Hello all,

So I am going to start an alchemy oriented character, so before I do I thought I might ask a few questions.

1. How much can a character depend on alchemy?
2. How powerful do you potions/poisons become?
3. What perks should I take?

Thanks for the help.

Oh and also, I just remembered, what combination works best for raising alchemy fast?

1- Well, it depends on the build. I find archers/assassins can utilize it best.

2- Depends on your Alchemy skill, the higher the better. Some can be very deadly.

3- Those 0/5 perks obviously, Benefactor also helps. Nearly everything in the Alchemy tree.

An awful lot, in theory. Alchemy is necessary for smithing extremely good weapons and helpful for fortifying enchanting. It's the easiest way to make money in the game. I avoid potions in battle but I still consider alchemy one of my core skills.

I'm not really sure, since I don't actually use them much, but I think they're probably overpowered. The time value seems to max out at 300 seconds (five minutes of realtime). I don't think there's a limit on potion use, so health potions effectively make you invincible. Using alchemy-enchanted gear you should be getting extremely strong potions - if they aren't worth using they're at least worth a lot of money so you can trade them for ultimate health potions at vendors.

Experimenter is 3 perks and not necessary, if you plan to go legendary you may want to take it but otherwise avoid it. Purity makes your potions have a lower value, and you can usually find the effects you want without needing it, so I think it's worth avoiding. Get all the rest if you want to focus on alchemy.

If you have Hearthfire, mora tapinella, scaly pholiota, and creep cluster - combine the three for a highly valuable fortify carry weight potion. In particular, plant 3 creep/3 scaly/5 mora in each garden, then plant 5 creep/5 scaly/8 mora in your greenhouse. I advise getting all the houses and building a greenhouse as soon as possible, that will give you a yield of 69 each run. If you sleep in each manor you can run a continual loop and always have fresh ingredients. If your load times aren't too high you can get 1,000 of each ingredient in about an hour.

If you don't have Hearthfire, blue mountain flower and blue butterfly wing, snowberry and purple mountain flower. Hanging moss and snowberry are plentiful and have some good combinations with many other ingredients. Juniper is easy to get a lot of (the Reach is littered with it), and it grows with hanging moss, but it doesn't make many high-value potions. Red mountain flower is again easy to get but low in value. Butterflies respawn in Riften when you enter and exit an area, so you can get them pretty easily (the blue ones are worth your time).

Most of the other plant ingredients are more scattered and harder to harvest in large quantities, so harvest when you see them and use them when they're convenient. Mushrooms are too rare to be a main crop, although some falmer areas have lots of glowing mushrooms (and chaurus eggs!). Animal materials and other exotic ingredients are basically impossible to get many of, just use what you find (or buy in stores).

Don't use daedra hearts for potions, save them for quests and smithing daedric gear.

I find alchemy perfect for a destruction mage.

Make them as powerful as you like. Too easy, up the difficulty or wear weaker armour, the game pays little heed to balance, so make your own, whatever you find an enjoyable way to play is the right way.

Mara tapinella, imp stool, canis root. Salt, juniper berries, garlic (and if you can, substitute salmon roe for salt). Cheap easy, can't go wrong.

My character with a rogue (stealth / deception) style of play always heavily rely on alchemy whether it be for enhancement or healing potions or potions to poison or hinder opponents. It is also what I see as a rogue equivalent to smithing & enchanting for making fast cash.

Alchemy, Archery, Sneak and Duel Wielding. Poison for arrows and dip some on your duel daggers for that up close and personal feel.

I like Purity, because it doesn't make any sense that a drain health poison is worth more when you add a restore health to it...

Pretty much all my characters use alchemy. The potions who protect you from fire and frost are pretty handy against dragons or mages. The fortify damage potion is nice against hard enemies.

And yes the smithing potion. if you have heartfire the salmon roe+ chicken egg or hiscarp is very valuable and level you fast.

Salmon roe. Ugh. I prefer ingredients that sit still while you gather them.

If you make Alchemy your primary skill, whatever path you choose (Warrior, Mage, Thief/Assassin) will benefit greatly from it.

Not to mention, if it was my character, I'd probably max out the skill and take all perks.

Thanks for all the responses! Now my only problem is that I cannot convince myself to start using ingredients from my HUGE stash.

I also have thousands of ingredients because i pick every ingredient whenever i find one. But sometimes do alchemy work if need one.

I only use alchemy at low level because at high level it make me OP and i don't want game difficulty other than adept and expert.