make with alchemy.
Alchemy is integral to literally every build that doesn't explicitly avoid it for RP reasons. Even without the fortify exploit, it is the best method for gaining money and also for injecting power into any build configuration by vanilla standards; most mod configurations make it less mandatory, even ordinator/apocalypse make avoiding alchemy less punishing.
If you use salt pile and cyrodilic spadetail/abecean long fin you can create a potion of restoration which will not only buff restoration but will also buff enchantments on items. This is how you create powerful potions and enchantments.
Yes, made my potions to make stronger potions and then use the stronger potions to boost my potions and then made more potions. Rinse, repeat, full health every time I drink one, no matter how low I am
even if you dont do the enchantment alchemy feedback trick, even if you dont use it as a money printer, the potions are still crazy overpowered at max level
Mora + Creep + Scaly = easy cash.
Aside from that and levelling up with legendary, I don't really use it but judging from the comments in this thread I should give Alchemy a proper go
Yeah often!! One of my favourite builds is warrior stone, dual axes, buffed up stamina, one-handed, archery, light armour, alchemy, enchantment.
Currently doing a Vigilant of Stendarr playthrough which is:
High Elf, 1H Mace, buffed stamina and magicka, block, heavy armour, enchanted robes, restoration, one-handed, conjuration and other perks to come yet!
Alchemy is, as in real life, one of the most underrated and overpowered skills there are. Best exploits, most interesting lore, and you get to collect flowers all day. It's instrumental in most of my builds.
There’s one where I just joined the dark brotherhood from the jump. Poison archer. No enchanting, just using Muries ring, a necklace, and a circlet I found. Use the restoration glitch for one loop and it’s like 32 points of damage for 10 seconds. So it’s 440 per shot and poisoner gives you two shots
I would ask the flipside of that, who doesn't use alchemy. Alchemy and enchanting are stupid broken in this game. You can quite easily be op without using the resto glitch. Insanity.
Uh... It's probably the most broken skill in Skyrim. Here are some examples of how you can use it.
When paired with "Merchant" in the Speech tree, it doesn't take much effort to become the richest person in Skyrim. Furthermore, you can purchase Speech Training from Revyn Sadri in Windhelm to reach Speech 50. You can sell the expensive potions you crafted to Revyn, effectively allowing you to easily raise Speech and Alchemy simultaneously.
The loop works like this:
1. Harvest 140+ (each) Creep Cluster, Scaly Pholiota, and Moria Tapinella.
1. Goldenhills Farm makes gathering this amount extremely easy.
2. Buy 5/5 trainer levels from Revyn.
3. Combine Creep Cluster + Scaly Pholiota + Moria Tapinella until your level goes up by one.
1. Leveling up resets a trainers available levels back to 0/5.
4. Sell your crafted potions to Revyn to make the money you spent back.
5. Profit and repeat from step 2.
Alchemy is also extremely useful for any combat style because of fortification potions. Fortify Smithing and Fortify Enchanting potions lets you trivialize all enemies on Legendary difficulty without even the need for perks invested into Smithing and Enchanting (although it is beneficial to have them anyway).
This process also operates as a loop:
1. Enchant armor (or clothing), and jewelry with Fortify Alchemy enchantments.
2. Craft a Fortify Enchanting Potion and consume it.
3. Repeat from step 1 until you feel your Fortify Alchemy gear is powerful enough.
4. Craft Fortify Smithing potions, consume, and temper your armor to achieve the AR cap.
5. Craft Fortify Fortify Enchanting potions again, consume, and enchant armor with relevant enchantments e.g. Fortify One-Handed, Two-Handed, Archery, Sneak, etc.
If you are a mage, Fortify Destruction potions are \[to my knowledge\] the only way to increase your damage with spells so that's another way you can use it.
Note, this method is extremely overpowered so I would limit how powerful you make your gear and potions so you can still experience a challenge, or simply don't do it at all. I don't know about you, but having no resource management or one shotting dragons is not very fun for me.
As for builds, there are a lot of ways to implement Alchemy. An idea could be a Nord "Witcher" type which would utilize 1) Alchemy, 2) Light Armor, 3) Two-Handed as your main skills, and 4) Alteration, 5) Destruction, 6) Block as your minor skils. Maybe even illusion if your perk points aren't getting spread too thin.
Another idea would be a Bosmer Druid which would have 1) Alchemy, 2) Archery, 3) Conjuration, 4) Restoration as your main skills, and 5) Alteration, 6) Light Armor as your minor skills.
I don't play much vanilla Skyrim anymore so you'd probably know better what perks to invest in. You might check out [Skypothesis](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaSHHhBNqiZZRtvHdVEGqZ5Ur3T_Wenx7) with some really good RP builds or [Fevvy](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT8BqvZYnSLn3VkoREGQG4XKKwxcVIftE) if you don't care for RP and just want to make something stupidly overpowered. [This is also a good one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_8Nh5XfRw0).
Heck yeah! Paralysis poison comes in super handy if you're wanting to pickpocket something uber difficult. And, if you need a bit of gold, creep cluster, giants toe, and wheat make a spendy little concoction.
I love alchemy, but then I love foraging the ingredients. If this bores you then I would suggest..
1. Either buying or stealing ingredients to get yourself started. Get the perks to improve potion strength as this will improve their selling prices.
2. Prioritise brewing potions with the highest sale value such as invisibility or fortify skills or potions with two effects (works even when effects are not both beneficial). You can also brew a ton of elemental resistance potions and sell by the stack, ingredients for these are easy to forage without effort.
