Apothecary

Malthros

I haven't found much information on this, so I have to ask, how exactly does this work?  I've heard people talk about using salvaging in conjunction with it to get stuff for making items, but I haven't seen any NPC mention how you actually go about doing it, what affects what.  Anyone make use of this yet?  I've had tons of seeds/spores/etc picked up but never a use for them because of this.

Terranah

I don't know but I think they need to really add some more crafting instructions or something.  You are not the first person to be confused.  It took me a while to figure out talisman making.

spellweaver1

Okay, I've had plenty of experience with cultivation and apothecary, so here's my run-down.

Cultivation:

I prefer to do butchering for cultivation, you get at ton of nutrients. However, you can get good watering cans from salvaging, so I'd say have an alt to do salvaging. So, now you go to Abilities, General, click on Cultivating. Click on a plot. First you place your seed. Cultivation is timed, so keep an eye on it, and it has three stages. You have usually around 30-40 seconds in each stage to place items you want to use to enhance the process. The first stage, you can place soil. In the second stage, you can use a watering can to water your seedling, and last you can add a nutrient. The better items you use, the better results you will have and better chances for some interesting results. Once the plant is done, there's a button to click that says Harvest that will put the newly grown plant into your inventory. You can buy basic supplies from merchants to start your cultivation.

Apothecary:

I really like butchering to get apothecary supplies. You get some really great and interesting stuff. So, same process as before, go to Abilities, General, Apothecary. First you need to place a container, a vial of whatever kind you want to use. Next you place your main ingredient. Now in the three boxes along the bottom you place things to stabilize and enhance your potion. There's a bar on the right and an arrow, keep placing stabilizers until the arrow is up into the green, meaning your potion will definitely succeed. When you first start out, don't bother with things that enhance, just use stabilizers. Once you have everything in place, click Brew. As with cultivation, you can buy the basic supplies for making potions from merchants. You need glass vials, your main ingredient, and at least two Cloudy Waters per potion. Some ingredients, like wolf blood, need more so keep an eye on that bar on the right.

 

With all crafting, you can get critical failures. Potions explode, cultivation plots grow only weeds, etc. You can also get critical successes. Growing a better plant than expected, getting dye pigment ingredients, harvesting a seed along with your plant, all kinds of things. I really enjoy the crafting system, in case you can't tell

Malthros

Alright sounds good.  Hadn't realized the 2 water thing, tried it and yeah, it's nuts how big a difference it makes.  Sucks that the secondary stuff does nothing, even with mid 40s for apothecary skill.  Oh well, maybe they'll fix it to make those items worth using.  Is there a shop that sells better items for apothecary or do you have to find everything beyond the basic junk?  I've got about 30 thick vials from PQs so far, and could easily use a level 20 char to farm them as much as I want if they turn out to be worth the effort.

spellweaver1

I -think- once your Apothecary gets high enough, you can buy slightly better vials. That's all that I've seen so far. The rest are drops.