Full Metal Alchemist! - Alchemy 101

[Grizzlebeard]

Can we get this thread stickied please?

/bump

[Amphysvena]

This is what I did. I am currently lv96+2 with guild point items.

1-6 : Tsurara
6-12 : Poison Dust (Yellow Globe)
12-16 : Mercury
16-18 : Poison Potion
18-20 : Echo Drops
20-24 : Silent Oil (Slime oil version)
24-30 : Eye Drops (Sold to npc for 500 less per stack then AH, max fame helps)
30-34 : Artificial Lens
34-41 : Potions and/or Prism Powder
41-43 : Vitriol
43-51 : Ether and/or Holy water
51-61 : Hi Potion, Cermet Chunk, Venom Dust (best IMO), Glass Fiber
61-68 : Venom Potion and/or Hi Ether
68-71 : Spartan Bullet and/or Paralysis Dust (Three Eyed Fish)
71-76/78 : Venom Boltheads or Paralyze Potions
78-81 : Bloody Boltheads
78-84 : Ouka Ranman
84-85 : Repair Broken Comp. Rod
I had both of the + Alchemy skill items by now.
85-91 : Mamushito
85-93 : Icarus Wing (Lost alot of money on these but they sold semi-fast and got the job done.)
93-98 : Panacaea (Make platinum nuggets to 96 with this)
98-100 : Pro Ether and/or Sun Water

Granted this might not be the greatest path but its what I did. You can probably find other things to make at certain lvls for cheaper or more profit, depends on your server. Hope this helps.

[Grizzlebeard]

(51) Holy Water - Very cheap to make and good skill raiser
(58) Cermet Chunks - Expensive investment but you don't lose too much money on the combines
(62) Venom Dust - Lightning + Ogre Eel x2 - A nice welcome break from the expensive Cermet recipe. Ogre eels roughly 2k a stack on Fenrir so no real tears shed if you fail many combines
(68) Venom Potion - Water + Venom Dust + Mercury - Use those many stacks of dust you made getting to 62 and if you have any mercury left use that otherwise buy it or farm it. Again, pretty cheap recipe to get you to 68.

I generally use Advanced Synth Support for all the above until I'm within one or two points of the cap.

[Grizzlebeard]

/bump

Keeping this near the top.

[FFXITsukasa]

Well my Ranger friend wants to try some of my ammunition that I can make with Alchemy and since I am also leveling my Smithing then eventually I wil be able to synth steel ingots. Im gonna take smithing to 30 or 40 for making bullets and elemental arrows. I got to level 51 Alchemy last night, so of the low levels in my LS are currently saving all their Flint Stones for me so once I get a stock pile of those I will stop smithing and return to Alchemy. I'm still trying to get rid of all my Carbon Rods. :/

[Crowzukin]

DO NOT make the ice and lightning arrows. You will lose a crap load of money. For example, the lightning arrows on Fairy sell for 5k gil per stack of 99, but as you can see, one of the ingredients is a steel ingot, which itself sells for 4-5k. But you only get 33 arrows from one synth (assuming you don't get a HQ), so you are losing major gil.

Edit: Forgot to mention that the reason why the arrows sell for so little is that you can make them more cheaply through Woodworking.

[nhusted]

These are the items you're looking at post 60 for the cheapest and fastest skillups (I'll let you figure out the skill caps and recipes):

Venom Dust, Venom Potions, Venom Bolt Heads, Paralysis Dust, Paralysis Potions, Ouka Ranman, Mamushito, Cannon Shells, Paltinum Nuggets, Pannacea, Sun Water, and whatever that lvl 100 potion is called.

[Patchinko]

I'm 60 now, but am not sure what to use to skill up. Looking at mysterytour, the Ice and Lightning Arrow synths are tempting, but I'm wondering if they're for real. Can anyone confirm these?

Ice Arrow
Alchemy(65)
Wood(8)
Ice Crystal
Cermet Chunk　
Maple Lumber　
Insect Wing ×2

Lightning Arrow
Alchemy(65)
Wood(?)
Lightning Crystal
Steel Ingot
Arrowwood Lbr.
Insect Wing ×2

Lightning Arrow
Alchemy(65)
Wood(?)
Lightning Crystal
Maple Lumber
Insect Wing ×2
Steel Ingot

Also, assuming they do exist, does the Woodworking cap on the lighning arrows seem to be the same as the one for ice arrows (8)? And is there a similar synth for ice arrows using arrowwood lumber (since there's one for arrowwood and one for maple for lightning)?

Thanks to anyone who could answer this. ^^

[keoni004]

0-6 - Tsurara
6-10 - Deodorizer
10-16 - Mercury
16-20 - Echo Drops
20-28 - Sairui-ran (Requires cooking skill at 11. This is a profit item, just put in the little cash requires to hit 11. You also can stop flooding the silent oil market, that used to be profitable ^^)
28-34 - Potion (I know this is a big gap but it can be done, the synth is dirt cheap.)
34-43 - Vitriol (Use treant bulb recipe)
43-51 - Holy Water (Dirt cheap after the rusty cap nerf)
51-60/61/62 - Mixture of Hi-Potions, Glass Fiber(8x flintstone recipe), and Venom Dust.(This is the best way to go about it because of scaracity of the number of resources you'll need. Plus, if you continue Alchemy, you'll need the venom dust)

This is the method that got me from 0-49 in two days and it worked great. Te Sairui-ran was actually a great, easy recipe for me to make (cooking @50) and will net me anywhere from 9k-14k/stack when it starts to move. Not too many ninjas using this right now, but I have them stored on mules (about 30 stacks x 5-7k/stack). I sold everything else back to vendor/guild to clear inventory space.

