Fans of Skyrim are sure to know about the importance and fun of crafting different potions, weapons, and armor in the game. While it can be easy to find different items and crafting materials in different stores around Skyrim, players that want to save money can find plenty of materials while they're out on an adventure.
Any newcomers to Skyrim or those that aren't always focused on crafting might wonder what kinds of resources they should be looking out for while they travel. For those that want to know what the best items to grab on your way to each new quest, here are some materials that would be a good idea to pick up.
10 Mountain Flowers
Whenever players see any brightly colored flowers while they walk around Skyrim, it would be a good idea to stop and pick them up. Why? Because they are one of the most used ingredients in alchemy to make lots of different potions that affect health, magic, and stamina.
Specifically, blue mountain flowers are mainly used in health-related potions, red ones are mainly used in Magicka-related potions, and purple ones can restore stamina or hurt an enemy's Magicka levels. Yellow flowers can be used to fortify different attributes as well. Since these flowers can help the player and hurt their enemies through a large variety of potions, they're one of the best materials to pick up when traveling through the mountains.
9 Soul Gems
The most important resource for players who want to enchant their gear is the soul gem, and they are fairly common in Skyrim. There are a few different kinds of soul gems in the world that can hold souls of different sizes and strengths.
The bigger gems hold bigger souls, except for black soul gems being the most powerful soul gem that is about the size of a common soul gem. If players want to be able to enchant or recharge their items, it's a great idea to pick up any soul gems that they see.
8 Ore
While ore might be heavier and less valuable than ingots, they're still incredibly useful and worth picking up if players have enough inventory space. They're fairly easy to find in either ore veins or around mines.
Once players get pieces of ore, all they have to do is put their ore in a smelter, which can usually be found near mines or blacksmith areas. From there, players will have an ingot of whatever kind of ore they smelted, which is a valuable material for making different weapons, armor, and even house resources in the Hearthfire DLC.
7 Ingots
While ore is useful, ingots should never be left behind. So many different weapons, armor pieces, and other crafted items require iron, steel, gold, and other ingots, though some have more uses than others.
Iron ingots are one of the most used resources for crafting weapons and armor, making it one of the best ingots to pick up while traveling. Even armor and weapons that aren't labeled as "iron" items usually use at least one iron ingot to make them. Other ingots like gold ingots aren't used for crafting weapons or armor, but they are still useful for crafting jewelry that can be sold at high prices in shops.
6 Leather/Animal Pelts
While players might not see leather just laying around, it's actually more common than some players might think. That's because leather can be made at a tanning rack if players have any animal pelts to use, and there are plenty of animals around the fields of Skyrim.
There are a few instances where players can find leather without using a tanning rack, but a decent amount of leather that's found in houses, stores, and some dungeons is found in the form of leather strips. While regular leather is usually used just in armor crafting, leather strips can be used to craft both armor and weapons.
5 Enchanted Items
If players want to discover all the different bonus abilities that they can give their weapons and armor, they're going to want to work on leveling up their enchantment skill. To learn more enchantments, it's in the player's best interest to pick up any enchanted items that they find.
Even if players find enchanted armor and weapons that they think that they don't want to use, it's a good idea to take the item anyway so that the enchantment can be learned from it. To do this, players can use the "disenchant" feature at an Arcane Enchanter table and choose the enchanted item they wish to disenchant. They will then know the basic enchantment from that item, and the enchantment can become more powerful if players level up their enchanting skill.
4 Dwemer Metal Pieces
While Dwemer Ruins can be disorienting and Dwarven enemies can be tough, seeking out these enemies and locations can be beneficial for players. Those who defeat Dwarven Spheres, Spiders, and Centurions will be able to loot them for pieces of Dwemer metal.
These metal items can be smelted to create Dwarven Metal ingots, which can be used to craft Dwarven weapons and armor. These Dwarven items can be useful in a fight, especially for those who like using heavy armor, but even if they aren't appealing to a player for their own use, they're worth crafting so that the player can sell these items for a decent amount of gold.
3 Daedra Hearts
For those that want to eventually use Daedric weapons and armor, or if you want to make some very helpful potions, picking up every Daedra heart around is a good idea. They aren't as common as other crafting items, so it's best to take them anyway even if the player doesn't need them at the moment, just so that they have Daedra hearts for later.
Besides making Daedric items, Daedra hearts can be used to make Restore Health potions, as well as potions that make enemies flee or have damaged magika or stamina regeneration. Even if none of those uses appeal to the player, Daedra hearts can fetch a fine price at many stores, so players still have some good reasons to pick these hearts up.
2 Bugs
No, we're not talking bugs as in problems with the game, though there have been plenty of those in Skyrim. Instead, we're talking about the various insects that call Skyrim home. Most insects in the game can be used in alchemy to make potions that mostly have effects that either damage a player's enemies or fortifies one of the player's skills or stats.
Some of the most used and commonly seen insects that players should pick up would be different types of butterfly wings and moth wings, while bees and dartwings can be a little bit harder to find and catch. Before players find themselves in a situation where they need insects but don't have any in their inventory and can't find many of them, it's best to pick up any insects that they see from the very beginning of the game and beyond.
1 Eggs
Whether they're from monsters or birds, there's plenty of eggs to be found in Skyrim. With such a large variety of eggs to find, it's no surprise that they have a wide variety of uses to make different kinds of potions through alchemy.
If making lots of potions appeals to the player, it's very important to pick up any monster and bird eggs that they see, especially when it comes to bird eggs. These eggs don't show up as much as some players might like, and when they do appear, they show up in nests that need time to respawn an egg. This makes it hard to find lots of eggs in a short amount of time without much travel, so even players don't think that they need eggs right now, it's a good idea to pick them up whenever they show up in case the player needs them later.