I want to level up my blacksmithing, but I can't find enough ores to do it. I've farmed all dungeons, that I've farmed so far (I'm level 11) and bought all ores\ingots from NPCs. So are there respawn timers on ore sources, and what are the best places to farm it?
08 Answers
I've found that fast traveling between blacksmiths as they restock is much more efficient than mining as a method of leveling smithing. Ore veins are few and far between and as far as I know, the respawn time is when the area resets. Furthermore, the act of smelting does not by itself give you experience.
For that reason, I found bouncing between War Maiden's in Whiterun, Alvor in Riverwood and Beirand in Solitude, buying their entire stock of usable ore, ingots and leather, turning it into weapons or armor then selling those back to them was the fastest method.
Since you gain experience in smithing proportional to the value of the items you create, there are a few items that can make the process more efficient. Those are the Forgemaster Fingers and the Notched Pickaxe. You can use the enchantments on these items to improve the items you create beyond you current skill level.
I also found that for each type of item you can create (Orcish, Elven, etc.) there is an item with the highest input to value ratio. If you are going to grind smithing, it is best to grind whatever item this is for your level. You can refer to the tables on the relevant type. For instance, for Dwarven smithing, the bow has by far the highest ratio as it requires only two dwarven ingots and an iron ingot.
3As ever with Skyrim, UESPWiki is your friend.
Region Location Veins Ores Ingots
Whiterun Hold Halted Stream Camp 16 4
Solitude Solitude Blacksmith 5 42
Winterhold Fort Fellhammer 10 10
Falkreath Hold Embershard Mine 9 2 2
The Rift Treva's Watch 1 3 18
Hjaalmarch Sorli's House 4 19
Haafingar East Empire Company Warehouse 21
Falkreath Hold Knifepoint Ridge 6 3
The Reach Blind Cliff Cave 6
Eastmarch Gloombound Mine 6
The Pale Iron-Breaker Mine 6
Riften Blacksmith 2 15
The Reach Left Hand Mine 5
The Reach Nchuand-Zel 4
Hjaalmarch Rockwallow Mine 4
The Pale Forsaken Cave 11
Haafingar Haafingar Stormcloak Camp 10
The Pale Nightgate Inn 10
Hjaalmarch Stonehills 10
The Rift Forelhost 5 5
Haafingar Jala's House 9
Haafingar Solitude Lighthouse 1 8
Eastmarch Lost Knife Hideout 3
The Rift Northwind Mine 3
Solitude Proudspire Manor 8
Solitude Evette San's House 5
Whiterun Hold Riverwood 5
The Reach Understone Keep 4 1 The one that I've found more easy to farm is going to Halted Stream Camp, northeast of Witherun, there will be few guys to kill, go into the mine, kill everyone and in the table of the chief bandit will be a spell book, use it, it will transform iron ores to gold and etc, if you're low in magicka use the wait tool, and put in one hour every time your magicka is low, hope it helpd :D
1I've found that farming ore is too time consuming.
Find a vendor that sells it, buy them out, sell them something (if you have something) that will get your money back, then quick-save, attack them, quick-load and they have money and inventory back in full.
Rinse and repeat as long as you want to. Works great for grabbing ingredients too.
I use it for buying the following:
- black soul gems (as well as the others) (Falion)
- ingredients (anyone that is an alchemist)
- ore/ingots/leather (any blacksmith)
- building materials (any general sales vendor)
First off, go to Halted Stream camp. Mine all of the ore since you're there, but remember to pick up the spell tome on the table, Transmute, and process to turn your iron to silver and silver to gold. Go around to every blacksmith you can find and buy all their iron ore. (Also should be jotted that general traders also sell ore.)
Another mine you might try is Iron-Breaker Mine in Dawnstar. After you've turned all of that iron into gold, smelt it and make gold rings. (The gold rings sell for more than the Emulates and you don't have to waste precious gems on them. Also I would suggest having the warrior stone activated as well as having Lover's Comfort.)
Get the dwarven smith feat and raid dwarf fort/mines.
They are usually so loaded with scrap that you can't get enough of it.
If you cant get the feat then focus on raising money and buying smith materials. Improve your speech feats until you are getting good deals on your stuff.
Enchanting and Smithing were the first skills I got to a hundred on, fairly rapidly. The better you get the more you can resell your products for and thus buy more crafting materials. Eventually you start clearing out smiths inventories.
You're going to want to go to Halted Steam Camp just like a bunch of other people said before me (gather ore, get the spell book, bla bla bla...), until this point it was rather self-explanatory, but now you're going to want to use for your best soul gems and enchant a helmet, armor, ring and amulet with fortify alteration. A good idea would be drinking an enchanters elixir first, And if you're enchanting Skill is good enough you can reduce the magica cost of your transmute spell to 0%. As for ore, there's the aforementioned Halted Steam Camp, Iron Breaker Mine, traveling between blacksmiths and general traders and there's even a Forsworn mine in the Reach that exclusively has gold ore (can't remember what it's called though). Rinse and repeat with the traders until the mines are replenished and you're golden [literaly].
Its better to buy from blacksmith in all town finding ore is much harder and need more time funny thing the first and only time i found ore in the world i didnt have a pick axe to farm it with
