Alchemist Potions: Still Lame, 40 levels later...

So we now have people crafting item level 110 gear...but Alchemist potions are Still a Joke.

The Mechanics of the Potions do not reflect the Quests or Main Story.

People say that if potions were any better, the economy would crash. That's just hyperbole. People say the potions are useful, fine the way they are. That's wishful thinking.

The Market has spoken, Potions are worthless.

1. I recommend potions have their cool down reduced to something closer to 20 or 30 seconds, like the Ninjitsu recasts.

2. if the potions were 10 times more powerful than they are now, they would still be 5 times weaker than combat classes of half their level. That's a lot of room for growth.

Maybe you could add 2, 3, and 4 star alchemy attack potions, like Acid, Burning Oil, and Something like Nitroglycerin with an AOE? I think that would be a respectable 4 star potion.

Thinking on the nitro Potion, I recalled the Machinist might have guns which implies gunpowder, so we might have Powder Grenades or similar Explosive Potions that operate kind of like the Quests items do. Again, 3 or 4 star.

A Grenade would be like 4 star and decent damage, while an acid Vial might be a decent Damage over Time 3 star recipe.

Xpots and ethers are still useful and always have been.

The design decision was so that players never feel pots are 'necessary' but provide a means for a small power boost for those who choose to use it.

alchemist is irrelevant since...... 2.0 lol

cant think of anything beyond 2stars that i will use as a DOW/M during battle :/

at least for cul. 3star and 4star food are viable !!

i would like to have new XXpots of Dex please ^^ double the duration? shorter cooldown? extra dex points %?

I just wish they would either cut cooldown in Half or increase duration to 30 seconds.

That and dont let stat potions set ethers and heal potions have the same CD x.x at least keep it to the same types like stat potions share cooldown with other stat potions and ethers share cooldowns with heal potions and elixirs.

Then again I still go through those potions a lot.

Edit: How do you say 4 star food is viable? Is the 10 vit really worth it? Because its pretty hard to get full benefits of even 2 star foods >_<

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Originally Posted by castillle

I just wish they would either cut cooldown in Half or increase duration to 30 seconds.

That and dont let stat potions set ethers and heal potions have the same CD x.x at least keep it to the same types like stat potions share cooldown with other stat potions and ethers share cooldowns with heal potions and elixirs.

Then again I still go through those potions a lot.

Edit: How do you say 4 star food is viable? Is the 10 vit really worth it? Because its pretty hard to get full benefits of even 2 star foods >_<

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if you fish Emperor Fish (which i heard not that hard to get). flint caviar is really good and cheap to make for a 4star recipe. it gives me +2 extra crit and +5 accuracy and +5vit in comparison to apk oml. for my current gear set.

and remember 1 recipe = 3 flint caviar. 270sol = 9 borax + 9 emperor fish = 27 flint caviars. ^^ (it requires 1 borax per synth).

my point is that at least cul have some options to use for 4star. for those who want to max their stats to optimal.

alchemist on the other hand...... ggs since 2.0. all glamor stuff.

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Originally Posted by Empty-handed

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None of the fishes use in the new recipes roll in that "fast" persay, especially on the nature of mooch catching. On a good day I'd get maybe 2-3 of them within the span of 45 minutes to an hour, versus catching say...worms of nym or aetherlouse within 1-3 minutes because I don't need to get an HQ catch for it.

None of the foods still match the stat weigh to me compared to the rissoto; no det and too much accuracy, so meh.

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Originally Posted by Empty-handed

and remember 1 recipe = 3 flint caviar. 270sol = 9 borax + 9 emperor fish = 27 flint caviars. ^^ (it requires 1 borax per synth).

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I somehow keep forgetting that 4stars are x3 per synth. Which makes it more understandable why people are selling Flint Caviar HQ for 20k each even though the Emperor Fish are selling for 35k each! I couldn't wrap my head around this until you reminded me lol Makes sense.

What i dont understand is why people eat Flint in the first place. In order to maximize (get the full benefits of) the meals stats you need the following base stats before the food becomes usable:

Flint Caviar (4star)
CRIT: 660 (lol)
VIT: 560
ACC: 533

Apkallu Omelette (2star)
CRIT: 540 (difficult to achieve by most DPS classes in BiS sets)
VIT: 380
ACC: 550 (Most DPS can't achieve 550 base acc)

Am i missing something here? By these calculations you cant even max the CRIT and ACC from Apkallu Omelettes!? What makes you even think you can come close to Flints?

You said that its an increase of +2 Crit and +5 Acc but the only gains you can possibly achieve are the VIT ones. So essentially people are eating Flint Caviar for the bonus HP and nothin else? Seems kind of pricey. As far as i know the only usable 4star foods are Bacon Bread and Triple Cream Coffee (FCoB Bis Healers only)

At the end of the day i'm a Chef on my server so if people keep eating it i'll keep cooking it while laughing my way to the Bank! If your a Richie Rich and you light cigar's with 100$ bills who am i to judge! lol For the comon folk just trying to make a living though:

TLDR: You dont need Flint cuz u cant max the stats! Stick to Apkallu Omelettes and you'll do just fine.

