Arelith

I applaud the addition of temporary essences to the crafting matrix and the adjustment to glassware is a wonderful quality of life change, but I have to say my heart dropped when I read that +2 and +3 essences were removed.

I play an alchemist archer that for her entire career has been making essences for her arrow bundles. It was already difficult to keep up with the production of +2 essences for the bundle, but it will be down right impossible to produce +1d4 or higher essences in anything even in the same realm as the rate I go through arrows even in the occasional single dungeon trip.

My go to essence was a +2 positive, requiring 2 crafting points to cut the 2 Fire Agate, 4 crafting points to make 2 glass and then 2 glass bottles (one for the catalyst and one for the essence), 8 crafting points to make the catalyst, and 24 crafting points to make the essence. I bought my ingots from a smith, which means every essence took me 30 crafting points and I could get nearly 2 essences in a given crafting day.

My new best case will be a +1d4 positive, requiring the same 2 crafting points to cut the 2 Fire Agate, 10 crafting points to make 10 glass, 5 crafting points to make 5 bottles (still works out to the same cost in the long run, but does potentially leave my dex character hauling around a lot of glassware), 40 crafting points to make the catalyst, and 24 crafting points to make the essence. I will still buy my ingots from a smith, but now instead of making almost two essences per crafting day, the 64 to 79 crafting points (depending on if I already have extra glassware) means that it will take me around twice as long to make an essence that will carry with it an average damage increase of 0.5 damage.

Would it be possible to get the +2 essences added back in to address this? While we are at it, would it be possible to change the glass recipe to be half of its current? 1 sand and 1 coal with 5 crafting points for 5 glass would be the same cost, but in my personal case would mean carrying less leftover glass until the next time I am ready to use it.

If I understand the wiki right, what you can do is apply a temporary essence to a bundle of arrows, split it by 1, then the other 98 will become permanent.

http://wiki.arelith.com/Weapon_guide

liver and bones wrote:If I understand the wiki right, what you can do is apply a temporary essence to a bundle of arrows, split it by 1, then the other 98 will become permanent.

http://wiki.arelith.com/Weapon_guide

I appreciate the reply, but you are misunderstanding that guide. An arrow bundle is specifically a club that can be crafted. You can apply essences to that club and then use its special property up to five times to remove a charge from the bundle and get a 99 stack of arrows in your inventory that has the same properties (essences) as the bundle did.

Yes I can see what the OP means. I only made an archer recently and read/researched a lot of posts to see what making arrows entailed. On another thread it was mentioned that you could add a permanent essence, then a temp and split a bundle. Doing that with a +4 essence was extremely expensive to do but the +2 - +3 was cheaper and only slightly less damage (also only required a standard essence rather than a greater one). Now that these 2 types of permanent have been removed it makes it even worse to try and make, with no way to even craft the 2-3, only finding them in loot. What about making an "oil" that only applies to bundles or arrows that is similar to the essences that can be added to alchemy craft, say a lesser archers oil +2 and a greater archer oil +3 ? It needs something as the removal took away a huge chunk/viable option to make arrows acceptable.

With the enchantment change to take away the xp loss on failure for non-5% enchantments, does that route become more feasible for your character?

Lorkas wrote:With the enchantment change to take away the xp loss on failure for non-5% enchantments, does that route become more feasible for your character?

I will have to look into the cost and % chance before answering that for myself, but, I am going to be blunt, I took Alchemy exclusively so that I could make the essences for my own arrows. It is true that Alchemy has other uses, but if I was not planning to make it my primary craft for essences, then the character would have been another type of crafter (specifically a tailor).

What was the positive impact to the server of removing +2 essences specifically? I don't mind when I get clipped negatively by changes that are an overall improvement for the server, but that change had no reasoning publicly attached to it. A perfect example of this is the AI changes. It is now effectively impossible for my archer to solo any area granting more then single digit XP, but I believe the change is an overall positive for the server.

yeah kinda sucks when things get changed that ain't in your favour, but you can change god to the Red knight and get auto success on crafting from "knowledge and invention" while also getting "war and destruction" for easy piety gain.

Seekeepeek wrote:yeah kinda sucks when things get changed that ain't in your favour, but you can change god to the Red knight and get auto success on crafting from "knowledge and invention" while also getting "war and destruction" for easy piety gain.

I have absolutely no issue with well considered and overall positive changes negatively affecting any given character of mine. I just feel that it is entirely reasonable to either reverse this removal or at least provide some explanation of how removing these +2 essences improves the server. My feelings are not as strong with the +3 essence as they were very similar in quality and cost to the +1d4 essences and therefor still have a viable alternative. The +2 essences were the only permanent essence to make use of the lesser catalyst and the crafting cost in points alone, ignoring material cost, makes those very different things.

sorry, i wasn't trying to push you into a corner. guess my post should had been like this:

Change god to the Red knight and get auto success on crafting from "knowledge and invention" while also getting "war and destruction" for easy piety gain.

i hope that's perhaps a help to solve your problem. my bad

Lorkas wrote:With the enchantment change to take away the xp loss on failure for non-5% enchantments, does that route become more feasible for your character?

I stopped by an enchanting basin and checked, applying an elemental damage enchant to my bundles of arrows is indeed a 5% roll with more then 700 xp on the line. It was a good thought, but that is absolutely in no way feasible for something that I normally go through more then one of in a given trip to a dungeon.

On a side note, Darts and Shurikens cannot be enchanted at the Basin. Adding a +2 perm essence to an Enhanced stack was a good strategy.
I haven't found any +2 or +3 perm essences yet.