I get the impression people use alchemy a lot and I think im missing somehting big time.

-svcks to level at low levels all i can make are restore fatigue which are useless to me

-You have to individually apply your poisons which is tedious and doesnt seem that powerful

-The good ingrediants are hard to find in quantity

Can someone explain the upsides of alchemy and how to best utilize it? Is it just having restore health potions or what?

Or maybe people dont use it as much as I think

Since I almost always play mages, it would completely svck not to have alchemy as a major skill (no word about the levelling system please, it's tiresome.)

On practical levels, alchemy is incredibly useful in-game, and it was perhaps even more so in Morrowind. In the Elder Scrolls potions stack, which isn't normal in other systems, and you can have very powerful temporary effects once you master the art and have the equipment to match.

For instance if a character is feeble, like my current one, I can create feather potions that last over 10 minutes real-time and boost my strength to levels of a Nord or Orc warrior. Levelling alchemy is incredibly easy: gather any common food-stuff and repeatedly make fatigue potions. Sell them, it is profitable too.

In short, I do agree that "Alchemy wins you the game" regardless of mods or not. Normally you are able to drink 1 potions which stacks with 1 spell effect and 1 enchanted item (depending on deflection or other bonuses applied.) Not here: you can indulge in something resembling a pub-crawl and temporarily have a killing-machine.

Alchemy can get extremely powerful if you master the skill and are using master equipment. Finding ingredients becomes easy once you know your way around and realize they respawn every 3 days. If you play around with this site, you can see for yourself: http://www.uesp.net/oblivion/alchemy/alc_calc.php

Below are just some examples of what my character can do with potions/poisons:

Deliver over 900 points of damage with one triple damage poison. She can double that if preceded by a weakness to poison spell. When you realize that you can stack up to 4 poisons on your foe, the numbers get crazy high.

Instantly boost her armor rating from 0 to 85 for longer than any fight will last by chugging 2 shield potions.

Regenerate almost 100 magicka per second for 78 seconds if she drinks four potions.

Regenerate over 50 hitpoints per second for 43 seconds if she drinks four potions.

Enjoy 100% chameleon for almost 2 1/2 minutes after drinking 3 potions.

Bring an ogre or minotaur lord or troll to a permanent and complete stop with 2 damage speed poisons (1 if it is preceded by weakness to poison).

Poison a foe who is immune to poison by preceding her arrow with a weakness to poison spell.


Is it worth using? Your call.

Alchemy is the best skill in the game, and my characters Live by it. LIVE (Not live and die). At the earliest levels, sell the fortify fatigue for major cash. Keep magicka restore and restore health. As you get better the potions and poisons get Incredibly strong. Journyman level is where it gets really really gamebreakingly awesome. The best way to get ingrediants is to join mages guild and farm the garden there every few days.

Peace.

This is why people like alchemy. It's an insanely powerful skill in the game(, and potentially game-breakingly so, like ZakariusSvedlin said).

Not very game breaking as good three effect poisons or potions require rare ingredients and many boss enemies are immune against poison.
Might say that the in game restore health and magic potions are worse as you can just hotkey them and click away.
The self made one restore over time, very nice for restore magic, yes two restore health+ restore magic+ shield potions are a bit overpowered but also something you only use at the big battles. Bruma, IC endgame, SI endgame and a couple others.

Expert level illusion is far more overpowering as in command creature+ invisibility on self 10 seconds duration; apply on goblin warlords until goblins goes away, might require that you kill the last one standing.

I'm not a big fan of alchemy either. I never really liked it in Morrowind either. My issue is that I'm satisified with the potions/ poisons that I find on NPC's and in random loot. I never felt the need to make my own stuff. I guess it's the same as enchanting, you just need to find something that YOU like and run with that. I'll always prefer to make my own weapons, find and use other people's potions.

A couple of the replies here remind me that different skills are more useful at different levels. Alchemy is a good earner early on, when you need to buy services like recharging and repair of enchanted equipment. Free ingredients + raising a skill that boosts your Intelligence means you profit in both gold and levels at a time when you need them.

But eventually you have more gold than you can spend and you've hit 100 Intelligence. Your Restore Magicka potions give you such a flood that you can't cast fast enough to use it all. Diminishing returns sets in.

My characters usually have Alchemy as a minor skill, as they'll use it a lot early on. They also taper off using it as they develop, so they may never get past 75 and identify all 4 effects of an ingredient. Even the archers are needing to poison their shots less often as other methods come into their arsenal with skill increases in other areas.

