Alchemy

what is a good potion to start with. starting late LVL 45 +6 want to get started. not much on getting started. alot of information if you are up and running. but not for the beginner. who know nothing. Help I bacame a shaman so i can help every one. not always asking for help.

At what level does a sha get Alchemy

Out of all the tradeskills I do - tailoring which is the hardest, fletching which is the most tedious, brewing which is fun even with the excessive low lvl mob killing i have to do, and smithing which was my first tradeskill ever - Alchemy is the easiest in that all you have to do is buy the ingredients. Its just a little expensive. I love alchemy. Its helped me out a lot, but the names...the names...the names!!! Can somebody PLZ give me some info in the invis potion? One the name of it. I swear I'd have a heart attack if they named the potion what it is instead of something I have to guess...lol. But its hard when u do a name search for a potion and not know the name of it. Two the ingredients. Three the lvl to make. Actually, if u can tell me what the name of it is I can look it up...unless its not there in which case I'll just be back later to ask the question again...lol...thanx in advance.

Not sure that anyone still wants to know ...but there is "gate potions" and they are alchemy made and yes I have made them. The ingredients are three (unstacked) helitrop (spelling). These can be purchased at the alchemy chic upstairs in room by the pool in PoK. The cost is about 85 pp each.....so Gate potions cost about 250 pp EACH to MAKE. Hope this info helps...

I've been praticeing my alchemy fpor a while now , but have all but stopped due to the introduction of the Plane of Tranquility portals.
I still make SoW potions for friends and Payments for res's and such but there isnt much else of use.
Now I read in one of your links that there is a potion called Elixir of Concentration for mana regen but am not finding any more on it except it takes Yerbhimba and Violet Tritube.
???? Any more info on this??? Mana potions would put the value back in Alchemy
so WHO WHAT and Where would be Great
Thanks And Vivala Alchemy!!
Hankor

Does achlemy cont as your trade skill if you have it go past 200

Macnair’s guide to alchemy for non-alchemists

~~ or ~~

the fine art of potion buying

Revised Edition: updated some prices, removed some obsolete information regarding resist potions, added new Legacy of Ykesha potions.

A potion is a self-only buff that you carry in your inventory until you need it. Most potions are too expensive for most players to use them routinely. Instead, they are held until the moment where they will make the difference, and they enable you to succeed instead of die.

The goal of this guide is:

to help non-alchemists discover
how to augment their own game play
by the skillful use of potions.

Why buy a potion?

Because of what potions allow you to do: cast a spell that you could not otherwise cast.

Everquest is a game in which every class has great capabilities and great challenges. There’s a lot of magic going around, but no class gets all the magic they want. That means the game greatly favors grouping. A well-balanced group of six is far more powerful than any of the individuals in that group. Twelve times more powerful? Twenty times more powerful? Maybe even higher than that. A solid mid-twenties group in the warrior room in the basement of High Keep can run a continuous stream of red mobs, hundreds of them if you stay for a few hours, and you’ll take down many multiple pops. But anyone soloing here at that level would be dead very fast.

What that means is, in most situations you don’t want a potion: you want a group.

But sometimes people feel like soloing for a while. Other times you stumble across a mob, or a mob stumbles across you, while you are on the way somewhere, or while you’re looking for a group and haven’t found one yet. There are also those situations where you have a group, but you need a spell that no one in the group can cast. And on some occasions, you want buffs from every caster in the group, plus more.

In all those cases, you need a potion.

Why are potion prices so high?

There are two reasons.

The first is simple: they are costly to produce. The ingredients are very expensive. With excellent faction and charisma, it costs about 107 plat to purchase a single stack of each of the three ingredients required to make SoW potions. Eventually a shaman will succeed on these most of the time: but no matter how high your alchemy skill goes, there is always a chance of failure. So when you pay 100 plat for a 10pack of SoW potions, you are paying for those expensive ingredients, plus the extra ingredients that must be purchased in order to end up with 10 potions after the inevitable failures, plus the skill that your shaman friend has invested to be able to produce them for you.

