People need to speak up more for Alchemist buff.

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Originally Posted by Crevox

List of things

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1 - 3: Once again the argument against these, is the time, effort and cost far exceeds the benefits the item conveys. Not to mention the limited inventory space they take up.

4. Well you answered this one yourself.

5. If a healer hasn't topped you off, any elemental resist potions in game as they currently are will not save you from tumult.

6. Warrior has access to flash, along with a lot of classes / jobs having native abilities that apply these de-buffs on their own. Got a sch or smn in your party? Your ability to blind Titan at necessary times to dodge tableflip is gone because he'll be immune from their casual use of ruin.

And the majority of the player base just needs a safe environment to practice and learn the fights script by heart. I mean I'm not an elite player, we've cleared content with far less gear than is available now that CT is released all without the aid of potions. Why? Because we practised and learned the fights sequence of events and reacted to each one accordingly. You don't react to Whirlwind or Tornado or whatever it is properly? No potion is going to save you. Don't stack for fireball? No Vit potion is going to save you.

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1 - 3: Once again the argument against these, is the time, effort and cost far exceeds the benefits the item conveys. Not to mention the limited inventory space they take up.

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The time, effort, and cost are the same as food. The inventory space is not even an issue worth commenting on.

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5. If a healer hasn't topped you off, any elemental resist potions in game as they currently are will not save you from tumult.

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This is just false.

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6. Warrior has access to flash, along with a lot of classes / jobs having abilities that apply these debuffs on their own.

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A warrior's flash does not blind enemies................................... and the only other way to apply Blind is Ruin II, which I can say the majority of the time (90-95%+++) a tank is not sitting there going "oh, no problem bro, we got a summoner, he's gonna apply blind right before mountain buster"

This only greatly decreases my ability to take your word on anything game related.

yes...but food is worth the time and effort. and my gil

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Originally Posted by Crevox

A warrior's flash does not blind enemie

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thats funny because mine does.

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Originally Posted by odie

thats funny because mine does.

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http://xivdb.com/?skill/90006/Enhanced-Flash

Since when does a Warrior learn Gladiator traits...?

EDIT: Daily post limit achieved, have fun doods

Lastly:

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Flash is available as a crossclass and any time i have used it Blind is one of the effects it has applied. I use it often for that reason

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This just hurts to read

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Originally Posted by Crevox

http://xivdb.com/?skill/90006/Enhanced-Flash

Since when does a Warrior learn Gladiator traits...?

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Flash is available as a crossclass and any time i have used it Blind is one of the effects it has applied. I use it often for that reason

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Originally Posted by Crevox

The time, effort, and cost are the same as food. The inventory space is not even an issue worth commenting on.



This is just false.



A warrior's flash does not blind enemies...................................

This only greatly decreases my ability to take your word on anything game related.

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1: Foods extended passive buffs that far outweighs the cost of potions.

3: Seriously think you're going to survive 5-7 stomps on half HP just cause you took an earth resist potion?

6: Eh my apologies pld and war blur together for me. But that error doesn't alter the fact that there are readily many different ways to apply these de-buffs without having to resort to potions. Nor does it alter my point about sch or smn rotations and diminishing returns.

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Originally Posted by odie

Flash is available as a crossclass and any time i have used it Blind is one of the effects it has applied. I use it often for that reason

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No he is correct it was my error, the flash is applied as a trait that comes with GLA or PLD. Warriors version of flash is the base enmity generator.

i think Crevox just wants to be heard somehow. This argument still doesn't change the fact that potions are not being used by the majority, ruining business for the Alchemists, and just because its the player base thats making it this way doesn't mean that a change may need to be made in how potions work.

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Originally Posted by ToraFomalhaut

No he is correct it was my error, the flash is applied as a trait that comes with GLA or PLD. Warriors version of flash is the base enmity generator.

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Maybe i'm not sure if the effect is applied or not, but when i use it, the icon and accompanying text for Blind pop up on my enemies

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Originally Posted by odie

Maybe i'm not sure if the effect is applied or not, but when i use it, the icon and accompanying text for Blind pop up on my enemies

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Yeah I swear I've seen the message appear when I use flash in boss encounters too, but it might just a ruin bolt or pld flash going off around the same time. Anyway lets not derail the topic of conversation.

