And by that I mean, does it enable you to make potions that are superior to what you can find at higher levels.

For me it's worth it for the money alone. Tons of money can be made just by picking some mountain flowers and the wings off butterflies. I don't recall if you can make stronger potions (without using the Alchemy/Enchanting Loop) than those that can be found in the game.

But you can certainly make much stronger ones if you do the Alchemy/Enchanting Loop: http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:Skyrim:Alchemy/Enchanting_Loop, which some consider a glitch.

Its definately worth it for the loop like Whitestar said. Even if you dont plan on using the potions yourself, the money you can make is insane.

The game will give you far better potions. Unless you decide to cheat, in which case turning the game to novice is faster and has the same effect.

It depends really. It's much better and more convenient to be able to make your own potion. Would you like a fantastic potion that you may or may not get as loot from a dungeon, or some slightly worse potions you can craft with Alchemy? Take Destruction, you can poison your foes with 'weakness to magic' to improve your damage, making Destruction viable at higher levels.

I've yet to try Alchemy.. But as soon as my game stops freezing....

Yeah, alchemy is a licence to mint your own gold, free ingredients, mix = max profit. Trouble is, when you produce such expensive potions & in quantity, your shop hopping to get rid of it all, to an extent you'll be exchanging your potions for other or over priced gems etc... just to get shot of them. Not such great fun.

You can make some more unique potions than what you can buy, and there is some enjoyment in making them, even if you just hunt for specific ingredients for certain potions. But once you have that pile of money in your pocket, why not save the grind & just buy them i always think, when i'm making 50pts damage potion & see virulent/deadly poisons on sale with a hefty coin purse around my belt.

As an archer, i'd certainly say it's more optional in Skyrim, unlike where it was extremely necessary in Oblivion.

Completely worthless for me, even when I do play a mage. I just use the gazillion potions I find looting bandit camps, Nord barrows/ruins and whatnot..

Exactly, everything you need is just laying around the place.

To me, the alchemy skill tree is about as useless as the lockpicking tree, lol.

Similarly, I'd add the enchanting & blacksmithing tree to that as well.

I actually use both of those. Smithing to, well, smith stuff and improve my gear and enchanting is self-explanatory. Enchanting is especially useful when I play a mage.

Iv'e never used enchanting to any great degree, tried to improve a Khajiit characters hand to hand ability, but i got bored with it. Iv'e used smithing to a greater extent on warriors, and got close to Daedric (for the first time) on a 2h Orc, but similarly got bored of the grind & couldn't drag myself over the finishing line, lol.

I'm having a lot of fun with my Ring of Derp which ups my unarmed damage and archery by some 9 mil % And my Ring of Derp which ups my onehanded and twohanded by some 9 mil % there too.

Having a lot of fun

Depends on your interpretation of 'fun'

Spawning a 100 Draugr Deathlords in a random hold kind of fun

Ironically, I only use potions in emergencies, but for me, Alchemy is second only to Restoration as an essential skill. The reason: it is an insanely lucrative source of cash. Low-level smiths will pay more for ingots than they get for their armor. Low-level enchanters will pay more for soul gems and items than they get for their products. But with a list of what works (available on either ES wiki), even a low-level alchemist can see profit immediately. And once you pile on the perks and get an alchemy-fortifying piece of apparel, it will snowball out of control. You'll scream past the 100,000-septim mark (with relevant trophy) without slowing down

With an adventuring character, it probably takes me an average of about 100 hours for a character to amass 50,000 gold. That's with normal use of fast travel and other time savers. Comparison-wise, I did a pure alchemist character who hit that cash figure in 24 hours. And it probably would have been 16 or so if I had used fast travel instead of wagons, which slowed things down.

You find so many potions that it's pretty useless unless you have mod that enables you to do it in the field with a mortar & pestle. Unless you use fast travel other then carriages often. By the time you drag yourself back to town you would have already found a ton of potions. I usually learn a healing spell anyway so I don't use healing potions that often.

Uh, how are you playing these so-called adventurers? When I played an adventuring, axe-swinging, ruin-wrecker, I amassed high sums of gold fairly quickly by selling of all loot I picked up.

Realistically, a mortar and pestle alone isn't enough to create a potion.

Nope but you can add on the other things as well for better realism and improved results.

Very Much Worth It!!

The game will not give you every type of potion. You will be able to make much better potions than the game will give you in most cases. The "Ultimate" potions are probably the only exception.

Fortify potions are very useful, imo. Especially the destruction ones, because they increase the damage done by destruction spells.

Fortify Marksman for that first shot that may be critical, with a poison on the bow, especially a DOT poison, your first shot can do a very high amount of damage.

You can make fortify smithing and fortify enchanting potions that are much better than those you can find in the game. The fortify enchanting potions that you can find are also very rare.

Resist Shock is very usefull for fighting mages... you can make a Fort Destruction and Resist Shock all in one potion, too!!

Also, check out this little beauty
Damage Health + Lingering Damage Health + Paralyze = Human Flesh + Imp Stool + Slaughterfish Egg

You won't find a poison like this in the game!! You can certainly make one, though!

I love Alchemy. Use it on EVERY character.

Ditto on the gold making use of Alchemy, also. Get the barter perk that lets you sell anything to any merchant, and make and sell pots for lots-o-money.