Alchemy Leveling Guide for BFA

Updated for Battle for Azeroth

The Alchemist mixes herbs and reagents in order to create elixirs, potions, oils, flasks, trinkets, and cauldrons with a variety of effects. A player can create healing, invisibility, elemental resistance and mana potions; oils to coat weapons, consumables to increase stats, and much more.

Alchemical Contents

1. Intro to Alchemy
2. The changes
3. Leveling Alchemy in BFA
4. Making a Trinket
5. Leveling Alchemy
6. Alchemical specializations
7. Research and Discovery

Introduction to Alchemy

Alchemy is useful to all character classes. Melee fighters can use alchemy to create buffs and healing potions. Spell casting classes can use alchemy to create mana potions and related buffs. You can create potions for yourself, sell them to others, or give them to your party members and friends. Alchemists are well loved when they hand out potions.

Alchemy also grants the ability to transmute items, such as turning lesser jewels into a rare jewel, or Sorcerous Something into Sorcerous SomethingElse. In BFA you can transmute herbs into the rather useful crafting material Expulsom, via Transmute:Expulsom.

Alchemist’s are able to craft a unique alchemical trinkets for themselves.  For example: the  Eternal Alchemist Stone. This one’s a bit tough, but lesser items are easier.

Selling potions, elixirs and flasks that you create, as well as transmuted Jewelcrafting gems (or using them yourself if you have a Jewelcrafter) can provide you returns on your investment, making the costs of leveling the profession easier to bear.

A good profession to level alongside with Alchemy is Herbalism. Finding/growing your own Herbs allows you to avoid paying a good deal of the sometimes exorbitant prices on herbs at the auction house. Note that picking old world herbs, with everyone else being in the new world, might be quite profitable.

Battle for Azeroth changes

Well, the big change is that all of the professions, primary and secondary, have been broken out into a number of sub-skills. You now have what amounts to being a separate Alchemy skill for each expansion.

• The Classic professions, that’s everything before Outlands, have a maximum  skill level of 300.
• The Outland and Northrend professions each have a maximum skill level of 75.
• Ditto for the Cataclysm and Pandaria professions, each with a maximum skill level of 75.
• The Warlords of Draenor and Legion professions each have a maximum cap of 100.
• And the Battle for Azeroth professions have a maximum skill level of 150. BFA Alchemy professions are also split between Kul’tiran and Zandalari alchemy, though the recipes are mostly the same.

What does this mean? Let’s say you buy the level boost to 110 and enter the BFA zones, Kul’tir or Zandalar. You can buy and level your BFA alchemy skill without ever learning anything from the prior zones or expansions. Level to 150 in BFA and know nothing of the classic or Pandarian or other skill sets.

If you want them though, you’ll have to get to a trainer for each separate area to learn those skills and the appropriate recipes. No more “one trainer teaches all.”

Draenor Training: You will see a Mysterious Flask early on in your Draenor wanderings. It will raise your skill cap to 700 and teach you several recipes. You can also buy it for 100 gold. Might as well just find the thing and save the money. These are the skills you will learn from the scroll:

• Alchemical Catalyst – needed for transmutations and a few other things. You will have a daily recipe to make these as well as making them through your Garrison work orders.
• Secrets of Draenor Alchemy – lets you buy more recipes, which you will want.
• Crescent Oil – a basic crafting materia.
• Draenic Mana Potion – restores mana.
• Draenic Swiftness Potion – faster run and swim for 8 seconds.
• Draenic Invisibility Potion – Invis for 18 seconds.
• Draenic Water Breathing Elixir – 1 hour water breathing.
• Draenic Living Action Potion – 3 second PvP escape trinket.
• Pure Rage Potion – 75 Rage right now.
• Draenic Water Walking Elixir – Walk on water for 10 min, in case you don’t have the Water Strider mount.

The scroll (A Treatise on the Alchemy of Draenor)  is awarded at the end of the questline started by using that Mysterious Flask which you found from Draenor mobs or from Karnoth during Shadows Awaken. The subsequent quests will vary depending on whether you’re Horde or Alliance.

Leveling to 600

First off, note that you can level from 1 to 700 entirely with Draenor materials. You do not need to see your trainer for skill bumps, new recipes, or anything else.

Now if you’re 90+ and your skill is less than 600 just hop over to the Auction house, buy an appropriate amount of Crescent Saberfish Flesh (to make Crescent Oil) and level your skill to 600. How much? You will need 3 flesh for each point of skill. If you have 37 points to go you will need 111 pieces. If you have 600 skill points to go you’ll need 1800. Yes, the skill will stay “orange” from 1 to 600, another new feature with Draenor.

If you have the Fishing skill you can catch a ton of Crescent Saberfish (found everywhere,) prep ’em, and make your oil from that.

Once you hit 600 the recipe will go gray and you’ll need a new recipe. You can buy these recipes from your garrison recipe seller for one Secrets of Draenor Alchemy each, but can only make one “secrets” per day, so pick one that’s interesting. Use any of these recipes to level the skill, it just depends on whether you want those potions/flasks, and have the mats, or you’re happy with the oil.

By the way, you can catch the Saberfish from your Garrison pools and pluck the herbs from your herb garden.

In 6.1, several new recipes are acquired through a randomly-spawning vendor in your Level 3 Town Hall: Samantha Scarlet and Nicholas Mitrik. These recipes are not sold by your usual Garrison and Ashran recipe vendors. It may be a number of days before you actually see the vendor in your town hall. Perhaps some generous guild-mate will let you use the vendors in their garrisons.

