How to Get to Smithing Skill Level 100 in Skyrim

Written by Jack Lloyd

Last Updated: March 10, 2024 Fact Checked

This wikiHow teaches you how to level up efficiently your Skyrim Smithing skill to 100. While the easiest way to do this used to be by smithing iron daggers, a patch removed this glitch and changed Smithing leveling to scale with item worth rather than item quantity. This means that the fastest way to level up your Smithing attribute is by crafting gold rings.

Steps

Download Article

1
Understand how this method works. Gold rings require only one resource—a gold ingot—and there is an entry-level spell that you can use to turn iron ore, which is the cheapest and most widely available ore, into gold ore. This makes gold rings the easiest, quickest, and cheapest item to craft in large batches while leveling efficiently.^{[1]
X
Research source}
- By crafting numerous gold rings, your character's Smithing will level quickly.
- You can sell the gold rings for significantly more than you spent on the iron ore to make them, meaning that you turn a profit.
Gold rings are also better than iron daggers insofar as they don't require leather strips, and they won't weigh you down if you make 100 of them at once.
2
Obtain the Transmute Mineral Ore spell. You can find the Transmute Mineral Ore spell tome on a table next to a bed in the Halted Stream Camp, which is northwest of the Whitewatch Tower (or roughly north of Whiterun).^{[2]
X
Research source}
- To learn the Transmute Mineral Ore spell, simply find its book in the "Books" section of the inventory and select it.
There is no level cap on Transmute Mineral Ore, so you'll be able to use it right away if you have the Magicka for it

Advertisement
Most characters start out with 100 Magicka, while the cost of transmuting ore without any buffs or magic-altering equipment is 88 Magicka. This means that you'll be able to transmute, but only barely; if possible, find clothing that raises your Magicka (or reduces alteration spell costs), or select Magicka as the attribute to improve when leveling up.

Completing missions for the College of Winterhold story arc will reward you with Magicka-boosting apparel and items. One way that you can bypass the Magicka issue is by "waiting" for an hour every time your Magicka is depleted. This will recharge fully your Magicka in a fraction of the time that literally waiting would consume.
Whiterun is the first large city to which you travel. When you arrive at Whiterun, you'll spawn just inside of the city gates; the blacksmith's place is the first building on the right.^{[3]
X
Research source}
5
Buy iron ore. There are a couple of places in Whiterun from which you can buy iron ore:^{[4]
X
Research source}
- Warmaiden's - The shop into which the blacksmith shop is built. Speaking with Ulfberth War-Bear in the shop will allow you to purchase items.
- Adrianne - Often found outside working the furnace, Adrianne holds different (albeit smaller) stock than Ulfberth.
- Belethor's General Goods - Found to the right of the main staircase in the courtyard with the well. Belethor runs a general store that typically stocks a few pieces of ore.
Once you've made enough of a profit from crafting gold rings, you'll be able to buy gold and silver ore from the Warmaiden's shop as well.
6
Turn all of the iron ore into gold ore. Equip the Transmute Mineral Ore spell, use it once to turn a piece of iron ore into silver ore, and then use it once more to turn the silver ore into gold ore. Repeat until you have no more iron or silver ore.^{[5]
X
Research source}
- As mentioned above, you may have to "wait" between transmutations before you can cast again.
Go over to the smelter behind Warmaiden's, select it, and select the Gold option until it becomes greyed out.

Each gold ingot costs two gold ore, so you'll have half as many gold ingots as you had ore.
8
Create gold rings. Once you have your gold ingots, all that's left to do is create the rings themselves. Open the forge, select JEWELRY, find the Gold ring option, and select it until it's greyed out.
- Each gold ingot creates two gold rings.
9
Sell your rings to Belethor. Once you've exhausted your gold ingots, you can sell the rings for a profit. Warmaiden's won't buy non-combatant apparel from you, but Belethor will.
- If your rings' value exceeds Belethor's budget, buy some items (e.g., more ore) to balance out the cost.
This will allow the merchants' inventories and budgets to reset. From this point, you can repeat the whole cycle: buy as much iron (and silver, and gold) ore as possible, transmute everything to gold ore, smelt gold ingots, and use the ingots to craft rings.^{[6]
X
Research source}

As you level up during this process, you'll have the opportunity both to spend skill points on perks and to improve hard attributes (e.g., Magicka, Stamina, and Health). Consider placing points in Magicka and Alteration to make your transmuting easier.

