People need to speak up more for Alchemist buff.

[Crevox]

Actually we are right on target with the discussion. You are arguing for potions by saying there is a need because people are wiping in encounters all the time. My counter to that is that it's not because they aren't using potions but because they've not reacted accordingly in a heavily scripted fight.

Potion usefulness is not required to complete content. People will not invest time and money in something that isn't required to complete content.

And yet people invest time and money in gear AND food.

People invest money in anything that they can see as a tangible benefit to their character's ability to perform in a group scenario. They simply don't see potions as worth it.

[ToraFomalhaut]

And yet people invest time and money in gear AND food.

People invest money in anything that they can see as a tangible benefit to their character's ability to perform in a group scenario. They simply don't see potions as worth it.

And that's the point potions do not exhibit any clear benefit towards combat. So you can shave 5-10 seconds off of your fight? So you can claim to your friends "Whoa just pulled off a 2.5k fester crit!" So what?

If I go buy 5k worth of HQ bit food and spend a few weeks farming my ilevel70 / 90 gear and clear coil and clear content with no worries? I can tell you potions are the least of my concerns.

Now if I had top tier gear and was struggling to clear content without potions then yeah you can sure bet I'd be willing to invest time and money in the potion market.

[Crevox]

And that's the point potions do not exhibit any clear benefit towards combat. So you can shave 5-10 seconds off of your fight? So you can claim to your friends "Whoa just pulled off a 2.5k fester crit!" So what?

If I go buy 5k worth of HQ bit food and spend a few weeks farming my ilevel70 / 90 gear and clear coil and clear content with no worries? I can tell you potions are the least of my concerns.

And yet there are situations all the time in duty finder or elsewhere that groups can't kill Titan's Heart in time, or they die with the boss having a tiny bit of HP left. If anyone used potions, they would've won. Those are just a couple examples: in other scenarios, like Garuda, killing the sister slightly faster greatly eases the healing load on the healers, which could allow the tank to survive and move on.

STR/INT/DEX Potions grant DPS, just like gear. Your arguments can be applied exactly the same to both gear and food.

The problem here is that you're not necessarily arguing against potions: you're arguing that encounters are too easy and nothing needs high enough stats to warrant the purchase. However, again, food is the same, and not everyone is in your position where the game is "so easy" that none of it is needed. People want and need both gear and food. They could want and need potions too, they just misjudge them.

[ToraFomalhaut]

The problem here is that you're not necessarily arguing against potions: you're arguing that encounters are too easy and nothing needs high enough stats to warrant the purchase. However, again, food is the same, and not everyone is in your position where the game is "so easy" that none of it is needed. People want and need both gear and food. They could want and need potions too, they just misjudge them.

Yes that is exactly what we've been arguing. In the current game, there is no outstanding need for potions to clear content. As I outlined earlier about food, no it's not needed but because of the 'persist through death' buff food got it became a safe and cost effective investment that had little downside to the long term passive buff it applied.

If I were geared in all BIS, had eaten food, and danced to the scripted fight perfectly and still struggled to beat it. Then I could consider potions in their current format as a viable and needed option. However in the current game, there is no need for that additional edge to drive the market for potions thus leaving alchemist as a dud craft.

So without changing how encounters behave, potions as they are now are useless and the only way to make them viable is to buff the way they operate. If combat encounters became situations where even in the best gear you still needed a small edge to make it through the fight while allowing for margins of error, then potions in their current format would make sense.

[Crevox]

Yes that is exactly what we've been arguing. In the current game, there is no outstanding need for potions to clear content. As I outlined earlier about food, no it's not needed but because of the 'persist through death' buff food got it became a safe and cost effective investment that had little downside to the long term passive buff it applied.

If I were geared in all BIS, had eaten food, and danced to the scripted fight perfectly and still struggled to beat it. Then I could consider potions in their current format as a viable and needed option. However in the current game, there is no need driving the market for potions leaving alchemist as a dud craft.


So without changing how encounters behave, potions as they are are useless and the only way to make them viable is to buff the way they operate. If combat encounters became situations where even in the best gear you still needed a small edge to make it through the fight then potions in their current format would make sense.

The majority of the player base does need that extra benefit to surpass content, and thus your point is moot.

1. A very minimal heal / MP restore that comes with a hefty cool down, in which you can't use option 2, 3, 4 and 5.

Not minimal. The heal will be the difference between life and death when used at the right time (like any survivability cooldown), and the MP restore will give you MP when you have none (thus changing you from doing nothing to being allowed to cast) or simply give you more MP to be greedy with powerful heals and spells. The MP restore also allows BLM to triple flare, and SMN to push their rotation harder (Ruin II's, contagion Miasma II, etc).

2. A sizable boost to DPS / healing potential for around 12 seconds. (Don't forget the 2-3 seconds I mentioned earlier where you can't do ANYTHING except for move after using a potion.) Locks you out from options 1, 3, 4 and 5.

It's 15 seconds duration on a potion. The "2-3" seconds is about 0.5 seconds, and it's off the GCD, so you can time it between skills/magic, just like any ability.

3. A decent boost to HP and instant heal through an HQ VIT pot, the HP boost only lasts for 15 seconds. Locks you out of 1, 2, 4 and 5.

An alternative to the heal from 1, yes. Slightly different use conditions, offering its own pros and cons.

4. Remove a status effect that could get reapplied right after you remove the status effect. Locks you out of 1, 2, 3 and 5. HQ has no benefit except for lower cool down time.

This is simply an extremely negative look on status cure potions. They aren't really needed in end game content anyways.

5. Give yourself temporary elemental resistance, which who actually knows which attacks they affect or are useful against. Locks you out from options 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Easy to tell. When proshell affects the damage, or any other magic resist buff (or Virus's Fever effect) you know its magical; and from there, it's generally very easy to tell the element. When I want to mitigate damage of X element, I use X elemental resist potion. Useful for saving your life from tumult when it would otherwise kill you due to healers not topping you off, or being under the effects of weakness (offering you ONE use scenario out of many).

6. Apply a debuff to a target, will still consume potion even if the target is immune to the debuff. HQ has no benefit except for lower cool down time.

Not hard to know what debuffs a monster is immune to. Warriors can use blind potions on demand to make mountain busters miss, or other critical attacks, since they have no native method of applying it. Poison potions are a straight up DPS increase. Sleep potions are just utility, giving any class an instant cast sleep.

Seems like you have a pretty good list. Not all of them go completely into the depth and options they provide, but it's a start.

[ToraFomalhaut]

List of things

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.