Minions/Followers

You do want to assign a minion with the Alchemy trait to your Garrison Alchemy lab. Why? Better work order production and… Free Potions!!

Every day your follower will cook up potions for your use. You get four doses and they’re soulbound, so no selling them or donating them to your guild, or even your alts.

The stat potions increase your stat by 1,000 for 25 seconds. Just the thing to add to your “one shot” macro.

They’re all free, just a bonus for having the good sense to assign a follower to your Alchemy lab.

Leveling to 700

Once you hit 600 the above recipes go gray. So what to do?

1. Do your daily Alchemical Catalyst for 10 skill points. 10 days of this and you’re at 700. You will need 20 Frostweed and 10 Blackrock ore each time.  Your Garrison mine and Herb Garden will supply both, or you can go out into the world and gather them, or buy them from the Auction House. If you have an Alchemists Hut in your Garrison you can create these Catalysts through work orders.
2. Your daily Secrets of Draenor Alchemy will provide one skill point.
3. Once you have 50 Alchemical Catalyst you can do a Transmute: Savage Blood for ten points. You will also need 7 Crescent Oil for each item created.
4. Buy the recipe for Draenic Intellect Flask (Or Str, Stam, or Ag) and make a big stack. They will provide one skill point each. It will stay “yellow” until 700.

With 611 skill (600 + one “Secrets” + one Alchemical Catalyst) you need 89 flasks, which works out to

1. 89 Crystal Vials
2. 356 each of Starflower and Talador Orchid

Gratz on 700!

Making that Trinket

The Draenic Philosopher’s Stone is a pretty nice little trinket to be using, with its big stat proc and boost to your healing potions. You create the initial stone and the, in four steps, you can boost it to 685 (715 in 6.2) You will need to get the recipes from the the vendors mentioned above to create these trinkets.

The total materials required to do this, from initial stone to 685, are:

1. 650 Alchemical Catalyst
2. 60 Savage Blood
3. 1 True Iron Ore.
4. 20 Sorcerous Earth
5. 40 Sorcerous Water
6. 40 Sorcerous Fire
7. The trinket to be upgraded.

The end result, in 6.1, is the Stone of Fire.  Rather expensive. All the other crafted item from any profession are similarly expensive.

In 6.2…

1. Wildswater upgrades the Stone of fire to 700, for 175 Alch. Catylysts, 30 Sorcerous Air, and 30 Felblight (a new crafting material in 6.2.)
2. Elemental Distillate upgrades the Stone of fire to 715, for 350 Alch. Catylysts, 60 Sorcerous Fire, and 60 Felblight.

Yes, that’s 1,175 Alch. Catalyst total (plus all the other stuff) to get one trinket to 715. Ouch.

Leveling Alchemy, When You Are Under Level 90

If you’re under level 90 and under level 600 skill, then just skip to the appropriate place in the table below. Remember that you no longer need to talk to your trainer about leveling your skills, that will happen automatically.

Congratulations on your Maxed Alchemy skill!

Level your crafting the easy way. This guide is an in-game guide to leveling all of your professions and to getting all of those achievements. Everything you need to do and get and everywhere you need to go is all covered!
Get yours here.

Alchemical Specializations

Mixology isn’t a specialization, it’s a profession perk, and you get it from day 1.

The specializations are initially obtained by completing a quest that any Alchemy trainer can give you. Once the quest is complete then you have a bonus proficiency in the specialized area, which will result in creating a few extra potions/flasks/etc.  You can change specialization later by dropping your specialization in the Professions tab of your spellbook and accepting the quest for a new specialization. You will have to buy/create a few new potions when you do that.

• Flasks buff a stat or resistance for a period of time. Attack power, Resilience, Str, In, Spirit, etc. are all buffed by flasks. Flask effects generally persist through death, making them more useful (and cheaper) in PvP than Elixirs. Example
• Elixirs generally increase a secondary stat for a long time, but the effects do not last through death. Example
• Potions provide a large quick burst of something, such as healing, mana, Int, Str, etc. Generally you can use these only once per fight, though it’s possible to use, say, and Int buffing potion right before the fight starts, then another later on. Example
• Transmutations change a lesser something into a more rare something. Such as Elementium ore into Pyrite ore, or lesser gems into superior gems, or Sorcerous this into Sorcerous that. Click here for available Transmutations.

The specializations that you can learn are:

• Elixir Master
• Potion Master
• Transmutation Master

Research and Discovery

Warlords alchemy research consists of obtaining the scroll that teaches you Draenor Alchemy, and then the scrolls from the appropriate trader (as mentioned above.) There is no daily discovery as there was previously.

Northrend Alchemy Research allows you to discover new recipes, with a three day cooldown.

From WoWwiki: You have a small chance to discover a recipe from a specific list of discoverable recipes every time that you perform a transmutation or that you make a potion, elixir, or flask that was introduced in the Burning Crusade or Wrath of the Lich King. The discovered recipe is learned automatically. Non-factors include physical location, level, and skill level.

Cauldon recipes seem to have the highest chance of being discovered, and the discovered recipe will be in line with the recipes being created. IE: Creating Shadow potions might result in a Shadow cauldron recipe.

No special skill or character level, location, or recipe color (orange, etc.) is required for a discovery. There is a tiny chance that it will happen and that’s about it. Transmuting Titanium or using one of the epic gem transformations seems to have a higher chance of discovering a new transmutation recipe.

Good luck!

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