The path to becoming the biggest and the baddest Dragonborn that you can be in Skyrim requires more than just looting chests, stealing gear, and hacking your way through every draugr and dungeon in the game.
To get your hands on the best weapon and armor available in Skyrim, you’ll have to make them yourself, as well as enchant them with the necessary effects.
Enchanting in Skyrim allows you to produce custom gear befitting the status of the Dragonborn.
More powerful than any other weapon that you’ll find in the game, these enchanted gear in Skyrim aren’t easy to get your hands on.
Sure, you can make these gear yourself, but it takes a Master Enchanter to create the ultimate guide, and reaching that status is far from easy.
How Do You Become a Master Enchanter in Skyrim?
Maxing out your Enchanting skill in Skyrim and reaching level 100 takes a lot of time.
However, there are ways to speed things up.
First things first, you’ll want to look for The Mage Stone.
You’ll find it among the first Guardian Stones you’ll find in the game just southwest of Riverwood, along with The Thief Stone and The Warrior Stone.
Once activated, The Mage Stone grants a 20% bonus in Enchanting (among others).
Other additional important bonuses worth taking note of include the Lover’s Comfort buff (15% bonus), which you can by sleeping with your spouse at your home, or the Well Rested buff (10% bonus), which you can get by sleeping in an inn or a house that you own.
Take note, the bonuses from Well Rested and Lover’s Comfort last only 8 hours and do not stack.
Also, if you’re playing as a Vampire in Skyrim, you can benefit from the Necromage perk in the Restoration skill tree, and you’ll be able to enjoy as much as a 46% Enchanting potion boost, or even up to 49% Enchanting boot with the Seeker of Sorcery boost.
The Most Important Enchanting Perks in Skyrim
Enchanter
This is a no-brainer. You’ll want to max all 5 ranks the Enchanter perk as soon as possible for the maximum bonus.
Insightful Enchanter
With Insightful Enchanter, all skill enchantments placed on armors become 25% stronger.
This isn’t especially useful for weapons, but because you’ll need the highest Fortify Alchemy enchantments on your crafting gear possible to create the best weaponry and armor for fighting, you’ll want to level up this perk as soon as you can.
Corpus Enchanter
Health, Magicka, and Stamina enchantments in Skyrim are relative only to how important they are for you, but since 25% is no joke, you might as well get Corpus Enchanter.
Extra Enchanter
One of the biggest reasons why you’ll want to max out your Enchanting skill tree, the Extra Enchanter is only available once you reach level 100.
Once you’ve leveled up this perk, you can add two enchantments to your gear, allowing you to create incredibly powerful custom gear that will turn you into the badass that the Dragonborn deserves to be.
What are the Best Enchantments in Skyrim?
1. Paralyze (Weapon)
Adding Paralyze to a weapon gives it a chance to cause paralysis on the weapon’s target upon successfully landing a hit.
How long a target is paralyzed depends on the Enchanting skill of the Dragonborn.
But, despite a low Enchanting skill, enemies affected by Paralyze will still fall to the ground and be vulnerable to attacks, which makes Paralyze one of the best enchantments in Skyrim, especially when you’re fighting against more powerful enemies at lower levels.
Keep in mind, however, that not all enemies can be affected by Paralyze.
2. Muffle (Armor)
It’s no secret that sneaking about in Skyrim is the best and most efficient way to get things done.
However, your enemy’s hearing cannot just be underestimated, because even the slightest sounds, such as your footsteps, can give away your position and alert enemies.
One way to prevent this from happening is enchanting Muffle to any one of your gear.
Unlike the Muffle spell, as an enchantment, Muffle works to the full magnitude of the effect, so, even if your Enchantment skill is still relatively low level and you only have the smallest Soul Gem available to use, you will be near-impossible to detect, especially while invisible or sneaking about.
3. Fortify (Armor Skill) / Fortify (Weapon Skill) (Armor)
Easily the best reason why you want to max out your Enchanting skill tree in Skyrim in the first place, the Fortify enchantment is easily the best in the game.
For your full-on battle gear in Skyrim, make sure that you have Fortify gear set for whatever it is that you want your character in Skyrim to specialize in.
4. Water breathing (Armor)
There isn’t really much opportunity to go swimming or underwater in Skyrim, but if you want unlimited access to any item that can only be found underwater, then enchanting Waterbreathing to any one of your gear is the best way to go.
Plus, there are various sunken ships for you to explore in Skyrim that Waterbreathing could come in handy in.
Not to mention, Geirmund’s Hall as well.
5. Soul Trap (Weapon)
Enchanting in Skyrim requires the use of naturally-occurring magic stones, and to get the best weapons and armor, you need Grand Soul Gems or Black Soul Gems, which you can only get if you take down the biggest and baddest monsters in Skyrim with a weapon enchanted with Soul Trap or by using the Soul Trap spell.
6. Fiery Soul Trap (Weapon)
One of the four rare weapon enchantments available in Skyrim, the Fiery Soul Trap enchantment is basically just Soul Trap that also deals additional fire damage whoever is hit with the enchantment weapon.
Technically, the Fiery Soul Trap enchantmentsis one of the few ways to get “three” enchantments in Skyrim.
Be a Master Enchanter in No Time
Becoming a Master Enchanter is just one of the many steps that you’re going to have to take if you want to be the ultimate Dragonborn in Skyrim.
Then again, one could argue that this is the most difficult one.
Still, once you’ve started swinging your weapons or firing bows or raining down your spells using gear with the maximum enchantments possible in Skyrim, you’ll realize why everything is worth it in the end.
