Skyrim:Enchanting

Enchanting is the ability to add magical effects to weapons, armor, and clothes. Increasing this skill increases the amount of charges available when creating an enchanted item and the quality of the enchantment that can be placed on that item. The Enchanting skill tree has a total of 9 perks, requiring a total of 13 perk points to fill. Each level in the Enchanting skill increases the strength of enchantments in a quadratic fashion to a maximum of +25% effectiveness at level 100. Which enchantments can be applied to a particular item varies by item type.

In-game Description: The more powerful the enchanter, the stronger the magic he can bind to his weapons and armor.

Skill Perks
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

Skill Usage
thumb|right|Enchanting Interface
To use the enchanting skill, you will first need access to an arcane enchanter. These stations enable you to both disenchant items that you already have in order to learn their enchantments and create newly enchanted items using the enchantments you currently know.

To disenchant an item, all that is necessary is an item with an enchantment you have not yet learned. Open up the enchanting interface at an arcane enchanter, select the option for Disenchant, and select the item you wish to disenchant. Items available to be disenchanted will appear white, while items with enchantments that you already know will appear greyed out. Note that many items, such as staves, artifacts and even most unique items, cannot be disenchanted and their enchantments cannot be learned; they will not even appear on the disenchanting list. A list of all available enchanting effects as well as which item types can be enchanted with which effects can be found here. Keep in mind that when you disenchant an item, it will be destroyed and you will only learn the type of enchantment that it contained; the magnitude is irrelevant for purposes of disenchanting.

Three components are necessary for enchanting an item with a new effect:
# An item to apply the enchantment(s) to.
# A learned enchantment (through disenchanting other items) to apply to the item.
# A filled soul gem.

To enchant an item, begin by opening up the enchanting interface at the arcane enchanter. Then choose the Item menu option and select the item that you wish to enchant. Note that the type of item you select, be it a piece of armor or a weapon, will determine what effects can be placed upon it. Next, select the enchantment (or enchantments if you have the Extra Effect perk) that you wish to place on the item. If the item you selected is a weapon, then when you choose an enchantment you will also be able to tune a slider before confirming the enchantment. Moving the slider to the left will increase the number of charges that your item has, but decrease the magnitude of the effect applied. Once you have chosen your enchantment(s), you will then select a soul gem for use. When you pick a soul gem to use, the magnitude of the enchantment(s) you placed on the item will be scaled by the magnitude of the soul gem's soul. If the soul gem you wish to use is greyed out, then it is not strong enough to enchant the item with your selected enchantment with at least one charge at your selected magnitude; reduce the magnitude, or if you deselect the enchantment, then you can reselect the same enchantment and the magnitude slider will start at the minimum magnitude.  As a practical matter, you'll likely want to pick the item, the soul gem, and the enchantment in that order, so that you see the magnitude range already adjusted for gem power.  Also, enchantments with no magnitude but a simple on-or-not effect (e.g. Muffle and Waterbreathing) are best enchanted with Petty Soul Gems, as using any larger ones is wasteful.

When enchanting an item, you can rename it. The name you choose appears in all capital letters in the enchanting interface, but it will use the capitalization you specify in the inventory and favorites menus. The name is limited to 32 characters. 
Renamed items retain their IDs at the lower level of the game; a script that checks for possession of an item will still work even after the item has been renamed.  Unlike in the rest of the enchanting process, time is paused while the rename option is open, which is handy if you are using a short-lived Fortify Enchanting potion and need time to look over the available enchantments for the item.
  Type F to enter a name. This may be different if you changed your keybinds.
  Press Triangle to enter a name.
  Press the Y button to enter a name.

Once you have confirmed all of the features of the item you wish to create, select the Enchant option from the menu to complete the process.

