Oblivion talk:Useful Potions

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Archive 1: Sep 2006 – Sep 2008

Where to put an observation about potionsEdit

I have discovered that when making potions in the PC version of Oblivion (before and after installation of Shivering Isles,) it is possible to fairly consistently make extra potions with no effects called "Name Potion" just by rapidly clicking the button to make the potion/poison. This will use up ingredients if you had more of one ingredient than others -- for example, 5 harrada and 6 spiddal stick will make five damage health/magickas (using the first five of each ingredient) and one "Name Potion" (using the remaining spiddal stick,) but if you had the same number of each, it will produce additional doses of "Name Potion" even though there are no ingredients. It seems easy to get one "Name Potion" per clicking frenzy, and sometimes possible to get two. This is slightly useful because the extra potions are typically very light, and can be sold (they are listed at a value of 20 in the inventory.)

Anyway, has anyone else experienced this? Should it go on the Alchemy page, or the "Known Glitches" page? — Unsigned comment by Scezumin (talk • contribs) on 27 August 2008

Put it on the Proposed Glitches page for now. I haven't experienced that glitch myself but I'll try it later. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 01:10, 27 August 2008 (EDT)

I've had it happen once or twice, myself, though I wasn't sure of the cause. I don't have a particularly fast trigger finger, though, so perhaps that's why. --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 01:15, 27 August 2008 (EDT)

Five Effect PoisonsEdit

Is there a reason why the table for the Five Effect Poisons isn't coloured or doesn't have headings? I just think it's kind of inconsistent.. - Jujimufu 22:41, 10 April 2009 (EDT)

The page is being re-written and it just hasn't been done yet. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 07:29, 11 April 2009 (EDT)

Relmyna's TearsEdit

Do Relmyna's Tears count as a special effect ingredient? — Unsigned comment by 68.43.180.154 (talk) at 12:57 on 9 May 2009

Hmmm...I see your point, but I would tend to say it doesn't count, simply because you're not using Alchemy to make the potion. Nephele's really doing a lot of work on the page, though, and I think it could go either way, so I'm content to be overruled by her if she decides it should be included. --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 18:20, 9 May 2009 (EDT)

Feather PotionsEdit

"However, the long duration is also a liability, because any other effects will expire long before the Feather effect."

Maybe I've missed something but when does a long lasting Feather effect become a liability? — Unsigned comment by 203.206.107.195 (talk) at 16:07 on 24 May 2009

When you want to drink more than four potions in close proximity, I would guess. If you have four feather effects still active, even though you don't need them any more, you can't drink another potion until at least one of them expires. --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 22:45, 24 May 2009 (EDT)

A New Player's PerspectiveEdit

A see this discussion has been going on for three years. I would like to add the perspective of a new player.

When I first started using this wiki, I also wanted a page of alchemy recipes. Going through all charts and doing the calculations was just to tedious even for a number crunchier like me. For the most part, alchemy was not an important part of my game play.

Then I happen across Nephele's alchemy calculator and every thing changed. Using her calculator I can create just the potion or poison I need for the situation my character will be facing. For example, before I start a quest I will read about the quest and the enemies I will facing. I will use the calculator to determine the best potions and poisons to create and bring with me. I can also create a shopping list to determine the ingredients I need to gather.

I long time ago, text books use to have appendixes containing charts of pre-calculated values for things such a square roots or effective interest rates. (Maybe they still do, but this is not a place to do my favor rant about how the American education system does not keep up with changing times).

However, hand held calculators (do they still make them?) and later personal computers made them obsolete.

My point is that the many alchemy charts that are in this wiki may be useful to some players such as those who write mods. But for me, I will just use the calculator.

As for this page, a change in direction is in order. This page should be re-written to promote the idea that the calculator is the best way create a favorite alchemy recipe. A list of recipes is pointless, because the recipes depends on many variables that will change as a character progresses through the game. This page should demonstrate what is possible as the character's alchemy increases, using example recipes only to demonstrate, not as a cook book.

This pages usefulness would also be increased with the use if re-directs (which I still need to learn). Drawing from my experience as a new player, one of the first search terms I entered was alchemy recipes and alchemy cookbook. I believe my new players will also go searching for a alchemy cookbook. They should be re-directed to this page where it will be explained to them that an alchemy cookbook consisting of fixed recipes is not all that useful, but instead using the calculator as a dynamic virtual cookbook is really what they are looking for.

