Snakeblood (and the uselessness of Alchemy from a market standpoint)

Covyn · April 2014

I would like to start out by saying that yes, I do enjoy making potions with 3 heals, crit and spell dam boosts etc. So don't ramp on me about the "positives" of alchemy.

Snakeblood: you need to change the description on this tooltip and actually have it work/ "Reduces Negative Effects in Potions by 50-80-100%". When I saw this I was all for it, totally happy that I would be able to make my mats go further. Then I realized....it's a personal effect apparently. It doesn't say "POTIONS YOU DRINK" it states, "negative effects in potions"...that means the those effects should be GONE from my potions regardless of who drinks them. As an Alchemist I should be able to do this (like the other TES games). Oh but it gets even better!! The potions that improve my spell crit, spell damage, that also ravage my health...well...it still ravages my health...so where is my snakeblood now? Change the tooltip, or make it function as worded.

Selling Potions: So, how have the rest of you been selling your potions? Doing well? Or is it bothersome that I literally am VENDORING the 300 potions I received from a day of questing and opening barrels. Why...in any world...would I buy MORE of something that I trash? 10 seconds of spell crit? 3 seconds for invisibility? Forgive me if I don't strip and dance for joy.....

Sure sure....10 seconds in PvP or on that "tough boss", sorry, still not worth it.

Now lets also bring up the fact that the Potion of Health that heals health, also has the same name as the potion that heals all three!! You know?? The Potion of Health??!! Try searching for that one in a Guild Store....oh....I'm sorry....ESO failed to place a decent search feature in their Guild Stores, or differentiate crafted potions by color (Greens Blues, etc).

*deep breath*

As of right now, Alchemy is so weak on its impact that the investment of skillpoints is just a loss. Instead of hours farming mats, I will just go kick the dungeon boss in the pooper for an hour and loot 100 potions from him. I'll probably be able to do this effectively without my 10 seconds of weapon damage.....and no, I'm not spending 3 more skillpoints to boost that dismal stat either.

Alchemy is a waste and it really is upsetting to me. It has always been one of my favorite points of TES.

If anyone can show me the light at the end of the tunnel here, I appreciate the effort. Other than that, I will be gorging myself on fortified sweetrolls in the corner digesting my despair away......only to begin again when I realize, tomatoes and Oats don't exist either....

copito · April 2014

So far I enjoy the potions that give you health, stamina and magika on one sip. The 310 crit damage potions I'm saving for 1v1s on pvp. all the rest are not that important to me. Make sure to spend points on Medical Use and Chimestry. Potions seem useless when fighting bosses on dungeons. You need at least 10 on a single fight (if you don't die). I only use them for higher level questing.

PS: also give it some time before people start farming herbs and selling them. I bought 20 mountain flowers for 100 gold today.

Covyn · April 2014

Mats honestly haven't been that large of an issue with the trade deals I have worked out with others...they send me mats, I send them their professions mats. I feel sorry for the people buying mats at 20 gold a flower, + 20 gold for the water. If they are not crafting 4 at a time they are spending 80 gold on a pot....and I know a few of them are not making 4 at a time

My big beef here is the Snakeblood effect. A high level alchemist should be able to neutralize the negative effects of a potion for anyone who drinks it. As it stands there is no much difference between a random person combining flowers, than an alchemist who invested the skillpoints.

Perhaps it's just my twitching about the wording. Potion = Positive, Poison = Negative.....so a "Potion of Ravage Health" Should not do anything to me anyways with the snakeblood perk. But tested today at rank 3 snakeblood and....it ravaged my health. There is something seriously wrong here.

Brennan · April 2014

Level 50 Alchemy. 3/3 Snakeblood.

I made a Spell Crit potion that also had Reduce Spell Resist and Ravage Health. I wanted to test my "Reduces negative effects by 100%" so I drank it.

It lowered my Spell Resist and ravaged my Health. Obviously, it also increased my Spell Crit.

So the question becomes - what negative effects am I really reducing here?

Carnage2K4 · April 2014

Yep, Snakeblood does exactly nothing...
I can't believe I have wasted 3 points on this...
Alchemy is broken something fierce ATM.
I am becoming more disappointed in this crafting area the more I use it.

gothickaiserub17_ESO · April 2014

Sad to hear about snake blood not working (though its mostly avoidable). As i side note Medicinal Use only partial works as well (I made another thread details about it a few hours ago).

However the big thing i would really like is to see special names for potions that do additional effects (Its not a Dram of health (white) {Health +160hp +110/10s} looks the same as Dram of health (White) {Health +160hp +154/14s ; Magicka +160hp +110/10s : Stamina +160hp +110/10s}

A super simple lazy fix would be if it has 2 effects its green, if it has 3 effects its blue, if it has 4 effects (meaning 3 but one has triple property boost (i think that's the max possible) its purple, don't count negative effects.

