Alchemy from the Ground Up

[Lance Berg]

Started a new toon, a baby shaman, to partner with my son's new Monk.

I played a shaman many years ago, reaching level 51 before a friend
wanted to reroll on another server and I played Bard or some such. Yeah,
rerolling is part of the fun for me, I enjoy starting over too much!

At any rate, one thing I didn't do before was play around with
Alchemy... the old alchemy system wasn't too exciting anyway, and I was
having too much fun learning the class.

This time, though, I already know the shaman basics, and besides, I need
something to do when my son isn't playing, so we don't get seperated by
levels. A tradeskill seems perfect, I got Tinkering to 300 last
spring, so I know how they work, in general, too.

Here's how I went at Alchemy: went to EQTC and looked for guides, which
were hopelessly out of date. Searched around some on Google and didn't
find anything better... there must be some info out there somewhere but
I sure can't find it.

Then back to EQTC, where I looked at the basic recipe list. Wow there
are a LOT of recipies for alchemy.

Breaking them down further, though, it seems there are three basic
sorts: recipes which require a drop, ones which require a pottery made
part, and ones which can be entirely storebought.

Oh, and a fourth sort, the Quest recipes in Abysmal Sea and Crescent Reach.

I went to AS and did their quests till 54 and capped. I know the CR
ones are easier, as you don't have do 100 of each before getting the
next, but I also know at the high end you want to have the AS quests
done so you can transform high end drops (in this case, Sludge needs to
be filtered), so its not a waste of time really, you'll have to do it
later anyway, might as well get the free skillups while at it.

Then I went to Freeport and got the beginning trophy quest. All items
on the list were below trivial at 54, I guess I could have gotten the
quest at 50 and skilled up a little on the quest, but then again, the 54
quests were free and the skill made it (very slightly) easier to succeed
on the quest combines)

Then to CR, where the parts are all handy, and where my son and I are
based, with his Drakkin monk.

Starting out, I made a wide variety of recipies, anything I could find
that didn't take drop or made parts. They got progressively more
expensive.. but these things are relative, they're all pretty cheap at
the low end.

Here are the potions I saw as actually useful:

Avian (adds wisdom... which helped me learn faster)
Skinspikes. DS that stacks with worn and cast DS... also note that worn
DS doesn't work unless you have some kind of cast or potion DS, so this
is the On switch for worn, given that monk/shaman don't get a cast
version at all, at least till we get some quests done or something

There are a bunch of other stat boosts, but I can raise stats with buffs
except for int/wis, and we don't need Int.

Last time I did a trophy, I was already at 200+ skill (tinkering).
Starting this one at 54, I found it leveled up faster than I skilled up,
and I also found that until I dinged a certain level, it got no exp at
all. Still, after a while it got to 5% skill boost, and I could put
away my Geerlok, equip a weapon with Wis on it, so I could stop drinking
the Avian potions, which is good as they were no longer cheap or easy to
make high end ones that were skillup, and the lowend ones were
trivial... luckily I hung onto enough to get me thru this stage.

Things started to get expensive after leveling up a while, so I looked
harder. Turns out the Suspensions are much cheaper than the normal
potions. At first they look more expensive, because of the cost to
make the vials via pottery... until you notice that each pottery combine
makes several vials.

OK, I'm not seriously going to be a potter, so I go with the CR version
of the TS quest, which takes perhaps a quarter of the time that the AS
ones do to get to 54.

This lets me make a potion I've never heard of, but which looks really
useful for our duo: Suspension of Slime.

There are a number of Suspensions, most seem to be low end nukes, but
Slime is a snare. Monk/Shaman lacks snare, I didn't go Troll so I
won't be able to get the clicky snare neck, and the monk is, well, it
will be a while before we get him a snare item or anything like that.

Suspensions go in Range, and a Range attack casts the spell. Three
downsides: Its resistable, and like normal Range attacks, can't be used
within a certain minimum range. But three, duration is short, about 5
ticks, which will make snare/FD splitting problematic. As a former SK I
was looking forward to my son being able to use Slime to do that useful
trick, but no joy there. Still, they work admirably for stopping
runners, and we weren't planning on using the snare to aggro or fear kite.

