Alchemy

Bottles that win fights

The craft is worked at the apothecary in Highwatch, home of Alchemist Verane, Master of the Apothecary, who teaches the recipe ladder, sells Glass Vials at 12 copper, and pays coin for herbs through her work order.

On the craft ring, Alchemy sits with the trial-and-error trades, next to Engineering on one side and Cooking on the other. That gives it two pair identities: the Bombardier (Engineering and Alchemy, taken up before Tinker Gizzel in Eastbrook) and the Apothecary (Alchemy and Cooking, sworn before Cook Marlow). Attune to either pair to make Alchemy a major and let your own signed work teach you back; the Bombardier pair also opens its combination brew, the Elixir of the Bear, while the Apothecary pair ships no combination recipe yet. The 0-to-50 ladder itself never waits, though: every one of those rungs sits inside the rare tier that undeclared crafts work under, so the climb to the cap is open before any oath. Two things sit above that ceiling and pay their skill to a major alone: the Quickening Catalyst, the 75-rung intermediate Verane also teaches, and the found-pattern rungs above the ladder; an undeclared or hobby alchemist brews them for the goods, not the points.

Herbs, glands, glass, and the garden

Every draught wants a Glass Vial plus herbs matched to its rung: sheenleaf grows in Eastbrook Vale, goldleaf in Mirefen Marsh, and sunpetal in Thornpeak Heights, one herb per zone, so your bottles climb the world alongside you. Herbalism is the natural partner skill, though buying from gatherers or the market works just as well; deeper zones hold higher-tier patches that ask for a better sickle, so keep your tool current if you pick your own.

The elixir line adds a hunter's ingredient: Venom Glands harvested from venomous corpses, and the top elixir asks for a Pristine Venom Gland, the signed rare specimen a lucky corpse harvest turns up. If you do not harvest yourself, those are exactly the goods worth asking a hunter friend to bring back.

The elixir line also takes a farm base now, one crop per rung: Vale Wheat in the Elixir of the Boar, Bog Beet in the Vipersear, and a Frost Gourd in the Elixir of the Serpent. That makes the trade run both ways, since the growth tonic a farmer plants with is an alchemist's brew off wild sheenleaf. No herb was moved aside to make room, so a herbalist loses nothing to the change.

The bench above the ladder asks for the garden too. All three flasks steep a Highland Barley off the Highwatch terraces, the same one in each, and the Grand Cauldron at the very top is banked with two Gilded Sunmelon and a Fine Gilded Sunmelon out of the Evergarden. The sunpetal count on every one of those bills is exactly what it always was: the crops stand beside the herbs rather than in place of them.

The recipe ladder

Everyone knows the Minor Healing Potion from the start and can mix it anywhere, no station needed. The real ladder is taught by Verane at the apothecary, rung by rung: the skill 0 recipes are free, the skill 25 rung costs 25 silver per recipe, and the skill 50 rung costs 1 gold per recipe. Each rung carries a healing draught, a mana draught, and a stamina elixir, stepping from common sheenleaf bottles (120 health, 160 mana) through uncommon goldleaf (200 health, 260 mana) to rare sunpetal (335 health, 425 mana); since the trophy economy the skill 25 rung also teaches a Lesser Healing Potion brewed from tallow, a cheaper bottle a hair weaker than the goldleaf draught.

The elixirs climb the same way: the Elixir of the Boar grants 6 Stamina for 10 minutes, the Vipersear Elixir 9 for 15 minutes, and the Elixir of the Serpent 12 for 15 minutes, the Serpent alone brewing two bottles per craft. One more recipe sits off to the side: the Elixir of the Bear, a combination brew Verane teaches for 25 silver once your Alchemy reaches 25, mixable anywhere, but only by an attuned Bombardier with both Alchemy and Engineering at 25.

Above the whole elixir line sits the flask rung, which no trainer teaches and which comes off found patterns instead. A flask grants 13 for 20 minutes, and it opens two axes the elixirs never had: Attack Power and Intellect beside the familiar Stamina, one flask per role. It also keeps its own rules. Only one flask rides at a time whatever its stat, a weaker elixir or scroll of that stat cannot replace it, no dispel, steal, or hand cancel takes it off, and it stays with you through your own death, though it ends when you log out.

How crafting works

Open the crafting window (default key T) and every recipe you know is listed with what it needs and what you have on hand. Station-bound recipes ask you to stand within 20 yards of the right station in town, field recipes craft anywhere, and Enchanting's breaking and enchanting need no station at all (only its three trainer recipes are station work, at the toolworks). There is no failure roll: a craft with the materials in hand always succeeds.

Two small frictions keep the economy honest. Every successful craft pays a fee of 2 copper per point of the item's stat budget, and every craft-family action takes real cast time (field crafts near two seconds, harder ladder crafts longer, and disenchant, enchant, salvage, and tool recharge each about a second and a half). Materials, the gold fee, stations, and skill ceilings do the rest; nothing scolds you for working too quickly.