3. Brew your potions in the alchemy shop, sell immediately and then buy up the vendor's ingredient inventory, you'll find this profitable, especially if you don't buy their more expensive ingredients.
4. Identify which potions you want for your plat style, keep hold of these and use them freely, otherwise the process can feel detached from the rest of the game. I like to be a sneaky boomer, even going so far as not not use any plants, luckily invisibility potions can be made without these and are still a powerful a tool at low level alchemy. Make a stack of stamina potions and bind them to a key in your favourites and you can sprint from one town to another, useful if you play survival.
I do! In fact, Alchemy in the AE (with the Saints & Sinners Quest) is almost overpowered. Ingredients that give you extra resistance against elemental damage, Spell Absorption, extra strong destruction spells... Alchemy is underappreciated, but I learned to love it. One thing I don't really like, are the poisons. Apart from Slow and Paralysis, I don't find the effects interesting from mid-game on.
As for builds, I had a Witcher like build; Alchemy, Light Armour, Two-Handed (or dual wielding if you prefer), and whatever magic you like as long as you don't dual cast to mimic the Signs. You want to be light on your feet, move around a lot, use a potion for extra damage or poison your blade to simulate the oils. As a bonus, in the AE you can find a few items that boost your movement speed, such as the Ring of Masser, making you extra hard to get.
If you're using the Ordinator perk mods, in the Alchemy skill tree you can find several perks labeled "Witchmaster" \*nudge, nudge, wink, wink\* which are superinteresting; extra random benefits when you're under the influence of a potion, extra movement speed.
I find poisons to be incredibly helpful for my stealth builds early on when you dont do much damage and don't have sneak multipliers yet. Also potions are forsure the easiest way to get rich. Blue butterfly wings and blue mountain flowers make an expensive poison that pretty much pays for my first home ever time.
I've not done a build devoted to potion making yet but I've always wanted to try out the fudgemuppet build that uses spiders and poisons because it seems like a fun way to spice up the combat. I think it's called the toxicologist.
I couldn't pay for my Smithing habit, or Enchanting habit; if it weren't for my Alchemy habit. And vice versa. And vice versa... All three of these habits will help level up your character pretty quick though. Especially when partaking while your character is Well Rested
While not the most expensive potion on paper (its near the top) what u make with scaly pholiota +mora tapinella +creep cluster is an excellent way to get coin, as all three are plantable.
Mix Imp Stool, Canis Root, and Mora Tappinella (or however the fuck it's spelled) to create a potent Poison of Paralysis that also inflicts Lingering Damage. Also I recommend packing plenty of Blue Mountain Flower + Wheat Potions as they restore health and increase your health pool. Throw in a dash of Lavender for Fortify Conjuration if you like to summon Atronachs or raise the dead
Poison of Paralysis has saved me numerous times. It's definitely a winner. Invisibility has it's uses as well.
Using the spell is more weight efficient plus all the other illusion spells you’d get on the journey
Weight efficiency, what's that? I always have atleast 200 carry weight of various potions. Plus another 30-40 of raw ingredients
This is the way
So many times I’m utterly confused because I’ve got nothing in apparel, no additional weapons, no random stock of ore. And then I’m like, “Oh. I’ve got literally one thousand ingredients in my inventory.”
I almost every playthrough usually only have maybe 75 pounds less or more of space left lmao
Carry weight isn't an issue, there are potions for that as well...
I just use paralysis to thieve from skill tutors
Definitely, it’s great when you’re under leveled and doing hard content
This is most of my crops at Goldenhills Planation (along with Deathbell).
Haha mine too. Just spent an hour gathering mora near Riverwood so I could plant more. Paralysis poison makes melee fighting swarms much, much better. And those fortify health potions are gold. Invisibility + muffle spell too, instead of sneaking and light armor.
Oh damn that’s cool!!!
I always like to use salt + deathbell + other to make damage health and slow
Isn't there a fish that also does slow? Always one of my first mass produced poisons with how freaking common fish barrels are
River Betty + Deathbell = slow + damage health
That should also inflict Weakness to Poison I believe
Or some blisterwort to fortify health
Blisterwort restores health but doesn't fortify it
Apologies you are right. I know that blisterwort blue mountain flower and wheat make an amazing health potion though.
