I’m curious about this. I never played an alchemist or herbalist in original Vanilla so I am looking for insight from those who did. I am thinking about rolling a warlock with those two professions when Classic comes around. Brewing potions, casting curses…basically being the witchiest character possible.
How tough was it to do? Were flasks and potions common in raids? I heard that the flask ingredients were notoriously hard to farm. Was it as profitable in Vanilla as it is right now in the live game?
Alch/Herber in Vanilla here. Flasks could only be crafted in Scholomance in the Ras Frostwhisper room and in BWL in a certain room. The flask recipes dropped in dungeons off of certain bosses. It wasn’t common to see them drop and usually they were contested.
As far as the rest of alch/herb its just how much you put in to it. If you spend a lot of time herbing you can make all the potions you want… assuming you have the skill to make what you want though.
Edit: You can make bank off of high end flasks and elixirs. As a Rogue I am going to want Elixir of the Mongoose.
Alchemy was and still is a profitable endeavor. I have an herbalist/alchemist and I don’t remember having any issues gathering mats for flasks. You could also do transmutes once per day and charge people and yes, raiders loves those flasks and potions to bits.
That is the pain of farming black lotus. They have a terrible spawn rate and I think one per zone that they can spawn in. If you can get a few you can make money or give them to your guild. In Loot Council guilds I have been in they took into consideration your contributions to the raid team as much as your attendance. So if you and another person both wanted the same item in a raid but they financed all the flasks it was likely it would go to them first. It makes sense too. Sorry to turn this into a loot comment lol. Kinda got away from me.
Alchemy isn’t too tough to level. Some of the recipes are hard to come by, especially flasks.
Flasks were common in raids, but it was not common for everyone to use them. Most of the time it was just the tank or a few tanks using a flask of the titans. Most of the DPS will probably be fine using elixirs instead which are far easier to come by.
The reason flasks are much less common is the rarity of black lotus. To this day in retail they’re still the most rare material because the spawn points are on a fixed timer. There is a maximum amount of black lotus which can be farmed on a server and it won’t be enough for every raider to pop one like it’s candy.
But yes, alchemy is very valuable. Even if you can only make fire protection pots and Mana pots. Heck, even if you can only make free action potions. There are so many useful potions, elixirs and flasks.
That’s kind of what I’m hoping for. Whatever guild I join will have me working hard for them in regards to supply and that kind of recognition would be awesome.
It’s actually really useful and fun while leveling, but drops off at endgame compared to engineering(as far as fun goes).
Magic shield pots, underwater breathing, trollsblood, healing, buffs and so many other utility potions really do make a difference. Especially the underwater breathing pots you can usually make for yourself on demand since Vanilla breath timers were much shorter than they are today.
I was an engineer in original Vanilla and that would definitely be tough to lose. I’m aiming for something different around this time around though.
I’d sell the underwater breathing pots since I believe warlocks did get a water breathing spell. But yep alchemy gives something for everyone which is what got me interested. xD
To make a flask in Vanilla you need to get a Black Lotus which is a very rare and expensive herb. In Vanilla to be able to craft a flask you need to go to a alchemy lab which only existed in Scholomance and Blackwing Lair I believe. Some of the really high end recipes are rare drops from dungeons so not everyone will be able to make the best potions, elixirs and flasks. All of these things make flasks very expensive and make high end potions worth alot. Also in vanilla most potions have a 2 minute cooldown which resets in combat so it very likely on long fights that there will be people that use multiple potions each fight.
Alchemy was nice farming was time consuming. I usually just farmed for mongoose to get extra agility and do transmutes every other day i think it was. But engineering and mining was more fun and just buy the potions from AH worked better for me.
