Grinding skills

[Frost Mage]

So ever since I got to about level 50 in Smithing for my Warrior character, it's been such a huge, deliberate grind to raise it higher. What do you do to make it go faster, or what are some actual tips for leveling faster?

[HatofMadness]

Regarding smithing, you should just take some time out of your playthrough to go around to all different cities, buy leather strips and iron ingots from multiple vendors, and grind out 100-130 iron daggers at once. Might take you 20 minutes, but getting to level 60 in smithing was always a concern of mine. "Arcane Blacksmith"

[ZeRoc]

For me the easiest way to grind Smithing up is to find the various gold or silver mines around the world and turn it all into jewelery, since even the basic silver amulet increases the skill more than leather, steel etc.

If by leveling faster, you mean empty levels where your combat skills are in the dumpster down the street, then I've found that the three crafting skills are good to level up fast.

[Yaije]

I personally went around getting iron ingots..... GALLONS of ingots. And leather too... but mostly the iron. Then I'd hit up a dwemer ruin and pull EVERY DAMNED meltable piece of dwarven loot to make dwarven ingots. Dwarven bows endlessly. Though that requires some perks spent in smithing, on xbox post dragonborn or pc that's not much issue really.

[philfredobob]

i bought Leather Strips and Leather every time i returned to a city to sell my loot, i then used the Materials to make loads of Leather Bracers .... i got to 100 smithing very very quickly

[Frost Mage]

I personally went around getting iron ingots..... GALLONS of ingots. And leather too... but mostly the iron. Then I'd hit up a dwemer ruin and pull EVERY DAMNED meltable piece of dwarven loot to make dwarven ingots. Dwarven bows endlessly. Though that requires some perks spent in smithing, on xbox post dragonborn or pc that's not much issue really.

I'd love to do that, but I'm afraid my constant use of roleplaying wouldn't allow for it.

[Mauin]

I've found that some of the fastest ways to level Smithing are either by crafting arrows, and by making jewelery.
For some reason, making arrows seems to level my Smithing ridiculously fast. All it takes is one firewood, and one ingot to make 24 arrows, so the materials are fairly easy to come by... Assuming you don't mind spending long amounts of time chopping wood.

Jewelry is also simple though. Since Smithing is now like alchemy (value of the item created is factored into the amount the skill increases), and items of jewelry happen to be fairly valuable, it works to increase Smithing fairly quickly. Just gather all the gems, gold ingots, silver ingots, and iron (if you have Transmute), and then turn them into jewelry and sell them for a profit.

If you're using the method requiring iron ingots and the Transmute Mineral Ore spell, you'll gain increases in three skills at once: Smithing, Alteration, and Speech. You could enchant them for the fourth skill: Enchanting. Efficiency.


Not sure how you'd fit all that into roleplay, though.

[Imperfect Three]

I actually grinded my smithing from 35 to 80 last night. Although jewelry is good, don't rely on it as a means to gain experience. I went around to different dwemer ruins (the one under Markarth's keep is great because it lets you get into the museum which is FULL of dwemer scrraps.) and gathered all the stuff to make dwarven ingots and then just made 40-50 bows. Ebony bows are also huge money makers and only require the ingots themselves, while the dwarven ones need an iron ingot.

[Trelares]

The basic tips would be to get the Warrior Birthsign and use always the Well Rested(or even better the one you can get after being married) buff so you progress 1.2*1.1(1.15 if married) times faster in Smithing.

As Smithing now progresses from the basic cost of the created item, I found it the easiest way to use Gold Ingots because you can easily get tons of them and if you have some gems leftover you can level up even faster.

On my mage (grinded all skills to 100) I just got 100-200 Iron Ore and then transmuted all up to Gold Ore. Used up almost all gems I had and got 100.

If you intend to roleplay your way up to 100 the way of my warrior is probably more suitable, I tried to create all heavy armor, one and two-handed weapons and improved all to Legendary. Takes longer than the "gold road" but doable and you have tons of equipment to switch at the end. For this you best look up at the Wiki where to find mines for each ore and collect enough to create what you want.

