If I am role-playing a rogue or assassin and I am not using Alchemy to buff abilities for overpowering purposes (in other words, just normal use) is it worth picking the perks at all?

I mean I know I can make better poisons and healing potions. But I have never had a real 'need' for healing potions. My last character was a warrior who drank them all the time but never ran out just from what he found. I've used poison but it never really seemed to make much difference so I ended up just selling what I found. Can an expert alchemist make poisons that are effective enough to actually be useful and worth the perks?

Again I'm not wanting to use Alchemy to buff myself to make super items or to make money. I just want to use it like a normal rogue/assassin would for healing and poison.

Thanks.

i find that in my adventures i find plenty of healing/magica/stamina potions so i don't use alchemy for those at all. i am working on it to get stronger poisons though, that's one of my favorite ways to play a sneaky character, first blow is always poisoned.

Yeah I don't think healing would be much of an issue, though if I could suddenly start making healing potions that heal 100+ points I would consider making some.

Poisons though, the generally 9-12 points or whatever I could make as a warrior were hardly worth the effort. But if I could make some that do something like 50+ damage that would be something worth pursuing.

Poison perk in Alchemy + the Reverse Pickpocket perk is a good combination.

You can make poisons that hit for around 100, with additional effects such as Weakness to ____. The perks are well worth it if you want to poison stuff ^_^

Well... definitely take the poison-related perks, if that's what you want to do. Snakeblood isn't really necessary, since Experimenter is the actual prerequisite for Purity, and enemy poison is both rare and not particularly dangerous in Skyrim (not to mention curable with a cheap potion). You can skip other non-essential perks if you like, including Purity since you don't really need it for all combinations.

Strength of the potions does matter, yes. It affects the duration of paralysis and slow poisons, for example. A favorite tactic of mine is to take the Bullseye Archery perk, enchant a bow with Paralysis, and apply Paralysis poison (two doses, with the Concentrated Poison perk) to it as well. I wouldn't use that particular bow and poison on every enemy, but if I'm discovered and forced to fight some tough enemies, out it comes.

Poisons can be incredibly useful at expert level, mine is at 82 so far, here are my 2 favorites



I took 5/5 in the first perk and the poison damage as well as the one that makes poisons last for 2 hits instead of one.
Imo best perks ever taken

Edit: sorry I wasn't really thinking, changed to spoiler

Jaguar please no spoilers/cheats on which ingredients make which potion. There would be no Experimenter perks if we were supposed to check Wiki for ingredients. If you want to cheat that's fine but some of us want to play as intended because it's also more fun.



Alchemy was main skill I focused on as bow-assassin (Master difficulty). I'll give you my current estimate:

(100 alchemy, plus few items found along the way with +% in alchemy, which one puts on when mixing potions.)



1. Healing potion will heal around 130hp. Stamina potion is probably around the same. Health regengeration potion is about +100% faster regen for 5 minutes.

2. Most poisons do 44 damage, some 66, and the strongest one I know of does 110 damage (only one ingredients, don't expect to spam this, although it's still useful for tough situations).
Lingering damage health poison does 22 damage over 10 seconds (for a total of 220 damage). Plenty of ingredients for that one.

3. You will need to spend 9 perk points, plus 10th if you want Snake Blood (I use that one for RP as Argonian, and it occasionally helps but is not needed as poison is rare). What you don't need is Experimenter (remember that when you select an ingredient, other grey ingredients will be those you attemped to mix already with the one you selected), Purity (in practice, I have not run into a situation where I really need this perk; a bit of tactic and care works) and Green Thumb (it won't help you with ingredients you really need; and because economy in the game is broken - you can just visit every alchemy shop when you're passing through the town and buy ALL the ingredients, then sell back potions to make money). If for whatever reason you don't intend to buy ingredients but want to collect them, then use this perk.

4. The most important potion is Paralysis. It is very very rare that enemy resists this potion. It can be used on enemies much stronger than those affected by Fear/Frenzy (my impression). Current duration: 22 seconds.
Weaker version is 50% Slow, which works for about a minute and a half and helps vs melee.

5. Resist Frost/Fire/Shock 63%, Magic cca 22% (these two can be stacked as game first checks for magic resistance, reduces damage, checks for elemental, reduces damage).

6. Fortify Marksman: 83% more bow damage for 60s.
Weakness to Poison 42%, but I haven't used this one as it last only 30sec so not good for dragon fights, and almost everyone else will die fast enough that it's better to open a fight with a poison itself.



One thing you may not like is the fact you'll need to hit TAB a lot (to choose potions and poisons) even if you use some hotkeys.