The second reason is the power of what potions do: giving yourself a buff that you’re not supposed to be able to do. Necros aren’t supposed to be able to cast SoW on themselves. Monks aren’t supposed to be able to give themselves a damage shield. Rogues aren’t supposed to be able to increase their attack speed.

But with potions you can do all these things.

If you are willing to pay the cost, you can have the ability to do things your class cannot ordinarily do. But the game is structured so that doing so will not be cheap.

How are potion prices figured?

Things vary a bit from server to server. On Vazaelle, an average potion sells for 150 to 200 percent of the cost of the ingredients. That’s because it is very difficult to increase alchemy skill, most of the best potions have high trivials, and alchemy skill is level-capped (cap = (level – 24) x 5). That means, for example, that the alchemy skill of a level 36 shaman is capped at 60. In order to increase to skill 65, that shaman must first ding level 37.

With most other trade skills, a person who wants to specialize can develop high skill quite early. You can find a level 22 character who has taken up smithing, and has worked up to skill level 150 or 160 or 170. That takes a lot of discipline (and probably an outside source of platinum), but it can be done. That blacksmith can reliably make you a piece of armor that trivials around 160: and will still charge you for more than the cost of the materials.

But if you ask a level 45 shaman for a potion, the highest alchemy skill he or she can possibly have is 105. More than twice the character level of that blacksmith, but still only tradeskill level 105. Let’s say that your level 45 shaman friend maxed his skill at level 44, so he has an alchemy skill of 100. You want a 10pack of Rejuvenation potions, which go trivial at 103. Your shaman friend will be happy to make these for you, because they will give him a good chance to raise his skill. He will also have to buy ingredients for 20 potions, because he will fail on half of them, even though his skill is only 3 points less than the trivial for the potion in question. (If he’s lucky, he’ll also improve 2 skill points.)

Many shamans provide a guild discount, taking about 25% off normal selling price. That often makes the shaman lose money, yet it is still a reasonable thing to do, when you are a member of a guild. It’s not a reasonable thing to expect, in ordinary commerce.

Are potions worth the money?

It’s useful to compare potions with equipment. You can spend many evenings watching the auctions in the bazaar or on your server’s market channel, trying to buy an item that costs several thousand plat. Or you can camp for days on end as you wait for the spawn of the mob that drops it. All because that item has a right-click effect or an extra stat boost that you really want. It’s not that you absolutely need that new piece of equipment. After all, you’re playing the game well enough right now. Yet there are those occasions, aren’t there, when that increased stat or special effect could make all the difference between victory and defeat. So maybe it’s worth two weeks of waiting for that spawn, maybe it’s worth wiping out your bank account, in order to get that extra boost.

On the other hand, you could buy that same effect from your local shaman, right now, for far less money.

Suppose that in the next couple months of playing, on ten occasions you find yourself in situations where the extra advantage from that piece of equipment will make the difference between victory and death. (The rest of the time you would have won anyway, or you would have died anyway.) If you use a potion on those occasions, you’ve made a huge difference in your game play, at the cost of one 10pack.

Your perspective on money also changes over time. I remember when Macnair had laboriously earned his first two or three platinum pieces, and longed to be able to replace his cracked staff with the morning star the Halas vendors sell for 15 plat. It seemed like a goal I would never reach. Another time I wiped out my bank account and sold a couple items I wanted to keep, in order to raise the 400 plat I needed to buy a Charred Guardian Shield. I remember having 11K in the bank, and feeling entirely inadequate as I talked to someone who had 180K in the bank.

If you’ve got 30 plat to your name right now, it has to seem bizarre to imagine spending a couple hundred plat on potions that are going to wear off after a while.

But if you’re a wizard in your mid-forties, spending 100 plat on a 10pack of SoW will allow you to solo in Eastern Wastes, quad kiting ulthorks, for about five hours: long enough to get several sets of tusks, which might be one or two or (if you’re luckier than me) three blue diamonds. Blue diamonds have come down a lot, but they still seem to be going for 450 - 550 plat.

