New Alchemist

Sanna

Hi guys, I'm new to Achaea. I spent about seven hours yesterday getting to know the game. I managed to reach level twenty, and joined the city of Mhaldor. After a conversation to Romeo, I decided to choose alchemist. However I am wondering if the Alchemist is worth embracing. Are they good in combat like raids on a city? Is transmutation an actually valuable skill?

Trilliana

Transmutation is extremely valuable as it's how you create curatives. As for combat, I'm not really good with combat as it is, as combat itself is very complex. I enjoy it a lot but the biggest piece of advice I can give is to go with a class that goes with your RP. Trilliana's a scientific mind, so alchemist suits her (after playing 5+ years, finally found a class that suits her RP!)

Sanna

Is Transmutation more useful than just buying cures and having a third combat skill tree?

Skye

well... I won't lie, most players seem to prefer other classes for combat.

On the flip side though, curatives are in high demand especially in Mhaldor. In exchange for transing that one skill, provided you're willing to work at mostly just curatives, you can earn your money back fairly quickly along with a fair amount of gold that you can use to trans your other skills with little to no RL monetary investment. Of course it's not as fast as whipping out your credit card, but the option is always open.

Sena

Once you get better at earning gold, it will be far faster and cheaper to buy minerals than to make them yourself. Tonics and balms, on the other hand, will be far cheaper to make yourself, and being able to refill your own vials from anywhere is extremely convenient.

Transmutation as a source of income (rather than just making cures to use yourself) is rather poor, unless you can get a lot of tonic/balm orders. It's still a very easy and reliable way of getting gold though, even if it's not very lucrative.

With transcendent transmutation, you'll also have faster potash (a mineral that restores health and mana) balance, which is a useful combat benefit.

Sanna

Thank guys. I think I'm going to stick with Alchemy. They seem cool, and unused. 

Eld

Sanna said:

Is Transmutation more useful than just buying cures and having a third combat skill tree?

From a purely combat perspective, probably not. It is a useful way to make money, though (and someone has to produce those cures the rest of us count on buying!). I wouldn't really worry too much about not having a third combat-related skillset, though. Classes are balanced around the skills they have, and those with a third skill that's primarily for utility/trade are designed to get all the combat abilities they need from the other two (though forging, concoctions, and enchantment all have at least some benefit in combat - I'm honestly not sure if that's true of transmutation or not).

I'd agree with @Trilliana, ultimately. Go with the class that best suits your RP.

Ruth

If you're looking to participate in combat situations, you're going to want to focus on Alchemy and Physiology.

Alchemy has more of the support skills (Displace, Mercury, Astronomy, Revivification, Disrupt) and also contains Metallurgy for Transmutation to be of any use.

Physiology contains more of the offensive stuff, including your homunculus, Wrack, Truewrack, Corruption, and also Transfusion, which essentially means if you're killed, you can skip the embrace sequence. There is a time penalty to when next you can use it after that, though.

Alchemists are incredibly limited in ranged; the only ranged they can do is displace. Then again, it does not always work against enemies. An Alchemist's job in raids is usually to support your team, i.e if they are running out of willpower, you can transfer some of yours with Mercury. If they die, and you have alchemical salt, you can drop their body/make sure their body is on the ground and revive them. If your opponents melee, set your homunculus to attack one person (preferably the target) and Torso in Physiology will try to prevent their escape.

In melee group combat, Alchemists are also often overlooked, but they can be incredibly useful. If the opponent shields for some weird reason, you can break it with Copper in Alchemy. Vitrification in Alchemy is also good because it costs the individual to bleed with every balance (I think, if I don't remember incorrectly) skill they use. The longer, the more the bleeding. Alchemists can also annoy the opponent in teams with wracking/truewracking them with afflictions listed in those AB files.

Alchemists can synergize well with a few classes, but it depends on how creative you can get with them. For example, a very obvious pairing is Alchemist and Blademaster. Alchemists can raise the bleeding level of an opponent really high once the momentum is upkept and hinder the departure of their opponent with their homunculus, and Blademasters have a way to instantly kill an opponent once their bleeding is over a certain amount.

Transmutation is a tradeskill, but it's also nice to have a way to refill your own tonics etc when you run low in the middle of hunting.

EDIT: If you get to Minion and join the TNS clan, you'll find more materials that might help you a little bit more there.

Sanna

Don't we also have the ability to instantly kill people with reave and aurify?

Ruth

That's correct. It takes some set up to be able to do that.

Sanna

I think I will enjoy the challenge.

Ruth

Alchemist combat isn't that bad. You just need to know what you're doing and some measure of tankiness, though it also requires a lot of information about how affs work. If you do get into combat, Sanna, I think I have logs from when Gerard demolished me as Alchemist that I can share.

Sanna

OK, thanks Ruth! It will probably take me a while before I do combat. And thank you everyone who answered my noob questions.

Nyboe

I've fought Alchemists in arena spars about 6-7 times and I lost every time. I don't know why I lose, even after I analyze the logs I still can't figure it out. I spoke with a few combatants and they say the class is not hard to beat but they said they never fought an Alchemist recently so from my take on it, the class is probably some what decent in combat but nobody really knows about it because their so few Alchemist fighters.

The Alchemist is a momentum class and they can gain momentum rather fast as all my spars with them it ended up me being overwhelmed with a flying wall of text and a mass load of afflictions within about 10-15 seconds(similar feeling I get when I fight an occultist). And this was me running around and moving all over the place.

Ruth

Alchemist strategies are not hard. Countering them can be.

Blujixapug

People can tell you everything about how this class is best or that class is best, or one class does things better than another. But if something about alchemist resonates with you, if you have that perfect mental image of your character as an alchemist, then nothing about bards or monks or serpents matters.

I played a (widely-considered) terrible class and terrible race for a long time, but it worked for me because I loved it, it clicked in my head, so I was able to see the strengths and ignore or accept the weaknesses.

Mako

I agree with some of these points, sometimes the alchemist class can be frustrating against certain classes/people. The class isnt very hard though, its pretty straight forward what you have to do to someone to kill them. Plus its so awesome to watch someone panic spam NW as my homunculus blocks them. *evilgrin*

Zii

I hear someone in the Ebon Fist is an alchemist fighter.

Dragonknight

Blasphemy!

Mizik

Thus far I've learned:

a) kill in 60 seconds or less or regret
b) transmute = certain death

Vaehl

I just fly vs Alchemist and most of them chase. Gg.