I look forward to comments. --Jxavier ^{Talk - Contribs} 16:34, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree that not all potions and tables are necessary on this article. It's just that nobody has spend the time on filtering them from the article. The Alchemy Calculator is mentioned in the first paragraph, and various links are provided in the table. I think the calculator receives enough attention.

What the article should be is a source of ideas for players, toying around with the calculator will help you find the best methods of making potions for yourself, but not all players may be fully aware of the possibilites. In this case, potions such as the Five Effect Poisons can give those ideas. So I'd rather see that these remain, and the page is modeled a bit more after Oblivion:Useful Spells, which only give the various spell effect combinations that create new effects on their own, and are not obvious to a player. --Timenn-<talk> 08:38, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I may as well chime in with an old player's perspective. When I joined, I also wanted a list of alchemy recipes. That is exactly what I still want. The calculator is great and all, but there were plenty of those around already, and sometimes you just want to be able to refer to a recipe that you are familiar with, without having to input everything into the calculator all over again. To follow your example, sometimes you just want to know that the value of e is a little over 2.71 without every single time having to go to a limit calculator and find the limit of (1+1/n)^n when n approaches infinity. So it is for some important potion recipes. I'd rather remember "Ectoplasm, Spiddal stick, Fly Amanita, Steel-Blue Entoloma", or "Alkanet Flower, Bergamot Seeds, Foxglove Nectar, Viper's Bugloss Leaves" or write them down on a little piece of paper that I can refer to while I am playing the game... than have to quit the game, switch my browser over to the potion calculator, remember all the effects I want, select them from the drop-down menu, and find the potion I was trying to make, have made a hundred of before, and will want to make a hundred of again later.

This page is tremendously improved from the version I remember from a couple years ago, and now easily surpasses my own little collection of recipes, derived in significant part from the calculator. I would still want a few more things: for example some effect pages list suggestions for potions that should be made at Journeyman level because they avoid harmful side-effects, and those ought to have a section here. (e.g., Fortify Personality.) But the bottom line is, this page is a resource that the wiki should have had a long time ago, and if it is well-organized, length should not get wiki editors' panties in a twist. I'd much rather have to scroll past something obvious than not have what I'm looking for on the page at all.

A list of recipes is certainly not "pointless"! Generating a list of recipes is exactly the point of having an alchemy calculator, at least for some people. Now that I have compiled my own list of recipes that do what I want, I find myself referring to the calculator less and less, only when I want some specific effect that isn't in my "cookbook." This language: "it will be explained to them that an alchemy cookbook consisting of fixed recipes is not all that useful, but instead using the calculator as a dynamic virtual cookbook is really what they are looking for." is insultingly patronizing. It reminds me of comments posted to a Microsoft employee's blog who similarly took it upon himself to interpret customer needs.

What the page does now, providing a quick reference and linking to the calculator where appropriate, is exactly what it should be doing. It's well-organized, convenient, and useful in a way that the calculator, with all its sheer power and completeness, does not quite match. They both do different things well. Trimming it down to the point that Timenn suggests would remove most of that usefulness, because it would no longer be possible to refer to this page for a selection of potions you are likely to need (because they will be too "obvious" to be considered for inclusion.)

Thanks. --Nocturnal 23:14, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Drinking More than 4 PotionsEdit

From the article:

However; normally, you can only consume 4 potions at a time, but when the shortest effect on a potion runs out, you can consume another potion. In this way, having a 1 second negative effect is in fact helpful.

This is not the behavior I see in-game. Playing around for a while with Feather potions made from Flax Seeds and Sacred Lotus using master equipment (except for an Expert Mortar) and 99 Alchemy skill, I had potions with 265pts Feather for 867 seconds plus Damage Heath 1pt for 1 second. In my (simple) tests, I saw two different behaviors which were the same both with and without the UOP:

• If I drank a single Feather potion in the inventory menu, exited the menu, waited for the Damage Health to expire, and repeated, I was allowed to drink 7 potions before being told I had to wait.

• If I drank four Feather potions in rapid succession in the inventory menu, exited the menu, waited for the Damage Health to expire, and repeated, I was allowed to drink 8 potions before being told I had to wait.

In both cases, after drinking either the 7 or 8 Feather potions I could not drink ANY other potions until the long-lasting Feather effect wore off (tested using the Wait feature). When I tested using a Restore Health with a duration of about 40 seconds (no secondary effects), I was only ever able to drink 4 potions before needing to wait.

