Although Enchanted weapons are remarkably good at dealing damage compared to regular weapons, there’s a catch to it. Enchanted weapons generally have a weapon charge bar that gets depleted every time you land a hit on an enemy.
After the charge gets depleted completely, your enchanted weapon will no longer deal with the special enchantment effects and will instead act like a normal weapon. To regain the bonus effects of your weapon, you must recharge it.
The process to recharge your weapon is pretty simple. You’ll need a filled soul gem to use on your depleted enchanted weapon. The amount of charges that gets refilled will depend on the size of the soul trapped in soul gems.
For example, a Greater soul gem filled with Greater soul will refill a large portion of the charge bar compared to a Greater soul gem filled with petty soul gems. We’ve discussed everything below. Let’s get started.
Step 1: Get a Soul Gem
Soul gems are the basic requirement to recharge your weapons. You can buy them from mage merchants or the court wizards of a stronghold, such as Falion from Morthal or Farengar Secret-Fire in Dragonsreach.
Step 2: Fill the Soul Gem
Next, you’ll have to fill the soul gem with the soul of a living being. You can capture the souls of small critters like skewers to catch the souls of giants.
There are several ways to fill soul gems, and you can learn more about them from our in-depth article.
The general gist of filling soul gems is that you’ll need to cast the soul trap spell on an enemy and eliminate them within a minute or simply use a soul trap enchanted weapon to finish them off.
Before you capture a soul, ensure that you have a soul gem capable of capturing the soul of the creature. For example, you won’t be able to capture the soul of a giant in a petty soul gem. You’ll either need a Greater or Grand soul gem.
Similarly, ensure that your Grand soul gems aren’t filled with petty souls, as this will only add a small amount of charge to your weapon charge meter.
If you want to capture the soul of a human, then you must have the black soul gem in your inventory.
Note: You can buy soul gems that are already filled with souls, but they tend to be a lot more expensive compared to an empty one. So, we recommend filling souls gems yourself.
Step 3: Recharge your Weapon
After getting the filled soul gem, we can move on to using them to recharge our weapons.
- Open your items menu and select the weapon that you need to recharge.
- Press the Charge button.
- Select the soul gem that you want to use and press the Interact button.
Note: Soul gems are a one-time-use item. After using them, they will get removed from your inventory.
How to Get the Unbreakable Soul Gem?
You can always get new soul gems from scavenging or purchasing from wizards. However, there are also a few soul gems artifact that does not break upon use.
The Black Star and the Azura star are the game’s most valuable and useful artifacts. You can get either of these Daedric artifacts by completing “The Black Star” questline.
The Azura’s star lets you capture the souls of only the creatures.
But the Black Star lets you capture the souls of humans as well.
Flawed Varla Stone is also among the unbreakable soul gems that can capture the souls of creatures.
Weapons That Don’t Need Recharging
There are some unique enchanted weapons that do not require recharging. You’ll get unlimited hits from these weapons.
Almost all such weapons are tied to a quest you’ll need to complete to acquire them. Some of the notable weapons are,
- Wuuthrad
- Windshear
- Zephyr
- Vladr’s dagger
- Dawnguard Rune Axe
- Poacher’s Axe
- Mehrune’s Razor
- Ebony Blade
- Trollsbane
- Hoksbane
- Drainspell Bow
- Drainblood Battleaxe
- Drainheart Sword
How to Recharge Weapons Efficiently?
By now, you should have stacked up on soul gems and are already filling it with souls. Before you go, we’ve also listed some handy tips to help you efficiently recharge your weapons.
- Firstly, you should always use petty and common soul gems first while recharging weapons. They typically add a small amount of charge, so it is best to clear them out of your inventory. Save your Grand or Greater soul gems for enchanting weapons instead.
- Prioritize getting the Black Star instead of the Azura Star. The Black Star is able to capture the souls of humans in addition to other creatures’ souls. But with Azura Star, you’re only limited to creatures’ souls.
- You can also get the Flawed Varla Stone which has the same effect as the Azura Star.
- A much better way to soul-trap enemies is by using enchanted soul-trap weapons. This can be helpful, especially if you’re playing a melee-oriented character, as it allows you to focus on combat rather than casting the soul trap spell.
- A good weapon enchantment is the Fiery Soul Trap that you can get from the “Coming of Age” questline. In addition to the soul-trapping effect, the weapon also deals additional fire damage to your target.
- Finally, you should level up your enchanting skill to a higher level before enchanting weapons. Enchanting weapons at a higher level will give your weapon more charges, thus diminishing the need to recharge your weapons frequently.
