Alchemists have generally been my favorite go-to class type in games that have them. Usually, in exchange for a higher investment of time constantly farming and typically a little more effort to learn you can craft interesting things and get more combat utility and creativity than average, related to the mad/magical scientist theme.
I was as such disappointed when on rolling one up: The damage skills are difficult to use and barely related to the theme with sub-par damage. The support skills are one-dimensional, with sub-par effect compared to other classes despite the item cost. And the resource gathering/crafting skills largely produce trash items with no particular value.
Effectively the only marginally useful things it has going for it are SP pot sprinkling since SP recovery is rare, and the AFK shop options.
And worse than that- they don’t have any particular synergy with other classes in the tree, making them effectively a dead-end class that you tack onto a character with two others that can hopefully be useful enough without a third to work with.
I would as such beg of you: please, rebalance this class as a whole to be viable for damage, support, and crafting, and to work better within its theme.
My particular suggestions for it are as follows
1: Remove combustion and alchemistic missile entirely. Apart from their names they don’t have effectively anything to do with the class theme. And as noted, their damage is forgettable anyhow.
2: Replace sprinkle hp potion and sprinkle sp potion with three different skills: Throw Catalyst, Throw Solvent, Throw Reactant.
All of these start working in effectively the same way: by consuming an item placed in the correlating alchemist shop slot, the player throws an item to a selected location and creates an AoE effect. However, once there, they behave differently:
Throw Reactant (level 5 max, 25s CD) creates a moderately sized AoE magic circle that buffs and/or heals allies over time while they stand inside it based on the particular potion used as a reactant- and boosted by the potion level, skill level, and user’s SPR and heal ratings.
Throw Solvent (level 5 max, 25s CD) creates a moderately sized AoE magic circle that debuffs and/or damages enemies over time while they stand inside it based on the particular potion used as a solvent- and boosted by the potion level, skill level, and user’s INT and magic attack ratings.
Throw Catalyst (level 15 max, 5 OH, 20s CD)- however, creates an immediate, relatively small AoE explosion with effect determined by the potion used as a Catalyst: in that being healing, damaging, buffing, debuffing, or potentially just different elemental effects- boosted by the potion level, skill level, and related stats.
Further details:
If a reactant and solvent AoE circle overlap, their effects merge- players will receive the opposite of the debuff that enemies receive from the solvent, and enemies will receive opposite the buff that players receive- in addition to the buffs/debuffs they’d get from the circles normally from the individual circles.
If a catalyst explosion touches the AoE circle of a reactant or solvent (or potentially any allied magic circle), the circles explode along with the catalyst: giving a large part of their remaining damage/heal over time effect to any allies/enemies standing over them in an instantaneous burst- this also affecting flying enemies over the circles- and a boosted version of whatever buffs/debuffs for a short duration.
Also, add the art: Sticky Compounds- allies or enemies that leave the AoE for reactants/solvents continue to receive their effects- and create a trail following their footsteps that spread them to others that step on it- for a short duration.
Additionally: when touched by different elements/ground based skills of other wizard classes, allow for additional buffing or debuffing or damaging effects to be granted to the circles for reactants and solvents- or in turn, for the effects of those element/ground based skills to be altered or boosted.
3: Replace the trash items produced by Magnus Opus with a variety of catalysts, reactants, and solvents. These taking potions made by tincturing and various items and making them into fuel for the forementioned skills, with effects boosted or altered depending on the materials.
4: Ensure that the items one digs up are actually useful in crafting potions through tincturing or catalysts/reactants/reagents/remaining non-trash items through Magnus Opus.
Also: potentially add another art, Deep Dig- that leaves a hole when dig is used that staggers/stops enemies that step in them for a short duration. Allowing for it to simultaneously be a defensive rather than just collecting skill?
5: Do something with homunculus to make them viable.