I've never usually bothered, as it seems such a grind.. but I've heard there's a lot of gold to be made whilst training your skill level up, providing you do it right and know all the necessary ingredients.

It would be great if you guys could give me a few tips, I'm quite a novice when it comes to alchemy, in the 2 and a half years I've owned Skyrim I've barely touched it.

Basically any potion which earns you a lot of XP and a decent profit will be fine. I've found already that Giant's Toe seems to be a pretty good ingredient.

I know there's probably been hundreds of threads on this but I would appreciate it if you could help me

Collect/buy all ingredients. Eat one of each to find out what they do. Make the most expensive potions you can. Train.

Are there any potions in particular I should be making? What are the most expensive potions to make?

I can't remember for vanilla. I use Skyrim Redone. Just make the most expensive potion that you are currently able to make with the ingredients that you have to get the most XP.

The best potion, with fairly easy to find ingredients, is Salmon Roe, Garlic & Histcarp. It will give you nearly 1 level per potion. Salmon Roe is found jumping up short waterfalls; garlic at shops and just around; and Histcarp by swimming in bodies of water or at shops.

But it's way easier to get Thistle & Snowberries for Resist Frost and Dragon's Tongue & Bone Meal for Resist Fire. I level my Alchemy to 60 by the time I kill the dragon with Delfine.

Basically the beginning of my game is always the same. Exit Hegen, Bleak Falls, Whiterun/kill dragon, Ivarstead to High Hrothgar, Morthal to Ustengav; back to Riverwood; kill 2nd dragon; graybeards to get Fus Ro Da... then the game really begins. By this point I will have collected enough to get Alchemy to 60.

Also the "Harvest" mod helps alot, just don't abuse it.

Wow, I've only seen Salmon jumping in Skyrim.

HA!

The best potion is probably Giants toe + wheat, gets you one level per time created and is worth 1200 gold each (depending on speech) .

When you leave Helgen pick all the ingredients you can find wandering around the Whiterun area. Mountain flowers, thistle, lavender and tundra cotton mostly. Just take all the roads and many ingredients grow on the side. You should have about 50-60 blue mountain flowers and something like 30 butterfly wings then. Go to Arcadia in Whiterun. Make potions then sell to her. Use the money to get training from her and start putting points into alchemy. You should be able to get to around level 60 in alchemy in one session. There is a video on the skyrim blog character build section. Look for Mason and his first video of the Seraphim character build.

A good potion with very common ingredients is blue butterfly wing plus blue mountain flower. Makes good money.

Jeeze, you weren't lying about Salmon Roe + Garlic + Histcarp! I've just made a potion worth 2000 gold!

I've got about 30 salmon roe now, I spent the day fishing around the waterfalls between Riverwood and Whiterun

Keep the tips coming though guys, I appreciate them all

Nothing beats the loop. Longfins and Spadetails. A couple pieces af alchemy enchanted gear. First two Alchemist perks as well as the Benefacter perk. From 50 to 100 in enchanting in about 20 potions.Outside of that, I agree with the vote for Blue Mountain Flowers + Blue Butterfly Wing. Both are plentiful, easy to find, and respawn well. Adding the occasional Giant's Toe to those same ingredients makes a nice bonus.

It's always cost-effective to buy out the ingredients of alchemists, because you can always at least make your money back (and usually make a profit) by selling the potions you create back to them. So whenever you pass an alchemist's shop, stop in for a potion-making session. I prefer to do it that way rather than grinding all in one session, too: I find it a lot less tedious by doing it in short sessions broken up by exploring and adventuring.

No one has mentioned the easiest way to get salmon roe, rather than hopping up and down waterfalls like a svcker. You can use Unrelenting Force to kill regular salmon and they will then yield roe (also you can shoot them with a bow for the same effect, but that requires good accuracy and is much more time consuming). The shore northeast and north of Solitude has plenty of Salmon (I easily got 60 roe in about 20 minutes) and Dawnstar also has 12 in its little inlet which respawn frequently (I've not measured the time, but they seem to be there every time I travel there) which is nice as it's very easy to fast travel to if you want to make a few potions on the side whilst you do some questing.

For an easy source of Garlic, Sven's house in Riverwood has a bunch and you can take them freely if you side with him when talking to Camilla - you can also take them freely from whoever you did the prologue with's house. Pretty much any water breathing ingredient will do to; chicken's eggs are found at any farm and in most houses (especially in Riverwood). Nordic barnacles can be found in the body of water under the bridge directly away from Dragonsreach, in the underwater ship southwest from the Lady Stone (you can see it's prow from the island), from the little sunken barrow structure southwest of the Guardian Stones and at the Orphan's Tear shipwreck on the north coast from Solitude (which you can combine with salmon roe hunting if you really want a big supply, following the coast round you'll get there eventually).

To level up even faster, get training from Babette and recoup costs by selling the potions to her. Your Speech is also going to rocket up too.

Wow that's great advice man, thank you.

to be fair I did feel a bit of an idiot jumping up and down waterfalls catching the salmon, but it was surprisingly enjoyable. It's the little things in Skyrim I love the most

Another high value potion is :

Fortify Carry Weight, this is a 5 effect potion

Creep Cluster

Mora Tapinella

Scaly Pholiota

If you have one of the three Hearthfire homes you build, these can all be planted (and harvested) in your garden or greenhouse.

A usless potion, IMHO, but it sells for a lot of gold

I like this one:

Giant's Toe + Glow Dust + Glowing Mushroom

At low Alch levels, it's worth 600. At high levels, I've seen it in the 2000's.

Go to the Elder Scrolls wiki and generate an ingredients list. Then, it's a straightforward process to learn what ingredients do what, and mix potions appropriately.

Salmon Roe and Chicken Eggs are easily collected. While the addition of Histcarp is the most expensive... you can gather a lot of eggs around areas like Whiterun. Thus, leveling faster than waiting to find the rare ingredients.

Can we make any explosive potions if we become master in Alchemy?

Not without mods.

I enjoy it too, but it is quite time consuming so I usually only do it early on for a quick boost and some cash. Then I'll do Bleak Falls Barrow and Dragon Rising so I can get properly into it.