Alchemy is definitely one of my favorite skills in the game.

It is extremely powerful if you get skilled and have good alchemy equipment. And it can be fun to create multi effect poisons and potions. Beyond the simple damage health and restore health potions.

Also I just like gathering ingredients. I guess not everyone would like that, but it gives my character a reason to just wander the countryside. And I love the "click" you get when successfully harvesting a flower or mushroom.

I get the impression people use alchemy a lot and I think im missing somehting big time. There is two questions in that. Yes I do like alchemy. I think you are missing something.

-svcks to level at low levels all i can make are restore fatigue which are useless to me But its money. In novice you can do damage health and shield* (*I think).

-You have to individually apply your poisons which is tedious and doesnt seem that powerful Let me see. You have 3 damage heath poison lost 4 health in 9 seconds. You put that on you 6 damage bow and the other 6 damage sword. Snipe with the bow and get them with the sword I don't know I have it right that is 20 damage. Some of the damage last for 9 to 18 seconds. That 9 or 18 second time works for you like a companion with a sword fighting the same NPC that your character is fighting.

-The good ingrediants are hard to find in quantity What is a good ingrediant? You just have to keep on looking. Under your feet, in containers, boxes, shelves, camps sites, trees, rocks and etc.

Can someone explain the upsides of alchemy and how to best utilize it? Is it just having restore health potions or what? You have restore health yes, restore strength if you lost strength, cure disease if you got hit by a vampire and you are in a bad way with the gods and you cannot use a chapel to cure yourself. As for poisons Silence poison dangerous against Mages. They cannot use their magic against you after you snipe them that in a certain time, so you can charge at them and depose of them before that poison wear off.

Or maybe people dont use it as much as I think. I don't about the others but I use it plenty of times, even it my minor.

I love alchemy for pretty much all the reasons listed by Acadian, and because I have overall interest in Alchemy across all games/fantasy settings. I've just found being able to create potions to be extremely interesting. I also have a real world interest in herbal remedies so that goes kind of hand in hand. :wub:

Just one nit to pick. It's almost useless to make a Cure Disease potion at low levels. Since this is not something with a magnitude (cure means cure completely, instantly, any disease) you can just eat a single ingredient and get the full effect. Mandrake root is the usual one you'll come across, and you just keep a supply of that and eat one when you catch something.

Later on, when you can identify two or more effects for an ingredient, you'll make the potion from things that have it as a second, third or fourth effect if they're not wanted for anything else.

But if you're just making potions to sell, then it doesn't make any difference what the effect is. All the potions you make at a given level with the same equipment will fetch the same price, and cure disease is the same as any other.

Well, yes, but eating ingredients (wortcraft) still counts as alchemy. You get a slight increase in your alchemy skill every time you eat an ingredient.

I think one of the more overlooked benefits of alchemy is how necessary it is to the infamous character types, who are unable to use chapels and shrines to heal and cure themselves. Alchemist and Assassin have more in common than both beginning with an "A."

What′s fun is to experiment and see what potions you can come up with, what type of effects you can get and what combinations. It′s like playing with Lego, it′s fun to build :hubbahubba:

I like alchemy simply because it is a gold mine waiting to be tapped. The world is filled with ingredients you can scoop up for free, and turn into potions and sell. You can even buy food from vendors, make restore fatigue potions from them, and sell it all right back, and make a profit. For a low level character, it is an excellent way to get that extra cash for training, or good weapons and armor, etc...

There are some really useful potions to be made out of some really common stuff... how about:

Columbine root pulp + St Jahn's wort = 44% Chameleon for almost 2 1/2 minutes.

Flax seeds - every one is a 24 point, 78 second Restore Maicka for a master Alchemist with top equipment. Like Acadian said, chug 4 of these, and you can cast a ~100 pt spell every second - that's basically nonstop. And Flax is everywhere on the West Weald.

Flax + Sacred Lotus - 272 points of Feather for 880 seconds, that's almost 15 minutes. Better than the best Feather spell available, and you can chug up to 4 of them to loot Rockmilk Cave in one haul.

Aloe Vera + Wormwood - 50 seconds of Invisibility.

The funky poisons are usually the stars of the Alchemy show, but the utility value of several easy-to-make brews shouldn't be underestimated. Just gather as you explore, and you'll have plenty of supplies for good utility potions.

