Skyrim Crafting Guide Part 4: Maxing Out Bonuses

Now that you have Alchemy, Smithing, and Enchanting all at Level 100 with all the right perks it's time to make best stuff in the game. But first, let's recap:

Alchemy: You should have maxed out Alchemist (5/5) perk and the Benefactor perk. You will need plenty of Blue Butterfly Wing, Hagraven Claw, Snowberries, and Spriggan Sap to make Fortify Enchanting potions.  You will also need plenty of Blisterwort, Glowing Mushroom, Sabre Cat Tooth, and Spriggan Sap for Fortify Smithing potions. All of these ingredients can be bought at potions vendors if you haven't been able to find many on your adventures.

Smithing: You should at least have the Arcane Blacksmith perk. You want Dragon Smithing at the top of the perk constellation only if you have Dawnguard and want the best weapons possible. Any armor is able to make cap, even Hide, with the proper perks and skills.

Enchanting: You want to have The Black Star and a number of black soul gems and grand soul gems all containing grand souls to make the best equipment. For perks you want Enchanter (5/5), Insightful Enchanter, Corpus Enchanter, and Extra Effect. You need to know the Fortify Smithing and Fortify Alchemy enchantments.

You will also need the following mundane items (I had stacks of four before starting):

Falmer helmets

Circlets

Clothes

Boots

Gloves

Rings

Necklaces

When making your Smithing and Alchemy bonus equipment you really don't need anything fancy. I choose items that weighed very little. It does really matter how they look or if they even give you an armor bonus. You'll only be using them for crafting purposes.

Before getting started remember to save often as you complete these steps. That way if you mess up it's fairly easy to reset and try again.

First thing you do is go to an Enchanting table and make yourself basic Fortify Alchemy equipment if you haven't already. This will be a Falmer helmet, Circlet, Gloves, Ring, and Necklace. Be sure to use grand souls to get the best bonuses possible. Now equip all these items. You should have a set that looks like this:

Alchemy Circlet: Created potions are 25% more powerful.
Alchemy Gloves: Created potions are 25% more powerful.
Alchemy Falmer Helmet: Created potions are 25% more powerful.
Alchemy Necklace: Created potions are 25% more powerful.
Alchemy Ring: Created potions are 25% more powerful.

Total bonus: +125% (Yes, you can go over 100%)

Save.

Next go to the Alchemy table and make a Fortify Enchanting potion using any three of the following ingredients: Blue Butterfly Wing, Hagraven Claw, Snowberries, and Spriggan Sap. Make yourself a small stack of Fortify Enchanting pots. (5 should be plenty.) My starting potions gave me 34% stronger enchantments for 30 seconds.

Save.

Drink a Fortify Enchanting potion and make some new Fortify Alchemy equipment. Start with the circlet first to see what the bonus is. At this point mine says + 29% to alchemy. That's 5 points better than the last batch of items. The new stuff should always be better than the old stuff or something went wrong in the process.

Start with the Circlet. Your goal is to reach 29% bonus. 29% is the max bonus you can get legitimately; without exploits. Once you've reached that it's time to change things up a bit.

We're now going to make a full set of Crafting Equipment to include both Alchemy and Smithing bonuses. In order to easily identify my crafting equipment I took the time to name them: Crafting Ring, Crafting Clothes, etc. This was just for ease of finding the items in my inventory, but is totally optional. Taking the time to name items can risk running out of time on an enchanting potion. You have about 30 seconds per potion. You may need to take a break between crafting items to drink new potions. Just pay attention and make sure all your equipment is getting the same amount of bonus to Fortify Alchemy. It's all about time management.

So drink one of your Enchanting potions and make yourself a Falmer Helmet with a +29% to Alchemy.

Save.

Now enchant either a piece of armor or some clothes with the Fortify Smithing bonus. Again, I use clothes or robes because they weigh very little compared to armor.

Save.

Now we're going to combine Alchemy and Smithing bonuses on the following items: Gloves (or bracers), Ring, and Necklace.

You should now have a set that is similar to mine. Here's my set for you to compare:

Crafting Helmet: 29% bonus to Alchemy
Crafting Circlet: 29% bonus to Alchemy
Crafting Robes: 29% bonus to Smithing
Crafting Gloves: 29% bonus to Alchemy. 29% bonus to Smithing
Crafting Ring: 29% bonus to Alchemy. 29% bonus to Smithing
Crafting Amulet: 29% bonus to Alchemy. 29% bonus to Smithing

Total bonuses: +145% to Alchemy. 87% to Smithing.

Wear these whenever you use smithing to improve weapons and armor, and you should wear this set of equipment whenever you make potions. Your new Fortify Enchanting potions will give you a +37%.

Now sell your old stuff, equip your brand new crafting equipment, and let's get ready to Smith some really good stuff.

But first, make sure you hit up an alchemy table and make yourself some brand new Fortify Smithing potions while wearing all of your crafting equipment. You'll need the following ingredients: Blisterwort, Glowing Mushroom, Sabre Cat Tooth, and Spriggan Sap. Any 3 of those will make you a Fortify Smithing potion. I made myself 5 potions to start. They should be giving you a bonus of 147% to Smithing.

So just to summarize here's how to get max bonuses:

Wear your Crafting Equipment any time you make a potion or improve an item with smithing.
Drink a +37% Fortify Enchanting potion before putting enchantments on anything.
Drink a +147% Smithing potion before improving any item using Smithing.

In my next post we'll talk about choosing the best equipment for your character, how to craft those items, and then we'll discuss choosing the right enchantments for each piece of equipment so you get the maximum benefits possible.

Thanks for reading!