Recipes

Every recipe of the craft: its exact skill requirement and materials, where it is learned and for what fee, and the three skill values where its gain fades to half, a quarter, and nothing.

Skill gain

Every recipe in the window wears its gain state in the classic colors: orange means full gain, yellow half, green a quarter, gray nothing. The boundaries are exact, every 25 skill is a tier, and a recipe fades one color for each tier it falls below yours.

Because gains are deterministic (a full-gain craft always moves you exactly one point), you can plan a whole climb from the list: work a rung while it is orange, train the next rung as it turns yellow, and never spend materials on a gray craft expecting progress. At the cap of 125 the number stops, but the recipes, the masterwork chance, and the profits keep working.

Masterworks

Every successful craft is exactly what the recipe promises, and sometimes a little more: a masterwork finishes the same piece one quality tier finer, with the bonus stats baked in at craft time. It is add-only, never a downgrade. Ordinary crafting follows its existing gear ladder; the raid-funded Crucible collections are a separate alternative at the current raid tier.

The apex Masterwrought crafts are the one exception, and they pay the same proc a different way. An apex piece already sits at the top of its ladder, so there is no finer tier to finish it in; a masterwork there hands the piece over one rank into Perfecting instead, a free first rank on the four-rank walk the Professions page describes. Nothing is baked into the stats, and the chance and its gates are the ones below.

The chance is published, not mystical: 3% base, plus 1% per tier your skill sits above the recipe, plus 2% when any signed reagent goes in, plus 3% once you are specialized, with higher-tier materials adding 1 to 2% more, all capped at 15%. Only a piece with real stats can improve, so statless commons, tools, and consumables never proc; a dormant craft never produces one, and a hobby craft cannot masterwork past its rare ceiling.

Fine work carries its maker. Rare and better outputs are signed, every copy (Crafted by; gathered materials carry Gathered by), a masterwork is always signed whatever its quality. A signature is provenance, not a lock: signed goods trade, mail, and list on the World Market freely.

Training

Trainer recipes come from the resident masters, taught at their stations. The rule is one line: a master teaches a recipe once your tier in the craft has reached the recipe's own tier, and nothing else gates it, not your level, not your archetype. The gear and consumable ladders run their rungs at skill 0, 25, and 50, and every craft adds one 75-rung intermediate above them, taught at its station (Enchanting's is the Lucent Reagent, beside its two charm recipes on the 25 rung); Engineering's two rod lessons continue its ladder at 75 and 125, so a fresh rung opens as your tiers climb.

Fees are one-time and flat by rung: the starting rung is free, the skill 25 rung costs 25s a recipe, the skill 50 rung 1g 0s, and the 75 and 125 rungs above them carry their own fees, listed beside each recipe in the table. You must stand at the master's actual station to train, and a mobile station never counts. The common field recipes and the six crafted land-tool recipes need no training at all; every character knows them from the start.

Specialization

At skill 75 this craft specializes you, no quest needed: discountable recipe materials cost 20% less from then on, and specialization adds its own bump to the masterwork chance. Raid-core costs are never discounted.

Specialists also learn to take the workshop with them: a specialized crafter can set up a mobile station in the field for ten minutes at a time, so station-bound recipes can be worked at the mine mouth instead of back in town. Its limits are deliberate: it never counts for training with a master or for unbinding a commissioned piece, and it expires on its timer whether or not you used it.

A brewer's route to 125

Draughts and elixirs never roll masterworks; that proc belongs to stat-bearing gear. Your name still travels, though: the rare sunpetal draughts arrive signed with a maker's mark, and so does every bottle of the double-batch Elixir of the Serpent, so nothing rare in this craft leaves the bench unsigned. At skill 75 you specialize, and every Alchemy recipe costs 20 percent fewer materials from then on.

Take Herbalism early and pick as you level: sheenleaf is everywhere in the Vale, and once you reach Verane's bench the free rung will carry you cleanly to skill 25 on herbs you would have picked anyway. Learn the 25 rung the moment it turns on, move your picking to the marsh for goldleaf, and let Verane's work order (six Goldleaf Herbs for 45 copper, repeatable every 30 minutes) hand a little coin back as you go.

From 50 on, brew sunpetal draughts and Serpent batches out of Thornpeak sunpetal, with a little Vale and marsh greenery still in the mix. Above the Serpent sits the apex bench, the three flasks and, at the very top, the Grand Cauldron, the skill-125 capstone: no trainer teaches them, they come off found patterns, and they pay their skill to a sworn major alone (below a major's ceiling they teach nothing at all). The last stretch from 100 to 125 is a deliberate trickle, so brew what actually sells rather than burning herbs for the number, and remember that consumables are the one crafted good everyone re-buys forever. The Book of Deeds marks Strange Brews at skill 50 and Grandmaster Alchemy at the cap.