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Originally Posted by PROBOUND

What i dont understand is why people eat Flint in the first place. In order to maximize (get the full benefits of) the meals stats you need the following base stats before the food becomes usable:

Am i missing something here? By these calculations you cant even max the CRIT and ACC from Apkallu Omelettes!? What makes you even think you can come close to Flints?

You said that its an increase of +2 Crit and +5 Acc but the only gains you can possibly achieve are the VIT ones. So essentially people are eating Flint Caviar for the bonus HP and nothin else? Seems kind of pricey. As far as i know the only usable 4star foods are Bacon Bread and Triple Cream Coffee (FCoB Bis Healers only)

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I use it as a tank instead of bacon bread on t13 because lol parry. Bards who are stacking crit to the heavens currently get use out of the higher cap, possibly BLM as well if they are following the crit BiS. SCH maybe, no idea what their itemization is like. Everyone else really has no business using the food, and even if they do they should be using it in raids only. As nice as the prices are its just impossible to fill demand right now, all the cashed up buyers want stacks of the stuff to use in every fight ever like there's always 33+ emperor fish sitting on the mb and a craft will never fail. I wish people would appreciate how bottle-necked supply is by the fish, and if you think it's an easy catch by all means go out and farm it you'll make millions.

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Originally Posted by Ellatrix

Xpots and ethers are still useful and always have been.

The design decision was so that players never feel pots are 'necessary' but provide a means for a small power boost for those who choose to use it.

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Yup. This, basically.

I was surprised the first time I saw a bunch of raiders in a video calling on poison pots to be used - and then remembered that it was basically free DPS they wouldn't have had otherwise.

Raw HP potions might be less useful, but there's a number of alchemical concoctions worth looking into if you really want to push your limits (and ethers have saved my ass so many times as a WHM when my other healer is useless and I'm having to constantly raise)

Terminus putty back then and augumented gear were the selling point of alch Xd
What potions? These potionsssssssss. Oh ok thanks i guess.. Oh hey cul can u make me some hq food? Sure! ;3
Alch slowly cries*

My raid group all now use potent poison since it just adds to their dps and it only has 2min cool down.

I (WHM) have HQ X-Ether which gives me 520 MP every 4.5 min. Coupled with my Shroud my MP is fine even if I need to raise or spam couple of Medica and lets not forget the food buff we have running for 30/40 mins.

OP if the cooldown of the potions were reduced or they were strengthened, they'll be abused by end game players considerably.

I do however like the idea of AoE potions. But there will be a huge balancing issue like I pointed out above.

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Originally Posted by Yumi_umi

What potions? These potionsssssssss. Oh ok thanks i guess.. Oh hey cul can u make me some hq food? Sure! ;3
Alch slowly cries*

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^TRUTH.

When people talk about Balance being broken on the premise of potential abuse, I have to laugh. The X potion of High Quality heals 650 hit points, once per 108 seconds. which makes it about 86 times weaker than a healer.
If the X potion were to have a cool down of 25 seconds, it would still be 20 times weaker than a healer, which is the same thing as a 5% modifier, comparable to many foods. But damage and protection percents/durations for protection potions, that needs to jump a lot.
Potent Poisoning Potion for example did ~100 TOTAL damage over 15 seconds, once per 108 seconds. What a joke.
To balance improving potions, they could remove the "triple" production they have during synth.

Potions should be able to do at least a 4-5% effect of whatever a job of similar level could do. That's not asking much.

Yeah I did Alchemy to 50 because I like being shunned and left alone in corners. *queue linken park music*
Really though, it's not great. Hi-Elixirs are what I use as a healer and, the MP it gives me doesn't even let me cast 1 raise.

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Originally Posted by Tarta

Yeah I did Alchemy to 50 because I like being shunned and left alone in corners. *queue linken park music*
Really though, it's not great. Hi-Elixirs are what I use as a healer and, the MP it gives me doesn't even let me cast 1 raise.

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i was thinking same thing not 5 minutes ago. The highest level Ether Potion should provide enough MP back to cast the most expensive mp spell at least once. Maybe more, but not less. I don't know the exact costs, but I think 3 stacks Fire 3 and Raise are the most expensive. Can anyone clarify if that's true and how much MP that requires?

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Originally Posted by shintashi

i was thinking same thing not 5 minutes ago. The highest level Ether Potion should provide enough MP back to cast the most expensive mp spell at least once. Maybe more, but not less. I don't know the exact costs, but I think 3 stacks Fire 3 and Raise are the most expensive. Can anyone clarify if that's true and how much MP that requires?

