Alchemy? Worth it?

[jWTFz]

I see that there is a lot of disagreement around about the worth of the Alchemy skill.

Personally, I found it pretty useless until I got to level 3 chaos magic and I saw spells costing 20 crystals to update.

Ofcourse, still just finishing the pirate lands so perhaps crystals are more plentiful later on? or is Alchemy necessary for the survival of the mage? (I don't want to update every spell, just the few good ones like Ice Snake, Bless and Weakness, but it still seems prohibitly expensive to do so)

[Shd]

In my opinion its worth it (50% discount at lvl 3) if you planning to use some more powerful ones later (will not name them because it is a kind of spoiler), but even in pirate lands there is possibility to get spells like Target, Sacrifice etc... (spell names can be innaccurate because i am playing russian versin )

[Hazimel]

I have the same concern.
I agree that Alchemy is surely useful if you want to upgrade many spells, but I think I don’t need all spells, I only need probably the 4 most usefull chaotic spells, and 1 or 2 spells from Order and Distortion.

[kennec]

later on mayby u need to change your playstyle and use different lvl 3 spells.

as for me as mage lv 21 i with heavy invesment in fire spell to lvl 3 i have found an area wich is extremy difficult for me. most demon mobs have fire resistance so i cant nuke em at all.

i think alchemy can be worthwhile but its to early tosay for me in my game. i have not taken it couse i went for higher magic asap.

the heawy spells cost 10 -30 crystals to learn and saving 50% of them can be good.i have about 130 atm with 3 spells to lvl 3 and few learnt. planning to learn resurection to lvl 3 and mayby haste, dragon arrows for the elven archers wich are superb at my game lvl.

remeber in elven lands u will encounter that shaman that had that giant turtle as prisoner. if u pick right dialog with em u get like 15 crystals for free.

[Daedalus]

i have lvl 3 alchemy; it is expensive but since i'm a mage and mages live by their spells i thought that it is a worthy investment, haven't really regretted it so far.

I've also heard people say that some spells are really expensive crystal when you get closer to the mid and endgame so i don't think it's worthless to get a 50% reduction in scribing costs

[Shd]

Even with lvl 3 alchemy from beginning there is no possibility to upgrade all spells . Answer to this question (to get or not to get alchemy) depends on your playing style.

When i did play on easy difficulty then my thoughts was "i don’t need alchemy". When i played on impossible difficulty, then at lvl 18 i understood that alchemy is "must have" (and sooner the better), because there you cannot use just 3-4 offensive spells to win with minimum or even zero casualties. You need to neutralize enemy ranged units (hypnotize, shackles, fear etc.), slow strong melee packs (slow, trap), make attack enemy your strongest unit (target) etc, etc, etc. In that case you need to change tactics almost on every enemy pack to win them, so you need variety of spells

[fell]

Later in the game most utility spells are pointless. Why slow a pack when you can outright destroy it? Best way to neutralize a stack? Kill it. All you need is Fireball/arrow/Daemon gate to 3. Sacrifice 3. And then a non fire based Area attack and single attack for things with fire res.

Everything else is pointless.

[megakill]

Played as Warrior, but used a few combat spells at lev 3 and phoenix at lev 3 as well.
You don't need all spells (really depends on your style), but every continent brings new surprises, like resistances to specifc spells, etc...

[Shd]

Originally Posted by fell

Later in the game most utility spells are pointless. Why slow a pack when you can outright destroy it? Best way to neutralize a stack? Kill it. All you need is Fireball/arrow/Daemon gate to 3. Sacrifice 3. And then a non fire based Area attack and single attack for things with fire res.

Everything else is pointless.

Try to kill stack of 280 demonesses in one or 2 spellcasts (to save archers to be teleported in the middle of enemy), or, for example, 500-600 imps (2 shots of area fire damage), or 5k-6k forest fairies (high speed unit). Try to kill large stacks of alchemists,cavalry etc, etc etc...

It all depends on your playing style, difficulty and acceptable casualties for you. In easy and normal difficulty i agree with you (offensive spells are enough). But not in hard or impossible (if you dont want replenish army every 3-5 fights in castles or by using sacrifice)

[Gatts]

Tricky is that when you power is magick - you have to level the spells as soon as possible, but for instance Fireball or Firearrow will be only backup spells (or not used at all) later on, but see how many crystals they consumed... not to mention how many crystals will consume the more expensive spells (geysir )

And buying crystals from 100K, 200K, 300K... is like... well didn't I had 25 M few seconds ago?

What did I miss as Paladin at most? Crystals - How to save them? - Alchemy

So if you plan to make carreer as mage - Alchemy is a must (or you need to calibrate what spell you add to your spellbook also what spell you want to upgrade) so it can easily happen : "Hell, Would I just have this spell on max level!"