Add some Lavander to that Aloe Vera and Wormwood you get Healing + Invisibility.
Thats a hide and heal potion for me.
I like to play dead is dead characters so these are invalluable to me,for those times when I really screwed up.
I allways carry a couple of them with me.

Also Alchemy can do every thing Alteration can do except pick locks.
Infact Conjuration is the only magick skill that Alchemy can't at least do a few things of.

One more thing.
As Savlian said above,that click you get with a succesfull harvest is a great feeling,it kind of sounds like snapping fresh greenbeans. :liplick:

Add flour, green stain cup, lavender sprig, and fly amantia cap to make a Reflect Damage, Restore Health, and Restore Fatigue potion that works very, very well against melee fighters.

Combine withering moon, blister pod cap, and watcher's eye to make a Reflect Spell, Restore Magicka, and Fortify Magicka potion.

If you're making potions (rather than poisons), you should always allow one negative effect (usually Damage Health or Burden), so you may stack up to 8 rather than 4 potions. With Master equipment, the negative effect will only be one point.

as many others I love to find out new recipes, stuff like cobl is cool in adding more ingredients,often in amounts of 30 or 60 per ingredient,makes things easier,and more fun since they add the possibility in combining drains with damage potions among other combinations.
vanilla is good enough of course,specially after one get into the realms of oblivion,and over to the shivering isles.
to bad it is such a limited amount of painted troll fat though,on the other hand it is almost too good for buff and restores,and the game is easy enough as it is with alchemy used a lot.

Good thing you aren't playing Morrowind, where at low levels your potion-making misses much more often it succeeds. Of course, this is also true about combat. Oblivion is much easier to play, in that specific sense. All you have to do is pump endless cheap ingredients into the usual equipment, fast move to the nearest mage guild, sell your potions and buy more ingredients--or just take the items off the shelves, where they're free (and regenerate). Talk about giving it all to the player.

In any case, once you get good at it, you can make a ton of money, plus have access to the potion equivalent of dozens of spells (including harmful ones to poison weapons). No need to cast in battle: just have a gulp of that potion that takes next to no time to consume.

First, in real life I have two degrees in chemistry and work for an international chemical company: would just be wrong not to major in Alchemy.

Second, in real life I am old (at least compared to most of you); i.e. cannot dependon my well-honed combat skills to get me through the game, need healing potions to keep my alive and damage (poison) potions to kill the other guys. I am playing full FCOM++ so there is always a need for those capability multipliers. Plus, as others have noted, it is a great early game income earner, just when you need it most.

I don't like alchemy.

In part, I'm not that interested in gathering ingredients, making potions and lugging around potions. I'm also not particularly interested in stopping what I'm doing to drink said potions every time I want to do something.

Mostly though, I just don't like that it's so powerful. If I make an unarmored Argonian and challenge him to survive armed with nothing but enchanted daggers, I want to have to make him survive as an unarmored Argonian armed with nothing but enchanted daggers. If he can just chug a few potions and turn into an indestructible killing machine, then, to me, there was really no point in even bothering to create the character in the first place. I might as well have just opened up the console and maxed out all his attributes and not even bothered with the whole collecting, making, lugging around and drinking process.

Just my opinion, of course....

I use it to solve my cash flow problems. No cash flowing in? Create a buttload of potions from all the crap I compulsively harvest and sell it all off. Problem solved. Bonus: Mercantile levels up.

Once, I did use a Poison of Separation on an Arrow of Silence and really, really [censored] up the whole world of one particular Necromancer. That was a good time.

This is exactly why this is one of the best skills in the game imo.
I Always pick this as one of my major cuz its so easy to lvl it up to master.
And its pretty useful in the beginning to cuz you can just head outside Skingrad and pickliterally over a 100 ingredients. Maybe 200 cant remember, but the point is its alot of ingredients to make potions off so you can sell it and get alot of money AND you lvl up ALOT (espacially in the beginning.)

Alchemy, as others have said, is the most dynamic skill in the game. Great w/ out a major, earns $$, does damage, heals, protects etc etc. I just hit lvl 25 and it is a really crucial part of my build. If abused, alchemy is insanely overpowered. As mentioned above, a triple effect poison does 900 dam +. Besides spell stacking, seems to me like it is hard to beat that damage output.

I've grown to like gathering ingredients, gives you a great excuse to go to different vendors.

And I just love having an insane amount of custom poisons for different enemies.

Love alchemy and am very excited about seeing the skill in skyrim.