If your guild is putting together a raid on Nagafen, every 10pack of Greater Aura of Cold that they buy (for 300 plat) will give ten of them an additional +25 on their fire resistance. They’ll want that, because it stacks with the resists from all their gear and from all the buffs they’ll also have. And for fighting Nagafen, an additional +25 in fire resistance could easily be the difference between success and total wipeout.

If you have to spend several hundred platinum — or even several thousand — to buy the potions you need to prevail over that boss mob that drops an uber piece of gear worth ten times the cost of the potions: isn’t that worth it?

What potions should I buy?

It depends on your character, your class, and your style of play. If your main character is level 10, you probably want quite a few of these potions, and you can’t afford any of them. If you want to powerlevel your level 10 twink, though, you probably have the money to invest in quite a few potions, and they will indeed make your character level up very fast. If you are going on a raid, think about resist potions and healing potions. If you are going to be soloing, or if you might get stuck somewhere that you can’t get out on your own, you may need some travel potions. If you’re a melee and you’re going to be in a tough fight, either solo or where the group’s healing might not be enough, attack potions could provide the edge to kill the mob before the mob kills you.

POTIONS RELATED TO TRAVEL

Blood of Wolf. Effect: Spirit of Wolf. Ingredients: wolfsblood, fenugreek, birthwart. Trivial 37: (attainable by a shaman level 32). Cost to purchase ingredients: 5.5 plat. Standard selling price: 100 / 10pack Discounted guild selling price: 75 / 10 pack.

Best application for this potion. When the fight is going bad and it’s time to run, it’s good to be able to run fast. Suppose the druid has already died or is out of mana or is getting hit and has to run? It will be right then that your SoW will start to blink, of course. Sure would be nice to have one in your pocket right then, wouldn’t it? Being able to SoW yourself also makes soloing possible for many classes. In addition, some people keep a 10 pack in the bank for corpse runs.

Undead Awareness. Effect: Invisible to Undead. Ingredients: fennel, elderberry. Trivial: 42 (attainable by a shaman level 33). Cost to purchase ingredients: 11 plat. Standard selling price: 180 / 10pack Discounted guild selling price: 150 / 10 pack.

Best application for this potion. To get into or out of undead-packed zones, like Mistmoor, Befallen, or Lower Guk. Like other invisibility spells, this one has a variable duration. It will instantly pop off as soon as you cast any spell, attack anyone, or receive any attack. If you go linkdead in Mistmoor and come back to discover that your group is gone, you need this potion to make a safe exit.

Serpent’s Conviction. Effect: Infravision. Ingredients: fennel, eucalyptus. Trivial: 63 (attainable by a shaman level 38 ). Cost to purchase ingredients: 7 plat. Standard selling price: 120 / 10pack Discounted guild selling price: 90 / 10 pack.

Best application for this potion. The human races just can’t see well at night, or in deep tunnels. As a barbarian, human, or erudite, if you sometimes find yourself in the dark with no one to cast a vision-enhancing spell on you, you’ll want to have a 10 pack in your pocket to remedy the situation.

Ant potion. Effect: Shrink. Ingredients: celadine, sumbul. Trivial: 70 (attainable by a shaman level 38 ). Cost to purchase ingredients: 10 plat. Standard selling price: 180 / 10pack Discounted guild selling price: 150 / 10 pack.

Best application for this potion. To enable large races to move around in small dungeons. If your group has a shaman, of course, you’ll have the shaman cast Shrink on you. But if no shaman is available, you need a potion. An ogre without a shrink is going to get stuck in a lot of doorways. This can be quite uncomfortable, when you have angry goblins beating on you.

Antiweight Effect: Levitation. Additional required reagent: batwing. Ingredients: sumbul, hydrangea. Trivial: 52 (attainable by a shaman level 35). Cost to purchase ingredients: 12 plat. Standard selling price: 200 / 10pack Discounted guild selling price: 150 / 10 pack.

Best application for this potion. To avoid damage from falling when fighting in very mountainous areas. It’s a little expensive to use this soloing, but if you are hunting for the named mobs in Frontier Mountains, you’re hoping to come up with some items that will sell for many times the cost of a 10pack. Don’t forget your batwings!

