Need some help building your Alchemy skill quickly? There a number of ways to get a leg up on your craft, starting with skill trainers. In Skyrim there are generally three trainers for each skill, providing Adept, Expert, and Master level training. For Alchemy:

• Lami of Morthal provides Adept training
• Arcadia of Arcadia’s Cauldron, Whiterun City provides Expert training
• Babette of the Dark Brotherhood provides Master training

When focusing on Alchemy, it is suggested you first hit up the Thief Stone southwest of Riverwood in order to receive the 20% boost in training.

There are also a number of quests wherein Alchemy Skill levels are given as a reward. Retrieving Finn’s Lute for Inge Six Fingers in Solitude (Bard’s College) will give you with one level of every Thief governed skill, which includes Alchemy. The quest “Discerning the Transmundane” awards you with five levels of every Thief governed skill. Lami in Morthal will award you with skill in Alchemy by retrieving Song of the Alchemists. Likewise, Arcadia—another Alchemy skill trainer—will do so in exchange for retrieving Frost Salts. Retrieving the Ring Of Pure Mixtures for Frida in Dawnstar will also award the player with Alchemy skill.

One Alchemy related quest of note is the “A Return To Your Roots”. When completed, the player gains Sinderion’s Serendipity, which provides a 25% chance of producing an extra potion.

Alchemy leveling depends largely on the strength of the effect you’re adding to the potion, and some have much more value than others (in order of effectiveness):

• Paralysis
• Damage Magicka Regen
• Invisibility
• Slow
• Fortify Carry Weight
• Regeneration type potions (Regenerate Health/Stamina/Magicka).

Potions or poisons with any of these effects will level the Alchemy skill two to three times faster.

On the Alchemy Skill tree, there are several Perks you may find worth investing in, including Concentrated Poison (60 Skill points), which allows poisons applied on weapons to last twice as long; Experimenter (50 Skill points), which reveals additional effects when consuming Ingredients; or Purity (100 Skill points), which removes all positive effects from poisons, and all negative effects from potions.

It would behoove me to write this guide without mentioning at least in passing the Fortify Enchanting exploit, alternately making use of Fortify Enchanting potions and increasingly stronger Fortify Alchemy enchanted items to max out the value of your potions. More details on that here (use of Falmer Helmet exploit suggested). Advanced tips on the technique over at the Elder Scrolls Wiki.

Related: Alteration || Archery || Smithing