The Frustration of the Waterbreathing Enchantment

[iamkl00t]

So my first character found a necklace of Waterbreathing right at the start in bleak falls barrow and this spoiled me as waterbreathing is absolutely the best enchantment for making money as you can enchant all the (seemingly) worthless jewellery you loot and with a petty soul gem make it worth a fortune. Plus it just makes you feel like you are getting value for money out of all the junk you end up picking up! Even if you pickup (or smith) and expensive piece of jewellery, waterbreathinbg makes it EVEN MORE valuable with the best bang for buck

So on my second playthrough I was desperate to find an item enchanted with Waterbreathing. No such luck!

The best advice I have seen is to save before fast travelling to Cradlecrush Rock or Hamvir's Rest which both spawn enchanted headgear. I have tried this to no effect. I have fast travelled to each location probably 30+ times each (and it takes ages on xbox 360!!) and even though a different enchanted item spawns each time - it is never waterbreathing!! Arrgh! I'm getting 'Eminent Archery', 'Eminent Destruction', restoration, archery, alchemy etc the list goes on but never waterbreathing.

I am level 36 so don't know if it could be anything to do with levelling? Anyone else have a different experience of using this method?

 

[Guerito]

I was just wondering, does waterbreathing make the items so much more valuable than any other enchantment? There are quite a few other enchantments that you can put on rings, necklaces and head ornaments, see the UESPWiki...

 

[iamkl00t]

The nice thing about Waterbreathing is that (to my knowledge) it is the only enchantment that can provide the same level of enchantment regardless of the soul applied. So in other words, all the petty sould gems I have can be put to good use/profit by enchanting all the junk jewellery I have hanging around and making a significant amount of money.

 

[Jeff the DragonBorn]

I found a helm with water breathing form a merchant before I had the skill level to enchant it. Once I got the skill level I enchanted a ring with water breathing.

have you checked all the merchants on a regular basis?

 

[iamkl00t]

Yeah I keep checking (lots) but to no avail. You must have just got lucky, like I did in another playthrough but it's totally random. It is one of the rarest enchantments in the game so not surprised it's hard to find but very frustrating nonetheless

The only way to increase the odds of finding a waterbreathing enchanted item I'm aware of (other than via console command which obviously can't be done on xbox) is using the fast travel/reload method I mentioned above.

Or to use the export save game to PC method which I don't have the option/nor wish to do. I don't mind stacking the odds by repeatedly reloading and fast travelling but the console method isn't my bag as it seems to close to cheating Plus I don't know anyone with the PC version!

 

[Grey Fox]

Muffle is another enchantment that does not depend on the size of the soul gem and is even rarer to find as it only spawns on boots. When I was working on alchemy and brewing hundreds of potions, I made sure I had the merchant perk(sell any item to any merchant) and travelled ALL the holds selling my wares. During this process I would check all vendors inventory and eventually got lucky and found both.
You might want to look in the invisible Dawnstar chest as well. On one of my playthroughs I found a waterbreathing helm in there. Good luck!

 

[BSE]

I think Ive gotten 2 or 3 waterbreathing enchanted items, dont remember where, but I sold them all as I dont need them (Argonian) and I hadnt started enchanting stuff yet. But I have plenty of money anyway, so Im not really worried about it.

 

[Jeff the DragonBorn]

Also I think waterbreathing is overblown as so far I haven't had much use for it and I haven't found anything of real value under the water. The exception was looking for Mavin Black - Briar's magic pen or something which took up some time - but at that time I had no SCUBA gear so I had to do it the normal way.

 

[iamkl00t]

The thing is if its just an item of waterbreathing that's needed, volsung's mask gives that (I have this already) but it can't be disenchanted. Hadn't looked into the dawnstar chest so could try that as soon as I've googled it thanks for your help everyone!