Consider the following situation. You fell into a party without healers and everyone starts to complain about it, but you’re an Alchemist full of potions! Still, no one cares…
The reasons behind this are many. Primarily because players rarely get organized before anything (except Earth Tower). With the number of trades between players being limited (thanks IMC) and items becoming untradable (thanks IMC²), distribute potions between members of a party can be frustrating or simply impossible.
It’s a fact that potions are useful and many players look for Alchemists to create them, but in the hands of an Alchemist they aren’t useful except to the Alchemist himself!
My suggestion is very simple: Make potions useful to a party while in possession of an Alchemist. By throwing them at players, or even using in some skill similar to Mass Heal. I know it seems just “another RO stuff”, but Homunculi are already a reality, right?
I don’t want to see Clerics being replaced, really. Just see Alchemists being able to aid ppl while in action.