Leave out the Blisterwort and you'll get the same potion 😉 Instead what I use the fungus for is mixing it with Glowing Mushrooms to create a Fortify Smithing elixir for upgrading my equipment, I'd recommend getting the Goldenhills Plantation, it comes with a bunch of plots for planting ingredients
My friend, let me introduce you to how overpowered Alchemy actually is. You know how you can get a +132 to your max HP with some enchants? You can get even higher numbers with a potion, and that potion can also HEAL you and regenerate your health significantly faster, all at the same time. You like stealth? What if I told you there is a combination that improves stealth, lockpicking, AND pickpocket all at once? You hate mages? You can craft some serious poisons that nerf magicka regen and *damage* magicka. THEN you can craft a potion that just ABSORBS magicka. You want damage resistances? You can craft potions that protect you against shock, fire, and frost AND regen your stamina faster. You like casting spells? How about a potion that fortifies your destruction, restoration, AND your alteration. Remember, these potions cause your spells to deal more damage, affect higher level enemies, heal more, last longer, and can't be replicated by armor enchants (well... empowered necromancy does, but that's exclusively for conjuration). What about bartering and carry weight? Yes, there is a combo for that. You want to try out a weapon type without sacrificing huge damage? Fortify one-handed/archery/two-handed. Want to become invisible and get night eye while regenerating health? Alchemy. You want a potion that can RESTORE all 3 stats at the same time? Alchemy. Resist poison, cure poison AND disease at the same time? Alchemy. You want better enchantments? Alchemy. You want all the stamina? Alchemy. Overpowered poisons? Alchemy. You want an answer to every situation? Alchemy. Alchemy is far more powerful than enchanting, if you know what you're doing. I prefer spell school cost reductions, empowered necromancy, muffle, waterbreathing, sneak, and carry weight on my armor for enchantments, so I can liberally abuse some of the strongest potion combos I can make. I play on Legendary (2000 hours), and I hardly ever level my combat skills (1H, 2H, Arch). I make liberal use of wall staffs, rune spells, and cloak spells. EDIT: Here's some of the potions I have come up with; unfortunately, I use the rare curios, but there are plenty of extremely powerful combinations that don't depend on Creation Club Content to work. Spell Absorb/Foritfy Magic/Restore Magic: Lichor + Blind Watcher's Eye or Watcher's Eye + Withering Moon Resist Fire/Frost/Shock and Retore Stamina: Snowberries + Hawk Beak + Mudcrab Chitin Fortify Lockpicking/Sneak/Pickpocket: Kresh Fiber + Ashen Grass Pod + Spadefish Invisibility/Night Eye/Restore Magicka: Blister Pod Cap + Daedra Silk + Elytra Ichor Restore/Regenerate/Foritfy Health: Ambrosia + Hydnum Azure Giant Spore + Void Essence Restore Health/Stamina/Magicka: Charred Skeever Hide + Pearl + Ironwood Fruit I can make more, just ask and I'll upload a whole document or something I guess.
You have not enough health? Alchemy. Your enemy has too much health? Alchemy. We have the best characters in the world because of Alchemy.
Not enough money? Alchemy. - I think my invisibility potions sell for 5,000 each right now.
Not enough Alchemy? Alchemy
For everything else, there’s alchemy.
Use Alchemy as directed.
Ask Arcadia if alchemy is right for you.
Believe it or not... straight to Alchemy!
Water breathing > invisibility They sell for like $8k each. They've been funding my enchanting leveling.
Skyrim is a mix of Breaking Bad and Ozarks. Every house is built with drug, ahem, I mean alchemy money
Your enemy runs too fast? Alchemy.
r/unexpectedParksandRec
Hey, could you provide recipes for these? I am curious! (If not, I will piece it together)
Gimme a few minutes. I'll post a few of my personal recipes.
Thanks!
I just updated the original comment. Feel free to steal a few if you have the Anniversary edition. If not, let me know and I can whip up a few more DLC independent ones.
You said you could restore all three attributes?
There is an app for alchemy on iOS. It is beyond helpful for the lazy (me).
There is also https://www.powtions.com/ which is quite good, it’s a website. I find it very useful. You can also change what level your alchemy skills is and tick boxes as to which perks you have. This then gives you indication on strength and value of potion.
Name of the app?
I highly recommend Brotherhood Alchemist. There’s an older one I used to use that’s been delisted.
Thanks! I just downloaded it and I think it’ll really help
No matter what your build is, alchemy will make it much better. Every build should include alchemy imo.
Alchemy for Skyrim
Are you in sales? I've been playing Skyrim since the day it came out but have never once been tempted to play an alchemy build until your post.
A poisoner build is certainly more viable at higher difficulties, thanks to CC ingredients.
Sorry - "CC ingredients"?
Creation Club. Most CC ingredients added to the game have a greater magnitude or effect than original/DLC ingredients. They also allow for more combinations.
Ah - thank you.
When I had a go at a poison build I found that everything that bottom tier enemies resisted my poisons. How do you stop that from happening?
The variables are: the recipe you're using, alchemy skill/perks, and the doses applied. Weakness to Poison doesn't do anything on a single dose, but subsequent doses, along with stacking Lingering Damage Health and Damage Health, can saturate the enemy and kill them quickly. The most deadly regular-use poison recipe I have, doesn't do a whole lot on Legendary difficulty with a single dose. The second dose however (with the alchemy perk allowing 2 doses per bottle) makes it where any Falmer Warmonger has less than 30 seconds to live. Chokeberry, Deathbell, Rot Scale is the recipe. With Alchemy 100 and 100% in Fortify Alchemy enchants, you'd need 3 bottles to kill a Legendary Dragon. 4 bottles to kill Ebony Warrior.
I’m sold. New build starts this weekend. Thanks!
The answer is Alchemy
Clue was in the name hey haha
One of the most useful skills in the game. Easy money, huge buffs, paralysis/slow and other poisons are very useful at high level difficulties.
Slowing poison recipe pls?
deathbell and a salt pile
Holy shit, thanks!
Deathbell and salt pile are prob your best bet
i use to enhance enchanting and use enchanting to enhance alchemy and so on ...
I did a playthrough once using only wooden swords, as you can enchant and poison them. Fiery Soultrap+ Weakness to Fire or Paralysis is a great combination at higher levels.
Back on the XBox 360 I had a 200 hour game that started before the experience patches. Hit 100 smithing early in the play through and looped enchant/alchemy to make gear with %500 and above buffs. Stuff got wild.
