Irinia's guide to modern Apothecary

[Irinia]

What is Apothecary?

Apothecary is the science of creating potions and dyes. With apothecary, you can make potions that boost your stats, restore your health, or take away the enemy's health. Potions with durations in minutes should persist through death, while short-term pots such as HoT and DoT will not. Apothecarys can make 6 colors of dye not readily available any other way. Apothecary counts as a crafting skill and is mutually exclusive with Talisman Making.

Apothecary Basics

After you learn apothecary from a trainer, you should drag the icon to open the apothecary window from the General tab of your abilities window onto your hotbar. At its most basic, creating a potion is as simple as selecting a vial, selecting a main ingredient, and stabilizing it.

In the image to the right, the green area is where the vial is placed. The red area is where the main ingredient is placed. The blue area is where stabilizers, multipliers, and lengtheners may be placed. The purple area is the instability meter.

Vials ☐

To create a potion, you need a vial to contain it. Besides simply containing the result, most vials also add stability; this means you can use a higher level vial to reduce the level or number of stabilizers you need. Many vials also add power; this means you can potentially make a higher level potion with the same main ingredient.

Crafting vendors and merchants arround the world have lvl1, lvl50, lvl100, and lvl150 vials available for purchase.
Guild vials of levels 50, 100, and 150 are available to members of guilds of sufficient level in Sigmar's Hammer in Altdorf for Order or in the Viper Pit in Inevitable City for Destruction.
Public Quests may drop lvl200 vials in loot bags.

Main Ingredients ☐

Main ingredients set the effect that the potion will have as well as the baseline stats. You must have a main ingredient to create a potion. Higher level main ingredients tend to yield higher level pots, though it is possible to boost the level of a pot by using high level vials. The main ingredient sets the amount of stability required to complete the potion. Main ingredients do not drop off mobs; to gain main ingredients, you need a gathering profession.

Cultivation offers a wide variety of main ingredients.
Butchering offers main ingredients for toughness, absorb shields, elemental resistance, thorn shields, and armor in addition to many effects also available from cultivation.

Stabilizers, Extenders, Multipliers, and Stimulants ☐

This is the area where you can customize your result. You can add up to three of these. You can make low-level pots without adding a single item to this area (this is not possible at lvl1, however).

Stabilizers

Main ingredients have varying levels of instability. To counter this, you usually add stabilizers. There are four types of stabilizer. Higher level stabilizers provide more stability

Water is available from crafting vendors and guild vendors. lvl1 water will be your main source for stabilization untill after lvl100.
Zoic Gore is available from butchering wolves and other animals.
Resin is available from cultivation by reaping (Ctrl-RClick) a grown plant of any standard type in your backpack.
Goldweed is available from cultivation by raising a goldweed seed.

Extenders

To make long-acting potions, you want an extender. Higher level extenders add more duration.

Cultivation provides extenders by raising gobswort seeds
Butchering boars provides lengtheners

Multipliers

Normally, you only make one pot at a time, but some ingredients can magicly cause you to make more. It's important to note that there are certain thresholds to create each additional potion; just because you add a multiplier doesn't mean you will get an extra potion.

Cultivation provides multipliers by raising fusk spores
Butchering squigs provides multipliers

Stimulants

Stimulants increase your crit chance directly. Unfortunately, the increase is often not worth the use of a slot: using a multiplier will usually be a better choice since when you crit from the base chance, you'll make more crit pots.

Cultivation provides stimulants by raising marshroot seeds

The instability meter ☐

This meter shows you whether your potion will be successful. When the arrow is at the top, you'll create a normal potion. When the arrow is at the bottom, you'll fail to create anything at all and lose your vial and certain other components you used. When the arrow is in the middle, you might fail, or you might create a volatile potion. Volatile potions have deminished effect and a chance of a negative effect.

Life as an Apothecary

Gathering

To perform your trade, you're going to need ingredients. This means you'll need a gathering skill.

Cultivation is apothecary on easy mode. Once you've estabilished your set of seeds, you can create whatever you want whenever you want for naught but time (to actually make a pot, you need to buy a vial, however). Cultivation provides 12 different main ingredients, covering offensive stats, DoTs, healing, energy, and corporeal and spiritual resistance. Cultivation also provides stabilizers, extenders, multipliers, and stimulants
Butchering provides basics and many desirable effects that cultivation does not. Toughness, absorb shields, elemental resistance, thorn shields, and armor are all butchering-exclusive effects. Butchering can only gather from non-sentient beasts which means you'll need to go out of your way to gather. The plus side is that you can easily target mobs that drop what you're after.

Addons

Addons will help you understand exactly how different ingredients effect the outcome or otherwise make your life easier. You cannot view crafting item stats in-game without addons.