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I think this highlights the problem though.
Fire 3 is a BLM spell. It was the first class that I leveled, and running out of mana was not a problem. It's easy to regen mana as a BLM. It's been a bit since I've done anything with him, but I think there are 3 abilities that a BLM has to regen mana (Any spell that gives positive Astial Ice, Transpose, as well as Convert).
Then you have the healers (WHM, and SCH). Of the two I think the WHM only has one ability that increases mana regen. (Shroud of Saints). A SCH has at least two (Energy Drain, Aetherflow). Looking at the three magic classes the one really limited with mana regen is the WHM. It's the only magic class that I've ever had where I when I ran out of mana and was forced to use a potion. The other two, it was more of a inconvenience, where I either lost some (DPS, or had to just slightly).

I would love the potions to be useful where I actually make sure and care them, vs now, where it's oh hey this one time this month I'm actually going to have to use a potion to get back MP.

BLM uses ethers more often than any other class.

Potions have always been useful. They only seem bad when you compare them to food, which gives a very tangible boosts for minimal cost/effort.

If you are a BLM and you aren't using ethers you simply don't know your job to it's fullest.

HQ X-stat potions can be useful for dps-intensive burn phases, it can be treated as another dps cooldown as well. Not to mention that the DEX and INT ones are very very easy to make (with my residential monk being too stubborn to use consumables on progression and only farm runs, blah...)

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

HQ X-stat potions can be useful for dps-intensive burn phases, it can be treated as another dps cooldown as well. Not to mention that the DEX and INT ones are very very easy to make (with my residential monk being too stubborn to use consumables on progression and only farm runs, blah...)

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Yea I agree, but Strength potions are much more of a pain if you don't have a fishing retainer. Basically anything that requires of fish in the recipe costs 3-4 times more than an equivalent item that does not. With they'd balance recipes better to account for the lower throughput of harvesting fish relative to those harvested by miners/botanists.

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Originally Posted by PROBOUND

What i dont understand is why people eat Flint in the first place. In order to maximize (get the full benefits of) the meals stats you need the following base stats before the food becomes usable:

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Gee and here I was thinking "useable" would mean something along the lines of "better than the alternatives". Guess everything has to used to its fullest potential to be useable at all. /rollseyes

Also the acc #s aren't about whether you'd max them, if you're @ 550 acc and using acc food you've got it wrong. Plenty of build options depending on your progress and RNG that will put you in a place to need the extra 5 acc from caviar.

Both the X-potions (Int, Str and Dex) and Potent poisoning potions are extremely using for progression content. When pushing content those potions make a big difference. Of course X-Ethers are always useful too, can't wait for new recipes! :D

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Originally Posted by Alistaire

Gee and here I was thinking "useable" would mean something along the lines of "better than the alternatives". Guess everything has to used to its fullest potential to be useable at all. /rollseyes

Also the acc #s aren't about whether you'd max them, if you're @ 550 acc and using acc food you've got it wrong. Plenty of build options depending on your progress and RNG that will put you in a place to need the extra 5 acc from caviar.

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My point is your getting the exact same amount of Crit point for point from Omelettes (in your example flint is not better than the alternatives its the same minus the acc/vit). But if you need that extra 5 acc from food that runs 30k a pop by all means! Power to you! Like i said nothing wrong with dining on the finer things if you got it like that. I'm just trying to give advice to the people that cant afford it because i see a lot of people who think they need it or automatically buy the food with the highest stats not understanding that they arent benefiting from them. 5 points of acc is not worth 30k/meal to the average player even though it might be for you.

Keeping in mind of 535 acc required for T13... (speaking from flank/bard)

In order to get the max +16 accuracy from a HQ flint caviar, you need at least 530 accuracy. But if you're at that point, you wouldn't even need flint caviar since the omelette would give you the same amount of accuracy (which probably pushes you the cap) or you cant get more accuracy from flint (and if you can, you're capped anyway with omelette...) You'd need 525 accuracy to reach 535 cap with the omelette, and 520 with the flint, that's the only advantage I'd see if your gear doesn't allow for that.

You also probably don't have enough crit to get more than the omelette anyway; you'd need over 580 crit to gain 1 crit over the omlette.

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Originally Posted by MeridaQ

Both the X-potions (Int, Str and Dex) and Potent poisoning potions are extremely using for progression content. When pushing content those potions make a big difference. Of course X-Ethers are always useful too, can't wait for new recipes! :D

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I definitely agree the stat potions are extremely useful, they are a significant increase to your base stats for burst periods.
I don't feel potent poisoning potions are worthwhile anymore though. They have always been a flat damage of five ticks of 48-52ish. It hasn't scaled with the game, and whereas in 2.0 the entire party could drop those potions and significantly increase damage, at this point it's less worthwhile than your weakest off gcd skill.