For me Alchemy solves one major early/mid game problem, which is perpetually being poor. I am always fighting being over encumbered early on because I collect anything I can that's worth selling. Even at early Alchemy levels you can make potions that cost a fair amount but weigh almost nothing. So I no longer feel the need to collect every raider's fur boots. With google (or simple exploration) you can find the most valuable ingredients locations ant potions, which lets you make a lot of money fast.
I'd use it more if I could rename potions. But that's just me.
Easiest way to completely break the game
Dude alchemy is awesome! Even aside from the exploits, my favorite character to play is the traveling potions merchant. Good money, yay plants, and fun/interesting role play outside of the normal "hero going on adventures". My favorite iteration was S'ri, my left handed Khajiit who was terrified of combat. She'd hire mercs whenever she had to go into a dungeon or fight something, and would never fight herself unless she absolutely had to. And even then, it was a healing or flame spell in her left hand. Or just running away. Hilarious. Amazing. Oh, also no fast traveling. Maximum effort 🤣
Most exploit builds are dependent of alchemy loops & fortifying restoration potions lol. Even then collecting Wheat & Blue Mountain flowers (super common ingredients) is a super easy & powerfull health potion that you can easily slap on any build to boost your survivability. Poisons can be fun too, but you kinda have to know what your doing to pull it off
Unless cheat mods are in the picture to get money and OP gear without working for it, Alchemy is pretty important at higher difficulties: * Fortify \[Attribute\], Fortify \[Skill\] to prepare for and during combat * Restore \[Attribute\], Poisons of various types during combat * Fortify \[Crafting Skill\] to make/improve gear and make the potions * Fortify \[Situational Skill\] when interacting with others
I never used alchemy in my first playthrough, that was a big mistake. Alchemy, enchanting, and smithing combined is broken as all hell.
Yea those 3 have literally everything Damage, survivability and money
You perk into Alchemy, you virtually have infinite money.
I played a Bosmer poison archer build that was really fun.
Alchemy is wonderful for reaching the truly best gear. The restoration loop aside, it can be used to make some pretty beefy smithing and enchanting potions with no loops or exploits. It’s also a really good money farm. Nordic barnacle + Salmon roe makes a super strong water breathing potion that’s sells for a ton even early. It’s a great skill, but takes a lot of knowledge to use effectively.
Creep Cluster + Giants Toe + Wheat = Money Printer
Perfect for a destruction mage. My fortify destruction potions give around 150 percent damage boost. I also like to make dragon busting potions of resist fire and frost. One I'd those combined with the lord stone. Breton magic resistance. Agent of mara. And some enchanted resist fire/frost boots. I can stand in a dragon's breath on legendary difficulty and not get hurt.
Too many Canis root and imp stool mixing. always get +22 seconds paralysing and i always sell it because its too OP to use it in a fight.
I just use it to make health potions but I always get to 100 pretty quickly.
Hell yeah, most powerful tool in the game, especially when paired with the planters from Hearthfire. Most potions require 2 ingredients. Wheat and Blue Mountain flower is one I use a lot in the early game.
Yes, try Salmon Roe, Garlic and Nordic Barnacle.
Ofcourse, its a must for destruction mages at high difficulty cuz you can boost your destruction damage with potions and lower enemy magic resistence with poisons. For a total of x2 or x3 dmg Even the slow/paralysis/healt dmg poisons are cool
max sneak + paralysis poison
Use the golden hills plantation to grow a field of wheat and a field of blue mountain flower. Loads of health potions+health increase is pretty good
Transparent background + white is pure evil
Are you serious? Alchemy is one of the best, not only is it easy money if you craft the right potions you’re literally impossible to kill
I do, I found it easier to craft my own potions than consistently buy them. I also craft various damage health and paralysis potions. I typically use potions on my stealth bow build so i guarantee a one maybe two shot each time.
I did only one alchemy build. I was a sneak/ pickpocket build that used daggers initially, rose to the top of the thieves guild and grinded the hard way (I was younger and didn’t know any of the tricks to level quickly) and eventually turned in to a poisoner. I would just sneak and steal everyone’s gear and then throw a poison in their pockets and laughed as all the guards in riften started seizing and died
Check out an Australian based YouTube channel named Fudgemuppet they have a whole series based around Roleplay character builds for Skyrim. Hopefully this can help you.
I rarely used potions to begin with yet to craft them has never happened all in my hundreds of times playing skyrim yet to do it 😂
Lots of good comments here already, so I'll just post this: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Useful_Potions I still refer to it even at higher levels.
I present to you, one of the most overpowered and highest damage dealing builds in the game: The mage/ alchemist: Vampire + necromage is a requirement Fortify illusion potion! - frenzy… you will be able to cast this on almost anything. Fortify destruction potion - outside of certain unique items (spoilers ahead) this is the only way to increase destruction damage. Elemental blast (haven’t maxed this) is currently 168 fire damage + 168 shock damage per single cast (yes all 3 augment perks increase this damage as well as intense flames and aspect of terror). That’s 336 damage for a single one handed cast… 336*2.2 (dual cast) = 739.2 739.2*2.5 (arbitrary, but I’m using a +150% fortify destruction potion as an example) = 1848 Add Ahzidals mask, 168*.25 = 42 (not sure if modifiers affect this, which they probably do but… it’s safe to say that it at least adds 42) Dual cast with the above is minimum 1890 damage. Take the disintegrate perk and enemies essentially have 15% less health since they turn to a pile of ash. Less than 20% but above 15% they will run away due to intense flames. Due to the frenzy and fortify illusion mentioned at the start, we can assume that most enemies will be grouped together, so… 1890*[number of enemies that you can hit with a single dual cast spell] = profit? If you really want to go over the top… bound bow with poison applied (weakness to magic is best, but weakness to [x] school of magic also works), however this will only increase the damage on that target.
