The Adventures Of Pirotess: Crafting With Alchemist

Alchemist is an interesting and fun crafting job that makes useful potions and elixirs for adventurers. Alchemists can also make wands for conjurers and books for arcanists. To unlock the Alchemist job class you need to visit the Alchemist's Guild in Ul'dah and talk to the NPC receptionist.

Pirotess talks to the Alchemist's Guild receptionist.

As with the other crafting jobs, you have a crafting log that lists the items you can craft and get experience points for. The crafting log shows you the materials and elemental shards needed to craft each item. Alchemist uses a lot of lightning and water shards. This is where Botanist and Miner come in handy because you can gather the shards needed for crafting. When you successfully craft an item from your crafting log, a check mark appears next to the item to show that you completed it. 

A list of items that can be crafted in your Alchemist crafting log. 

When you begin crafting, you will have a set of abilities you can use to ensure you are successful in your crafting. For example, when you use the ability Master's Mend this will restore your item durability by 30 and help keep your item from breaking. When you are crafting something a little more difficult you can use the ability Steady Hand to improve your success rate by 20% for the next five steps of your crafting. When an item is more challenging to craft, expect a little failure here and there. Crafting does take patience, but when you complete the recipe the rewards are worth it. 

Use your Alchemist abilities for successful crafting.

You can also craft items for the Ixal (one of the beastmen groups) such as hull components. These are daily quests that you can do which offer extra experience points and their currency which you can trade to their merchant vendor for items like crafting and gathering materia. It can be a little slow doing these as well as challenging, but once you finish the recipe you do feel a sense of accomplishment and some of the rewards they offer are nice also. It is best if you do these at lower levels because once you hit level 50 on your Alchemist the experience is not as good. This is just something to keep in mind. These recipes are in your crafting log under the housing tab. 

List of items you can craft for Ixal quests. 

Making sure you have all the materials needed for crafting is a must. Luckily this is easy to remedy in several ways. For the basic materials when you are just starting out, you can visit the NPC merchant at the Alchemist's Guild in Ul'dah. Here you can get the items needed for your lower level recipes. 

Pirotess buys materials from the Alchemist's Guild merchant. 

For the higher level and slightly more difficult recipes you can use Botanist and Miner to gather materials. Some materials you can craft on other crafting jobs such as Blacksmith if you have them unlocked. Another option is the Market Board which shows the list of items sold by other adventurers. Don't be afraid to shop around on the Market Board to get the best price for your needed materials. 

Pirotess shops for materials at the Market Board. 

When you reach certain levels like level 10, you unlock a quest for your Alchemist. You are required to craft a certain item or items and present it to the guild master NPC Severian. After the cut scene of Severian inspecting your crafting skills you are rewarded with job specific gear of your choice that enhances your crafting abilities a bit. 

Pirotess prepares for her level 10 Alchemist quest. 

There you have it, the basics of Alchemist. I am enjoying crafting on it because it is not only useful, it is a lot of fun. If you would like to try out Alchemist for yourself, just visit the guild in Ul'dah and start crafting. See you at the next adventure! 

See you at the next adventure!