Skyrim Enchanting gives you a very effective way to strengthen your gear. Weapons, armor, and accessories can be imbued with powerful enchantments to help you survive and thrive. In this guide we will see how to Enchant in Skyrim and how to get the most out of it.
The basics of enchantment in Skyrim
To learn an enchantment in Skyrim, you will need to obtain any magic item that already has that particular enchantment. Next, head to an Arcane Enchant table to see the disenchant tab.
Selecting an item will destroy it, but you will definitely learn this effect.
Please note that some equipment, such as quest items or Daedric artifacts, cannot be disenchanted at all.
In most cases, the pieces of gear you can enchant shouldn't have any particular magical benefit to begin with. You should then see them listed in the following tabs. Combine a base item, an enchantment, and a soul gem (more on that in a moment) to create a magic item.
- Weapons - Magic enchantments on weapons require charges, which means Soul Gems need to be recharged.
- Armor and Accessories – Conversely, magic enchantments on armor or accessories are often active. Higher levels of Soul Gems simply enhance the effect.
Soul Gems and Soul Trap
To complete the process, you will also need a Soul Gem with a trapped soul. Soul Gems can be found as loot or in the wild, or purchased from vendors. They come in different forms:
- Small Soul Gem
- Lesser Soul Gem
- Common Soul Gem
- Superior Soul Gem
- Great Soul Gem
- Dark Soul Gem
- Azura's Star or Black Star
The type of Soul Gem indicates what types of souls it can contain. The act itself involves casting the Soul Trap (school of conjuration) spell on an enemy and killing them while the effect is active. Alternatively, you can kill a target while wielding a weapon with the Soul Trap enchantment.
The defeated opponent's soul will be transferred to a soul gem in your inventory. If you don't have one, or if the enemy's type exceeds that of the gem, then the soul is lost.
Smaller or weaker creatures will usually require small to common soul gems. However, stronger enemies require Superior or Large Soul Gems. There are special types such as:
- Black Soul Gems (can contain the souls of humanoid NPCs)
- The Dark Star (a unique item that acts as a Dark Soul Gem, but is not destroyed after being fully used)
- Azura's Star (cannot be destroyed and can contain any soul type except humanoid NPC races)
Enchanting Benefits
Below you will see the enchantment perks you can learn in Skyrim. Likewise, we encourage you to try the Ordinator – Perks of Skyrim mod created by Enai Siaion. It adds more benefits to various skills, making the leveling process more attractive.
- Enchanter (has five ranks with increasing requirements starting at Enchantment 0) – New enchantments are more powerful.
- Soul Squeezer (requires Enchanting 20 and Enchanting) – Soul Gems provide additional magick for recharge.
- Fire Enchanter (requires Enchantment 30 and Enchanter) – Fire enchantments on weapons and armor are 25% more powerful.
- Soul Siphon (requires Enchanting 40 and Soul Squeezer) – Deathblows to creatures (not people) trap 5% of the victim's soul to recharge your weapon.
- Frost Enchanter (requires Enchanter 40 and Fire Enchanter) – Frost enchantments on weapons and armor are 25% more powerful.
- Storm Enchanter (requires Enchanting 50 and Frost Enchanter) – Shock enchantments on weapons and armor are 25% more powerful.
- Insightful Enchanter (requires Enchanting 50 and Frost Enchanter) – Skill enchantments on armor are 25% more powerful.
- Corpus Enchanter (requires Enchanting 70 and Insightful Enchanter) – Health, Magicka, and Stamina enchantments on armor are 25% stronger.
- Additional Effect (requires Enchanting 100 and either Storm Enchanter or Corpus Enchanter) – Allows you to put two enchants on the same item.
Enchanting Skyrim Books and Trainers
To improve enchantment in Skyrim, you'll want to keep disenchanting and/or giving magical enchantments to your weapons or armor. Recharging Soul Gems also grants XP, which is why it is more advisable to use Azura's Star or Dark Star as they cannot be destroyed once all charges are exhausted.
Additionally, you can get a one-time increase to your Enchanting skill by reading these books:
- Catalog of Armor Enchantments
- Catalog of weapon enchantments
- Enchanter's Primer
- A tragedy in black
- twin secrets
- Oghma Infinium
Finally, you can visit different trainers:
- Sergius Turrianus (Expert) – College of Winterhold.
- Hamal (Master) - Markarth (Temple of Dibella).
- Neloth (Maître) - Soltsheim (Tel Mithryn).
That's it for our Skyrim Enchanting guide. If this is helpful to you, check out some of our other Skyrim guides here on GameSkinny.
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