Alchemy is in a very bad place

[Nenin]

I think the posters in here saying it's no big deal because all crafts suck don't understand the magnitude of this problem.

The only money making synths are between lvl 10-30. Maybe once every week when I'm bored I'll make 60 HQ mega pots that take a few days to sell but that is still only a lvl 43 synth. The 3 relic weps alch can make are flooded beyond belief even compared to the goldsmithing ones so the undercutting has destroyed the profits there.

What is the result of all this? I CAN'T EVEN SPIRITBOND GEAR because the viable synths don't net enough xp. My alch is now just an ingredient bot/melding bot. The potions in this game are terribly weak and imbalanced and they ALL SHARE CDs.

[DJPr3tty]

@Ahlen.. are we looking at the same pieces of gear? With melding and HQ all the crafted 70 gear is better than any Darklight gear by far.

AF+1 gear is Ilevel 90, and that takes weeks of farming per piece, 5 months to get all. There is no comparison from crafting yet.

If you want to see, you need to see HQ versions which Databases like XIVDB don't show.

Also, we go through tons of potions for our Coil runs and spend thousands on Mega-Potions.

[Shiyo]

Also, we go through tons of potions for our Coil runs and spend thousands on Mega-Potions.

Mega potions are ok, 500 hp is decent but the shard cost is too high and they're still too weak. All x-potions aren't worth their cost and none of the mp potions are ever worth using, the amount of mp restored is pathetic.

[peaches]

I definitely agree, although the problem is shared between a lot of crafting classes. My goldsmithing is nearly useless, except for the +CP gear around level 30, which is worth 2-4k gil. Alchemy has been 99% useless, except for making a new weapon for my Scholar every few levels. I was going to level off hi-ethers for a while, and made about 100 before I actually realized it costs 9 shards each time I craft a set of 3. The price of hi-ethers would only barely cover the price of shards, and that still leaves the main ingredients cost/the cost of my time farming those ingredients.

I would say that potions need a severe buff across the board, and they need to stop being given as frequently as rewards. I had about 40 hi-potions that I had never used once before I was even able to make them on my Alchemist, and same with hi-ethers. Also the SHARED COOLDOWN between potions NEEDS to go away. I can understand potion/ether/antidote sharing a cooldown, but NOT stat buffing potions or debuff potions. And that is another point right there. Buffing potions duration is entirely too short. The time it takes to use it is hardly worth the bonus. Either make it a 30 min buff with less stat gain, or make it last about 1 minute, not 15s.

[Req]

I am pretty sure that the inflated philosophy prices is SEs way of getting rid of any excess items you could buy in 1.0 for 50kish a pop. Then again, I may just be giving SE too much credit. Either way it is pretty stupid that the 2 star items are such a pain in the ass to make, especially the cooking and alchemy ones.

[Aemun]

Armourer has it worse than all of you. Blacksmith and Alchemists can at least sell the weapon for A relic reborn. Also blacksmiths make a lot of the crafting off hands.

[NyneAlexander]

Couldn't agree with OP more. What once seemed promising now feels like a completely fruitless labor. The only reliable way I've found to profit is to make items that are used for a repeatable guildleve and sell those. Even half of those can be bought from a vendor. Orz.