Aquatic Haunting. Effect: Enduring Breath. Additional required reagent: fishscales. Ingredients: jatamasi, hydrangea. Trivial: 47 (attainable by a shaman level 34). Cost to purchase ingredients: 12 plat. Standard selling price: 200 / 10pack Discounted guild selling price: 150 / 10 pack.

Best application for this potion. No one should solo in underwater places unless they themselves have the means of surviving there: a breathing device, or the ability to cast enduring breath on themselves. If you don’t have that, you should not solo there. In my opinion, this potion does not count as a way to do that. So if you want to go to Kedge Keep, or if you want to do the water goblins at the bottom of Oasis or Lake Rathe, you have to be in a group with someone who can cast Enduring Breath on you. Nevertheless: this potion should be in the inventory of every person in the group who does not have their own air supply. If the shaman goes linkdead just at the moment when your Enduring Breath start to blink, you are dead if you don’t have this. If you yourself go linkdead and can’t get back until your group is gone, you are dead if you don’t have this. Don’t forget your fish scales!

Frost / Swamp / Bone Field / Shadeweaver. Effect: teleport to Everfrost, Innothule, Field of Bone, Shadeweaver. Ingredients: heliotrope; bladderwrack (swamp), sandlewood (bonefield), oakmoss (frost). Trivial: 170 (attainable by a shaman level 59). Cost to purchase ingredients: 168 plat. Standard selling price: 2300 / 10 pack. Discounted guild selling price: 2000 / 10 pack.

Gate Potion. Effect: gate to bind point. Ingredients: heliotrope x 3. Trivial: 176 (attainable by a shaman level 60). Cost to purchase ingredients: 252 plat. Standard selling price: 400 / single, 1800 / 5 pack. Discounted guild selling price: 300 / single, 1500 / 5 pack.

Best application for these potions. For non-gaters journeying to dangerous places, as an emergency escape when everything is going bad. Frankly, the cheapest ‘Get me out of here’ potion is the Thurgadin Gate potion (No Drop; you have to make it yourself, it requires a pottery skill of 120 or so to make it reliably, and you have to collect the ingredients or buy them from other players, rather than buying them in a store): it will teleport you to the bridge over the chasm on the way into Thurgadin. You can also buy a Gate potion from magic vendors in many towns for 1000 plat or so, depending on your faction: it will gate you to your bind point. The instant ‘Get me out of here’ potion is the Lizard Blood Potion: instant click gate to the wizard spires inside Cazic Thule (yes, it’s safe there, but these potions do sell for 900 - 1000 plat or more in the bazaar).

Sometimes the raid goes really bad: the wizard who was supposed to evac everyone has gone linkdead, the other magic users are gating out, and you melees don’t have any chance at all of making it to the zone line. You need a way to get out. With one of these in your pocket, you can avoid a long and nasty exercise in corpse retrieval.

Essence of ________. Effect: Illusion (can be any playable race, except frogloks (still waiting for these to be implemented). Duration: 20 minutes. Ingredients: Wormwood, meat or parts from the relevant race. Trivial: around 170 (attainable by a shaman level 58). Cost to purchase ingredients: 79 plat for wormwood, meat prices vary from free to perhaps 75 plat for iksar meat. Standard selling price: varies by rarity of meat: 750 / 5 pack for common meats (troll, dwarf); 1100 / 5 pack for rare meats (iksar).

Best application for these potions. Doing quests in cities where you are KOS. With these potions, you can zone in to the edge of the city, cast your illusion, run to the NPC, turn in your items, get your reward, and get out of town before the illusion wears off.


POTIONS RELATED TO HEALING

Stinging Wort. Effect: callilimony. Ingredients: ice giant toes and balm leaf. Trivial: 156 (attainable by a shaman level 56). Cost to purchase ingredients: 33 plat for balm leaf, plus cost of IG toes (varies from free to 20 plat). Standard selling price: 695 / 10pack Discounted guild selling price: 480 / 10 pack.

The actual name of the spell is callilimony, a weird name, shortened by most people to calimony. Despite its non-descriptive name, this is a great emergency potion, and the clear winner in the healing potion category. Its effect is somewhat similar to a paladin’s ability to lay on hands: it saves your life when you are almost dead. The potion casts instantly: the mob cannot interrupt it. You can cast it multiple times, and gain the effect each time, providing as much as 3000 hp of healing from one 10pack.

