Lilbear's Potting Advice
Lilbear's Potting Advice (if I knew how to create a new page I'd do just that and link it here)
The following is my personal advice on "potting," as many potioners ("potters") call the making of potions. It is not a step-by-step guide but hopefully provides some perspective to the aspiring potter. I will discuss only those potions that I recommend you make. If I don't mention a potion, then that's because from my personal perspective, you don't have to bother with it.
- Do the wine quest. Do it soon. It starts in Macrowen Marsh (MM cape/perk required for beginners).
- Unless your crafting level is high (mine is 39 right now, and I still mostly buy my vials), I recommend you purchase your vials from the NPC. On C2, in Melinis (wear MM cape/perk), you can buy them for 5 gc each. To get to Melinis from Idaloran (first map on C2), take the third boat from the top. I recommend muling the vials to South Redmoon Island from Melinis. In Melinis, take the boat further to the east. You arrive in Hurquin. Take the only other boat, and you arrive in SRI.
Reasoning Pot For the beginning potter, this pot is a must. Before bones became edible you could buy the required bones and still make a decent profit. Now I recommend you collect them on IP, or from your own fighting. You need 9 bones per potion, which adds up. Load up with bone powder, vials, and two mortar and pestle (they break easily) and go to a nearby vegetable field. You can mix there, eat vegetables (which also go into the potion), and harvest during cool down. Sell your finished potions to Mira in WSC for 15gc each.
Coordination Pot There is limited demand for coordination potion, mostly from players that are starting to fight fluffies.
Attack Pot There is demand for this potion, in part for fighting, and in part because it is required for one of the god quests. You need bear furs for it, which are hard to come by, especially since the (bear) summoning stones were introduced. Unless you yourself can kill bears, or have friends who are currently training on bears, it will be difficult to obtain the necessary furs. It is a good potion to make and sell to players, but difficult on ingredients.
SRS - Potion of Spirit Restauration SRS will be your main bread and butter for a long time. Before wine was storable, you could find most potters sitting around Judith in MM on their wine bags, mixing away. Now you can mix anywhere, but the blue star flowers next to Judith are still the closest to storage. The best blue quartz on C1 is in Nordcarn. On C2, it is in Thelinor (parts of the map are PK, but not the part where the blue quartz and storage are; however, you need MM perk/cloak anyway because of roaming feros and a giant). There is also blue quartz in the EVTR cellar. Finally, there is blue quartz in Glacmor, near the entrances to the store and tavern (above ground). You will make thousands and thousands and thousands of SRS. Market is often saturated, but make them anyway, and keep them in storage or trade them to friends for other things. After invasions or Sun Tzu days, SRS are in demand regularly. Overall, you can make a modest profit from SRS.
FP - Feasties - Feasting Potion Before food and wine was storable, and before toads were eadible, virtually no one made feasties, unless maybe for limited personal consumption. At 12gc each, the NPC sells them quite cheaply. However, since these changes it is worth making this potion for yourself, as well as "for ingredients" for your friends. If you consume feasties while making them, the highest possible final success rate cannot exceed 80%. However, if you mix on toads, or combine feasties and toads, you can get higher. These are great to make on Joule Day. The most difficult part to come by is usually the meat, so don't sell it or leave it, store it!
Crafting Pot There is a very limited demand for crafting pot. I make them very rarely, and only really for personal consumption.
EMPs - Extra Mana Pots Watch out, you need vegetal 6 for this potion! It is great experience, but rather expensive to make at the number of SRS and magic essies that are mixed into it. Your fighting friends will gladly accept EMPs in trade, but on the market the sell only in large quantities, and to a very limited audience (high level PKers and/or summoners). I know many high level potters who have not ever made an EMP (except random chance), but I know others that swear by them. Personally, I made less than 500 purposefully, I would say.
Poison Antidote The book for this one is very difficult to come by. It is a drop only, and I believe the only creature that drops it is the arctic chim. I saw it for 9k gc on a bot once, and it was gone by the time I got there. Market price has ranged from 15k to 30k. There is definitely a market for antidotes, especially since toads became eadible. They are a bit of a pain to make (four ales), but your friends will be greatful that you bought the book, as will you. You still won't get rich from this pot though.
TS pot - True Sight Potion This one is it for the mid- to high-level potioner. TS (at time of writing) are the most reliable and profitable way of making money for potters. The NPC in Irsis on C2 buys them for 60gc, but actual cost of making (counting the plants at 1gc each) is only about 40gc including food. If you harvest your own plants (wormwood in particular gives quite nice harv experience), your cost goes down to 21gc and your profit is quite nice. They do require a lot of food to make, as do most upper level potions, so they are another excellent choice on Joule day. There is a limited market for these besides the NPC as well, again mostly for PKing and/or avoiding to be PK'ed on a hydro run.
I will add to this later. Still to come: the other "fighting potions" and extracts \o/