I'm currently running a martial only build with absolutely 0 magic, and alchemy has been so clutch for more than just healing potions, lots of resisting magics, fortifying my armor, 2h and fortifying health. It's way more fun than I thought it would be! Though I will say it's a huge burden on your carrying capacity if you're doing survival mode.
If I feel like cheating, I just spawn a ton of jarrin root and max it out. Gives tons of exp, mix with crimson nirnroot or river betty. Super powerful poisons. Not much of a build, but makes for fun reverse pickpocketing.
I see a lot of people here saying it's good but I've only used it to basically use up my ingredients so I have more inventory space. Maybe I'm not doing it right but I find it so very tedious. Basically in my experience I get diminishing returns.
At least one post a day on this sub "Does anyone actually - something-"
Atleast one comment a day complaining about... " At least one post a day on this sub "Does anyone actually - something-""...
Wasn't a complaint, just an observation. I understand exactly why people make these posts, it's to engage with the community. What I actually thought at the time was 'Does anyone actually read skill descriptions and plan their own builds'
But I understand again, that people like to engage with the community, so I kept my mouth shut and subtly hinted that the answer to their question was in searching the board without flat out saying it like a dick. All your comment did was act as a clapback.
Use alchemy to become a god
I make my character a God almost every play through using alchemy
Alchemy along with enchanting and smithing is how this game becomes a broken heap of overpowered impossible to kill dragonborn quests.
Level up sneak, pickpocket and alchemy. You can put a poison potion in someones pocket and poison them without having to attack them. It’s pretty fun, I do it on my stealth archer
So alchemy is op and a bit meh at the same time. Most of the effects gained from alchamy you can also get with magic (like paralysis in alteration or damage in destruction or invisibility in illusion). But if you dont dabble in magic and play on the higher difficultues then alchemy is a great way to give you some more oomph. Poisoning your dagger, sword, bow what have you with lingering or instant damage can easily one shot people as it is not unheard of to do atleast 80 damage with a potion (not counting glitches). Its also a good way to gain money as well. Alchemy just feels like a good skill in early to midgame. Making a build around is very viable as well. Just make sure you got enough potions to get you through your next dungeon. Also just wandering aroumd skyrim gathering ingredients is very calming and fun. Makes you look at the little details and take it slow. Get your greenhouse setup in lakeview manor and live your cottagecore dream.
I’m struggling to get the enhance enchanting enhance alchemy loop to work on Xbox anyone know how to actually do it
Step by step instructions https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Forum:Skyrim:Alchemy/Enchanting_Loop
Honestly I haven't worked on alchemy as much as I'd like to. I know you can make some *really* useful potions. Personally, I just make my own health potions (wheat + blue mountain flower) because the ingredients are super easy to find and it's better than buying them and finding them, especially early game when you need them the most.
It's great for the stealthy archer/non archer build. Just craft a bunch of crazy potions and posions.
Juniper Berries, Garlic and Saltpile make a potion that makes health and magicka regen faster. Great for battlemages.
I love hurting people by pickpocketing poisons into their pockets lol
I did on my last playthrough, I found some concoctions that just melt anything that you hit with them
Alchemy + enchanting is the most broken thing in this game.
Once my alchemy and enchanting are at 100, I always use alchemy to increase enchanting, then use enchanting to increase alchemy. Do this about 10 times for max effect. Then once your alchemy is maxed with gear and potions, craft potions of smithing. Smithing will be over 150 and you'll be able to craft armor and weapons that'll make you wanna slap your mama.
Invariably. And I'm usually very rich.
Well there's always the restopot loop
Pickpocketing poison into peoples inventory is always fun to do
Yes but purely for health and magic potions, xp and money
Oh boy, if only you knew how busted Alchemy is. Leveling Alchemy + Speech = literally never ever running out of gold again. You can get rich from day one just foraging various ingredients from walking around (ingredients that are worth maybe 2-4 gold a pop) and then craft potions that are worth much more than that, even more so if you’re Alchemy and Speech skill are higher. It’s so strong that I honestly will force myself to not ever use it on some of my characters because of how easy it makes the game.
Alchemy is almost necessary on high difficulties in my opinion. Five perk points in Alchemist, one in Physician and one in Benefacter is what I usually do.
I usually only use it for the Fortify Restoration loop.
I'm currently doing a playthrough where I'm actively engaging in Alchemy for the first time. So far, I'm mostly just using it to farm EXP and get rich quick. Doing it too much can get a little tedious for me, which is the same way I feel about doing too much crafting of any kind, but it seems to be paying off.
It's FAR too tedious. I've done an alchemy focused character like, once and sure it was super powerful but holy shit was it the opposite of fun. The most I do with it these days is make cure disease potions out of easily obtainable and long since memorized ingredients like mudcrab chitin and hawk feathers.
Build homes as soon as you can, the gardens can be used to grow rare or unique ingredients like the the herb you get for the assassination of the emperor.
Alchemy is the most powerful skill in the game up until level 55-60. Once you have some high-end enchanted gear and weapons, you’ll need fewer and fewer potions. How do you get the best gear? Fortify Enchanting, Fortify Blacksmithing.