How it works. The first casting of callilimony provides healing in an unusual way. It provides 300 new hit points to your present health and your maximum health. If you had 20 hit points left of your 1200, you now have 320 out of 1500. Every additional casting directly heals 300 health: so with further castings you would rise to 620 out of 1500, then 920, 1220, and finally 1500. Additional castings have no further effect.

The spell also provides +17 in strength, which might tempt you to use this as a buff. That’s the wrong strategy, however, because the extra strength and the extra hit points start to wear off right away, and they will all be gone in three minutes. That’s too short a duration to be useful as a buff. But that’s OK. Laying on hands is worthless as a buff, too, but you won’t hear paladins complaining about that, because they understand it’s not supposed to be a buff, it’s supposed to save their life when they’re about to die.

How to use it. You need to have an empty inventory slot, and put this potion in that slot. You need to have a hotkey for that inventory slot in your “I’m about to die” page of hotkeys. Touch that hotkey, the spell casts, you get the message that your body has gone numb, and you have 300 more health than you did a second ago. Rattle your finger against that hotkey five times, and you have 1500 more health than you did a second ago.

Best application for this potion. As an emergency self-healing, similar to lay-on-hands. Don’t use it for ordinary healing between battles. Don’t use it as a buff. Remember, paladins don’t use laying on hands routinely. Instead, they hoard it for emergencies.

The other healing potions are health regeneration potions. They stack with other regeneration spells. They come in an ascending series, the healing they offer is rather light, and it comes with serious side effects. These are not potions to use during the fight, but for speedier recovery between fights.

Lesser Rejuvenation. Effect: regeneration (10 hp / tick for 2 minutes, total 200 hp; negative effects to attack speed, strength (-10), intelligence (-10). Ingredients: lucern, sage leaf, yarrow. Trivial: 37 (attainable by a shaman level 32). Cost to purchase ingredients: 30 plat. Standard selling price: 600 / 10pack Discounted guild selling price: 450 / 10 pack.

Rejuvenation. Effect: regeneration (20 hp / tick for 2 minutes, total 400 hp; negative side effects to attack speed, strength (-20), intelligence (-20). Ingredients: lucern, sage leaf, figwort. Trivial: 103 (attainable by a shaman level 45). Cost to purchase ingredients: 58 plat. Standard selling price: 1200 / 10pack Discounted guild selling price: 900 / 10 pack.

Greater Rejuvenation. Effect: regeneration (40 hp / tick for 2 minutes, total 800 hp; negative side effects to attack speed, strength (-40), intelligence (-40). Ingredients: lucern, sage leaf, agrimony. Trivial: 163 (attainable by a shaman level 57). Cost to purchase ingredients: 109 plat. Standard selling price: 2000 / 10pack Discounted guild selling price: 1500 / 10 pack.

Best application for these potions. As additional healing for fighters in time-and-mana sensitive moments in between spawns. You’ve just killed one mob, and everyone is low on health and mana. The next mob is due to pop in just over four minutes. If your shaman has cast Regrowth on the tanks, they’ll gain back nearly 1000 health in four and a half minutes: but that might not be enough. And the healers are feeling like they are very tight on mana: they would prefer to be as close to full mana as they can be, when this next tough battle begins. That could be the time when an extra dose or two of regeneration could make all the difference, to put your front line fighters back up to full health in time for the next battle.



POTIONS RELATED TO ATTACKING.

Damage shield potions. (Note that potion-based damage shields stack with all other damage shields.)

Kilva’s Blistering Skin. damage = (your level / 4) +1; duration = (your level / 4) minutes. Ingredients: jatamasi, clubmoss. Trivial: 52 (attainable by a shaman level 35). Cost to purchase ingredients: 11 plat. Standard selling price: 200 / 10pack Discounted guild selling price: 150 / 10 pack.