[Mr.Argonian]

If your warrior uses block, and you dont have the deadly bash perk, you can constantly bash your horse, which level up block, albeit slowly. But faster than only using it in fights.

[Trelares]

Block is maybe the easist skill to level up, just let a giant bash your shield over and over again.

[Haravikk]

I basically just kill any animals I see to take their pelts; except goats since you need two hides for one leather so it's not really worth it. A lot of locations like Karthwarsten have more than one mine, so you can get quite a lot of ingots; iron and silver are nice and easy and can get your levels up quickly.

Going into the Dwemer ruin in Markarth is a good way if you have dwarven smithing; just make sure to pick up only the lighter pieces that can be smelted as the heavy ones eat up carrying capacity and don't make that many ingots. Specifically, you want to pick up Small Dwemer Plate Metal, Bent Dwemer Scrap Metal and Large Dwemer Plate Metal as, in spite of the name, they're all weight 2 and make 3 ingots, which is the best ratio of the pieces. Anything else is either heavier than the ingots you can make from it, or cannot be smelted. After clearing the ruin you should be able to make a heap of bows easily, and earn a heap of smithing levels. The only drawback is that you'll probably go insane if you go back and try to do it again after the area has respawned, as it's a long dungeon.

While you can go faster by buying materials, it's generally not worth it unless you've got some huge discounts from speech, as it'll cost a fortune. Much better to find some good mines and just rotate around them collecting ore, then fast travel somewhere you can turn it into stuff. If you're going to mines in safe locations then be sure to ditch everything you don't need in your home or another safe container, so you can carry the maximum amount of ore in each trip. Otherwise only buy stuff you need if you don't have quite the right number of ingots or whatever else.

[CBR JGWRR]

The gain works on value, but with a minimum amount in per unit as well.
Amount of things is more important than value up until ebony bows IME.

Basically, iron daggers then dwarven bows then ebony bows are the most efficent way of leveling but will still require tonnes of material.

iron daggers will only lose money unless enchanted, so if you intend to make money from leveling up without enchanting use leather or iron armour until dwemer bows.

[Vardark]

If you have Dawnguard, you should consider getting the Aetherial Crown, which lets you active two standing stones at the same time. This way you can activate both the Warrior Stone and the Lover Stone, giving you a nice boost in skill gain.

[Trelares]

It seems you could even get the Well Rested together with Warrior Stone and Lovers Stone with the crown, pretty interesting. This would make a total of 1.2*1.15*1.1=1.518 faster skill progression, amazing.

[CBR JGWRR]

Or 45% faster.

[Trelares]

Depends if added multiplicative or additiv.^^

[CBR JGWRR]

On the grounds my way has a smaller benefit, we'll go with that. (because then it's bonus bonus levels)

[Yaije]

It seems you could even get the Well Rested together with Warrior Stone and Lovers Stone with the crown, pretty interesting. This would make a total of 1.2*1.15*1.1=1.518 faster skill progression, amazing.

doesn't the lover stone override the well rested bonus?

[CBR JGWRR]

Not if its stored in the crown usefully.

[Theificka]

Make tons of jewelry.

[Hissien]

I glitch myself to having a lot of gold, and soul gems. Get a turn undead, banish, or absorb health enchantment and a ton of iron daggers and enchant them all, buy training from Earlund Greymane and sell them, rinse and repeat.

[Theificka]

I glitch myself to having a lot of gold, and soul gems. Get a turn undead, banish, or absorb health enchantment and a ton of iron daggers and enchant them all, buy training from Earlund Greymane and sell them, rinse and repeat.

Paralyze actually has the most reward in value.

The best enchantment to put on jewelry I've found is fortify sneak or speech.

[Hissien]

You have to find that enchantment beforehand and the others are easier to find.

[Evil-i]

I don't see leveling-up Smithing as a "grind". It's usually the first skill I get to 100.

It's deliriously easy. I loot every weapon and piece of armour I come across and stockpile them. As materials permit, I improve and sell them. (I never sell anything without improving it first.) Aside from the obvious benefits to Smithing, this method also increases the Speechcraft/Barter skill, as well as providing easy gold reserves. For what it's worth, I never buy supplies from vendors. I use only what I can find/harvest while adventuring.