With the hundreds of items available to craft and collect in Skyrim, it is only fitting that there are a few ways of upgrading your favorite items as well. Those skilled in blacksmithing can enhance the defensive values of armor and the lethality of weapons.

Blacksmithing isn't the only way to increase an item's strength. Those skilled in magic can enchant their favorite items with powerful passive effects, such as increased health or dealing Fire damage with every attack. If you level your Enchanting skill to 100 and take all the perks that tree has to offer, some truly devastating items can be created if you have the right enchantments. Here are 10 of the best enchantments in Skyrim that you need to use.

Updated on October 30, 2023 by Quinton O'Connor: We've given this older article a fresh revision pass, because good heavens, even now that Starfield's out? Yep, people are still playing Skyrim.

15 Frost Damage

Although the elements are usually pretty equal in terms of damage and impact, Frost Damage is actually just a teensy bit better than Sparks, for instance. This is because Frost Damage actually not only harms a target's health bar, but also drains their stamina bar.

Against opponents that rely on attacks requiring tons of stamina, this is a fantastic addition to have on most weapons. It's not quite as good as Fire, which will burn targets over time, but it's still objectively the second-best element in the game to invest in.

14 Fortify Health Regen

Especially for players experiencing the game at a higher difficulty level, health is a pretty vital part of any combat. Some enemies can drain the health pool of the player within just a few strikes if they're not careful, which is why passive regeneration is such an important feature.

Fortify Health Regen is just the enchantment for that. At its highest level of enchantment, the player could even have a 50% health regeneration boost added to one of their armor pieces, which is wild.

13 Fortify Stamina

Stamina is the best friend of any heavy attack character. It allows for players to perform devastating blows, given they have enough stamina to actually execute them. Those looking to make a berserk heavy armor tank character might want to invest in this category.

In terms of enchanting, both Fortify Stamina and Fortify Stamina Regen are great. The former simply increases the overall available stamina pool, while the latter increases the rate of regeneration.

12 Fortify Carry Weight

Who doesn't love loot in Skyrim? Most people live for this stuff, but it can be a headache to carry all of it around when your inventory space decides to helpfully remind you of its limits by encumbering you and reducing your movement speed. Thankfully, there's a pretty easy and convenient enchantment for this purpose in particular.

The Fortify Carry Weight enchantment increases the amount of stuff a player can carry while the enchanted piece of armor is being worn. If it's unequipped, you'll instantly be burdened if your carry weight goes over the natural limit, so it's good to be vigilant about this.

11 Absorb Health

An enchantment that not only increases pure damage, but heals the player? Yes, indeed. That's the whole idea behind Absorb Health, which is basically vampirism made available to non-vampire characters.

Although the values aren't usually that high or significant, this is an excellent enchantment for assassins or other agile fighters. Absorb Health gives the enchanted weapon a tiny bit more damage, which is then translated into health and transferred over to the player.

10 Muffle

Stealth in Skyrim is arguably one of the most powerful mechanics if used properly. It grants a massive damage multiplier to all attacks while also keeping you hidden in the shadows.

For those who aren't keen on leveling Sneak, Muffle is a special enchantment for boots that makes your footsteps silent. While it won't scale your sneak damage as the main tree does, the ability to sneak by enemies in Heavy Armor with no penalty is too good to pass up. This is a rather rare enchant, so keep your eyes out for a pair of Muffled boots and remember to disenchant it.

9 Fortify Archery

Out of all the martial weapons in Skyrim, Bows and Crossbows have to be the best in the game. They deal good base damage, scale off of Archery perks, and can use special arrows to further increase their damage.

Better yet, special enchantments exist to increase the damage they deal. Gloves, Helmets, and Jewelry can all be enchanted with Fortify Archery to increase the damage you deal with this school of weaponry. Combine Archery with Sneak and you can rack up a fantastic amount of damage per shot, capable of instantly killing Giants or Dragons with a single Arrow.

8 Fire Damage

Out of the three possible elements you can choose, Fire is arguably the best. Most of the enemies in Skyrim are Nords, which are resistant to the likes of Frost and indifferent to Shock.

