Thanks ghastley. I agree that with Oblivion, Beth went backwards on a lot of things.
Super PotionsThis post is going to describe how to make super potions. Really, the sky is the limit when it comes to Alchemy in this game! Some may think what I'm about to describe is cheating, but there's a lot of work involved, a lot of button-mashing, and it does take some time to create these sort of potions. I'm not just entering a code and walking away.
The key is to make and consume a lot of Fortify Intelligence potions. Luck can also be fortified, too. If you've got a spell, scroll, or item which fortifies Luck, this increases your character's early chances for potion-making success. Eventually though, Intelligence will get so high, there will then be 0 chance of Alchemy failure.
Most of all, this endeavor begins with a lot of gold, at least 1000 pieces, so you can buy plenty of ingredients.
1). Empty your character's inventory (especially heavier items, but also anything that is not an ingredient, or clothing) into a safe place. Place any potions, scrolls, and other such items in this safe place too. It helps to have a near-empty inventory menu, so we can zip back and forth in this menu later on.
2). If you've been saving any ingredients to make into potions, go grab these now. Also, go on a buying spree, snatching up as many ingredients as you'd like. There's going to be a very large potion-making session, and it helps to be prepared. To make this process go as efficiently as possible, it helps to focus on certain types of ingredients. If you're planning to make a lot of Restore Health for instance, only grab up wickwheat, corkbulb, and other ingredients which make these sort of potions.
3). Now go to any Mages Guild. Find the teleport lady, and teleport to the Wolverine Hall.
4). Find the door which leads out of this hall. Now go downstairs. Straight ahead is the Imperial Shrine. Go in there. Find Aunius Autrus.
5). Get into his Barter menu. Buy all 10 of his ash yams, and all 5 of his bloats.
6). Pay for these items, and back out of Aunius's dialog menus entirely.
7). Speak to Aunius again, get into his barter menu again. Notice that the ingredients you just bought have been restocked. This guy has a never-ending supply of ingredients! Buy all 10 ash yams, all 5 bloats. Keep doing this until you wind up with about 75 ash yams, and 75 bloats. Both of these ingredients Fortify Intelligence. You can also go for 150 ash yams at this point, since they are cheap. Save whatever you don't use for later.
Note: Netch Leather also fortifies Int as well, and Aunius sells these, but this ingredient also weighs a lot more than yams and bloats. Your character won't be able to move if too many of these are carried.
Note 2: it is a good idea to buy a few frost salts, which are sold by various vendors in Mages Guilds and Imperial Shrines. Craetia Jullalion of the Vivec Mages Guild (the alchemy guy, basically) sells these. These are rather expensive at 75 gold a piece, but they mix with comberry to make Restore Magicka potions, and any mage knows it'll be worth it to be able to make a few of these.
Hound meat is also another good, cheap buy. Once your mage gets really smart, and all four alchemy effects can be seen, suddenly we learn that hound meat and comberries mix to make Reflect potions. Very useful against mages, vampires, daedra, and other powerful magic-users.
Optional: To really make potions with 1N$4n3 amounts of powers, it's best to use a Master alchemy set, which is expensive to buy, but there is a set available in the game which can be used for free.
You won't actually need the very BEST equipment though. A full set of Journeyman gear (mortar & pestle, retort, calcinator, and alembic) will also do the trick. But with Master stuff, you'll get to that golden nirvana-like level of potion-making much faster.
8). Take note of your character's current Intelligence. My mage has an Int of 89, Which is pretty high, right? Well, it's going to get a
lot higher!
9). Get into your character's inventory window, and make sure All is selected at the top of the page.
10). Select an alchemy apparatus, then mix an ash yam and a bloat together. Exit the alchemy menu, then get back into the inventory menu.
11). Drink this potion, exit the menu, then immediately get back into it, and create another Fortify Intelligence potion. Drink that one, exit the menu, then immediately create another potion. Keep doing this!
* It's important to keep exiting the menus over and over, rather than just drinking each potion as they are made. The reason is, each potion will begin to stack on top of the last one's effect.
So initially, you might create
Fortify Intelligence 15 points for 36 seconds. If you keep making potions and drinking them (without exiting the menus) you will wind up making a lot of
Fortify Intelligence 15 points for 36 seconds potions. But if you exit and reenter menus, eventually you'll begin to see
Fortify Intelligence 77 points for 223 seconds after making and drinking roughly 25 of these! And these potions only get stronger and stronger from there.
At this point Igodah still had 125 ash yams, and 67 bloats to go. She kept mixing potions until I got that "carpal tunnel" feeling with my hands.
My character leveled up in Alchemy TWICE, and then a third time. The game informed me it was time to "rest and meditate..." She kept mixing until just 10 bloats were left. Overall, her Intelligence reached
18,533, and she was making
Fortify Intelligence 771 points for 2,306 seconds. It is not good to keep going on for hours with this method; I have heard eventually the game will crash. But once your character has gotten this smart, now's the time to move on.
It's a good idea to NOT drink all the Fortify Int potions... once your character has gotten super-smart, save a few of these potions (maybe 10 or 15) for later. When the next potion-making marathon comes, the potions you saved can be gulped down, exiting the menu after each gulp, for a nice, easy boost of Intelligence.
12). Eventually, you get to the point that you get sick of mixing Fortify Int potions, or all the bloats are gone.
SAVE the game.
13). Now's the time to start making other potions.
Let's take Restore Health, for instance. Normally, Igodah would make something like
Restore Health 2 points for 9 seconds. Not very useful when up against a horde of cliff racers and kagouti. But after getting her Intelligence up to 18K, now she could make
Restore Health 157 points for 464 seconds! ! ! She basically can become a little God for about 7 minutes, and even the most powerful daedra in the game won't be able to take her down (health-wise, anyway).
Notice that any potions you make with this process will be worth extreme amounts of money. Way too much for any one merchant to afford, in full. In my opinion, this is why I only focus on certain types of potions which my character will actually use. All the "throwaway" potions, such as Restore Fatigue and any poisons ... these can be made as well, but you won't be able to sell them at full price, or anywhere near full price... (without mods, of course).
Overall though, now my mage is ready to take on the world. This method also works with making enchantments too. That will get described in the next post, hopefully.
This post has been edited by Renee: Nov 5 2018, 07:05 PM