Is Alchemy worth bothering with for a wizard?

[Winter]

I was looking at the list of alchemy recipes on krakiipedia and Virilneus and they all seem pretty underwhelming given the cost and time of gathering the components. Most of the trinkets look like they would be cheaper and less hassle to create with 420 and the enchanting potions are already sold at the alchemists, is Alchemy mainly an RP thing for wizards?

[Allereli]

wizards can make ayveneh potions

Whether it's "worth it" depends on the player. can you play at work? do you have a shitload of time to kill?

also, the higher level you are, the less work you have to do/crap you have to gather

[Whirlin]

I probably spent at least 10 million silver on mastering alchemy. This is spend on a relatively moderate pace. I know people that have spent more to master it faster, or spent less to master it a lot slower. For the TWO YEARS it took to master, I would spend my week (Monday through Friday) finishing Lumnis, and the weekends running ;alchemy nonstop.

I was probably the fourth active wizard guild master when I finally mastered. It took quite a while to get the other masters around to do a promotion... But, I've made it my mission to help promote people when possible, so it's gotten slightly better since then.

Here are some things to consider:

I needed to sign up to premium to have adequate locker space / a mule to store all of the alchemy materials/products when trying to hunt. Unless you want to buy everything ad-hoc (in which case, you're gonna spend a ton more than 10m), you're gonna store a LOT of materials that you can use. My current alchemy satchel weighs 110 pounds. Additionally, I also dropped a ton of silver into a store in order to sell the goods I created. People aren't always buying/selling alchemy stuff in your town when you're online... they're incredibly commoditized.

I leveled a cleric from 1-40 relying on wands/rods I had created through alchemy to supplement low mana. Just to give you an idea on how much of that crap you make. I didn't have any luck selling this stuff on the open market.

Pretty much all alchemy things suck except for the top tier mana potions, and ayveneh potions, which are expensive to make. You'll end up making about 2000 greater mana potions. Hell, I think I still have two giantmen mules filled to capacity with them. So those are DIRT cheap in any alchemist's shop.

Back when I mastered alchemy, ayveneh potions were selling for 300k each. They're down to 225k, and we've kind of price fixed them at that between guild masters. They cost probably 75k-ish to make, and about 20 minutes, so don't assume that just cause they're that much, they're all profit! Also, materials are from clerics guild in Ta'illistim and Teras Isle... so that's always fun to beg clerics to buy 600k (that's 2-50 count jars, one for each mat) worth of materials from different parts of the world... another reason that I recommend being premium for alchemy. But then you also need black opals and uncut diamonds...

With the current guild masters, and readilly available nature of ayveneh potions nowadays. With the time and cost to master, you're looking on an economic rate of return after maybe... 20 years of enchanting fusion items?

If you're considering alchemy for profit? No, it's not worth it, the top tier stuff is readilly available.
If you're considering alchemy to better your character? No, there's no benefit.
If you're considering alchemy to mark something off as complete on your character because your a minmaxing sociopath who lives to see numbers get higher? Go for it

[Kembal]

I'm surprised Major Shock wands don't sell? I used to buy them for a while until my mana issues got resolved.

[Allereli]

supposedly the familiar talismans from The Spitfire will have a recipe in the nearish future

[Winter]

Wow, I had a suspicion that Alchemy might be a time sink but that really is insane! Thankyou very much for the information.

[Whirlin]

I'm surprised Major Shock wands don't sell? I used to buy them for a while until my mana issues got resolved.

You need a couple conditions to sell wands like that:
On the demand side: You can start with the population of potential buyers are individuals with spell aiming (Most Wizards, handful of sorcerers/clerics/empaths) With the prevelence of 319, clerics don't really need spell aiming anymore... Bone shatter is amazing for a pure CS build for empaths, and Sorcerers... well, I'm not making any statements about sorcs and spell aiming again.
That population is then cut in half from the population of those that are self-reliant on mana already

So now lets take a look at the supply side:
People need to know that Slender Mithril Wands exist, if they're doing a player shop search, they need to look for them by name. But hey, then would you need a store, and they would need access.
If people are unaware they exist, you need to market them, stir the need. But then sales rely on the seller and buyer having FWI access or being in the same town.
Alternative wands are readily available from the pawnshop with less effort.


Now Pricing:
Slender Mithril wands require a skin (time), mithril dust (1k silver), s'ayanad crystal (510 silver) as materials. So you're looking at a minimum of 1510k silvers per unit to break even on just the materials. This doesn't even consider the opportunity cost of the time taken to gather the skin and do the alchemy that you could have made while hunting! By the way, these wands are NOT duplicatable.
Ranger + Wizard combos can also mass produce ranger rods for young spellcasters at cheaper overhead costs.

[Kembal]

Hmm. Well, I advocate for all empaths to include spell aiming in their builds (because Empathic Assault is such an awesome spell), but I get what you mean.

[Silvean]

If you're considering alchemy to mark something off as complete on your character because you're a minmaxing sociopath who lives to see numbers get higher? Go for it

That's why I did it. I guess the RP reason is that my character has an inflated ego and couldn't deal with being anything less than fully trained in the sorcerer guild.

[Jymamon]

That's why I did it. I guess the RP reason is that my character has an inflated ego and couldn't deal with being anything less than fully trained in the sorcerer guild.

+1 on this. I did it purely for the character. The benefit derived is negligible at best. Sure, I haven't had to buy any enchanting potions in forever because you make so many while mastering, but I doubt I've even come close to breaking even on cost not to mention time.

To the above suggestions I'll add, make a ranger alt if you decide to master. Haste + Foraging doesn't entirely suck if you pick up some survival as well, but it doesn't really compare to a low level ranger. (I think I raised mine to all of level 10 so he could survive more areas, but even at 3 he could forage a lot of the areas needed.)

[Viekn]

I'm not to knowledgeable on alchemy, but it appears there are different levels/areas of it you can master? I notice mastering "general" alchemy is a pre-requisite for being a wizard guild master. Is being a wizard guild master worth doing general alchemy? It still doesn't seem like it, which is why I haven't done it yet.

[Allereli]

I'm not to knowledgeable on alchemy, but it appears there are different levels/areas of it you can master? I notice mastering "general" alchemy is a pre-requisite for being a wizard guild master. Is being a wizard guild master worth doing general alchemy? It still doesn't seem like it, which is why I haven't done it yet.

you have to master 1 skill (and have 125 total ranks) to qualify for guild master. You need to master general before being able to master potions or trinkets. Maybe you know that, but it wasn't clear to me that you did.