People need to speak up more for Alchemist buff.

[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.

[Grizzlebeard]

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.

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?

[SeleneSinclair]

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)

[whoopeeragon]

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.

[TyloRime]

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*.

[NyneAlexander]

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.

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.

[Reiryuu]

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 >.>;

[Sibyll]

So Square Enix has to ruin the balance...

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.

[Orophin]

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?

[NyneAlexander]

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.