Leveling Restoration

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I actually found a fairly quick means of leveling restoration - although certainly not for the faint of heart. I upped my restoration skill from 75-95 in less than 10 minutes, and I imagine this would work at faster speeds at lower levels of the skill. (Although not really low levels, as you do need something more than your basic healing spell to do this.)

Requirements: You need a set of gear that completely negates the casting cost of the restoration school - so it's a specialized set that you're going to use exclusively for this purpose. That also means you'll need a high level enchanting skill. Any armor of your choice will work, but since you're going to get hit a lot with this, selecting an armor opposite of what you typically use (either heavy or light) is a great way to level the two skills simultaneously.

The more life you have the better. It will increase your margin for error, and simulateously provide a larger life pool to heal. I highly recommend when you make your gear that you always select fortify health whenever possible. That means that you'll place fortify restoration and fortify health on your armor, amulet, and ring. (Shields can also get fortify health, but if you're using close wounds, you'll probably be dual wielding healing spells.)

You'll also need a decent healing spell. I'll assume that you'll pickpocket train restoration up to skill level 50, and have access to close wounds. (Once you hit level 75, grand healing opens up, and that works even better, but I see no reason why it can't be done with close wounds.) Finally, I highly recommend that you pick up the Regeneration perk (healing spells are 50% more effective), which only requires novice restoration as a prerequisite.

OK, you're set. Head to a giant camp - and the more giants and mammoths that are there, the better. In my example that I performed last night, the giant camp had two giants and two mammoths. Perfect. Then you boldly walk into camp, shield bash a giant in the face, and turn the camp hostile to you.

It is at this point that you should equip your healing spell in both hands, as you'll soon be taking damage from four pretty heavy hitters, attacking from all four cardinal directions. (Incidentally, I did this on master difficulty, so if your character is a sissy and can't take it, I suppose it would still work on lower difficulty settings. I also used a shield for more health, as grand healing + regeneration perk heals 300 health per cast.) You will take damage like you won't believe. You get knocked around like a pinball. You'll constantly be spamming your healing spells. I used grand healing, and I was casting it once every 5 seconds or so to keep up. If you're using close wounds and thus are getting less health back per cast, you'll likely be casting it continuously.

But the point is, you'll level restoration at a rate of about once every 30 seconds - even at high skill levels. If your restoration skill is 50, it would probably level like crazy (although perhaps not - you don't need to heal as much to level, but you're also using a less effective spell). I managed to pull this off without dying a single time, but there were a few close calls, so I recommend saving every once in a while. You are also in no position to make a quick escape, so it wouldn't be a bad idea to take along a few full healing potions to save you in a pinch.

 

Personally I just stand in the snow storm behind the greybeards' crib and heal. It's much more steady and predictable damage, less risky

 

Yes, or you can cast equilibrium between healing too. While I definitely powergame, I tend not to do so the cheesy way, and the equilibrium/healing trick, or standing in the snow storm at the Throat of the World qualifies as pure cheddar for me.

Getting beat on by a giant at master difficulty is definitely risky. Getting simultaneously beat on by two mammoths and two giants is borderline suicidal. There were a few close calls indeed. But that's the whole point. If you level your armor and restoration skill that way, there's risk of death, and thus not nearly as cheesy. You feel like you're "earning it" for lack of a better term.

 

True enough, I would only do it the way I mentioned if I wasn't actually playing a caster though. If I'm a mage I just let it take its natural course and ensure I'm healing myself through any and all injuries.

 

Yeah.. getting hurt on purpose just so that you can patch it up with Restoration would qualify as cheese in my book, although there IS some sportsmanship in trying your survival limits.

Too bad the same applies to so many skills that you could conceivably get to level 60+ without ever leaving a city. Having to choose between stinky cheese and almost immediate power creates a dilemma for a powergamer, to put it mildly.

 

IMO, if you want to get to really high levels in skills that don't have a combat purpose, you're going to have to use some cheese. With the ability to train, at best, 5 skills that you don't use to high levels, and even then having to figure out the last 10 or so skill levels, implementation of some cheese is almost unavoidable. The most obvious example is it's impractical to use both one handed and two handed weapons. One must be trained. Unless you like using a mixed heavy and light armor set, and you do NOT want to have one of those skills trained, doing something like this and simultaneously leveling resotration (another hard to level skill) is helpful.

Just about any skill you powerlevel requires some cheese. Like casting waterbreathing to level alteration - other than in the theives guild quest, how hard is it to avoid drowning? If you're using that, you're almost certainly cheesing it.