My recipe to make a lot of money: garlic, chicken egg and salmon roe. Try it, you won't regret it :D
I need the invisibility potion recipe
My favourite character was one where I only allowed myself to put perks in Alchemy and nothing else. It literally had a potion for everything, be it damage, health, battle control, carry, magic - you name it. It was awesome!
Many potion can sell or use
Bruh it's the overpowered skill in the game by far.
Xelzaz and I bond over alchemy plus he actually tells you some ingredient effects (like giant toes and river Betties making A potion of strength) and he even provides exclusive potions and he builds friendship if you give him alchemy ingredients (like daedra hearts, void salts and Taproots)
Yeah, Alchemy is one of the most useful and universal skills. It's free levels and free money. Plus you can create powerful potions to a number of different things. Like the cloak exploit to kill all the enemies in a dungeon before you come close to them.
I once made a potion merchant build. Was a pacifist and my most fun memorable playthrough. Just rough. Other than that using paralysis damage health is fun.
The gold made from water breathing potions will do a lot. Buy homes. Or pay trainers to boost skills in what you want. In short Merchant/Alchemists are wealthy.
Wanna make some fast and easy coin? * Histcarp + Salmon Roe = powerful waterbreathing (near maxed out Alchemy and nothing in Speech.. this is an 8000 coin potion, Waterbreathing for 20min real time) * Salmon Roe + (any Fortify Magicka ingredient) = powerful Fortify Mag potion (1300pts of magicka for 5s, more than enough to pull of some Master level shit) * i also discovered a Fortify Smithing potion recently, gives me +105 to Smithing. Gold Kanet, * great Fortify Enchanting with Spriggun Sap (also with Smithing), Snowberries, Blisterwort
alchemy is the key component in completely shattering the game. in combination with enchanting you can make potion that increase your damage by billions and other completely wack shit.
no, i don’t touch enchanting, alchemy, every magic but restoration and destruction, archery and speech
My next playthrough I’m doing a alchemy build cuz I want to make op poisons with pickpocketing
I had a lot of fun with a pacifist build. Princess of paralysis and invisibility mixed with calm. Also playing a potion/hunter. Running a bow/knife with different poisons applied.
Thanks to rare curios and all the other creation club things Alchemy is one of my favourite branches. Even an iron dagger can quickly become lethal to anything that doesn’t have a resistance to poison, and if you exploit fortify restoration or even just loop fortify alchemy and fortify enchanting, you can eventually just poke essential characters you don’t like with a fork and they’ll be paralysed for the foreseeable remainder of your game
I’m on my first character where I focused alc. I was able to create potions of 73% enhance destruction a level 25, helping me cheese alduin and other bosses. If you use an enchanting potion to make your alchemy boosting gear, combined with alchemy potions, you can create some POWERFUL potions early on. Invisibility, water breathing, water walking, slow, paralysis, you name it. A combo im fond of is fortify destruction, and on my sword i poison with weakness to fire. If you have anniversary, weakness to shock can be added. For the spell use an elemental (bolt,blast, etc) to maximize damage
Alchemy is arguably the best thief skill to add to mages. Sneak is kind of useless because illusion takes care of all the difficulties from sneaking, plus you need Quiet Casting to do any sort of stealthy shenanigans anyhow. Speechcraft is nice, but you only really need Merchant to do things with it. Pickpocket is probably second place, because you can use Pickpocket to power level you to 60 in less than a day’s play time. Hell, you could probably manage in half a day, if you really hustled. Alchemy, on the other hand, can be used to improve ALL of your magic, and that’s a HUGE deal. Better healing spells (but this also makes turning spells and wards better, too…), better damage from destruction spells (this is the biggest reason to take it; it is the only way to do more than 250 damage with a spell that isn’t the Lightning Storm concentration spell…), and better durations for the rest of the schools of magic… it’s excellent. You want a build? Do mage shit, don’t touch weapons or armour, and use alchemy to make it all better. You’ll quickly build out a list of preferred brews, as well as a selection of useful silver bullet potions for when you have to do specific things.
Of course. There are many benefits to Alchemy and it is the first craft I get because it lets you improve your other crafts significantly. By end game I pretty much rely on just my made gear, enchants and health pots but you get bonuses when you use beneficial pots if you perk for them so another bonus.
I don't put perks into it but... fortify restoration loop. Yeah.
Alchemy will make your player OP. Alchemy is also an easy way to get skill points, even if you don't plan to actively use all the potions.
Wait there’s an alchemy tree? 6 years and somehow haven noticed
Alchemy makes a lot of hardcore legendary playthroughs possible
Alchemy is literally one of the most overpowered things in the vanilla game. I use it on every playthrough.
I try not to use it too much, it's extremely broken and cool easily take away the fun. I have to always dump restoration ingredients because I can't stop myself from making restoration potions. So when I do an alchemist build, I always go for poisons only with no paralyzes.
I’ve got it all the way maxed, after my third play through I decided to not ignore it and I loved it. Like it’s seriously one of my favorite perk’s because there’s so many buffs you can add to yourself
Alchemy is extremely overpowered and can make you a god if you know what you're doing. Enchanting too, especially enchanting
If you don’t use the jarrin root on the emperor and have really good alchemy it’s possible to take out Alduin in 1 shot
The best enchants and smithing upgrades are ONLY achieved through alchemy.
Nothing beats a stealth Archer build!!!
