I just emptied a staff of flames and a staff of sparks into a series of enemy mobs and watched my enchanting skill. The skill bar didn't budge in the slightest. I also tried unloading an entire staff of magelight and the staff of magnus (into aggro'd mobs), and again no increase. I also saw no increase in the related destruction and alteration trees.

So what gives? Using staves was confirmed pre-launch to raise enchanting skill. Now it seems it raises nothing at all.

BTW I'm running patch 1.3 on PC.

Edit: To all you nay-sayers, it was that way in MW. Read below.

Why would it raise enchanting? Recharging them using soul gems will raise your enchanting.

Well I wouldnt think it would really take any skill to use a staff. If it were tied to a skill then one could argue that ANY enchanted item should raise that skill.

Its already enchanted? Thats like saying Dawnbreaker doesn't level enchanting.

Using Staves does not use any of your Magicka. You don't need to be a mage to use a staff.
However, the higher your skill in, say Destruction, the lower the cost of using a Destruction-based staff.
To raise your enchanting skill, recharge the staff with a filled soul gem.

Edit: Staves are also quite useful as shields. Block and bash, baby.

Why would using an Enchanted Item increase the Enchanting Skill? Enchanting is making and maintaining (recharging) Enchantments, not using them. Making them (and learning enchantments) and recharging them is what increases your skill.

Why would it raise enchanting? That makes no sense.

Using your fists doesn't raise one-handed skill, even though its effected by the perks.

But I can kind of sort of a little bit see what you're getting at, I could see it raising the skill it pertains to, but not enchanting.

There is even a radiant quest where

Ugh, the point is not whether it should, but that that's what pete told us the game mechanic was pre-release from his twitter feed.

BTW, in morrowind using enchanted items did raise enchanting skill.

Did you play Morrowind? Recharging items and making enchanted items is how you raised your skill in Morrowind. Using them does not increase your skill.

Did you CCNA??

I just looked up the values out of Morrowind.esm:

Recharge Item = 5 Use Magic Item = 0.1 Create Magic Item = 5 Cast when Strikes = 0

Use magic item == use staves or any cast on use!

I would ideally like it to raise its schools skill, but I think staves are designed as a last resort or a mana conserving tool for mages. On a side note though I was confused yesterday when my fire breath increased my destruction skill, so staves of fireball should too. Does anyone actually know if Thu'um's are dependant on the schools of magic?

That's odd, sounds like a bug to me. It'd be worth checking to see if the augmented perks affect it's damage.

Nice find. That I certainly understand.

I should have said for all intents and purposes.

Yes, I play that game with enchanted weapons. My enchanting skill never goes up unless I recharge the weapon or make one. I usually trained my Enchanting up so I would use less charge per strike. Now, I when used an item, I don't remember ever getting a skill up and I used an enchanted lock opening item all the time. Even if this game follows the same formula, I doubt anyone would even see the Skill bar move from using an enchanted item. At .1 per use, that's 100 uses before you get one skill level up. Hardly worth it. You would get more leveling effect out of charging the item to use it 100 times.

Now, the trick is, trap low level creatures in Petty Gems. Then you have to use a bunch of them to charge the weapon, and your enchanting skill will go up faster each time you charge your weapon up fully as compared to using Grand Soul Gems which can fully charge things in 2 applications

True that it wasn't a typical leveling strategy, but you could get a whole heck lot of charges (i.e. "uses") that were instant cast out of a grand sould gem and 1pt light/open/lock. I used that strat a few times to get some enchant levels in a pinch.

Also, good idea on using petty gems for recharging...I typical gave up casting soul trap on smaller creatures mid-game. In skyrim with my perked conjured bow, i get tons of petty gems.

I think what makes Skyrim a bit different is the fact that fortifying destruction (for example) could net you 100% cost reduction, which applies to staves as well. Essentially infinite cast staves (of that magic school). Still not any benefit (that I can see) over normal magicka-free casting, but a fun RP style none-the-less. A backpack full of 10+ staves to do any job that needs doing.

Duh.

In defense of the OP, Staves do not raise anything. And they should. I can see it raising enchanting. I seem to remember Morrowind going up from using Enchanted items. Very slowly, but it went up. No other item in the game can inflict damage but not raise anything.

Hmm, now that I think about it shouts do not raise anything either. How about a skill for shouts! That would be cool.

While we're here, do Illusion perks affect Illusion staves in Skyrim, or are Illusion staves just vendor trash?

Your name is ironically fitting of your unconnected post.

Well why would a staff raise enchanting? and my name means something else.

Flamebreath and Cold, Cold Breath raises destruction, others raise illusion etc.

That's true that using the things does not give a skill up, but then Staves and other enchanted items are Magic for Dummies and require no skill to use. So it kind of makes sense there is not skill ups for their use.

But, on the other hand, we get a lot more towards leveling up Enchanting from making items than in past games. I never enchanted much in Oblivion so I don't remember the rate in that game but certainly in Morrowind it took a lot of items before a skill up. I always ended up just training that skill in that game. In this game, Enchanting levels naturally if you use gems to charge items as you use them. Plus now you have to Unenchant and that gives skill ups.

Well, for one, staves worked differently anyway in Morrowind. Since Oblivion, they basically just became guns, its not really effected by anything, so I can see why it wouldn't raise. And I don't remember Todd saying anything about this either. If staves were still melee, and required skill, then maybe.