Alchemy feedback: Lack of phial profitability

Gameplay Professions
1

It is currently statistically impossible to make a profit crafting combat phials. Even with maximum obtainable skill / stats, the highest delta profit with today’s prices is 192g, and obtaining the maximum stats would require roughly 13 more weeks of KP farming to obtain (105 more Knowledge Points). It is my opinion that the reason for this is simple; Alchemy has too much self utility. There is no difference between the phials crafted by a master Frost-Formulated Phialcrafter vs someone who has put zero points into Phial Mastery.

The excessive amount of self utility leads to a problem where in order to save gold, you should be an Alchemist yourself. More Alchemists → more people who craft phials (why buy them if crafting them yourself ever became profitable?) → supply outstrips demand → prices plummet.

Couple this with the fact that it is currently impossible to guarantee rank 3 for ANY combat phial, the market is flooded with rank 2 phials in a race to the bottom.

My suggestions for Alchemy reworks are as follows:

  • Remove the base +30m duration for unlocking Phial Mastery.
  • Remove the +30m duration for unlocking Frost- and Air-Formulated Phials.
  • Maxing out Frost- and/or Air Formulated Phials grant new recipes; “Enduring Phial of X” that gives +30m duration, taking the base phial plus a cheap vendor reagent. You must know the recipe for the base phial in order to improve upon it. The quality of the phial cannot change.
  • Add sub-trees for Frost- and Air Formulated Phials that require maxing out Frost and Air Formulated Phials, which grants recipes for new BiS (outside of Toxic) phials for different niches, f.ex. Air → Alacritous Phial for Haste enjoyers, etc.

The goals for these changes would be:

  • Eliminate the need for people to spec Alchemy to gain access to extra phial duration
  • Make phials higher in demand by reducing the maximum duration
  • Reward people for specialising in one type of phial by ensuring not everyone and their dog can craft every phial at rank 2 this soon into the expansion

If these changes are not viable and/or would not produce the desired result, please do not let it detract from the rest of this post - I’m adding my thoughts for a rework purely because I hate the thought of offering only criticism with no thought to what should come instead.

If you care about the maths behind this post, read on. If not, thank you for your time and I hope you have a great day :slight_smile:

Notes:

The maximum total skill is not sufficient for reaching the Rank 3 breakpoint for ANY combat phial, even the most basic combat phial (Tepid Versatility), which requires 300 skill to guarantee rank 3. This includes using maximum quality materials. We therefore have to rely on Inspiration, hence the +40 Inspiration enchant on the profession equipment, and forcing Inspiration on our combat tool.

I am using the CraftSim add-on to estimate the delta profit/loss for each combat phial. I am ignoring the Bind-on-pickup phials as they have zero profit potential outside of Crafting Orders, of which there are hardly ever any. CraftSim uses the cheapest combination of reagents to calculate the crafting cost and the delta profit. For the “Base stats” delta profits, I am using the cheapest reagents that will reach the Inspiration breakpoint, meaning the least amount of bonus quality needed in order for Inspiration to guarantee a Rank 3 phial.

I am using TradeSkillMaster as a price source. The realm no longer matters, as consumables and materials are region-wide.

I don’t believe the CraftSim add-on correctly calculates the +50% resources saved from Resourcefulness, since I have no way of telling it I have this perk. However, the savings by default appear to be minute; Iced Phial of Corrupting Rage, the most profitable phial, saves delta 38s 31c with today’s prices at max Resourcefulness stat, so I see no reason to believe saving an extra 50% would bring the value of Resourcefulness up by any significant margin.

Build / Stats:

Base Build:

Base Equipment:

Rank 5 Hat
Rank 5 Robe
Rank 5 Tool (+Inspiration)

Base Stats:

Skill: 184
Inspiration: 192
Resourcefulness: 50
Multicraft: 165

Possible Improvements:

(Frost/Air)-Formulated Phials:

+10 Inspiration (5)
+5 Skill (10)
+10 Resourcefulness (15)
+5 Skill (20)
+10 Inspiration (25)
+30 Skill (30)

Totals:

+20 Inspiration
+40 Skill
+10 Resourcefulness

Alchemical Theory:

+5 Inspiration (30)
+5 Resourcefulness (40)
+15 Inspiration (50)
+35 Skill (50)

Totals:

+20 Inspiration
+5 Resourcefulness
+35 Skill

Resourceful Routines:

+5% Saving (0)
+10 Resourcefulness (5)
+10% Saving (10)
+10 Resourcefulness (15)
+10% Saving (20)
+10 Resourcefulness (25)
+25% Saving (30)
+30 Resourcefulness (30)

Totals:

+50% Saving
+60 Resourcefulness

Profession Equipment:

+10 Resourcefulness (Robe)
+15 Inspiration (Hat)
+10 Multicraft (Hat)
+31 Inspiration (Mixing Rod)
+40 Inspiration (Enchanting*)

Totals:

+46 Inspiration
+10 Resourcefulness
+10 Multicraft

Grand Total Possible Improvements:

+86 Inspiration
+75 Skill
+10 Multicraft
+85 Resourcefulness
+50% Saving

New Total Stats:

Skill: 259
Inspiration: 278
Resourcefulness: 135
Multicraft: 175

Requirements:

105 Knowledge Points (~13 weeks @ 8 KP per week)

Profit / Loss Per Phial

(Frost) Phial of Tepid Versatility:

Crafting cost: 824g 52s
Delta profit (base stats): -179g 73s 66c :red_square:
Delta profit (max stats): -161g 9s 36c :red_square:

(Frost) Phial of Glacial Fury:

Crafting cost: 1686g 99s
Delta profit (base stats): -718g 54s 17c :red_square:
Delta profit (max stats): -109g 36c 29s :red_square:

(Frost) Phial of Icy Preservation:

Crafting cost: 986g 16s
Delta profit (base stats): -894g 67s 25c :red_square:
Delta profit (max stats): -867g 79s 15c :red_square:

(Frost) Iced Phial of Corrupting Rage:

Crafting cost: 1882g 83s
Delta profit (base stats): -474g 42s 63c :red_square:
Delta profit (max stats): +192g 17s 27c :green_circle:

(Air) Aerated Phial of Quick Hands:

Crafting cost: 388g 20s
Delta profit (base stats): -79g 28s 78c :red_square:
Delta profit (max stats): +77g 89s 1c :green_circle:

(Air) Charged Phial of Alacrity:

Crafting cost: 2221g 49s
Delta profit (base stats): -2130g 23s 51c :red_square:
Delta profit (max stats): -2030g 49s 62c :red_square:

(Air) Phial of the Eye in the Storm:

Crafting cost: 1477g 21s
Delta profit (base stats): -799g 14s 43c :red_square:
Delta profit (max stats): -10g 58s 88c :red_square:

(Air) Phial of Still Air:

Crafting cost: 1696g 56s
Delta profit (base stats): -1642g 16s 75c :red_square:
Delta profit (max stats): -1584g 6s 23c :red_square:

(Air) Phial of Static Empowerment:

Crafting cost: 2066g 44s
Delta profit (base stats): -1486g 25s 5c :red_square:
Delta profit (max stats): -458g 62s 67c :red_square:

(Air) Phial of Charged Isolation:

Crafting cost: 1943g 57s
Delta profit (base stats): -1690g 85s 17c :red_square:
Delta profit (max stats): -1181g 91s 11c :red_square:

2 Likes
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As a fellow phial master, I can attest to this. There is far more profit in selling raw herbs than trying to craft any phial. If my invested points into phial mastery yielded a bit more golden quality phials, perhaps it would become worth it, but so far I just produce silver at most.

3 Likes
3

And I thought engineering was bad. Too bad this wonderful post will be lost in time. I don’t think they’ll change anything at this point.

1 Like
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This is an incredibly well-written post and I can confirm everything you’re saying. I’ve been checking the auction house myself for weeks now (I’m happy to learn there’s an addon for this!) and even with the lowest mat prices I’ve seen combined with the highest phial prices I’ve seen, my calculations still arrive at a loss.

It feels absolutely horrible to have spent so many points into this profession while not being able to do anything with it.

1 Like
5

Im Alchemist myself and yes its hard to make profit but keep in mind its impossible to guarantee highest rank with all the optional stuff in any profession so far AFAIK and I think this is intentional but maybe it hurts Alchemy more than other professions.

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Alchemy makes me sad, but Engineering is much worse.

1 Like
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True and real, although there is some very limited profit potential in the new toys. Skilling up Engineering is sadniss everteem.