Community Q&A

Search

Add New Question

Question

Is there any cheaty way of getting to level 100 on Xbox One?

Phoenix Wheatley

Community Answer

One easy way to level any skill is to simply find a master level skill trainer, knock them down and pickpocket the gold back while they are getting up. It is impossible to get caught if you pickpocket like this, however it will not raise the pickpocket skill.

Thanks! We're glad this was helpful.
Thank you for your feedback.
If wikiHow has helped you, please consider a small contribution to support us in helping more readers like you. We’re committed to providing the world with free how-to resources, and even $1 helps us in our mission. Support wikiHow
Yes No

Not Helpful 30 Helpful 136
Question

I have an incredibly high bounty in Dawnstar and can't enter the city without being attacked by everyone. Any good simple resolutions for PS3?

Community Answer

Just pay off your bounty or go to jail. Drawing then sheathing weapons in front of guards prompts them to arrest you.

Thanks! We're glad this was helpful.
Thank you for your feedback.
If wikiHow has helped you, please consider a small contribution to support us in helping more readers like you. We’re committed to providing the world with free how-to resources, and even $1 helps us in our mission. Support wikiHow
Yes No

Not Helpful 13 Helpful 36
Question

How do I knock people down?

Community Answer

You can do a power attack with a two-handed weapon or use your fists to punch them. You can use a paralysis enchantment as well.

Thanks! We're glad this was helpful.
Thank you for your feedback.
If wikiHow has helped you, please consider a small contribution to support us in helping more readers like you. We’re committed to providing the world with free how-to resources, and even $1 helps us in our mission. Support wikiHow
Yes No

Not Helpful 9 Helpful 27

See more answers

Ask a Question

200 characters left

Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered.

Submit

Video

Tips

In Riften, you can encounter down by the docks a character named "From-Deepest-Depths"; speaking to her at level 14 or up will result in her handing a lexicon to you.^{[7]
X
Research source} Following the quest to return the lexicon grants you a permanent 15 percent increase to the rate at which Smithing improves.

Thanks
Helpful 9 Not Helpful 3
You can mine iron ore from various mining camps (marked on the map by an image of a pickaxe) if you don't want to buy it. You'll need a pickaxe to do so.

Thanks
Helpful 14 Not Helpful 2
While Whiterun is the best place to level up Smithing in the beginning of the game, you can level up Smithing in any blacksmith's quarters.

Thanks
Helpful 11 Not Helpful 11

Tips from our Readers

The advice in this section is based on the lived experiences of wikiHow readers like you. If you have a helpful tip you’d like to share on wikiHow, please submit it in the field below.

A good way to start that got me from level 20 to level 70 in only a few days was something I like to call the transmute method. It not only increases your smithing skill but also increases your alteration skill and speechcraft. Go to Haltedsteem camp and kill all of the enemies. Do the snake for inside the mine. Mine all of the iron and corundum ore. Take the spell tome "transmute." Now, go out to all of the major cities in all of the nine holds and get iron ore from every salesman that sells it. Note that Dawnstar also has an iron mine so it's good to go in there too. Use the transmute spell to turn all of your iron ore into silver ore and then into gold ore. Use the forge to make gold rings. You can get 2 rings out of 1 gold ingot and rings are worth more money than amulets. Finally, sell all of your rings. Then start over a day or so later (in game time).
Another way to get smithing to 100 is by making jewelry. If you have useless jewels, gold ingots, or silver ingots lying around, make them into jewelry. You can sell your newly crafted jewelry for more money than iron daggers. However, smiths won't take jewelry so you will have to go to the nearest general store.
Be sure to rest in Breezehome or rent a room from the Bannered Mane so you can get the "Well Rested" condition before actually Smithing the rings. Additionally, be sure you've activated the Warrior Stone for that buff. Having both of these active will significantly reduce the number of rings you need to craft.
Jewelry can hep you level up the quickest. Get gold ore by using the Transmute spell to turn iron ore to silver ore to gold ore. Look for gems to use for rings and such or complete No Stone Unturned for an abundance of gems. After doing all this, I got my smithing from 15 to 100 in a few hours.
If you can, get glass smithing (even if you are using heavy armor) and make as many glass bows as possible. The "Whiterun Blacksmith's chest" can help with this.

Submit a Tip

All tip submissions are carefully reviewed before being published

Name

Please provide your name and last initial

Submit

Thanks for submitting a tip for review!