ALC Is Far Too Difficult For Far Too Little Reward

This is, by far, the hardest DoH class to level. It's recipe requirements are very demanding, require a lot of pre-crafting, and the items it produces are insignificant to the overall game play. I love crafting quite a bit, and enjoy gathering but the level you have to go for to get ALC mats is pretty intense.

ALC crafted items need more purpose/strength/length/meaning for players to be purposeful. Though, I'm not sure devs go through these forums to look (see my post count, v small) and I just needed to get this off my chest and provide some suggestions. Shame because it and CUL have some of the highest potential to impact a players game play in a positive way and meaningful impact on players.

I might be wrong and would very much welcome other perspectives on this matter just to maybe help me realize that ALC (and maybe CUL) isn't as useless as they seem in the grand scheme/end game.

Alch is used in effectively every end-game gear craft (Usually) through its primary attribute reagents. Culinarian and Alch consumables are also items that are guaranteed to sell at a fair mark up, even after the market saturates, by nature of being one time use items.

As far as leveling it this expansion, I crafted ink until around 82, did a few 82 leves to 84, then capped the rest off with 84 leves for Craftsman draughts. Don't forget your daily turn ins with the GCs, as well as custom deliveries.

ALC is on par with the other DoH classes (CUL probably being slightly easier than the rest). Recipe requirements/difficulty are the same based on recipe level as other DOH classes. Number of pre-crafts is about the same by recipe level as the other classes (though ALC relies slightly more on cross class pre-crafts).

What ALC lacks is a wider variety of recipes to make it more interesting to level but it is not more demanding to level.

As Kabooa said, ALC's strength is in the end game consumable and reagent market (CUL is also strong for end game consumables). It also tends to have most of the plant-themed housing item recipes, which can be very popular even if all players can get is an apartment.

Even if you don't care about the end game recipe potential, crafting and selling HQ Draughts to other crafters who would rather pay you to make them will be profitable once material prices settle down. I can remember when I was working on my Expert achievements last expansion. I was more than happy to buy HQ syrup in bulk off the MB so I didn't have to take the time to gather mats and make it myself.

You can always skip leveling ALC and CUL if you feel it's too much effort for too little return but I have friends that swear by them as the best way to make gil as a crafter due to high demand for consumables.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

ALC is on par with the other DoH classes (CUL probably being slightly easier than the rest). Recipe requirements/difficulty are the same based on recipe level as other DOH classes. Number of pre-crafts is about the same by recipe level as the other classes (though ALC relies slightly more on cross class pre-crafts).

What ALC lacks is a wider variety of recipes to make it more interesting to level but it is not more demanding to level.

As Kabooa said, ALC's strength is in the end game consumable and reagent market (CUL is also strong for end game consumables). It also tends to have most of the plant-themed housing item recipes, which can be very popular even if all players can get is an apartment.

Even if you don't care about the end game recipe potential, crafting and selling HQ Draughts to other crafters who would rather pay you to make them will be profitable once material prices settle down. I can remember when I was working on my Expert achievements last expansion. I was more than happy to buy HQ syrup in bulk off the MB so I didn't have to take the time to gather mats and make it myself.

You can always skip leveling ALC and CUL if you feel it's too much effort for too little return but I have friends that swear by them as the best way to make gil as a crafter due to high demand for consumables.

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I would't go as far as saying it's on par with the other DoH, considering most other DoH do not rely on mob drops for many of their recipes, which have terrible drop rates ever since ARR.

1. Buy commercial engineering manual for 30 white scrips
2. Quick synth a bunch of grade 5 Alkahests
3. Sell alkahests for small profit

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Originally Posted by Assax

I would't go as far as saying it's on par with the other DoH, considering most other DoH do not rely on mob drops for many of their recipes, which have terrible drop rates ever since ARR.

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Better than leatherworking. Atleast a great amount of alchemist ingredients can be farmed by botanist.

I do think alch and cul both could use some help. they're really only useful at end game, leveling food is generally not cost effective for people and the game isn't demanding enough to warrant the stat gain (thus the ever popular boiled egg) while crafting food does okay ish at various levels. Alch on the contrary has very little to offer pre end game. Gear is thrown at the player so selling books or the occasion white mage stick is unreliable, consumables are never needed (even staples like antidote qnd spine drops are vendor bought) and there hasn't been a potion since HoH handed out super pots like energy drinks. You have a small handful of viable things, glue and alkahests.
I think fundamental change to the game itself would be needed to truly make alch worth while, status effects need to be more punishing, the general difficulty brought up so the stat gains actually mean something outside trying to parse, and some better integration into the other crafts. The amount of alch stuff that happens in the various quests exceed that which a player is expected to do.

imo, if the level of difficulty in leveling BSM/ARM/GSM is ~3/10, then the level of difficulty in leveling LTW/ALC is ~5/10.

ALC can be a pain to level at certain tiers, no doubt. I found the best way to do it is GC dailies, Custom Deliveries, mass-producing syrup/draughts, Tincture leves, and misc. collectibles you have mats for.

Things to have your retainers hunt: Lunatender blossoms and Mousse Flesh. You'll want to go to Weed in Lakeland to gather Light Gerbera, Tiger Lily, and Lime Basil en masse as they're useful for many recipes and are all gathered from the same group of nodes so +100 efficiency.

I feel like they should increase the yield + material cost for tinctures because for how quickly the average raider is going to burn through them it takes a tediously long time to create them in bulk.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I feel like they should increase the yield + material cost for tinctures because for how quickly the average raider is going to burn through them it takes a tediously long time to create them in bulk.

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yeah i always wondered why only 3? 3 potions in progression is nothing