Advanced Alchemy Guide

A concise Guide to Efficient Alchemy (game). Not intended as a first read on the matter.

Introduction

So you know there're 6 primary substances: Vitriol (Vt), Rebis (R), Aether (A), Quebrith (Q), Hidragenum (H) and Verminlion (Vn). Attached to these primary substances there may have a secondary one: either rubedo (r), nigredo (n) or albedo (a).

Potions have specific formulae you need to follow in order to get it right. This pertains to primary substance only, which is to say that as long as you mixture a part of Vt with two of A (in that order) you'll get a Tawny Owl potion, regardless of any secondary substance that may be present.

However, If EVERY ingredient contains a secondary substance AND they're ALL the same, you'll get an enhanced potion with every effects of the regular one plus the effects of either rubedo, nigredo or albedo, as follows:

• rubedo - increased life regeneration - lasts for 4 hours
  
• nigredo - damage increased in 20% - lasts for 4 hours
  
• albedo - reduced toxicity of potions ingested - lasts for an hour

Effects of same secondary substance don't stack, that is, you won't get more than the 20% damage increase from nigredo, even if you drink two potions with nigredo. The best you can have is to reset the timer of the secondary effect as you drink the second nigredo potion. Different secondary effects do stack, just as happens to different potions.

Therefore, not all potions you make must have a dominant (secondary) substance, but you should, as best you can, have potions of different dominant effects. Also, should you drink more than one potion at a time, you ought to start with the albedo potion, as it will decrease your final intoxication level.

You can upgrade standard (potion) bases to top ones, that is, brew a White Gull from a Redenial Herbal, for e.g., using two portions of Vt with one of R. In this brewing you may want to use ghoul blood and celandine as ingredients, which both contain nigredo. If you do this, you’ll indeed get a nigredo white gull. If you then proceed to brew a Thunderbolt from this White Gull, it will NOT have the effect of dominant nigredo, unless ALL of the ingredients of it contain nigredo. In fact you may well get an albedo Thunderbolt from a nigredo White Gull.


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That is to teach to save your ingredients to the brews that matter. When making blade coats or bombs, use the ingredients more available to you, or the ones you won’t use in enhanced potions, especially ones without secondary substance.

Search for Ingredients

The amount of ingredients in the game can be quite daunting, but luckily you'll have this guide to aid you. In fact, I'll show you you won't have to worry about more than 18 ingredients. The reason is there are 6 primary substances times 3 secondary substances equals 18 combinations.



The table shows the ingredients you'll have to have an eye on. The colors represent their relative abundance, based on an arbitrary scale red meaning harder to find and green easier. It considers the ingredients found on chapters 1 through 3, where you'll spend most of your time.

I'll stress it again: it is an arbitrary scale, based on my own experience. Ectoplasm, for instance is reasonably abundant in chapter 1, but inaccessible in chapters 2 and 3, therefore it is considered hard to find. Not as hard as Wing Membranes or Feainnewedd, which are found in chapters 2 and 3 but not in 1, but are restrained to a rather small availability. Q(r) is a tricky combination as there's no single ingredient with such combination and appreciable abundance, but many reasonably abundant ones (like Balisse in chap1, Fool's Parsley and Gravier bone in chap2 and Kikimore claw n chap3)

Brewering

Now that you know what to look for, let's consider what to brew. Depending on the dficulty of the game you'll find brewing potions more or less important. Of course this is also a personal matter. So I'll discuss the potions I consider most important.

Your bread and butter will be Tawny Owl and Swallow. These potions you'll brew the more. Easiest enhancement is albedo and nigredo respectively, and I think you should abide by that.

Next in importance and brewing quantity come Maribor Forest and Full Moon. You should always drink these BEFORE boss fights. It would be interesting if one of then had rubedo dominance, completing the set with Owl and Swalow.

Finally comes your personal touch, the potions you consider will best suit you. I myself am not very comfortable with Thunderbolt's drawback, especially against mob fights, so I limit it's use, despite the great increase in damage. It can be very well compensated by nigredo and a blade coating (which you should use as often as possible). Wolverine, on the other hand, is quite cherished by me. Especially if you drink it right after Full Moon: you'll get it's bonus immediately! (some places tell it only works when you are under 50% Vitality, although the medallion show the effect as always active. In any case, a great potion!). Petri's Philter is another good potion, but since it is highly toxic I don't use it much. Of course you can always drink potions and meditate, to alleviate the toxicity.