And yes Crevox I can see you can come up with uses for potions in the game, but that doesn't change the fact that in their current context you really need to go out of your way to find instances that they are 'required' to assist you complete an encounter. And because of this ability to complete encounters without them with out any real trouble, people do not seen any reason why they need to invest in this market. All the while leaving alchemists with very little demand pushing their need to supply said market.

What saddens me the most is that I more often than not, feel that our opinions as a players are complerely disregarded. This is just another example of many. Pretty much everyone I've talked to agree that alchemists have next to no use in this game, so to get a "working as intended" reply feels a bit like a slap in the face.

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Originally Posted by Mug

What saddens me the most is that I more often than not, feel that our opinions as a players are complerely disregarded. This is just another example of many. Pretty much everyone I've talked to agree that alchemists have next to no use in this game, so to get a "working as intended" reply feels a bit like a slap in the face.

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To be fair, crafting in general has next to no use in this game. Zero point in shelling out on crafted gear to level as you progress so fast now that the DF exp has been fixed to a decent level and dungeons drop level appropriate gear anyway. Then there's GC gear in addition to that. Max level, I'd maybe pick up a ring where DL doesn't cover the second slot. Once you start running CT/Coil there's zero reason to consider crafted gear either. As previously mentioned, potions/meds are laughable. Really, other than materia melding for relics, what is the point of crafting in this game other than a timesink for people who have levelled all DoW/DoM jobs and need something to do till the next patch/expansion?

Yeah, alchemy definitely needs some love. Signed for truth! Potions definitely need a lower cooldown, for sure, also. Not sure what else they could give alchemy without making it "required" for everything. (Thinking like consumables in WoW)

I'm in a boat where I don't know which way I should sail.

On one hand, I understand the want for potions to be more accepted and used, much like how food was hardly used until they buffed it to being persistent for death. It'll be great to see more people using potions through the battles, to supplement food as well as gear.

On the other, I don't want potions to be mandatory. Food isn't something needed to clear ANY kind of content, and yet - I've been in parties where people without food have been kicked for 'pulling the rest of the party down'. Really? 10 CHR is pulling the rest of the party down?

My own experience with potions has been above average, judging by people in here. Hi-Elixirs have saved my life numerous times. One recent example was an (admittedly bad) Ifrit DF, where I was searing winded, Ifrit was using hellfire, but party wasn't topped off, and I was at 1.5k HP, other healer was dead. I chose to Cure III the stacked party (I was far away due to Sear), and use a Hi-elixir on myself, saving myself as well as the party. 10 seconds later, the tanks wiped to plumes, but that's a different story. X-ethers are also a great friend of mine as a healer, especially during chain casts; example will be a Turn 1 party I was PFed into. Other healer (SCH) was down; had to solo heal both tanks, so MP was drained real fast. That X-ether gave me the MP to raise the SCH as soon as swiftcast was up, and leave me with enough MP to still heal comfortably for a short period of time.

On a whole, I agree in part with Crevox - it really is a community problem AS MUCH AS IT IS Square Enix's problem. I do agree that potions should be revisited to make them more appealling to the playerbase to use, but I also think the community should look to potions as not something that should be 'needed' like a piece of gear, but rather much like food, which is non-essential and merely benefits.

I find it sad and unfortunate when the players of a game are basically saying "Make this more fun, make this more exciting, help me enjoy the content you made" and the Dev response we get is "No." It's also disheartening that they don't know how to balance their own stuff better.. to use the excuse that they don't want anyone's role to be overshadowed by a potion is just a sloppy and lazy. We didn't ask for God-like powers, we asked for the craft to be slightly better *balanced*.

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Originally Posted by Crevox

Still, at the moment, I don't see how anyone can say alchemists are in poor shape. They have more long term worth and marketing power than the majority of other crafters; the only one that is probably better is CUL.

Can't blame SE for people not knowing how good potions are. I'm not saying I have a solution, but buffing potions is not the answer.



Now we're straying off topic. That's a completely different problem for another time.

People want gear. People want stats. People want power to do better in encounters. Potions do exactly that; their effectiveness is simply poorly judged.

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No where in this game can you open a chest and find 5 "Buttons in a Blanket". The same cannot be said about potions. Therein lies the problem.