Does anyone have any idea what the explanation for this might be? Is the article just wrong, or is there some other factor at work here I'm not considering? Thanks. 128.187.0.164 01:43, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the concise test report, it is certainly useful to play around with this some more. What I'm wondering is whether the Damage Health was the first effect of the potion, or the second. Apart from that, one scenario I can imagine is that the game creates an effect queue gained from potions, but only uses the first effect in the queue to determine whether a potion has run out. It "dequeues" that effect (so Feather still remains in the queue). Now when you drink more Feather potions, the game will take the Feather effect as the leading effect (which it uses to determine whether a potion has run out), because the Feather effect is still in the queue.

What I'm interested in is what happens when you test this with Potions with the following effects:

• Damage Health 1 pt for 1 sec
• Damage Fatigue 1 pt for 5 sec
• Feather 50pt for 60 sec

I realise such potion can only be created with the CS at hand, but I'm certainly willing to give it a go. --Timenn-<talk> 12:48, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. In the case of my Feather potions, the Damage Health effect was listed second in the list of effects. One thing I did notice when playing around a bit more was that the first time I drank the potions the icons in the upper-right showing active effects listed (from right to left) Damage Health and then Feather. Damage Health expired first which moved the Feather icon to the rightmost position. If I drank more potions the Feather icon stayed in the far right and the new Damage Health icon was put on its left.

This got me thinking that you are probably correct with your thoughts on a queue of effects. I tried this with a different potion as well. I forget the exact ingredients used, but it was Fortify Strength + Feather + Damage Health. When drinking these the Damage Health goes to the rightmost position and when it expires I'm able to drink 4 more potions. The second round the Damage Health goes to the leftmost position and just like with the Feather potions I'm only allowed to drink 8 potions.

In any case, it does look like you're right. When an effect on the "top" of the queue expires the game considers a potion expired as well. If the long-lasting effect is currently on top you have to wait until it expires before being allowed to drink another potion. Because of this I imagine that the hypothetical potion you describe would have the same behavior as a potion with a single short-lived effect. The two short effects would expire and the game would let you drink 4 more potions. The new Feather effect would stack on the existing one which, because it is the right-most effect, would mean you can't drink any more potions until some of the Feather effect wear off. That said, let me know if you try :)

I'm not sure if there's a way to "game" the potion system, since effects are always cumulative and existing effects just stack up. If this is the case then it seems like the most long-lasting potion effects you'd ever be able to have active at one time is actually 8. To be honest the 4 potion limit seems awful arbitrary and pretty pointless in any case. I assume Bethesda put it in place to try and reduce the power of potions vis a vis Morrowind. 128.187.0.164 06:12, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I figured out how to do this very simply. I also think that the effects of the potion and all this "queuing" isn't important but I may be wrong. Even the page regarding this on the glitches pages seems overly complicated with the message appearing and all that.

At this point, I can only drink 7 max, and here's what you do. Drink 3 potions. Exit the menu, reenter the menu, drink 4 more potions. That's it. The potions I used are all identical feather potions (identical in every way) and have absolutely no negative effects, only 1 effect (feather 145 points for 503 secs on self). Using different potions complicates things, in fact, I can't recreate this fully (sometimes I can drink 5) if the potions aren't identical. This is at least beneficial for people who want to drink 7 identical potions such as feather. I think this information could replace or help the already existing section on the glitches page regarding this? Try replicating this though. — Unsigned comment by Piercethetruth (talk • contribs) at 17:54 on 3 March 2011 (UTC)

The 5 effect poison table needs some cleanup.Edit

The 5 effect table needs to be cleaned up for repetitive entries.

67.193.109.219 12:12, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Further 4 effect poisonsEdit

Discovered by trial and error and I'm too tired to write it in code myself but:
Expert level: Ectoplasm, Imp Gall, Steel-Blue Entoloma Cap, Fly Amanita Cap.
Gives: Damage health, Shock Damage, Fire Damage, Burden.
The burden effect was purely accidental when I was trying to get as much damage in a poison as I could get with the ingredients I had to hand, serves needs well and will kill anything with 1 hit at low levels in seconds (the ingredients are low level/cheap too).