Willow is one nice little potion you should always drink prior to boss fights. Cat's Eye will be necessary in only a few places (you can use the Quen sign to enlighten small dark areas in caves and crypts!). Bindweed is you best friend in the Swamp! It greatly reduces the damage of Bloedzuiger explosions, kikimore spits and Wyvern poisonous attacks. Like the previous 2 pots, it is quite easy to do in any version (r, n, a) - I like it with rubedo - might rubedo be better? Another handy potion is Wife's Tears, one of my favorites 'matter of fact. You'll need at least 7 of then in the game.
PS: White Raffard's Decoction is to be used only as a last resort, being avoided by more experienced Witchers due to it's high toxicity.

All that said, the table below shows an estimation of how many of each ingredient you'll need based on the discussion above. It also portrays the formulae of mentioned potions (red tiles indicate double portions)


The important thing to notice with it is that you don't have to spend endless hours collecting ingredients for potions, except for celandine and drowner brains, which come by tons anyway. Also, bear in mind that you don't have to brew every potion you'll ever need at one shot. Rather, you should actually do it every once in a while. And again, you don't need every single potion of yours to have a dominant substance.

Coating and Bombing

A part of alchemy often neglected is the preparation of blade coatings and bombs. That's a mistake we won't incur, right?

Oils

The first coating you'll use is likely Specter Oil, as it is effective against Barghests (also Wraiths and ifrits). Necrophage Oil is advised against ghoul family (Ghoul, Alghoul, Cemetaur, Gravier also Devourer). If you are facing the Adams family vampires (Alps, Bruxa, Fleder, Garkain), you should use, gess what, Vampire Oil, of course! Insectoid Oil will come in handy in chap 3 and 4 as it is quite effective against Kikimores and also Giant Centipede). Ornithosaur Oil will give you the boost to vanquish thoso mean Wyverns and also Basilisks. If you like things simple, just grease your blade with Argentia and you'll get a neat damage boost to everything. This is only meant to silver sword, mind you.

The coatings for the steel sword (though you might want to use it on silver swords as well) include Chinfrid Oil, which goes very well on the powerful triple red or triple yellow meteorite swords, and Brown Oil for the combative Harvall and Gwalhir.

These last oils require top quality grease as bases, but they are not hard to find: just make sure you wipe out all the stray dogs in Vizima (for their tallow) or buy bear fat at the Inn and with Kalkstein / Armorer

Bombs

As for bombs, you should consider having near at hand a Samum, for getting out of tight situations (although Quen sign can do the trick) or just getting an easy kill. Zerrikanian Sun combos nicely with fast silver stile and Devil's Puffbal is supposedly quite effective against vampires. Dragon's Dream is Havoc and combos with strong silver stile, though if are probably better off investing in Igni sign, especially because it requires the rare alquemist's powender or zerrikanian mix.

• It never hurts to reinforce, Bombs and Oils don't receive bonuses from secondary substances.

[JDaniels]

I just want to thank all the people that come by and comment and upvote my guide. It feels so good to see something I wrote so long ago still being useful and also seeing that ppl still play this awesome game!

[Olynx]

Oh wow, it's the 3rd time I'm replaying this game and only now I've noticed this enhanced effect. Thank you for sharing this guide!

[Mythical9167]

I accidently created an enhanced potion, got the bonus effect and instantly thought "The fuck is this?" lol Thanks for the clarification.

[NickL255]

I would suggest using Wolf's aloe leaves as a substitute for ectoplasm after chapter one as it is easy to get in chapters 2, 3, and 5. That is what I used to make a bunch of Albedo White Raffard's Decoction for emergencies (as well as full moon for general use).

[8-bit]

@jDaniels Thanks for the headsup. :-)

[JDaniels]

@SyrianSlayer
Nope. It's in the very last sentence of the guide (-:

@8-bit
Blizzard potion is rubish imho. All it does is lag the game

[8-bit]

No mention of Blizzard?

[SyrianSlayer]

Does secondary substance matter when making oils and bombs?

[PersonalC0ffee]

Kalkstien would be proud.

[jbr2575]

Impressively detailed Alchemy guide. I have to admit I never researched the secondary effects to this extent and I truly appreciate that you did.