Potions, Herbalism and Fishing

[Baseili]

Lately I have been greatly enjoying herbalism and fishing, two aspects that until now I have often ignored on my characters favouring almost any other crafting profession due to herbalisms limited shelf life, if you'll forgive the pun.

Since the new changes potion making has become quite useful, particularly the cure wound line, however I've experienced a few issues that I'll go into more detail about below. Over all I believe herbalism is in a good place with it offering a good variety of useful items and would like to extend my thanks to the team for their excellent work.

Potions of Black Warding and Freedom
These two potions are the prickly thorns I have come across in the herbalism profession as they are expensive to make and make very few, even with the removal of kings crown. Costing over 2000 gold in time and materials to create, I would suggest doubling the output from 2 to 4 potions which would bring the potions down to a more reasonable 600gp each mark.

Black Potion of Warding

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24 craft points (50gp per point) 1200gp
1 obsidian - 100gp
2 glass bottles - 200gp
6 greenstone dust - 300gp
2 mojo - 523gp  (10 glass vials 1,000 - 5 aventurine dust 325gp - 10 fruit 40gp - 2 sassone leaves 50gp - 24 craft points 1200gp)
= 2,323 /2 
= 1,162

Potion of Freedom

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22 craft points (50gp per point) 1100gp
1 strideleaf - 50gp
2 glass bottles - 200gp
6 malachite dust - 300gp
2 mojo - 523gp 
= 2,128 /2 
= 1,064

Potions of Feather Falling and Gills
These are two of the most expensive potions herbalism can create, and while they last till a server reset they are incredibly niche, each needing 30 crafting points for a single potion raising them to 1,500 before ingredients. A skyhigh cost compared to the brewed potion of Waterbreathing which takes a mere 135gp to brew and lasts 24 hours.

Feather Fall however is a unique effect shared only by winged races and classes currently which does qualify it for a high cost though perhaps not quite as eyewateringly high as it is presently.

For both I would suggest a heavy cut in crafting point usage, down to 5-8 and increasing the amount created to 4.

Ultrasight Tinct, Oread's Elixir and Elemental Aegis
These potions I could not honestly give feedback on due being unable to find lumpfish fluid in any reliable form, granted I have not yet explored every single fishin spot, nor the entire ocean but to make something as tooth-achingly simple as ultrasight the hurdles feel unduly excessive.
As much as I enjoy sailing I would highly recommend the ingredients for these potions be attainable from land based fishing spots otherwise they will remain ignored, perhaps allowing greater amounts to be collected via sailing to give value to the skill.

Healing Kits
The backbone of any herbalist and worthy of a point invested by any character. The +1 kits are lifesavers which I cannot understate their incredible usefulness and cheapness to produce, however the higher level kits pale in comparison even with the addition of DR. The rest however do not match up increasing in DC by 5, 10 to 15 times the +1 kits and crafting points by 4, 12 and 19 yet granting +2, +5 (DR /3) and +9 (DR /5) healing, in terms of production power you could make 20, 30 and 50 +1 kits for the same crafting point investment.
I would suggest axing the +3 kit entirely and adjusting the +6 and +10 kits to take their respective spots (+6 would take on the +3's DC and craft point requirement, the +10 would take on former +6's) to narrow the gap and give the more powerful kits a reason to be created.

[Ellisaria]

Agree 100% with this post.

It’s less of a hassle for me to buy a wand for things like Death Ward and Freedom of Movement than to use my craft skill. IMO this should be done like cotton / spider silk in that there should be two versions - one using fishing ingredients and one using land-based ingredients. Not everyone is or wants to be a sailor and fisher person, and these useful potions seem kept locked behind that niche skill set.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Having a fishing market has a lot of potential though. You don't have to fish to get fish stuffs, you just need someone willing to sell you the things for the potions while still allowing you to make a profit on said potions. Mind you, I have no idea if it's at that point because I haven't looked at herbalism in a good bit, but the potential is there.

[ElvenEdibles]

You can (or could) buy Shield potions from a certain trade outpost for cheaper than they cost to brew. (I think they should be cheaper to brew, not necessarily removed from the certain trade outpost.)

[AstralUniverse]

Great Feedback.

