Alchemy 101 Rank 1 - 20

Selphares

Well since I have some time on hand and I think it is better used in general ways I think I do some advices to skill alchemy in a comfortable way and to make some money at the same time.

Ok in the first part you will propably make not much money but have pretty low costs. The best place to propably train Alchemy in generally  is propably Ul'dah. Since you get most of the needed resources to reach rank 20  without much difficult.

Why Alchemy?

I know alchemy produces none cool armory and weapons and just this potion stuff but this is only partly true. Alchemy for example is needed to produce some value items that the other crafters need to finish their products but it is really a great way to create easy to sellc rystals if you are interrested in money and not intend to make crafting to a science since it allows you to make out of some stuff ncie money.

Special later with a certain item which I will not mention here because it would ruin a nice money source for me in the future, people will figure this one early enough out anyway if they check the prices for the different types of crystals. :P

Anyway Alchemy is also a way for creating better weapons take for example a lower level dagger and with the right items you turn it into a poisened dagger or a weapon that makes your enemy blind with a way higher rank than the original.

If all this does not convince you someone, should at least consider the special skill alchemy offers at rank 10. It is a nice and easy to obtain skill and allows you to stabilize your snythesis  that can be quite helpful. Or aorund rank 15 a nice other skill that  allows you quick production. The last thing is great if you intend to mass produce an item for certain reason that you can handle pretty easy on that rank and if you not intend to get much skillpoints. Since it actually finish the whole synthesize process with only one click or let the whole stuff explode.

 

Helpful Links

A general help for Synthesis is

This explanation

and for Alchemy for starting I advice this one:

Alchemy recipes

And if you want  Databases that reveals  all recipes to you that page:

yellowgremling

 

Alchemy Labority

Sometimes if you intend to produce an item you get the message that you should get betetr equitment to produce this certain item. This does not mean that you are forced to buy better crafting tools, it mainly means that you well need a betetr lab.

This is where the alchemy guild comes into play. You visit them directly and ask them right at the corner to use their equitement which you than get in the form of a temporrary buff, there are 3 kind of levels that you can choose from where each higher one gives you a better buff but costs you a lot of money. I would advice to stay away from the third option special in the lower ranks and by normal mass production, sinc ethe price is way to high. If an item that is in your level range explodes to often it helps a lot to use that service as well, since it increases your alchemy skill as well.

Explosion, Damages and Status

Even while I rarely do it it is adviced to wear clothes that fit for crafting or avoid to wear clothes since special failed creation of items tends to damage your equiment and create  that way unwanted or unneeded costs.

Advice from ScribZ

Oh and the stats, they do make a huge difference as does your gear. If you failing alot, look into some +Control gear, it helps really.

The importance of quality

Quality from items can be quite important. For one it influences the skillgain you get out of a synthesis if it was succesful. An other point about which I am not certain is that it it influences the changes to get a +1  or +3 item out of the synthesis.

An other good thing is to use betetr items for synthesis if you have a hard time since +1, +2 and even better +3 items give you a way more endurence in the synthesis and allow you to make much more mistakes by building the item and  produc a higher quality item without much risks.

The quality of a product influences as well the reward you get out of the crafting leves and normally seem to result in a more complete or better recipe as an additional reward.

 

Useful gathering Jobs

I really would advice fishing if you have the patience for it. Anyway it is better to get at the beginning the fishes from an area with a salt sea to get more useful fishes for alchemy. Aside of that their second collect ability with their spear allows to find the needed fleas to produce colors which are pretty often needed in order to produce armor.

Wood cutting is as well useful but tehre it is not exactly the wood cutting, it is more the ability to collect plants from certain spots that are needed in certain potions.

In both cases it is sure always betetr to work in a bigger linkshell where the tasks are sort of divided and better organized.

For level 1 - 12

If you not intend to do crafting tasks, and prefer the boring constant way the best thing you can do  is to buy a lot of Muddy Water and use it.  As said it is a great way to level up till 10 and actually doable withoout have high money costs till around 12 or 13. The only downside is that you will have a lot of water which in the otehr hand can again be used to produce other alchemy items which reagenzes are sold by the NPCs in the Alchemy guild in Ul'dah as well if you want to save the trouble to check all the retailers.