Kilva’s Flame Skin. damage = (your level / 2) +1; duration = (your level / 4) minutes. Ingredients: jatamasi, clubmoss, clover. Trivial: 136 (attainable by a shaman level 52). Cost to purchase ingredients: 31 plat. Standard selling price: 500 / 10pack Discounted guild selling price: 420 / 10 pack.

Best applications for these potions. Especially at level 40 and above, Kilva’s is a key addition for front line fighters who are going to be hit a lot, whether solo or in a group. When you’ve been patiently killing off all the green and light blue place holders, and the big one has finally spawned: now is not the time to wonder whether you’ve got the juice to take out the boss mob. Now is the time to have the strongest damage shield you can get: Kilva’s by itself, if you are soloing, or on top of the DS the druid or mage has given you, if you are in a group. In addition, Kilva’s will allow twinked fighters in their early teens to rip through yellows and low reds for very fast experience.

Attack speed potions. (Note that delay-reducing spells do not always stack.)

Tamed Mercury. Effect: quickness (duration 3 minutes). Ingredients: comfrey, mercury. Trivial: 70 (attainable by a shaman level 38 ). Cost to purchase ingredients: 37 plat. Standard selling price: 720 / 10pack Discounted guild selling price: 540 / 10 pack.

Adrenaline Tap. Effect: alacrity (duration 5 minutes). Ingredients: comfrey, dhea. Trivial: 170 (attainable by a shaman level 59). Cost to purchase ingredients: 64 plat. Standard selling price: 1250 / 10pack Discounted guild selling price: 940 / 10 pack.

Best applications for these potions. Level 35 and up melees, in solo situations. Fighters do like to hit fast, don’t they? In a group, they will always ask the shaman or enchanter for a haste buff. At present there seem to be some unresolved stacking issues, so it is probably not wise to try to use these potions to further increase your attack speed when you have already received a normally-cast buff. This potion would have limited utility for fighters in their twenties and low thirties, and hardly any for twinks in their teens, trying to level fast. If you are going to miss when you swing at that red mob, increasing your attack speed will only help you miss faster.

By the way: if you want this, be brave enough to want the big one. Adrenaline Tap costs about 70% more, but it lasts about 70% longer: plus it gives you a significantly better increase in attack speed (equivalent to alacrity instead of just to quickness).


COMBINATION BUFFS.

Dulsehound. Effect: rage (strength +18; regen 3 hp / tick (180 total); negative side effect to intelligence (-25); duration 3 minutes). Ingredients: balm leaf, hill giant toes. Trivial: 131 (attainable by a shaman level 51). Cost to purchase ingredients: 33 plat for balm leaf, plus cost of HG toes (varies from free to 7 plat). Standard selling price: 600 / 10pack Discounted guild selling price: 450 / 10 pack.

Graveyard Dust. Effect: agile rage (strength +27 to +48, depending on level of drinker; agility +20; haste; duration 1 1/2 minutes; negative side effect, reduced strength and agility afterwards). Ingredients: dragonwart, fire giant toes. Trivial: 156 (attainable by a shaman level 56). Cost to purchase ingredients: 33 plat for dragonwart, plus cost of FG toes (varies from free to 20 plat). Standard selling price: 695 / 10pack Discounted guild selling price: 480 / 10 pack.

Best applications for these potions. These are both potions that you can probably live without: except that once in a while, they may provide exactly the boost you need in the midst of a brief raging melee fight. Like many potions, they also have negative side effects. Not many shadowknights will want Dulsehound, with its –25 hit on intelligence, but other melees probably won’t mind. 180 hit points of regeneration isn’t a lot, but if you’ve ever died 10 seconds before the mob would have, you know that 180 can be enough. In a group most fighters will have strength well over 200; but in solo situations, another 40 points of strength could let you hit for max damage a few extra times, tipping the scales in your favor: and you’ll be harder to hit, with another 20 agility as well.

POTIONS RELATED TO RESISTS.

These are sometimes called stat potions, because they also make changes in your base statistics: but their value there is not as significant as their resist value. They come in various strengths: only the most powerful are listed here. (That’s because the minor potions aren’t strong enough to interest the players who can afford to buy them.)