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G… guess which two crafting professions I have?

:pensive:

1 Like
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Hey, me too! I don’t want to pick Explosives because I don’t want to make explosives, which means I have absolutely no way of guaranteed skill-up past 65 other than sitting at the crafting table fishing for blue tool work orders.

Which is a rare event because who would risk their work orders in public when some idiot like me can cause their mettle-expensive craft to output at rank 3.

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Honestly, there’s too many tiers of crafted item. Of course nobody wants a 3 star when they could have a full 5 star. There’s just no reason you’d put it to public order.

Even though re-crafting is cheap and easy, if you already know the person you’ll ask to re-craft a low tier item - just ask them to start with!

DF professions are getting annoying. Half of them have dead specialisations where you get stuck and cannot skill up or unlock another tab (engineering, tailoring) if you choose poorly, and others don’t make any money (alchemy). You shouldn’t have to read a guide to avoid getting perma-stuck because the game isn’t written right.

So far the only character I don’t feel like I’ve made a mistake with is my double gathering dracthyr! And even then I wish I’d unlocked Master of Elements sooner.

It’s a shame, because I can see what Blizz were aiming for with professions and it almost works. But they forgot the final pass where someone sits and goes through levelling every profession, with every ordering of specialisation unlock.

And also forgot things like “if a specialisation allows you to make rank 3 herbs/ores… maybe those things should never be directly lootable, so’s to make sure that specialisation is valued.”

Close, but it’s going to be 11.0 until they can really be fixed now. Big sadge.

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When I eventually farm enough work orders to get to 75 skill, I’m still not going to pick Explosives. I am not wasting 70+ KP on getting to a level where I can make explosives to rank up when I do not want to craft or use explosives.

You are one hundred percent right in that some professions missed out on that final pass. On one hand, I’m tempted to say that after 18+ years of collecting data about player behaviour, they should have predicted how people would behave re. ranked crafts.
Maybe the data they have isn’t applicable to this particular iteration, or they think of the current state we’re in as the transition period until we’re all guaranteeing R3 crafts, at which point R2 will probably be slightly more valuable and R1 will be bottom barrel as is expected of levelling products.

But even so, there’s just no excuse for how certain professions can have the cheapest and easiest time in the world levelling to 95 or higher, and certain professions are forced to sit at the crafting orders desk for weeks.

That’s actually a really good idea.

I don’t know, I think it’s possible for them to fix this for 10.1 when profession updates are coming. The easiest fix is to either make new recipes, or make existing ones - that don’t require Sparks or Mettle - give guaranteed skill-ups for longer.

They can also add further nodes for professions like Alchemy and Engineering to allow people to specialise further in individual phials / potions / specific profession gear / specific combat gear slots.

I don’t think all hope is lost for DF professions just yet, they have built up quite a bit of good will from me with how good DF is overall.

1 Like
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Your build isn’t optimal, plus your stats look way off. Do you have crafting speed as stat on your mixing rod or something?

The mixing rod + alchemist hat should give you 188 insipration alone. 30/30 Inspiring Ambience will add 60 to that, and then you can reach a few points from the other trees you mentioned. I’ve spent 135 KP in total (so, 10 less than your base build), and I have 293 inspiration when crafting frost phials.

Also, don’t forget to add 20 Inspiration from Sagacious Incense, and another 20 from advanced phial experimentation, if you put at least 10 points in that tree.

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First of all, there is no such thing as “your build isn’t optimal” when I’m calculating with literally every possible +skill, +inspiration and +multicraft point that exists in the entire Alchemy tree.

Secondly, you might be running with Rank 5 of the blue tool, vs rank 5 of the green tool. At the time of writing this post, the blue tool was not accessible to me due to a lack of mettle. I did, however, factor in the blue tool in my calculations, as you can see. The blue tool had Inspiration on it (as does my green tool).

Thirdly, you seem to have ignored the fact that my base build has 30/30 Inspiring Ambience.

All of that being said, I look forward to seeing your presentation showing the breakdown of your build, where your stats come from, and the P&L per phial. I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong.

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Hi!

Sorry, I was kind of in a rush when I typed my last comment. I didn’t realize that you meant the green tool and later listed it as an improvement.

I don’t disagree with your assesment that there is little profit to be made with alchemy, I think I’ve never seen CraftSim show more than 200g average profit, except maybe once when someone reset a phial and the price increased by 500g.