I support this post.

NQ X-Potion restores up to 420 MP. HQ restores 530. Sadly, neither of these is enough to give me the 532 MP necessary to cast 2 Cure IIs as a whm if I'm desperate for MP and shroud is down. I'd rather have the 25% MP non-capped (~1100 for me at my current ilvl) on that 4m30sec cooldown. Right now, it's just not worth carrying them around. Raising the potency or removing the caps of potions on their current cooldowns is not going to make healers obsolete. If anything, I'm sure you'll find it makes players who weren't able to clear certain content able to do so without the echo buff you are planning to give them. Imagine that... crafters actually being able to HELP adventuring parties... of course... to you[SE] that must sound like a disaster >.>;

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Originally Posted by Crevox

So Square Enix has to ruin the balance...

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I agree that potions are good. They are intended to be used as an extra cooldown for planned events, like a burn phase or incoming damage. When compared to the increase a piece of gear going from i70 to i90 gives, the 61 pts from a HQ Mega Stat potion is very big.

The issue isn't that potions are bad, but rather that they do not shine until the effort required to raise your item level is more than the effort to use the potion. I really only see this happening in Coil or in extreme modes.

I'd like to crunch some numbers on the ward potions as I've heard they actually are decent. I'd like to point out that the major issue with these is that outside of skills like Fire and Water it is not always obvious if a skill is Physical or Elemental.

It's been mentioned countless times, but it's worth repeating: Potions drop far too frequently in dungeons.

Edit: To make it clear, I don't think the numbers on the potions need to be changed (at least the Stat potions). I think there needs to be more instances where the use of a potion would appear beneficial. The intended design of potions and the current design of content makes it very difficult to balance potions so that they aren't useless but aren't overpowered.

Crevox is really trying to drive home the point on stat potions. I won't disagree that they're useful, but unless you're an Alchemist that can mass produce these, they're not something you need to have with you to complete content. It's just something extra to give you a little more oomph.

My gripe was with restorative items. (specifically HP recovery) Either they need to leave them at the same effectiveness and lower the cooldown (bad idea imo, don't want to have to spam potions) or increase the effectiveness and keep a long cooldown. As I mentioned in my earlier post, any situation where you'd want to pop a Mega-Potion or Hi-Elixir, it's simply not going to save you in higher end content where the incoming damage greatly outpaces what it would heal for.

If potions can't save us in a time of need and the dev team doesn't want us to have to rely on them, why bother having them?

They are definitely useful (re: stat potions). My point is that they aren't useful enough to have a balanced demand for the supply levels we see in game. This is even more true of restorative and ward potions. If some guy just got 5 mega pots of vit from a timeworn chest, why should he buy them from me on the AH? Because mine are HQ? If he's not using them regularly anyways (due to vicious cooldowns) and clearing content, then why does he need HQ?

If square does anything, it needs to be related to lowering the supply side of the chain. They can do it by removing universal potion cooldowns, increasing the effectiveness, shortening the universal cooldown, removing consumables from coffers, or a combination of these. These will either increase demand, or shorten the supply, either of which would increase the need for alchemists.

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Originally Posted by NyneAlexander

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I agree. The issue is two fold: 1) They are too readily available through means other than the Alchemist and 2) They aren't necessary for most people to clear content (do not read this as not useful).

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Originally Posted by Mikara

Because they aren't worth it, from a money stand point and a performance stand point. They are really sub-par for what they do, and yes, I do have HQ DEX pots on my bar for bard. Half the time I have to argue with myself if I should even bother because it's simply money down the drain to make a fight take about four seconds less than what it would if I didn't use it. As far as HP/MP pots are concerned, they aren't worth it unless they had maybe 1.5-2x the effect. At least not with the current cool down they have.

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Four seconds off of a 5 minute boss fight is nothing, I agree. Four seconds off of a 30 sec DPS race is the difference between wiping and progressing, or having a limit break for a later phase.

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Originally Posted by Orophin

If potions can't save us in a time of need and the dev team doesn't want us to have to rely on them, why bother having them?

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But potions CAN save us in a time of need. I have had that happen, and potions have saved me. Admittedly, I don't use stat potions, but I use Hi-elixirs and X-ethers quite frequently on my WHM for those 'oh-shit' moments.