As I skill up further, the price difference becomes pronounced. I make
skinspikes because they're useful, but I stop making anything else,
skinspikes and Slimes.

Slimes work all the way up to 228, and then there's a slightly harder
pottery combine that works to 231.

Now I'm stuck. I've been looking all down that list, and I dont' see
one more item I can make that doesn't require dropped parts.

Worse, nothing that I can kill drops anything for skillups, either.

After some debate, I hauled my 75 Sk out of retirement to go hunting.
Several hours in SG yielded 80 deepwater ink (and 5K in gems), handed
the proceeds over to the little shaman and back to work I went.

Just over 40pp in Comfrey, 20pp for Methysticum (bought a stack of 100
by mistake, expected 20 stacks like the Comfrey), and (2gp for 20 times
4 times 5=4pp in small vials invested.

Checking wisdom capped for my level (255, this would be easier at higher
levels), I start in clicking.

No I don't, recipe not in my book. Experiment time. On my first try I
make a stack of 4 Distillate of Spirituality IX, so I can use the recipe
book for the rest, a relief with 10 item combines I thought I might have
to do a dozen or two the hard way. I succeed a lot even at my low
skill... but on the losses I get the small vials back, clearly I've
overbought on those! Nine attempts per 1% exp on the Trophy, looks like.

A friend rummages thru her bank and finds an extra 26 DWInks, I splurge
and buy a second 100 Methysticums, along with the extra of everything
else I need. Total outlay, just a hair over 100pp.

I've produced 350 potions, from the 106 DWI's. Dumping those on the
vendor, I bring in 1765pp, or 1566pp after costs. This plan is usable
till my skill hits 302... so it looks like money outlay is a thing of
the past, although I'd still happily spend money to not have to hunt
components.

The logic, that Alchemy Vendor only stuff is expensive, and Pottery
stuff less so, and stuff with a hunted component even less so, is
laudable, the fact that I can actually make a profit selling to vendors
(a modest one, given that I made 5Kpp while hunting the parts) is a nice
bonus, but what I dislike about this is the massive time sink it
creates. Four hours work and I got a whopping two skillups out of it...
and I can't think of a drop item I can farm faster... maybe Nodding Blue
Lillies in Seb? Thats for an even higher skill level combine.

Ah well, its something to do when my son isn't available to play, and
I'll probably get more skillups when my skill improves... seems for some
reason I don't skill as fast on Red combines as I do on Yellow ones, and
its exping up my Trophy pretty fast.

Infusee, 32 Iksar Shaman, Combine

[Don Woods]

As I don't have a lot of time to play (and have guildies I'm trying to
keep up with), I mostly focus on my top two-box duo and shy away from
starting over with new characters, so when I started a shaman alt it was
just to have an alchemist in my tradeskill stable. I PLed her into the
30s to get her access to some spells that might be useful if she ever
needed to collect stuff herself, and then got started on alchemy.

Like Lance, I ended up looking up the various recipes at EQTC, but since
I wasn't trying to go adventuring I didn't care about whether stuff was
usable at my level. I did try making some snare Suspensions for my monk,
but they always seemed to be resisted, so I gave up using them. (The monk
has the "Ball of Burlap Yarn" snare item from Stonebrunt/Warrens for use
in emergencies anyway.)

At the higher skill levels (my Alchemy is at 271 so far) I've been using
the recipes with dropped ingredients, and have farmed some of those drops
myself, but I find I can get more DWInk and NBLily than I'll ever need at
10pp each using my Buyer in the Bazaar. Each of those (plus about 1pp of
vendor parts) makes 5 potions, and the potions easily sell in the Bazaar
for 8-10pp and up, so even after losing ingredients on failures I can make
a modest profit while skilling up. For some of the higher rank potions
the dropped parts (Lucidem, Curzon, Vers. Fungus, Sunshard Powder, etc.)
can often also be found cheaply on NPC merchants where players have sold
to them.

