I'm playing a destruction mage in Skyrim and I'm really close to max out on enchanting, alchemy and destruction.

I have completely neglected the smithing perks, because I'm only wearing clothes and apparently there's no smithing perks needed to craft jewelry which I need for enchanting.

So what I basically use are gold and silver ingots, but what about the rest? There are so many other types of ingots and ores around and I began to wonder if I can simply stop picking these up? Also: I usually turn all ores into ingots whenever I'm at a smelter. Or do ores have another use except being turned into ingots?

3 Answers

Ores and ingots are only useful for smithing, though if you find a transmute spell you can turn iron and silver ore into gold, which is useful if you need some money. You can also sell ores to mine owners (usually they will only buy the type of ore their mines carry) at their full base price (unadjusted by your speechcraft skill, which is favorable), except for iron, which goes for 7 gold, while its base price is only 2.

Also, a few quests will require ore or ingots, but they are too few and far apart to justify the extra weight. Most, if not all of them, will be for gold or silver, so a quick trip to a blacksmith for iron ore and a few Transmute spells will do the trick.

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This page may help you with determining if something is worth taking. They have many other similar pages on the site for other types of items as well. I usually pick up any ores, out of habit. They can be sold or used as weapon tempering if nothing else. Also, many ores and ingots are materials for the Atronach Forge.

Additionally, viewing the subpages for each material will give a much more detailed explanation.

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yes,

the midas magic mod uses gold ingots for the spells.

and,

the quest the only cure will need an ingot of some sort ( I don't remember).

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