Maximizing Enchantment Power
 
thumb|right|Arcane Enchanter
To create the most powerful enchantments for your items without taking advantage of glitches, you will need to have a skill level of 100 in both Alchemy and Enchanting. In the base game, no Powers or equippable items exist that Fortify Enchanting, but with the Dragonborn add-on, there are three very important powers to acquire to maximize the potency of your enchantments:
'''Ahzidal's Genius : Increases your Enchanting skill by 10 points.
Seeker of Sorcery : Enchantments are 10% more powerful.
Seeker of Shadows :''' Thief skills are 10% more powerful (affects Alchemy; mutually exclusive with Seeker of Sorcery).
Once you have these powers, use the procedure described below to improve the quality of the enchantments you can apply. If you do not have Dragonborn, just follow the same steps without the Dragonborn-specific elements.
# Acquire Seeker of Shadows.
# Wear four pieces of apparel enchanted with Fortify Alchemy (head, necklace, ring, arms).
# Craft a potion of Fortify Enchanting, and another of Fortify Restoration, at an alchemy lab. If you have Rare Curios, use either Dreugh Wax or Stoneflower Petals to double the fortification effect.
# Acquire Seeker of Sorcery.
# If you have Ahzidal's armor set, equip it now.
# Get four more pieces of unenchanted apparel, one for each of the same slots as before (head, necklace, ring, arms).
# Drink the potions you just made, Fortify Restoration followed by Fortify Enchanting, in front of an enchanting table.
# Enchant gear with improved Fortify Alchemy effects more powerful than those you started with. This must be done quickly as time runs normally in most of the enchanting menus. It may take you multiple pairs of potions to enchant all four pieces.
#* The Slow Time shout, with all three words, may allow you to gain a few seconds while doing this.
# Repeat from step 1 with your new Fortify Alchemy gear.
This process has diminishing returns, with the most powerful potion of Fortify Enchanting that can be made, factoring in all possible boosts, being +49% (40% without Vampire/Necromage). Once these potions are made, drink one, ensure that you have all necessary powers (Seeker of Sorcery, Ahzidal's Genius), and then enchant your gear and you will be creating the strongest enchantments possible without taking advantage of glitches.
USKP Note: The Necromage perk and Fortify Restoration potions have no effect on enchanting bonuses, while the effect of Fortify Enchanting itself has been modified. The resulting maximum Fortify Enchanting potion with these changes is 44% with Dragonborn; 114% with Dragonborn and Rare Curios. Using a single instance of the Haunting Gift effect from the Necromantic Grimoire creation, this can be further increased to 127% Fortify Enchanting potions.

Skill Increases
Character Creation
The following races have an initial skill bonus in Enchanting:
+5 bonus: Altmer, Imperial, Orc

Trainers
Sergius Turrianus in the College of Winterhold (Expert)
Hamal in Markarth (Master)
Neloth  in Tel Mithryn (Master)

Skill Books
Catalogue of Armor Enchantments
Catalogue of Weapon Enchantments
''Enchanter's Primer
A Tragedy in Black
Twin Secrets''

Free Skill Boosts
+1 Enchanting reward (as well as +1 to all other magic skills) from Pantea Ateia (Bards College) for completing the quest Pantea's Flute.
+5 Enchanting reward (as well as +5 to all other magic skills) if you choose "The Path of Magic" when reading the Oghma Infinium.

Gaining Skill XP
A few basic tips to increasing your Enchanting skill are as follows:
Crafting enchanted items gives the biggest overall skill increases.
Unlike Alchemy and Smithing, enchanting skill increases are unaffected by item value, enchantment used, or soul level of the soul gem used. You gain 1 base XP for each enchantment, which is only affected by other XP enhancers mentioned below.  
Enchanting an iron dagger using petty soul gems with Damage Stamina or Turn Undead will yield a weapon that can be sold for more than the cost of the material used.
Disenchanting items gives highly variable skill increases, dependent on the effect learned and the magnitude on the item, with apparel effects generally giving larger increases than weapon effects. Only one item per effect may ever be disenchanted, however.
Recharging enchanted weapons using Soul Gems gives small-to-moderate skill increases, based on the size of the soul used. It does not matter how many charges there are left on the weapon. Using Azura's Star or the Black Star and a weapon with a Soul Trap effect, you can train by recharging the weapon after every kill without having to worry about soul gems.
Using The Mage Stone and a sleeping bonus (such as Well Rested) will increase the experience you gain per enchantment.
If you own the Myrwatch creation, you can level rapidly using the Staff Enchanter there as it is bugged and grants 20 times more Enchanting experience than it is supposed to. This is due to the original Staff Enchanter in Tel Mithryn having a hidden perk ( ) that reduces the experience gained by 95%; the Staff Enchanter in Myrwatch has a different Editor ID and thus is unaffected by the perk.