Poison Apple PotionEdit

Could a master of alchemy make then drink a potion out of poison apples to kill himself?— Unsigned comment by The Wurm (talk • contribs) at 02:22 on 23 April 2010

Yes I believe so, but you could just eat the apple to kill yourself Kingbaby 02:53, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Yep. See here. Though I wouldn't consider it a useful potion! ^Talk Wolok gro-Barok _{Contributions} 21:19, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

RevampEdit

I feel badly coming in here and giving orders, but I just want to state an opinion. This is a very useful page, but it should be realized that the majority of the game, or at least a very important part will be spent at low non-expert level alchemy. The guide could easily cater to the needs of lower skill level characters and newer players by provided useful potions for novices, apprentices, and journeymen in addition to experts. If this has been edited in already forgive me, but there's no way to tell due to no clarification. If no one agrees to separate the guide based on skill level, at least point out the skill level for the potions, or at least put an asterisk for expert-level potions. Anyone agree? — Unsigned comment by 24.189.164.73 (talk) on 6 June 2010

Check the section titled "Availabilty by Level" for lists of useful, easy to make potion/poison recipes for each skill level. Dlarsh^(T,C) 20:42, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response, somehow I missed that after hours of re-reading... ?— Unsigned comment by 24.189.164.73 (talk)

Situational PotionsEdit

Anyone think there should be a new section? Obviously these potions would be highly debatable, but potentially very useful for readers. For instance, "aquatic escape" (light+water breathing) , or "post-exploration" (feather+restore health+magicka) — Unsigned comment by 24.189.164.73 (talk) on 6 June 2010

err.. there is a time i gathered a LOT of ingrediants try to make my alchemy from 92 all the way through 100, i've actrually made a few of these, like fortify health + fortify endurance, restore health,magiKa,fatigue + shield and other stuff.

but actrually i found feather effect dosen't match any other effect. because it's duration it's too long(over 200 second), if you make a potion with feather + fortify STR, you'll have to waste another potion for fortify STR after this effect faded, for like a minute.so maybe you want seperate these two effect. restore health/magika is even shorter. sometime you just need a restore health/magika, or only a feather effect.

a few match i found is listed below:(mostly already in the page)

Flask of Titan:fortify health + fortify endurance --- useful when facing a lot of enemy Flask of Arcane:frotify magika + fortify entelligence (at that time i don't know how important willpower is to a caster) Flask of Assult:fortify strengh + restore health + shield Elixir of Fire Resist(and frost,shock):fire shield + resist fire --- i've only used the shock and fire,since i'm using a Nord, but this really saved my life though.

through, these mix potion mostly are for 75+ alchemists only.

Zuoanqh 18:38, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

An easier way to make triple damage poison(for only master and SI required)Edit

Spiddal Stick(damage health,fire damage)---does the same work as imp gall,but after oblivion crisis is over, you'll have to get these by frostcrag spire garden and arch-mage's chest.most alchemy merchant have 2-5 in sale,also.

Steel-Blue Entoloma Cap, Fly Amanita Cap(fire damage,shock damage)---two almost most common ingrediant,both can be easily gathered....no? try imperial city and corrol.

Black Tar(damage health,shock damage)---an easy replacement of Ectoplasm,found everywhere in Deminta.

it have damage health,fire damage,shock damage,and a(which i think it's useless)burden effect.even so easy to collect these ingrediant, using this poison is still a little too fancy for my style. also, you might want a 2-second-weakness dagger match with this poison.

sorry for all typing mistake..as you see i'm chinese. Zuoanqh 18:00, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

An alternate recipeEdit

"Restore Fatigue + Restore Health + Restore Magicka + Shield + Feather" can also be done at 50+ Alchemy skill with the SI expansion. Alocasia Fruit, Sweetcake, Flax Seeds and Withering Moon will combine for all five effects. 24.156.216.144 18:24, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Damage Strength vs Damage Speed poisonsEdit

I sometimes wonder wether strength or speed damage would be more effective when dealing with enemies, but none of the creature/npc pages note stats, so I took a look in the CS.

Results are that most creature- and daedra-type enemies (including the mountain lion) have significantly lower speed than strength, only spider daedra have a speed similar to its strength. most other enemies have speeds of 20-30 or below, making speed damaging poisons of greater use against them.

NPCs are more of a mixed bag, as strength and speed ratio is influenced by both race and class. Generally speed damage poisons is better against Nords and Orcs, and against heavily armored foes (where strength is generally higher priority than speed) but note than Orcs magic resistance apply to the Damage Speed effect. Strength damage serve better for Bosmer and Dunmer, as well as most NPCs in light armor or no armor (mages in particular).