I think I only disagree about potions of freedom and deathward. I think their recipes are fine and their produce is appropriate to the ingredients costs. I was selling potions of freedom for 800, NEP for 700 and I didnt bother with deathward because I didnt have any obsidian at the time but I'd sell those for 1k easily because they last pretty much until you rest and you dont need them in most dungeons. It's worth noting the the main thing holding back the NEP potions economy is the ridiculous amount of NEP (5) potions found all over the place (but for a good reason. this buff is just too good to be exclusive). So over all I think this line of potion is fine.

I made a thread about Healing Draughts long time ago. This potion makes no sense. It's basically only useful to just mass produce and pawn at peddlers for much more than any sensible player would pay for them and their recipe is basically nothing. They arent so interactive but I'll take free coin or pour them on my friends when I have spare crafting points, why not.

Anything to do with fishing was just getting too complicated and cross-trade for me to bother with. It makes the entire scope of herbalism waaaaaay too complex and I'm mostly glad I was not depended on fishing to make the vast majority of the potions I wanted to make.

[Baseili]

Thank you all for the comments and feedback.

I would welcome a good fish market were I could buy ingredients without having to throw points into sail, however I have only seen lumpfish fluid for sale in a single shop and for 1000 for 1. If folks know where to get a supply and want to sell it for a reasonable price then I am all for it.

It did strike me as odd that potions of warding (NEP) use basically the same recipe and roughly the same crafting points yet produce 4, it was one of the reasons I suggested a change to bring the other two into line with it.

[Mattamue]

I don't think this is foig. Lump fish are fishable from the shore. They're like 30% catch off of large or huge bait

[Archnon]

Going to have to agree with OP on most points here as a die-hard herbalism crafter on most of my characters. Though, i think instead of increasing the amount of output I would suggest other changes:

1.) Reduce the malachite and greenstone dust required. Right now, it is a lot for the high end potions.
2.) Increase the output of obsidian nodes. They, at best, put out 2. This is really low given that it is already a relatively rare resource. I think you could safely double it.

As far as fishing goes, so far I have enjoyed finding all the right ingredients in game and I think the recent changes were solid in that regard.

[Eyeliner]

Agree 100% with this post.

It’s less of a hassle for me to buy a wand for things like Death Ward and Freedom of Movement than to use my craft skill. IMO this should be done like cotton / spider silk in that there should be two versions - one using fishing ingredients and one using land-based ingredients. Not everyone is or wants to be a sailor and fisher person, and these useful potions seem kept locked behind that niche skill set.

Between playtimes/time zones, the many settlements, the speed at which characters come and go and the general flakiness inherent to online games I've never had success with relying on buying items I can't make or acquire from others on a regular basis for use in my own crafting. Getting help with steps on a big-ticket item like an endgame weapon or armor, yeah, but that's high value stuff made less often and that may only require asking one-time favors.

I think that's a noble idea it just doesn't work that well for consumables you're supposed to be constantly creating. I don't think most players interested in being middlemen doing things like fishing to provide mats for craft guilds for anything but a brief lark. It's awesome the fishing option exists but maybe it should be one of several paths to the same result because the more (and different) potential sources the better.

[Baseili]

I've been keeping records of all my catches along the various fishing spots and sea grids, so far all the shoreline spots I've tried have never yielded any lumpfish and thus far every piece of advice of tip has been contrary to the previous one land spot/ocean fishing or northern waters/southern waters. At this point I'm honestly baffled.

You would be surprised how much money can be made from supply, especially if its items very few bother to stock. I ran a particularly hole-in-the-wall shop in Cordor selling gems and dusts, along with some basic alchemy items. It was shockingly popular to the point I had five different people supplying me with gems simply because I couldn't keep up with demand alone.

[perseid]

You can (or could) buy Shield potions from a certain trade outpost for cheaper than they cost to brew. (I think they should be cheaper to brew, not necessarily removed from the certain trade outpost.)

Another alternative would be raising the caster level of the brewed variants. I could be wrong, but I believe that the npc variant is actually the same caster level as the player made variant which isn't the case for many other potions that can either be bought from npcs or found in the wild.

[ElvenEdibles]

Thatd work too and honestly I think thatd be a better solution