The latter half of your statement can be directed at food as well. We don't need to rely on them, why bother having them? Because food and potions are meant to be supplementary tools, not mandatory tools.

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Originally Posted by Crevox

Sounds like you don't care about contributing to your group as much as you should.

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Plez tell me how much I should care. I am very interest.

@Crevox if Alchemy is that good and you use that many potions. Then why have you not leveled it to save you large amounts of gil ?

He many not have enough time?
But you obviously have enough to stalk Lodestone character sheets. His arguments are correct. Some of the cd's are off, some potencials could be upped a bit, but that doesn't make his arguments obsolet.
If you don't use them, fine. If your groups struggles and you don't use them, not fine.

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Originally Posted by Feilina

He many not have enough time?
But you obviously have enough to stalk Lodestone character sheets. His arguments are correct. Some of the cd's are off, some potencials could be upped a bit, but that doesn't make his arguments obsolet.
If you don't use them, fine. If your groups struggles and you don't use them, not fine.

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I have plenty of time thanks. As for stalking I am not the one with 469 posts :P

HQ X-Potions and Hi-Elixirs can easily turn the tide in PvP. The same can be said about Regain Feathers/Icarus Wings or Mega Stat pots.

However, very few people PvP. Among those who do, even fewer have ALC leveled and they understandably don't want to blow through 1-5 HQ pots a game. It's definitely my most used craft at this point.

to add to this arguement, I did go and try some of the potions....some still aren't all that useful. Some are.


the best i could find were HQ Mega potions. For VIT, my iLVL 80 WAR i used a food buff, joined a party for the buff, turned on Defiance, and popped thrill of battle. I don't remember exactly but my HP at this point was 9400-9600. Then used a HQ Mega VIT. 10777 HP. HQ made all the difference. I did not have any HQ Mind available, but still had NQ Mega Mind. After using Divine seal i cast a couple cures. all within the 1400-1600 range. then used the Mind potion with DS still on. It boosted it to about 200 more on average. So not nearly the same boost i saw from my VIT potion earlier. I can do another test with HQ should i finally get ahold of some. After experimenting with several of them I can see where some of these would be OP with the cooldown lessened, or the benefits buffed. But others may still need some adjustment to have some sort of equal use. So, I apologize earlier as I had used them in the past, but never actually looked at numbers and conducted much of a test. But I'd highly recommend that tanks have HQ Mega VIT with them. That was the first time I got my HP over 10K.

I was unable to find any X-VIT or X-Mind. I see that they had entries for them in the market board, but did not see any for sale. Not sure if this is for any particular reason, but i could see better use in X if i could find some

My real complain about potions is that "boost" and "restoration" pots have the same cooldown.
If only these two types would have different timers I would start using them more often.

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Originally Posted by TyloRime

So basically you're saying "We know Alchemy isn't very functional, but we like it that way."

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So I guess hoping for any meaningful changed to Alchemy is going to be a waste or words. And also, what this guy stated. I leveled Alchemy because usually when it comes to crafts in MMO's (and this is in general) that Cooking/Alchemy are usually the long standing money makers because of what they are. But I guess in this game, leveling Alchemy is only useful for Tricks of the Trade, and Comfort Zone. Nice to know I almost literally did waste my time leveling Alchemy. Since SE doesn't want to make Potions (HP/MP/Stat) Potions Viable for everyone to use, I guess that is where I should be going. I truly hate to say it, I have loved this game since my friend gave me a beta key, and loved it through the horrible Early Access and the first starting months, now I guess, that my time was wasted, I should stop wasting more time.

I regularly pop mega-potions in Coil, especially on turn 4. Not that I make serious gil off of it, but being able to make them for myself and for my static party members is very handy.

If they're HQ the CD is only like 4.5 minutes instead of 5, which is still really long and kind of ridiculous. HOWEVER it's nice as a dps because it's usually just right that way so that I can pop a potion, then Raging Strikes, then another potion, and then Raging Strikes to burn through the different phases of turn 4, and in combination with food, not even be all too geared for it.

That said, a lot of the curative potions and products are just bogus. 2 stars and philomat items and they don't even give you a full-HP or full-MP effect, just some measly chump sum of points. Absolutely silly. It's no wonder that nobody in their right mind would pay a lot of gil for this, but the effort in making them versus their effects is completely disproportionate.