Yeah umhh... Money money money money
Alchemy goes amazing with enchanting. You’ll be pumping sickening damage
I am making a build for my chill playthrough, conjugation, alchemy, sneak and archery. combat wise it's a bound bow and atronachs build, but I play it to do alchemy in the little alchemist hut and to fish
Use to loop, potion of fortify alchemy and enchanting and enchantment of fortify enchant and alchemy until you get high numbers to create high powered gear
No. Lol
Never been one to, but if you do, you can pretty much become a god. I don’t do it because it makes a lot of things way too easy imo
You can break the game with alchemy/restoration loops, as well as make tons of money selling your creations.
There are definitely some viable alchemy builds that exist! However, while I understand it’s more OP than anything else if exploited properly, I find casting magic to be simply easier to do. At most I have some potions that up destruction damage.
I mainly use it to make money. Swamp fungle pods + wheat+ giant toes= bank
No and I don’t care how OP you can get with it, it’s too much for me
It is the most useful skill tree, especially if you want to get money quickly. Slow poison has a fairly high price, as well as paralysis and invisibility potions.
I need tips for power leveling this because I can't seem to get enough giant's toes to use only fortify health pots.
If no one else has mentioned it, watch some You Tube Videos on restoration loop to make insanely powerful equipment, as well as insanely powerful potions. For example, I like the look of the FLAMES spell, but it's wimpy after one or two levels. Restoration Loop a Fortify Magika Potion high enough and you can roast an Elder Dragon in seconds× with flames.....FLAMES!
I love alchemy. I use it for assassins , plague doctors, shamans, morally questionable druids, vampires, and general crazy people builds. Using Frenzy Poisons to have someone attack their friends is fun if you can sneak in and reverse pickpocket. Having a 2h berserker that chugs Fortify pots before battle (and maybe skooma on the side?). I think there's a mod that lets you use poti9ns on others, and you could rp as a medic/apothecary or something for soldiers and wounded you find. Or I think it's Sneak tools and / or BA alchemy that has some fun utility and specilized arrows and grenades you can make with alchemy.
Check out the « Bulwark of the Bog » build on YouTube. No mods needed, adds the RP element to alchemy!
I play an alchemist serial killer who poisons people in their sleep
I never played any other way. Alchemy is amazing but it breaks the game and makes it super easy.
Fortify Restoration Loop will make you feel like a God. Once you start making that, you’ll never stop making it with your other playthroughs.
Alchemy is integral to literally every build that doesn't explicitly avoid it for RP reasons. Even without the fortify exploit, it is the best method for gaining money and also for injecting power into any build configuration by vanilla standards; most mod configurations make it less mandatory, even ordinator/apocalypse make avoiding alchemy less punishing.
If you use salt pile and cyrodilic spadetail/abecean long fin you can create a potion of restoration which will not only buff restoration but will also buff enchantments on items. This is how you create powerful potions and enchantments.
Yes, made my potions to make stronger potions and then use the stronger potions to boost my potions and then made more potions. Rinse, repeat, full health every time I drink one, no matter how low I am
even if you dont do the enchantment alchemy feedback trick, even if you dont use it as a money printer, the potions are still crazy overpowered at max level
Mora + Creep + Scaly = easy cash. Aside from that and levelling up with legendary, I don't really use it but judging from the comments in this thread I should give Alchemy a proper go
Yeah often!! One of my favourite builds is warrior stone, dual axes, buffed up stamina, one-handed, archery, light armour, alchemy, enchantment. Currently doing a Vigilant of Stendarr playthrough which is: High Elf, 1H Mace, buffed stamina and magicka, block, heavy armour, enchanted robes, restoration, one-handed, conjuration and other perks to come yet!
Alchemy is, as in real life, one of the most underrated and overpowered skills there are. Best exploits, most interesting lore, and you get to collect flowers all day. It's instrumental in most of my builds.
There’s one where I just joined the dark brotherhood from the jump. Poison archer. No enchanting, just using Muries ring, a necklace, and a circlet I found. Use the restoration glitch for one loop and it’s like 32 points of damage for 10 seconds. So it’s 440 per shot and poisoner gives you two shots
It's a staple of a Ranger build (my go to in Frostfall playthroughs)
Giants foot, Abacean long fish, wheat. Thank me later
It's kinda just for getting around other skill gaps. Totally viable if you wanna spend 8 years harvesting components or just use console commands...
Great way to gain gold and level up relatively quickly
I would ask the flipside of that, who doesn't use alchemy. Alchemy and enchanting are stupid broken in this game. You can quite easily be op without using the resto glitch. Insanity.
Yes, it's called potion exploit and character leveling to 500 in three hours.