I make various pots of rank IX to XI; at skill 271 the rank XI succeeds
about 2/3 of the time, which is good enough given the return I get, but I
still mostly stick to IX and X for now. Given my main duo, I've been
making Clarity (mana regen), Alacrity (haste), Celestial Healing (heal
over time), and Replenishment (hp regen).

The Skinspikes potions are more annoying because the recipe only makes 1
at a time. But as Lance says, you need a "real" damage shield in order
for worn "+DS" items to kick in, so I make those also. But a lot of the
time I'm stingy and settle for the 8-point base DS from my Coldain ring
(which alas does NOT stack with the pots).

Post by Lance Berg
Last time I did a trophy, I was already at 200+ skill (tinkering).
Starting this one at 54, I found it leveled up faster than I skilled up,
and I also found that until I dinged a certain level, it got no exp at
all.

Yes, there's a cap on how far the trophy can evolve. Each time your skill
reaches a new multiple of 50, the trophy can evolve one more level and
will begin gaining xp again. If you reach the next multiple of 50 before
the trophy finishes evolving that level, the trophy will evolve at about
ten times the usual rate until it catches up.

Post by Lance Berg
Still, after a while it got to 5% skill boost, and I could put
away my Geerlok, equip a weapon with Wis on it, so I could stop drinking
the Avian potions, which is good as they were no longer cheap or easy to
make high end ones that were skillup, and the lowend ones were
trivial... luckily I hung onto enough to get me thru this stage.

I used wisdom pots in some of my early tradeskilling (there's a trivial
quest in Rivervale that sometimes awarded a Potion of Wisdom to my druid,
who's my main tradeskiller), but at this point mostly I have an array of
+WIS gear that I hand around to whoever needs it. Othmir Fur Cap for +6,
Misty Thicket Picnic +5, Palladium Ruby Engagement Ring +10, Bracelet of
Sense +15, Festive Doll +15, Shield of Bane Warding +20, ... The shaman
could get to her cap of 255 wisdom without potions. More of a pain if
you do go adventuring, though, since you need to swap lots of gear around.

-- Don.

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[Lance Berg]

Post by Don Woods
Like Lance, I ended up looking up the various recipes at EQTC, but since
I wasn't trying to go adventuring I didn't care about whether stuff was
usable at my level. I did try making some snare Suspensions for my monk,
but they always seemed to be resisted, so I gave up using them.

At the level intended, I found them to be very reliable, the only
problem with them is that like Skinspikes, over level 35 or so, you need
dropped parts to make them, however, unlike Skinspikes, the storebought
version is useless at higher levels.

They do, however, carry in stacks of 100 and bandolier in, so it might
be worth farming the materials and making a stack or two of the high end
ones for the various non snaring classes.

Post by Don Woods
At the higher skill levels (my Alchemy is at 271 so far) I've been using
the recipes with dropped ingredients, and have farmed some of those drops
myself, but I find I can get more DWInk and NBLily than I'll ever need at
10pp each using my Buyer in the Bazaar. Each of those (plus about 1pp of
vendor parts) makes 5 potions, and the potions easily sell in the Bazaar
for 8-10pp and up, so even after losing ingredients on failures I can make
a modest profit while skilling up. For some of the higher rank potions
the dropped parts (Lucidem, Curzon, Vers. Fungus, Sunshard Powder, etc.)
can often also be found cheaply on NPC merchants where players have sold
to them.

The Test server, sadly, has no real bazaar economy, and very frequent
mini patches which clear out the vendors, so if you want these goodies
you have to farm them yourself.

However, I've found Siren's Grotto to be very decent cash farming,
sending in my retired SK I can farm about 2500pp in gems sold to vendor,
and about 100 DWInks, which my little shaman can turn into another
2500pp or so in Spirituality IX potions also sold to vendor (less than
100pp in parts)

I tried farming Seb for Blue Lillies, but got far fewer per hour. With
CODecay now a hot zone, I've picked up a couple hundred of these as a
byproduct of exping/PLing, but again, the actual rate per hour is lower
than DWInk farming in SG, so if its just money I want (and skillups),
its back to good old SG. I haven't tried vendor farming since the HZ
change, though, its possible now there's a good supply of Blue Lillies
to be found on the POT vendors, I should look into it!