For those who want to power-level, like I kind of did, I went through around 400k to get to 49. Granted I still have around 150k locked up in sairui-ran, and sold most things for a minor-moderate loss. All told, I got from 0-20 in 6 hours of continuous synthing using around 100k, and from 20-49 in 8 hours, using around 300k.

Synthing in the 20s sucks, period, but it is probably the most profitable item I've made which is why I'm storing them for later sale. Leveling from 28-51 is a cinch...super easy synth with support, with minimal ingredients. I love making holy water, so simple, so easy; during the holy water range I was getting at least a level every ten minutes.

Good luck to other future alchemists out there! If you're on Seraph, gimme a /tell.

[nhusted]

I'm currently level 84 Alchemy and this is my guide to getting to 60(find all recipes on FFXI MysteryTour):

0-6 - Tsurara
6-10 - Deodorizer
10-16 - Mercury
16-20 - Echo Drops
20-28 - Sairui-ran (Requires cooking skill at 11. This is a profit item, just put in the little cash requires to hit 11. You also can stop flooding the silent oil market, that used to be profitable ^^)
28-34 - Potion (I know this is a big gap but it can be done, the synth is dirt cheap.)
34-43 - Vitriol (Use treant bulb recipe)
43-51 - Holy Water (Dirt cheap after the rusty cap nerf)
51-60/61/62 - Mixture of Hi-Potions, Glass Fiber(8x flintstone recipe), and Venom Dust.(This is the best way to go about it because of scaracity of the number of resources you'll need. Plus, if you continue Alchemy, you'll need the venom dust)

There you go, 0 to your lower 60s. I didn't lose all that much money on this skill up route, especially since siarui-ran is about 2-2.5k profit a stack. This is a fun craft that really starts getting expensive after 60(just like all the others), so don't let the easy beginnings trick you. Good luck!

BTW, NEVER EVER pay more then 3.5k a stack for beehive chips on Midgard, I want the price to go down ^^

[FFXITsukasa]

Level 40 Alchemy. Im working my way up there. Crafts are so expensive but I bet later I can make some decent gil. This guide is excellent, it should be stickied.

[Patchinko]

I realize this is a little old, but I thought I'd share since I just recently got through the 50s...

Originally posted by Elaron
im now lvl 51 but dont know what to craft next... some guy says he did the 8x flintstones and fire crystal synth, but is that really smart to start with when you are 10 lvls below cap?

First make:

Sleeping Potions (56)
1x Water Crystal
1x Chamomile　(Vendor)
1x Sleepshroom　(AH)
1x Poison Flour (Goblin Mushpot Vendor in LJ or AH)

I'd do them until about 53. They sell briskly at AH, or better yet, save them for skilling up off Sleep Bolt Heads in about 10 levels.

Next make Hi-potions. You can make about 200% profit off them now thanks to Promyvion.

Hi-Potion (60)
1x Water Crystal
2x Sage (Valdeaunia Regional Vendor < AH < Alchemy guild, usually)
1x Malboro Vine　(AH)
1x Distilled Water (Vendor)

Not stackable being the worst point of them. If you have a lot of gobbiebags done, just bazaar them as you sell them on AH. Sell for 1.8-2k in a few hours on Remora at least. I actually took these to 58 and kept making them until 60 because of profit, though I did make a few stacks of venom dust as well (Venom Dust: 1x lightning crystal + 2x scorpion claws or 2x ogre eels), though it's pretty worthless.

Next I'm probably going to do Sleep Bolt Heads, which cap at 67.

Sleep Bolt Heads (67, also req'd: Blacksmithing 14)
1x Wind Crystal
1x Animal Glue　
1x Bronze Ingot　
1x Sleeping Potion

Any other suggestions for getting through the 60s will be appreciated. Seems fairly straightforward, as most of Alchemy has been so far.^^

[FFXITsukasa]

LOL happy juice. That was interesting to say the least. Lv. 29 Alchemy. /flails
That only took forever....
Making the freakin' Artifical Lens is such a pain, does anyone know what kind of goblins drop goblin masks?

[Ipwnzuall!!!111]

For the risk of losing 8 flint stones ^_^; I think you'll be okay. 10 levels below is sorta shady, but with adv. image support you'll probably have around 50% failures. Still, it's not a comparatively bad loss for skillups post lvl 50. If all I had to worry about was a potential 1K loss on a failure post 50 I'd have to put a McDonalds cup in my pants just to catch all the happy juice.

[Elaron]

im now lvl 51 but dont know what to craft next... some guy says he did the 8x flintstones and fire crystal synth, but is that really smart to start with when you are 10 lvls below cap?