What I wanted to get across was that you don’t need to spend 300 KP and months of dailies to start making a profit. Something like this build with the blue alchemist rod and green robe / hat will provide a good start. I have this build and profession tool setup on one of my alchemists, and the Iced Phial of Corrupting Rage shows up with 161g average profit.

I think the profit per phial will always be low, though. It’s the same for all professions that can sell their goods on the auction house, it’s the benefit of not having to stand around and announce your profession in trade chat for 8 hours per day.

I’m also not sure if I agree with your reasoning behind this, are you really sure that people taking alchemy for the longer phial duration are causing this? I mean, why would those people ever craft flasks themselves? It’s super easy to level alchemy to 25 and put 10 points in it to get the phial duration bonus, but getting it to the level where you could make a small profit is a lot harder. Personally, most of my friends only leveled it to 25 and still buy their phials on the auction house.

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My current build is this build (relevant points anyway, I’m pivoting to Chemical Synthesis / Resourceful Routines) and if I account for the differences (+25 skill from Alchemical Theory, +2 skill from Frost-Formulated, +10 Inspiration from Frost-Formulated, +30 Inspiration from the blue tool), the delta profit is 97g.

The problem is, you need a sufficiently large batch of crafts in order to meet the statistical average. If you craft 10 phials, that’s not guaranteed to hit the statistical average of 31.5%. Every r2 phial you end up with, you’re sat at -975g for that craft. The crafting cost is currently showing for me at 1737g.

No other frost-formulated phial returns profits using these stats.

So in order to return a pitiful profit, you’re asking the following:

  1. Spending 173,700g for 100 crafts in order to return an average of 183,400g, for a profit of 10,000g.
  2. Clearing Brackenhide Hollow every time you want to do a batch of these crafts.

Is there a particular reason why I should take such a huge initial investment in order to return a pittance of profit, when I can spend ~486g and return delta 10g (with a chance of 424g for every Inspiration proc) on crafting a reagent instead?

That would have been fair enough, but it’s undermined by the fact that in your own build, you literally spend fewer points in Phial Mastery than you do on generic talents, and yet you would be able to have a higher chance of crafting better phials than me (given equal profession tools), a person who has spent 98 points in Phial Mastery.

You cannot say with a straight face that this is good profession design.

You are factually correct in that your build provides a higher chance of profit than mine, but this simply proves my point that the design of Alchemy is flawed.

I based that theory on the idea that I’m sure there were others like me; people who made a healthy profit on flasks in Shadowlands, and who levelled alchemy believing the same would be possible in Dragonflight.

If you didn’t no-life the PTR and/or didn’t fully understand the importance of Inspiration ahead of time (guides were woefully inaccurate on DF launch, and many still list only generic starter builds that clash with your build as well), you would end up in the same trap as me; making a bunch of Rank 2 phials to skill up.

A flood of Rank 2 phials that never had any chance of becoming Rank 3 even with Inspiration (due to low profession skill / few +skill KP nodes taken) causes the bottom to fall out of the market for Rank 2 phials. This is why CraftSim will tell you a rank 1 phial is less of a loss than rank 2.

If you had NO chance of crafting Rank 2 until you were partway through the Phial Mastery tree, and you were guaranteed Rank 3 once you had specialised so deeply you put 30 points into Phial Mastery → 30 points into Frost-Formulated Phials → 30 points into Phial of Glacial Fury, I strongly believe we would see a much healthier marketplace for lower rank phials.

  • 30 points into Phial Mastery = Any phial Rank 1 with a chance of Rank 2 with Inspiration proc
  • 30 points into Frost-Formulated Phials = Any Frost-Formulated Phial Rank 2 with a chance of Rank 3 with Inspiration proc
  • 30 points into Phial of Glacial Fury = Rank 3 without Inspiration when crafting Phial of Glacial Fury

This level of hyperspecialisation exists in other crafting professions (but not Engineering lmao), and Alchemy deserves it too.

At the end of the Phial of Glacial Fury specialisation, we could also get a recipe for “Enduring Phial of Glacial Fury” that has an increased duration and gets the same rank as the Glacial Fury phials put in, no other skill needed.

All of this combined would make the possibility of carving out a niche as the crafter for a particular good much more attainable for Alchemists.

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