On that note, maybe people could work around the feeling of "needing" a BRD in a lot of harder endgame scenarios if some of the potions were actually worth a damn, like a 2-star potion that could actually completely re-fill a WHM's MP bar. Maybe then someone out there might actually spend some serious gil for that kind of potion, or at least enough to justify the worth of the mats that go into it. Just saying.

I think a full heal on health and/or MP is a little too much. Cap removal, I feel, is good enough and if they increase the levels of crafting later perhaps they could add a full heal pot at a really high level of alchemy if they ever decided to do it. I feel buffing alchemy is much better than giving people an echo buff in Binding Coil though.

Please add a recipe for Cordials!

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Originally Posted by Reiryuu

I think a full heal on health and/or MP is a little too much. Cap removal, I feel, is good enough and if they increase the levels of crafting later perhaps they could add a full heal pot at a really high level of alchemy if they ever decided to do it. I feel buffing alchemy is much better than giving people an echo buff in Binding Coil though.

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2-star potion. Requires materials bought with philosophy tomestones, or roughly 1k+ gil each. Has a cooldown of several minutes, refills like 500 HP or MP or both. And on the MB, nobody will (rightfully) pay more than 500 gil for it, maybe more like 100 gil. Even better, make it even more worthless by having it drop in random chests. Sounds legit.

Seriously though, I don't see how making that kind of potion actually refill a significant (500 points is a drip in the bucket and basically worthless) amount of HP, or MP, or TP... is "too much." With the huge cooldown it's not like people could rely on it as a crutch all the time or replace other players and their respective roles. If it could actually refill several thousand points, even if only over time, maybe people would actually use it, and it might have value. But compare the value of philosopy tomestone materials used in gear, and that gear, with ALC potions. 125 philosophy tomestones a pop. Every time, whether it goes into a garbage potion nobody gives a damn about, or a piece of gear that tends to be better than Darklight gear.

Absolutely ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by Hvinire

We spoke with the Item Lead who brought up a few points about medicines.
Currently items were designed to be used sparingly, and as a result the re-use duration is set longer. We don't want to create a scenario where players are expected to regularly have a whole host of healing items taken to each activity, nor a situation where players in a healing or enhancing role would not be necessary solely because of items.

Food is designed with a different duration in mind specifically as well, because the concept of these items are quite different.

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I liked how food/medicine was used in FFXI much better than in FFXIV. In FFXI, just about the only medicines you used often were poison potions (when pulling large packs of mobs that AoE slept your group) and echo drops (for similar situation but the mobs cast silence), and those were mostly used in Dynamis. Other medicines were NOT widely used, but were extremely potent in helping you defeat encounters that you were having a really hard time with. They were also relatively expensive to buy. In FFXIV, all medicine is so pathetic I don't see why you would ever use them, ever, for any reason. If you're having a hard time with something, I seriously doubt medicine is going to help at all.

For food, if you didn't use food in FFXI, you were a joke. In FFXIV, the food is so weak, it really only appeals to min/maxers. The only time you might want to seriously consider food is Turn 5. Nothing else even remotely comes close to having you need food, whereas in FFXI if you didn't use food you had a serious problem on your hands.

Of course, the supply/demand of the entire economy of FFXI was much better than in FFXIV as well. Example: In FFXI, medicine was rare and potent. In FFXIV, medicine is extremely common, and pathetically weak. In FFXIV, everyone can easily gather/craft/farm ANYTHING. FFXIV needs to think a little less about making everything super accessible, and a little more about making things require skillful play to acquire (such as having to defeat/avoid monsters when mining, having important crafting materials come from encounters similar to BCNMs that folks have limited access to, is NOT something they would do anyway even if they didn't want the crafting materials*, and is difficult to accomplish).

*This is why the tomestone of philosophy crafting items are total garbage - Everyone, EVERYONE gets ATP, all the time, forever, just through the course of normal play. That's great and all, right up until you want to imagine you want an economy of any sort. The kind that would make people even vaguely able to afford ludicrously priced houses, for example.

They need to reduce those horrible CDs. There is no point in making pots if they're going to have 1,000,000 min CDs because they're situational.