Fire Damage is an enchantment any weapon can have, granting it extra Fire damage for every attack it makes. Better yet, the enemies will be lit aflame, resulting in any Fire effects dealing increased damage! As long as you have upgraded Enchanting, you can make any weapon deal an absurd amount of damage with this enchantment.

7 Absorb Stamina

Absorb Stamina won't kill your enemies faster than most of the enchantments on this list, but it will certainly let you deal more damage per swing.

That is because Absorb Stamina siphons the Stamina from an opponent to refill your own supply. This is incredibly useful for dual-wielding characters or anyone who loves to use heavy attacks as often as possible. The damage increase that is possible from this enchantment makes it a great option for any melee character.

6 Fiery Soul Trap

Soul Trap is already a fantastic enchantment, allowing players to refill Soul Gems to recharge weapons or craft epic gear for their journey.

But there is a unique enchantment called Fiery Soul Trap that combines Flame Damage with Soul Trap into one enchantment. To find this unique Enchantment, you must make your way to Ironbind Barrow in the northern end of Skyrim, just south of Dawnstar. Once there, look for a Steel Battleaxe of Fiery Souls and disenchant it to obtain this powerful upgrade for your weapons.

5 Chaos Damage

Available only in Solstheim, Chaos Damage is an incredibly powerful enchantment that has a 50 percent for either Fire, Frost, or Shock damage to occur on a successful hit.

What this enchantment doesn't tell you is that the 50 percent chance is rolled for each element per strike. This means that you can have all three elements occur at once! It's more likely to have one or two damage types occur on a swing, but that is still far better than most of the other damage enchantments for weapons present in Skyrim.

4 Fortify Destruction

Casting spells is an incredibly fun playstyle in The Elder Scrolls series, yet it can feel restrictive with how easily spells can burn through your Magicka supply.

Fortify Destruction helps with this issue. Instead of simply increasing the Destruction level for your character, this enchantment actually reduces the Magicka cost of Destruction spells by a large amount. If you have Enchanting leveled up and some potions that enhance your Enchanting skill, it is possible to craft armor that will make Destruction spells cost 100 percent less Magicka. This makes every Destruction spell in the game free, including Master-tier spells!

3 Paralyze

Paralysis is highly effective in Skyrim with only the toughest of enemies being immune to it. While mages that are skilled in Alteration can do this with ease, melee and ranged characters typically can not.

That is until you learn the Paralyze enchantment. As long as the enemy is not immune to it, every attack has a chance to paralyze the target, preventing them from moving or attacking. Even at lower levels, this enchantment is incredibly powerful, capable of knocking enemies onto the ground repeatedly while you repeatedly strike with your weapon of choice. Regardless of your weapon of choice, being able to stun nearly every enemy in the game is grand.

2 Resist Magic

Many players will tell you to acquire resistance items and equip them, as it dramatically reduces the damage you receive from enemy attacks. No resistance enchantment comes close to the power of Magic Resistance, however.

Unlike Fire or Frost resistances, which are limited to their respective element, Magic Resistance reduces damage from every elemental damage type in Skyrim. Fire, Frost, Shock, Disease, and Poison are all impacted by this stat. The cap for Magic Resistance is 85 percent, meaning that the nastiest Dragon attacks in the game will barely dent your health pool at higher levels. This enchantment is almost impossible to beat.

1 Fortify Restoration

Yet there is one more enchantment better than Magic Resistance. Fortify Restoration isn't in the top spot because of its intended use but how it interacts with other mechanics.

Restoration is responsible for not just the Restoration tree but also how potent Enchantments and Alchemy potions are. Players can craft a Fortify Restoration potion or armor piece, equip it, then use it to create a stronger potion or armor piece. This can go on forever, resulting in items that deal damage in the trillions or granting hundreds of thousands percent increased stats. Without this exploit, Fortify Restoration is a solid choice for Restoration users. With this exploit, Fortify Restoration is easily the strongest enchantment in Skyrim.

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