Each of the potions listed here increases your resistance (by +25) to one form of magical attack. It also raises one stat by +25. For example, with Greater Aura of Cold, your Fire Resitance is buffed by 25 points. At the same time you get a bump of +25 to agility.

Greater Aura of Cold. Effect: Fire Resist +25; agility +25. Ingredients: birthwart, allspice, valerian root. Trivial: 156 (attainable by a shaman level 56). Cost to purchase ingredients: 19 plat. Standard selling price: 300 / 10pack Discounted guild selling price: 240 / 10 pack.

Greater Aura of Heat. Effect: Cold Resist +25; stamina +25. Ingredients: sage leaf, benzoin, valerian root. Trivial: 163 (attainable by a shaman level 57). Cost to purchase ingredients: 19 plat. Standard selling price: 300 / 10pack Discounted guild selling price: 240 / 10 pack.

Greater Antibody. Effect: Disease Resist +25; charisma +25. Ingredients: maidenhair fern, mullein, valerian root. Trivial: 156 (attainable by a shaman level 56). Cost to purchase ingredients: 19 plat. Standard selling price: 300 / 10pack Discounted guild selling price: 240 / 10 pack.

Greater Purity. Effect: Poison Resist +25; strength +25. Ingredients: lucerne, nightshade, valerian root. Trivial: 163 (attainable by a shaman level 57). Cost to purchase ingredients: 19 plat. Standard selling price: 300 / 10pack Discounted guild selling price: 240 / 10 pack.

Greater Null. Effect: Magic Resist +25; dexterity +25. Ingredients: fenugreek, mandrake, valerian root. Trivial: 156 (attainable by a shaman level 56). Cost to purchase ingredients: 19 plat. Standard selling price: 300 / 10pack Discounted guild selling price: 240 / 10 pack.

Best applications for these potions. Raids. If your guild is taking on some big mobs that specialize in some form of magical attack, this increase in your resistance can make an enormous difference. If your resists are around 120, you’ll notice a significant decrease in the damage you sustain. If you can get it up into the 150 – 170 range, you will be delighted as you see how many high level spells simply do not affect you at all. These potions can also make a big difference for a single group or for someone who is soloing, enabling them to play slightly ‘over their heads’ by damping down their enemy’s favorite magical attack. If you are hunting spiders in Crystal Caverns, Greater Purity will make it much harder for them to inject their velium poison. If you are fighting Shiznak in Rathe Mountains, Greater Null will make it much harder for him to fear you.


MANA REGENGERATION POTIONS.

Elixir of Concentration. Effect: Flowing Thought 2 (+2 mana / tick). Duration: 20 minutes. Ingredients: yerbhimba, violet tritube. Trivial: > 200 (not attainable by a shaman level 65). Cost to purchase ingredients: 80 plat. Standard selling price: 1600 / 10pack. Discounted guild selling price: 1400 / 10 pack.

Greater Elixir of Concentration. Effect: Flowing Thought 3 (+3 mana / tick). Duration: 20 minutes. Ingredients: duskglow vine, violet tritube. Trivial: > 200 (not attainable by a shaman level 65). Cost to purchase ingredients: 95 plat. Standard selling price: 1900 / 10pack. Discounted guild selling price: 1600 / 10 pack.

Best application for these potions. Casters who solo far from home. KEI is available almost all the time, either in the Nexus or Plane of Knowledge, for 50 plat. That will give you 3 hours of FT 14. That's a lot. But if you need to camp a mob for four or five or more hours, your KEI is going to run out. If you don't want to take 15 or 20 minutes gating back to the Nexus, getting a fresh KEI, and returning to your camp spot, only to find that someone else has moved in during the interval, then you probably want to have FT 2 or FT 3 in your pocket, just for those situations.


Carrying the right potion, and knowing when to use it, can make a great difference: the difference between victory and defeat.



Edited, Tue Apr 29 19:22:06 2003

Has anyone but me noticed a drop in potion sales since LoY came out? I don't think I have sold a single old port potion since then, and I've sold precious few other potions as well. Of course, this might be because my vendor can't stay online for more than a few hours, typical of every major patch. Hopefully it will stabilize soon.