Crafting Info Tooltip shows you the stats on your apothecary ingredients by adding the information to the game tooltip. Using it lets you easily browse and select the ingredients you need. These stats will be discussed at length later in this guide.
CraftingWillard sums up the stats on your apothecary ingredients in-use in a window above the apothecary window; this makes it easy to see your progress toward the final stats you need to make the pot you want. It also predicts the effect of the pot you will make. Stats will be discussed at length later in this guide.
EZCraft allows you to select an item for an apothecary slot using a convenient list of all the appropriate items in your bags.

Dyes

Dyes are made using a mortar and pestle, a pigment, and a fixer. You must have all three to make a dye. Pigments come only from cultivation. There are six that you can obtain; each always makes the same color dye.

Stats

The stats control what pot you will make. Unfortunately, there is no way to see these stats except with addons. Apothecary uses seven stats: effect, stability, power, duration, multiplier, crit bonus, and special(super-crit) bonus.

Effect

Each main ingredient contributes an effect. There are 18 different standard effects you can get:

Healing provides an instant HP boost
Restoration provides HP over time
Energy provides an instant AP boost

Damage absorbing absorbs up to a certain amount of damage within a certain amount of time
Thorny reacts to melee attacks by damaging the attacker

Molotov deals damage over time to a single target
Napalm deals damage over time to enemies within an area centered arround the enemy target
Flaming Breath deals damage over time to targets in a cone in front of you

Snaring slows enemies within an area

Ballistic Skill increases your ballistic skill
Armor increases your armor stat
Intelligence increases your intelligence stat
Strength increases your strength stat
Toughness increases your toughness stat
Willpower increases your willpower stat

Corporeal resistance increases your corporeal resistance stat
Elemental resistance increases your elemental resistance stat
Spiritual resistance increases your spiritual resistance stat

Additionally, there are special effects from cultivating hybrid seeds and special ingredients available from the guild vendor. Pots made with these effects may not follow all the mechanics in this guide. In general, there is only one possible pot you can make from each special effect main ingredient. The pots effects you can make with hybrid seeds are:

+100 Ballistics Skill +3% Ranged Critical Chance
+100 Intelligence +3% Magic Critical Chance
+100 Strength +60 Healing Power
+100 Strength +60 Melee Power
+100 Toughness +3% Melee Critical Chance
+100 Willpower +60 Healing Power
+80 Wounds +80 Strength
+100 Wounds +60 Melee Power
+100 Wounds +60 Healing Power
+100 Wounds +3% Melee Critical Chance
+100 Wounds +3% Magic Critical Chance
+100 Wounds +3% Ranged Critical Chance

Stability

Stability is the most critical stat, as failing to have adequate stability will cause you to make nothing at all.

Stability is effected by your level of apothecary:

Level
1-99
100-199
200

Stability bonus
+0
+1
+2

The following chart shows the effect of stability:

Stability
≤0
1
≥2

Result
Failure. Vial and certain other components destroied
Volatile. Potion will be volatile and its effect will not be dependable
Success. A normal potion will be created

Power

Power controls the magnitude of the potion effect, as well as the player rank required to use it. At rank 40, there may still be several "tiers" of potions you can make, though there is currently no known way to exceed 22 power.

Power is effected by your level of apothecary:

Level
1-99
100-199
200

Power bonus
+0
+1
+2

The following chart shows the effect of power:

Power
1-2
3-4
5-6
7-8
9-10
11-12
13-14
15-16
17-18
19-20
21-22

Use requirement
rank 1
rank 5
rank 10
rank 15
rank 20
rank 25
rank 30
rank 32
rank 35
rank 38
rank 40

Duration

Duration controls how long your potion will last.

There are five classes of potions when considering duration:
Instant potions are instant and duration has no effect. Healing and Energy are in this category
Long potions last 5 to 60 minutes. Stat, Resist, and Thorny are in this category
Absorb potions last 5-30 seconds.
Snare potions last 3-7 seconds.
Short potions last 6-18 seconds. Everything else is in this category

There are no level bonuses for duration.

The following chart shows the effect of duration:

Duration
0-1
2-3
4-7
8-15
≥16

Prefix
Fleeting
Brief
(none)
Enduring
Lasting

Short
6 sec
9 sec
12 sec
15 sec
18 sec

Long
5 min
10 min
15 min
30 min
60 min

Absorb
5 sec
10 sec
15 sec
20 sec
30 sec

Snare
3 sec
4 sec
5 sec
6 sec
7 sec

Multiplier

Multiplier allows you to make multiple potions at a time

There is no level bonus for multiplier

The following chart shows the effects of multiplier:

Multiplier
0-1
2-3
4-7
8-14
16-28
32

Number of potions
1
2
3
4
5
6

Crit Bonus

Crit bonus increases your chance to get "You made something better," which increases the power by 1. Half the time, this means that getting "You made something better" will have the same result as a non-crit result. If you're on the edge, though, crit bonus can be of great value.

