Black Souls and enchanting question

Does it seem like Black Souls aren't worth it this time as far as enchanting goes? They seem to be like one or two points stronger than a Grand enchant. Does it make more of a difference with higher enchanting skill? I did a certain quest that gives you a refillable Soul Gem, but I really don't see the point, so far.

Are they stronger than Grand Soul gems? The point for me is it allows you to get Grand strength soul gems easily as there are bandits everywhere, but enemies capable of filling a normal Grand Soul gem are less common.

Daniel.

Grand souls equal black souls in terms of enchanting strength, at least they did in my game with 90 in enchanting skill.

Black soul gems are the only ones that can capture NPC souls and these souls are always counted as grand which I think makes them (and that artifact one) more useful than other types since the game is full of NPCs (bandits, etc.), whereas grand white souls are relatively more difficult to come by (draugr deathlords, mammoths and probably the dragon priests afaict, though I haven´t used soul trap much).

Is there a ranged soul trap spell?

I soul-trap constantly and I see the point. Grand souls are very easy to get with bandits. Of course, money is no object after level 20 and you can buy filled grand soul gems from almost any merchant. I can generally get 10+ from the college alone on every visit. The best dungeon for me is a bandit-filled dwarven ruin. If it has an enchanting table, it's the best of all worlds. You have grand souls, soul gems out the wazoo thanks to the soul-powered dwemer stuff, and tons of smithing and alchemical ingedients

Sadly not, you can put it on a bow of course.

Daniel.

I use a bow with soul-trap, but the main soul trap spell is ranged, as far as I can tell. It doesn't have great range, but it's not touch-based. I also equip Lydia with a two-handed soul stealer and a bunch of empty gems when I feel the need. I let her capture all the non-grand souls and I focus on the grand ones. I think I sometimes get her soul kills, so I keep some on hand for that too.

Does Soul Trap fill a size-appropriate gem or always the largest one? I remember being really annoyed by that in Oblivion and Morrowind.

@Bill-It seems to go in the smallest one it'll fit in this time. At least, as far as I can tell. I soul-trap so much, I haven't paid close attention. I'll confirm this tonight, if I remember.

OK, thanks. In my previous playthrough I got Azura's Star early and just used that. In my current playthrough as a mage I've found so many filled gems I haven't had to fill my own (yet).

If you loot dwarven ruins, you'll never need another soul gem. They're chock full of gems, both loose and in the corpse loot. Many places have soul gems, but the Dwemer used them for everything. I think I found soul-gem cereal in one of the dwemer bowls

Good to know, I finally had to break down and buy some when I ran out…

Luckily there is an unexplored Dwarven ruin close by that I have been aiming at to find someone's sword…

I love it when that happens. The whole two-birds thing is just full of good karma.