Also, I wish people wouldn't make the new potions then dump them in the bazaar for BELOW COST. I am talking about 10 Dose Army Ant potions selling for 500pp.

I thought the rule of thumb was postions cost twice the cost of ingredients. If people have changed this to "cost plus a fixed amount" please let me know!

never tried shammie before so alchemy is completely foreign, i know how to make a potion but how do you make a 10 dose potion? do you just put 10 of each ing. stacked?

does any one know where to find some of the old herbs ive seen in bazaar potions like GORGING TOXIN, components:gaint wasp venom sack,boneset. found poison sack but cant find boneset,and some of the other older herbs. i got receipes on eqshaman. please let me know if anyone knows thks.

Im a 47 Shammy and I sell sow potions in the bazaar all the time and every time I bring up the trader and check out the sow potions prices and someone is selling them for 65pp I drives me nuts. Why would a shammy discount the potions to that price and kill all the other shammys in the game. I would like to make a good profit but when I have to compete with 65pp this is nuts and I hope that the shammy's that are doing this with bring up the prices and all of us can make some cash. This there a way to try to set some standard prices on the potions so we all get a decent Profit off of Alchemy.

Thanks all for listening to me ***** about this

Alchemy can indeed be a profitable tradeskill.

I have kept careful track of all sales and expenses. I can report that I made a decent steady income from alchemy until I got to level 39 (alchemy skill 75). I then lost money continually in the effort to continue to improve skill from level to level. (At my worst moment, I was showing a loss of nearly 4000 plat overall.) Now at level 54, alchemy skill maxed for level at 150, I am again showing a profit.

Figures as of 9/30/2002 are:

 
   Total sales:    33,430  
   Total costs:    30,104 
   Net profits:     3,326 

I'm currently holding an additional 3,020 in salable stock.

I've also got 1,833 in potions that are not going to sell.

Although I'm once again showing a profit, my records make it very clear that I have not followed the most profitable strategy. That would be:

At level 29, put 21 practice points into alchemy. Then make SoW potions until they go trivial. Then make Shrink potions until they go trivial: skill 70, shaman level 38. Then SPEND NO MORE PLAT trying to increase your skill.

Instead, from then on make SoW potions and Shrink potions. Keep half a dozen 10packs of SoW on your VendorMule at the Bazaar. As they sell out, restock them. Keep a couple of 10packs of Shrink there as well: they will sell more slowly, but they will sell.

Why is that the most profitable strategy? Here is the evidence, from my figures for SoW and Shrink:

 
   SoW 
   Total sales:   13,450 
   Total costs:    8,798 
   Net profits:    4,702 
 
   Shrink 
   Total sales:    3,700 
   Total costs:    2,982 
   Net profits:      718

Current SoW and Shrink in stock: 1,000

My current situation (6,346 in profits plus current stock, on an investment of 30,104) is a 21% return on investment.

If you just look at the figures for SoW and Shrink (6,420 in profits plus current stock, on an investment of 11,780), however, that shows a 54% return on investment.

(It also shows that even at skill level 150, with profits coming in from Kilva and Stinging Wort, the large bulk of the money is in SoW potions. You could make the argument that a person shouldn't even bother making Shrink: just make SoW potions, and nothing else.)

Does having higher skill make a difference? Some. Probably enough to change the percentages, but not enough to change the overall results.

Having worked my skill to 150, I expect I fail less often on SoWs and Shrinks than I would if my skill were still 70.

If you assume that I would have to buy 50% more ingredients because of a much higher fail rate with a skill of 70, I would have spent 15,314 in ingredients by now. Even so, that would yield a return on investment of 36%: still well ahead of the 21% I currently have.

So. If you want to spend the time and money to increase Alchemy skill to 150 or higher, it can be done. You will go through hard times, from skill 70 to skill 140 or so, where you lose a lot of plat and have little to show for it. And eventually you can show a profit once again.

Or you can get to skill 70 pretty easily, and then make lots of SoWs and a few Shrinks, and show steady profits all the way.

edited to fix formatting

Edited, Mon Sep 30 08:49:19 2002