Is Alchemy broken?

[jackaho]

Background: You pick up a lot of different plants, mushrooms, and minerals while traveling. Fortunately, they don't count against your weight limit. Because of this I planned to learn alchemy as soon as I could find someone to teach it. After a while I found a necromancer in a local town who would teach me for 3,000 gold.

The problem? Nothing works like it is supposed to. Many of the items give permanent bonuses to defense, stats, and magical protections. For instance, rubies give you +15 protection against fire. As far as I know, we are supposed to brew two of the same item to get the available potion. Rubies never gave the protection they say they would. Same with other items like Magnesite and Diamond which give awesome bonuses. I reloaded and tried over and over but all I got are the "add 10% damage" items for weapons that you'll find everywhere.

For all the time I spent collecting items and looking forward to cooking them up, this is really disappointing. I even maxed to level 5 - 80% which was the highest limit available to my current level. Is alchemy broken for anyone else or is there something I am doing wrong?

[mergele]

Yes it is a bit confusing:
Only organic or plants become potions
Minerals, stones pearls etc. become either enchanting crystals or (rarly) traps/bombs
Organic components with permanent duration are very rare and should be used thoughtfully.

[moelwyn]

http://twoworldsvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Guides.Detail&id=2

This is the best guide I have found.

[jackaho]

Good guide moelwyn, but I think things have changed since the guide was written. Suddenly, these minerals that say they'll give permanent upgrades to your stats now turn into enchanting crystals and traps like mergele said.

It's very confusing and it pisses me off that they changed the results without changing the description. I was looking forward to alchemy, but this... this is just ♥♥♥♥.

[Bio Hazard]

To get the permanent stats from "rock" ingredints, gems and other junk with permanent stats just add a potion to the mix. Best results if you wait till your maxed out for alchemy, put 9 of the "hard" ingredants and one potion (any health or mana potion.) For plants just wait till you have 10 of the same and use them, no need for a potion on them.
Im not sure if you need a potion for the unicorn horn or not.