Better Living Through Chemistry! Uh, alchemy....

[King of All Rednecks]

Alchemy is pretty much the Easy-Mode for the game. With it, you can jump your stats to obscene levels--currently, my merc-mage is 14 hours in, level 48, and I've got 21,000 HP and 14,000 MP. I don't have heavy armor, and I can still shrug off a hit from a full-grown Trachidis Queen. I have 304 Vitality and 386 Willpower.

That's not bragging--here's how you can do it too.

Now, you'll notice I didn't go bragging about my Dexterity and my Strength; if anybody knows how to ramp those up, by all means put your word in. But here's how to spam magic and eat arrows for fun.

First step to using Alchemy is... don't use Alchemy. Don't touch that thing until it's at level ten, or you'll lose points on everything you make.

(If you need the first step to having alchemy at all, then you want to look at Gorelin village--remember never to mix permanent and temporary agents, but otherwise this isn't a general alchemy guide; many people have done that work better than me.)

Now, likely--hopefully--you understand the basics of brewing already, but when it comes to permanent bonuses, you don't want to lose any of those points. So you don't touch Alchemy until it's level 10, and you don't make a mix until you have 10 of it (for gems I generally make nine and a mana potion. I'm not sure if it's necessary to keep it from becoming an elemental stone, but just in case).

But for a lot of us, this is a moot point--just where are you going to get ten of something? Well, THAT's what I'm typing this up for. A lot of them you'll just stumble across--pearls of unicorn horns may or may not be in an enemy's inventory, you'll find maybe six Centauriums around the world map, and so on. But the four spammables are the Ghoul Brain, the Earth Element Stone, the Trachidis Egg, and the Headless Heart.

GHOUL BRAIN
Ghoul brains come from... well, ghouls. So with the easy part out of the way, let's talk about getting ghouls, or specifically making ghouls.

Hit up every graveyard you can find--I'm assuming you know or can find most of them already. Don't just kill the ghouls and grab their breains; get the Taint Shoots. "Taint Shoot" sounds like a shot you could buy at an exceptionally sleazy strip-joint, but those little puppies are your ticket to Ghoul-brain milkshakes and machine-gunning fireballs.

Get as many Taint Shoots as you can, and just carry them around with you... and keep an eye on the sky. When it gets to sunset, find a nice clear spot and drop them all on the ground (if you're startin' out with magic, pick somewhere close to a Magic Sourcee.). Ideally, you should be able to see red on the horizon but plenty of stars in the sky.

Once it's well and truly dark, those things will create three or four undead creatures each. They won't all be ghouls--you'll get some skeletons, some zombies, some undead wolves and bears--but at least a few will be, so be ready to kill them when they show up. Then pick up the brains--and if you're starting, the other valuables. Rinse, lather, repeat, every single night.

Those are the only ones with an actual infinite supply--but the other three have enough for at least a few additions.

EARTH CRYSTAL
I can't remember the name exactly, but it's earth, crystal, something, and it's basically a dragon's heart. Go east of the Bamboo Forest, and you'll find these all over the plains. Keep on going East and North, and they'll be everywhere, or just about. Go south to the shore and along there too. Kill every single one of 'em, because that's where you get massive physical resistance.

HEADLESS HEART
These come from the Turok--and if you're a genius like me, you've already figured out that these things don't have heads. They're not beheaded; they're just wierd monsters with their faces in their chests.
They live in a few underground places, and you should rejoice whenever you stumble across one--but where you want to go first is Ram's Cave. This cave is near, but not on, the western North-south road on the upper half of the map. The smaller road leading to the Forgotten Village is also nearby--go east away from the main road, past the Village, and it'll be on your right. 10 of those will give you something like 81 Vitality.


TRACHIDIS EGG
And I put this one last despite the fact that it wasn't last in the list, because this puppy is biiiiiig. This is what will get you tons of money, tons of chance valuables like pearls, tons of XP, and insane amounts of HP.
You've no doubt noticed that the road to Ashos is plagued with Trachidis, the insect things where massive queens control smaller humanoid ones with weapons. Nope--it's BLESSED with Trachidis, because each and every one of them is just waiting to give you their loot if you only know how to ask (generally, with blunt weapons). Two-handed blunt weapons can be great, although with the numbers it's hard to get the timing right. Bows can as well, especially with the multi-attack abilities because they run in big crowds. And if you use magic, fireball is handy, but bigger AoE's are your friend, things like the big poison cloud for necro. I think I counted it up once and had more than 120 Trachidis Eggs.

...

And if you want something more useful to you, like Strength and Dexterity? Get your Vitality and Willpower--and then go get your memory ganked. The points come out randomly, so about half will come from those two stats, and you can re-spend them on your Strength or Dexterity.

[*Logan*]

nice tips thanks