Advice ScribZ:

This is pretty good yeah, its Muddy Water but yeah, great way to start the grind at low levels. You should point out though, that doing a full set of 8 local levequests for a single craft can easiely pump you from rank 1 to rank 8-9 right off the bat making that first set of grind very barable.

For level 13/14 - 20

I would advice to destroy crystals, you normally get these easy when you do normal adventurering or have some friends to support you with these. The nice thing about destroying crystals is that they do not use up shards and instead produce around 16. Special in the case of earth shards it is a nice thing since they geenrally sell easy because special the production of amory uses up a lot of earth shards and wind shards are a sure sell in Ul'dah at least on my server.

Everything else you need is some Fine Sand that you can buy in the Ul'dah alchemy guild it is pretty cheap considered to other things and you need only 1 and 1 Crystal to produce 16 crystal shards out of it.

An alternative option is to do a lot of fishing and work down certain sea fishes into useful items, which I personally not prefer even as I am doing fishing which is a pretty handy skill  for alchemy, special in order to get the right items to produce colors.

Advice ScribZ:

I almost forgot, mob farming - Chigoe - bugs yes bugs. These lil guys that look like big houseflies are the ones you want - they drop Fine Sand which you need to break all those crystals. Its either that or an 8 windshard cost and a LOT of fishing to turn fish into river/sea sand and then into fine sand. MUCH better to kill bugs!

 

 

If I manage to work in alchemy a bit further I will update this with my personal impressions but for my defense I am more of a magic use rthan actually a crafter.  So if anyone does have better informations or if I said something wrong I am glad to learn more and correct it.

Edit:

Added the informations from ScribZ

ScribZ

This is pretty good yeah, its Muddy Water but yeah, great way to start the grind at low levels. You should point out though, that doing a full set of 8 local levequests for a single craft can easiely pump you from rank 1 to rank 8-9 right off the bat making that first set of grind very barable. Oh and the stats, they do make a huge difference as does your gear. If you failing alot, look into some +Control gear, it helps really.

When ya get to crystal breakdowns, I found an easy supply line is your bazaar too. Seek 10 crystals and offer 120 shards of the same type. Most people need the shards right now and quickly give the swap for you. You take the 10 crystals and break them down to 120-160 shards (gives wiggly room for botches) so you come out even in the end but with +Skill Points which is good yes. The idea is to get the most crystals you can to skill on, so swapping shards for crystals is the fastest method.

EDIT: I almost forgot, mob farming - Chigoe - bugs yes bugs. These lil guys that look like big houseflies are the ones you want - they drop Fine Sand which you need to break all those crystals. Its either that or an 8 windshard cost and a LOT of fishing to turn fish into river/sea sand and then into fine sand. MUCH better to kill bugs!

Selphares

Ah thank you, that way the guide turns out to be more helpful for me than the other way around as it looks like.

Edit:

As said the propably easiest way is to buy the fine sand in Ul'dah from the alchemy guild it is not that expensive but the bugs seem to be a good way to save some money.

lynxie

Thank you for the guide!

taus01

Great guide! I like to add to the guide some of my own findings

 

I am a Botanist and i started to harvest Moss around Rank 20. Moss can be turned into Dye for skillup and it sells like hotcakes.

The reason this is such an awesome way to skill up is that you can do it in the field. Dye making does not need a facility or a training book. These are extremely easy synths and give around 350 exp when you can first make them.

You need Alumen and Distilled Water which both are easy to get and you could just bring along a stack or 2 muddy water to turn when ever you need it.

I am currently 30 Alchemist and 32 Botanis and just started on velveteen Dyes. I get 350 exp and the dyes sell out withind 8 hours for 3k each (you make 12 dyes from one moss). I can sell a stack of 99 in about 2-3 days

 

Hope this helps.

Benedikt

well, i would add that it isnt bad to create rubber from latex and rubber soles from rubber, it isnt very material heavy and npcs pays nice money for rubber soles