90.227.80.118 14:30, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Another triple-damage poison for non-SIEdit

I use another recipe to achieve triple damage:

Frost Salts + Spiddle Stick + Vampire Dust + Imp Gall

gives:

Damage Health, Fire Damage, Frost Damage, Silence

It does not even need SI. Maybe add it to the list? — Unsigned comment by 93.221.33.97 (talk) at 15:15 on 23 December 2012

It's already covered with the +silence link in the All Possibilities section. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 15:38, 23 December 2012 (GMT)

Triple Damage PoisonsEdit

Moved from article: referring to "Damage Health + Fire + Frost"

Oblivion player (twitter account @axelsword) note: I ran into trouble making the first described poison. When combining spiddal stick with vampire dust the components didn't show up in the selection. A workaround is to include a third component with restore fatigue, then click on in again and the other two components will be available for selection. Say, if you have dryad saddle polypore then you can't add imp gall without say an apple as a bridge component. — Unsigned comment by 81.132.149.141 (talk) at 09:15 on 11 July 2013

Is this possible?Edit

Could a 100 skill level alchemist use the beating heart to make a potion which would infect someone with vampirism? If so, could it be put in say, a beggar's food bag. Theoretically, the beggar would drink the potion and become a vampire after three days. Would he then seek out targets in the city? Could he infect the player?!?!? — Unsigned comment by Konlorescue (talk • contribs) at 00:28 on 17 July 2014

No, he wouldn't. NPCs lack scripts for feeding, so they won't actually act the same as vampire player characters, and they can't be infected with vampirism. Zul se onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 14:06, 17 July 2014 (GMT)

How to stack multiple effect potionsEdit

I like to make anti-mage potions. These are usually based on Harada. I happened upon two recipes that damaged health, magicka, silenced and paralyzed the mages, namely:

1. Fennel, White Seed Pod, Sacred Lotus, and Harada.

2. Bergamot, Milkthistle, Wisp stalk, and Harada.

But no matter how I tried I could not get these recipes to have their list of effects (LoE) in the same order so that they would stack. In fact, if wasn't careful either recipe by itself could result in several differently ordered LoE's each of which created its own stack. Eventually I settled on one order of ingredients for each recipe which reduced the problem to two stacks. This is the simple solution. But I still wondered why I could not get down to just one stack? What was going on? The complicated answer (which probably should not be added to the page but is offered here for equally insane players) follows.

The order in which the ingredients are entered into the left side of the Alchemy Machine's list of Ingredients (LoI) can alter the order of the list of effects (LoE) on the right. Each ingredient has its own list of effects, some of which are needed for the potion, the rest are ignored since they never pair up. For example, Wisp Stalk has damage Health in its first position denoted (H1) and Milk Thistle has paralysis in the forth position (P4). Bergamot is (M3,S4) for damage magicka and silence at its third and fourth positions, respectively. Using this notation, Harada (shown in red) is (H1, M2, S3, P4). From this point on we will not use the names just these effects. As each ingredient is processed its effects are entered into a processing set Z and paired. So if LoI = { (M3, S4) (P4) (H1, M2, S3, P4) (H1) } then the four additions to the processing set are

1. Z = { (M3, S4) } no pairing after adding first ingredient

2. Z = { (M3, S4) (P4) } no pairing after adding second ingredient

3. Z = { (M3, S4) (P4) (H1, M2, S3, P4) } there are pairings after the third ingredient!

So add effects to the LoE according to the following rules:

• first find the matching effects at the same position P4, P4 and enter those

LoE = { P }

• second find the matching effects at different positions M3, M2, S4, S3 and enter them

LoE ={ P, M, S }

• third remove those matches from the processing set so

Z = { (H1) }

4. Z = { (H1) (H1) } the final pairing from adding the last ingredient yields

LoE ={ P, M, S, H }

This is exactly the list of effects you get from combining in order Bergamot, Milk Thistle, Harada, and Wisp Stalk. The method has passed every case for making these anti-mage potions. And since Bergamot's M and S cannot be separated, and likewise for Fennel's M and P, it is impossible to make one stacking anti-mage potion from the two recipes above.

Simply put, effects are added from the ingredients to the effects area in the order in which they are paired up, with effects occupying the same position for two ingredients being given priority. Kalevala (talk) 19:44, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Weight loss trickEdit

If you like to carry a lot of one kind of potion that is too heavy, try making its first example adding in garlic even though garlic does nothing for the effects. Take Reflect Damage for example: add flour, strawberry, and then corn. Choose garlic to replace the corn. Rename the potion as "Reflect Damage". Create it. From this point on just use flour and strawberry with the name "Reflect Damage". The potions will weigh only 0.1, will stack, and will not need garlic. If the potency changes with an increase in Alchemy or better equipment, you will again have to create a first example using garlic. Kalevala (talk) 15:25, 23 June 2020 (UTC)