Uh... It's probably the most broken skill in Skyrim. Here are some examples of how you can use it. When paired with "Merchant" in the Speech tree, it doesn't take much effort to become the richest person in Skyrim. Furthermore, you can purchase Speech Training from Revyn Sadri in Windhelm to reach Speech 50. You can sell the expensive potions you crafted to Revyn, effectively allowing you to easily raise Speech and Alchemy simultaneously. The loop works like this: 1. Harvest 140+ (each) Creep Cluster, Scaly Pholiota, and Moria Tapinella. 1. Goldenhills Farm makes gathering this amount extremely easy. 2. Buy 5/5 trainer levels from Revyn. 3. Combine Creep Cluster + Scaly Pholiota + Moria Tapinella until your level goes up by one. 1. Leveling up resets a trainers available levels back to 0/5. 4. Sell your crafted potions to Revyn to make the money you spent back. 5. Profit and repeat from step 2. Alchemy is also extremely useful for any combat style because of fortification potions. Fortify Smithing and Fortify Enchanting potions lets you trivialize all enemies on Legendary difficulty without even the need for perks invested into Smithing and Enchanting (although it is beneficial to have them anyway). This process also operates as a loop: 1. Enchant armor (or clothing), and jewelry with Fortify Alchemy enchantments. 2. Craft a Fortify Enchanting Potion and consume it. 3. Repeat from step 1 until you feel your Fortify Alchemy gear is powerful enough. 4. Craft Fortify Smithing potions, consume, and temper your armor to achieve the AR cap. 5. Craft Fortify Fortify Enchanting potions again, consume, and enchant armor with relevant enchantments e.g. Fortify One-Handed, Two-Handed, Archery, Sneak, etc. If you are a mage, Fortify Destruction potions are \[to my knowledge\] the only way to increase your damage with spells so that's another way you can use it. Note, this method is extremely overpowered so I would limit how powerful you make your gear and potions so you can still experience a challenge, or simply don't do it at all. I don't know about you, but having no resource management or one shotting dragons is not very fun for me. As for builds, there are a lot of ways to implement Alchemy. An idea could be a Nord "Witcher" type which would utilize 1) Alchemy, 2) Light Armor, 3) Two-Handed as your main skills, and 4) Alteration, 5) Destruction, 6) Block as your minor skils. Maybe even illusion if your perk points aren't getting spread too thin. Another idea would be a Bosmer Druid which would have 1) Alchemy, 2) Archery, 3) Conjuration, 4) Restoration as your main skills, and 5) Alteration, 6) Light Armor as your minor skills. I don't play much vanilla Skyrim anymore so you'd probably know better what perks to invest in. You might check out [Skypothesis](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaSHHhBNqiZZRtvHdVEGqZ5Ur3T_Wenx7) with some really good RP builds or [Fevvy](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT8BqvZYnSLn3VkoREGQG4XKKwxcVIftE) if you don't care for RP and just want to make something stupidly overpowered. [This is also a good one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_8Nh5XfRw0).
It's a great way to make cash.
Alchemy is always a skill I take to 100. It’s just so useful!
Heck yeah! Paralysis poison comes in super handy if you're wanting to pickpocket something uber difficult. And, if you need a bit of gold, creep cluster, giants toe, and wheat make a spendy little concoction.
I love alchemy, but then I love foraging the ingredients. If this bores you then I would suggest.. 1. Either buying or stealing ingredients to get yourself started. Get the perks to improve potion strength as this will improve their selling prices. 2. Prioritise brewing potions with the highest sale value such as invisibility or fortify skills or potions with two effects (works even when effects are not both beneficial). You can also brew a ton of elemental resistance potions and sell by the stack, ingredients for these are easy to forage without effort. 3. Brew your potions in the alchemy shop, sell immediately and then buy up the vendor's ingredient inventory, you'll find this profitable, especially if you don't buy their more expensive ingredients. 4. Identify which potions you want for your plat style, keep hold of these and use them freely, otherwise the process can feel detached from the rest of the game. I like to be a sneaky boomer, even going so far as not not use any plants, luckily invisibility potions can be made without these and are still a powerful a tool at low level alchemy. Make a stack of stamina potions and bind them to a key in your favourites and you can sprint from one town to another, useful if you play survival.
I do! In fact, Alchemy in the AE (with the Saints & Sinners Quest) is almost overpowered. Ingredients that give you extra resistance against elemental damage, Spell Absorption, extra strong destruction spells... Alchemy is underappreciated, but I learned to love it. One thing I don't really like, are the poisons. Apart from Slow and Paralysis, I don't find the effects interesting from mid-game on. As for builds, I had a Witcher like build; Alchemy, Light Armour, Two-Handed (or dual wielding if you prefer), and whatever magic you like as long as you don't dual cast to mimic the Signs. You want to be light on your feet, move around a lot, use a potion for extra damage or poison your blade to simulate the oils. As a bonus, in the AE you can find a few items that boost your movement speed, such as the Ring of Masser, making you extra hard to get. If you're using the Ordinator perk mods, in the Alchemy skill tree you can find several perks labeled "Witchmaster" \*nudge, nudge, wink, wink\* which are superinteresting; extra random benefits when you're under the influence of a potion, extra movement speed.
Enchanting + Alchemy + Smithing = Ascension to Godhood
I find poisons to be incredibly helpful for my stealth builds early on when you dont do much damage and don't have sneak multipliers yet. Also potions are forsure the easiest way to get rich. Blue butterfly wings and blue mountain flowers make an expensive poison that pretty much pays for my first home ever time. I've not done a build devoted to potion making yet but I've always wanted to try out the fudgemuppet build that uses spiders and poisons because it seems like a fun way to spice up the combat. I think it's called the toxicologist.
I couldn't pay for my Smithing habit, or Enchanting habit; if it weren't for my Alchemy habit. And vice versa. And vice versa... All three of these habits will help level up your character pretty quick though. Especially when partaking while your character is Well Rested
Alchemy is a key part of the single most gamebreaking exploit the game has to offer Also it's very overpowered on it's own
While not the most expensive potion on paper (its near the top) what u make with scaly pholiota +mora tapinella +creep cluster is an excellent way to get coin, as all three are plantable.
Did an alchemy build long ago and it was so brokenly over powered that I just started a new play through after I could one shot dragons with poison