Special(Super-Crit) Bonus

Special bonus increases your chance to get "You made something awesome," which increases the power by 1 and creates a blue potion.

Critical Effects

There are two critical effects: "You made something better," and "You made something awesome."
"You made something better," the normal critical effect, increases the power of your potion by 1
"You made something awesome," the super-critical effect, either decreases the required level to use the potion or increases the effect magnitude, depending on the potion effect. The resulting potion will have the prefix "Potent"

Volatile Potions

By choice or accident, you can make volatile potions. These potions have the prefix "Volatile." While these pots are now generally useless for actual play, you can still level up by making them.

Guild Mats
This section has not been updated since 1.1

If you are in a guild, you may have access to various ingredients though your guild hall.
Order's guild hall is Sigmar's Hammer, in southwest Altdorf. You can purchace apothecary ingredients from the quartermaster.
Destruction's guild hall is the Viper's Pit, somewhere in the Inevitable City.

If I understand correctly, these are the guild levels and items:

Guild level
7
12
21
28

Mats available
lvl1 water, lvl1 vial, lvl1 main ingredients
lvl50 vial, lvl40 main ingredients
lvl100 vial, lvl90 main ingredients
lvl150 vial, lvl140 main ingredients

Leveling Tips
This section has not been updated since 1.1

• You can level from 1 to 50 entirely on crafting vendor mats.
• You can level from 50 to 100 entirely with crafting vendor water and vials with main ingredients from other sources.
• After level 100, you will need gathered stabilizers.
• If you have the needed guild level, you can save yourself a lot of trouble and expense by using guild mats.
• You can get the buff "Artisan's Gift" by talking to the sergeant at so-marked battlefield objectives if your side controls them. This buff increases your apothecary skill by 10 for 30 minutes, allowing you to use higher-level mats.
• You can increase your level making volatile pots.

[Burntheheretic]

Amazing Guide thankyou. I was torn between talisman making and Apothecary for my Dwarf Runepriest. Now i know what to take.

One Dwarf Alchemist coming up!

[NonUniqueName]

Thanks, great article!. Very clear and concise.


I'd never call apoth a science however. Its just a simple system, far too simple and really lacks much of the experimental range you would usually associate with science. And then the potion effects are simply magic, there is no way to apply any of the scientific method to the game world.

[rain9441]

Tons of useful info here. Vote for sticky. This guide is so good i'd send you in game gold for it. =]

[Chalcedony]

Wow. DH and I both agree, two thumbs up!

We are both 200 Apoth but we did it by hook and by crook -- this makes it so much more understandable. Crafting Willard is just excellent

[Zuth]

Just keep bumping til they sticky this

Bump, bump, bump

[Usarina]

Originally Posted by Irinia

Apothecary uses seven stats: effect, stability, power, duration, multiplier, and crit bonus.

Six is the number, not Five nor Seven, Six shall it be.

Excellent guide, excellent add-ons.

Sticky please.

[Onni]

Bump, bump, bump.

It's so shiny and pure that I'm afraid to read it. Good job Irinia.

[Aislien]

sticky this plz. great guide and THANKS!

[Sunshiro]

Very nice guide but still....Could you name locations? For example from apothecary rank 100-120, farm mobs with scavenging or butchering in these chapters. 20 lvl mobs. Something like that would help a lot. From apothecary rank 50-75, you can get the required materials in order to increase your current rank farming 15 lvl mobs in XX chapters. Could you do that?

[Sunshiro]

Guild mats? Where i can see the guild mats? Which is the NPC and where is that npc? Is the npc in Sigmar's Hammer? My guild is rank 23.

[Sunshiro]

ah you wrote where is the npc. sry i didnt read it.

[JimmahJammah]

Crafting info tooltip = a godsend!

though I do have two questions for you Irina.

1. How long did it take to create the data needed for all the mats.

2. What is your most commonly made potion, and why?

[Irinia]

The data is in the game already, except the seed information.

I make a lot of vendor thorn pots, 'cause they're cheap and useful. I have some guildies that are big fans of flaming breath pots.

[Zacariah]

Just FYI, I was able to get to at least 150 using the LvL 90 Thorn husks main and 100 vials from the Sigmar vendor and 3 of the lvl 1 vendor waters. Most of these produced lvl 30, 29 damage, 10 minute thorn pots, crits resulted in longer duration or lower level requirements. Almost 10s a pot and they sell for quite a bit more.