Achievements
One achievement is related to enchanting:
 
For the purposes of this achievement, disenchanting an item counts as "making" an enchanted item.

Notes
If your Enchanting skill is at 30 or higher, guards may randomly say, "''Don't suppose you'd enchant my sword? Dull old blade can barely cut butter.''"
When enchanting apparel for a follower, note that many enchantments will not work as expected. Most notably, Fortify   and Fortify   enchantments will not benefit your follower. See the followers article for details.
Items with enchantments that reduce the magicka cost of spells will also affect charge levels on weapons associated with that school of magic. For example, with an armor, helmet, ring, and amulet all enchanted with at least -25% skill cost in Destruction, Chillrend will have infinite uses.
If the enchanted weapon has two enchantments, it is only necessary to have cost reduction in the more powerful/expensive enchantment of two. For example, if you have Paralysis (Alteration) and Fire Damage (Destruction), you only need to have 100% cost reduction in Alteration in order to have infinite charges.
The "stronger" enchantment can be changed by modifying the magnitude of the enchantment.  In the above scenario, if you lower the paralysis from 4 to 2 seconds, you will need to reduce Destruction cost instead.
Use of the staff enchanter  does not require the Enchanting skill, but still increases the skill when used.
Frost Damage, Resist Frost, and Chaos Damage  enchantments placed on Stalhrim  weapons or armor are 25% stronger than the same enchantments placed on weapons or armor constructed of other materials.
Potions that fortify skills by a percent, such as those that Fortify Destruction or Fortify Restoration, will benefit items with enchantments related to those skills. They will also affect the displayed values while enchanting, but the increase will not be permanent.
An enchanted item's value is additive in the sense that it takes the base value of the item and simply adds the value of the enchantments to it. Since the value of powerful enchantments like Paralysis or Banish on weapons is significant compared to the value of the item itself, it's generally more profitable to use less expensive base items.
For some reason, the values of enchantments placed on items gradually decrease as the enchanting skill grows in level. It is not known if this is intentional or a bug.
The Augmented Flames, Augmented Frost, and Augmented Shock perks directly affect elemental enchantment magnitudes on weapons wielded by actors with these perks.
The perks affect the item itself and not the enchantment placed on the item, which means that if you enchant a weapon with elemental enchantments and then acquire the perks later, you will still see an increase in the damage of that enchantment.
Because these perks affect the item itself, it will also benefit other secondary enchantments (such as those from having the Extra Effect perk) on the item that are not related to elemental damage. For instance, an item with Fire Damage and Absorb Health as its enchantments, when used by an actor with Augmented Flames, will also see a +50% increase in the effectiveness of the Absorb Health effect.
This also means that if you have these perks and then give them to a follower without the perks, the follower does not gain the benefit of the added damage.
Destruction perks that activate on elemental damage, such as Intense Flames, do not activate from elemental damage enchantments on weapons.
Illusion enchantments are increased by Vampirism's 25% power boost to Illusion magic. This also stacks with the Destruction perks if you make a Fire Damage / Fear or similar weapon.

Bugs
 
 
 
If you find yourself suddenly in first-person view while using an arcane enchanter, zoom out to third person and then exit the arcane enchanter.