Covyn · April 2014

Well hopefully anyone who is using Alchemy at this time is pumping feedback through the game. I don't know of how else to get a message across, but there is a lot of complaints about it through the forums...and I really don't want this profession to fall by the wayside for me. Alchemy is really big in TES games, and I was excited to see it here.....but such disappointment.

And yes, also tested Medicinal Use 3/3.....nothing...my boosts are still 10 seconds.

BlueAvenger · May 2014

One month gone yet Alchemy remains useless. Every piece of *** Crab monkey still gives you tons of Potions for Free!
Potions still don't work as labelled.
Potions still don't sell.
Potions still have negative effects even after using Snakeblood.
Potion still are never worth in PVE or even in PVP. Except the Invisibility Potion.
NO ONE BUYS POTIONS!
NOT A SINGLE POTION SOLD OVER THE WHOLE MONTH!
arrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

demonlkojipub19_ESO · May 2014

And why should anyone buy potions? make them yourself, like me

.

Food4Thought · May 2014

Ok, I get some people went into this profession hoping they could turn it into a money maker. Everybody needs potions right? At least health potions? But as Ievel my character and alchemy one thing becomes apparent. I am using the same herbs that I used as a level 1 to make my potions. The only thing that changed was the water.

So why would somebody ask me to buy a potion when the ingredients to farm it can be found on a starter island?

Covyn · May 2014

I do actually sell potions to other players, and its mainly the 3 in 1's just due to the space management.

However....

If the passives worked properly it would open up a much larger range of potions for my personal use and for others, boosts to spell and weapon crit (in the same bottle), spell resistance and armor boosts all without the poisons.

As it stands right now, there is no reason for anyone to buy a potion as the popular ones (you know the ones that work?) are easily made with a small investment of skillpoints.

Sadly, Alchemy is horribly broken and pretty much worthless to anyone beyond the player themselves.....even then it's debatable. There is not much difference between a dropped potion and a crafted one besides ease of access. It's sad that something so massive in TES lore has fallen by the wayside with ZOS's ignorance.

They can at least make the passives work so a full alchemist could utilize them, and I still believe that an true alchemist could filter out the poisons for other players. My suggestion is to keep submitting feedback until this gets better, and even then.....I don't think ZOS is listening any longer.

Covyn · May 2014

One could further argue that potions are actually completely pointless beyond a traditional health,mag,sta potion (and the occasional invis/unstop).

It is painfully easy to hit your soft caps on regen, armor, spell resist, etc....and the diminishing returns are so harsh on it why would you want a potion that boosts your armor by 600 when you are so far into the soft cap you get...what? 120 points of it? perhaps even just 60 points or less of it if you use a class ability on top of that?

Add it all up, there is no point to make anything other than a direct stat heal. And even when they launch the poisons (which I am sure they will also drop like candy by killing a random goat) you are probably going to see a very select crowd there as well.

Let's face it all crafts in this game require very little mastery. Given time you will have them all just by breaking down what you find in the world, and never having to "build" anything. Legendary, Epic, mats can be pulled from tier 1 resources so all the people you see charging 3K for them, 25K for a legendary crafted item with a set bonus.....are fools. They are fools because ZOS has made the game this way. Given time, you will have everything you could ever possibly want, and never have to spend a dime (and not much time at that).

I wanted this game to have rewards for those who were true to their craft, I wanted to see things that were so hard to come by it required true dedication to create. I suppose that is a lost vision.

Enjoy your potions, enjoy your crafting. ZOS has guaranteed its time in the light will be short lived. (I am now a 50 in everything, 35 in enchanting.....I didn't even try).

Best wishes.

Mix · June 2014

Snakeblood also has not worked for me.

I am not upset by vendoring potions I find/get as loot as the amount healed (etc) is less than my home-made potions. I didn't get alchemy to try to make gold and gold is really easy to get in this game anyways. I got it so I could make myself custom potions.

As for the caps - well spell crit and spell damage for me aren't "capped" so the dps increasing potions should be useful for quite some time yet.

kirnmalidus · June 2014

I buy potions from guys in my trade guilds. But they sell me awesome three effect vet rank potions for less than 100 gp a potion.

Food4Thought · June 2014

The status of alchemy ...

I don't sell potions. I give them away to guild members by dumping them in the guild bank and letting people have first come first serve. Sadly, many just set in the bank until I or another member purge them for bank space.

and considering everyone has pull rights to the bank from the highest level VR to the lowest level newbie, seeing this stuff go to waste is just sad.

It just goes to show you how little people feel towards alchemy and the benefits they can get from the pots.

jessyr · June 2014

I realise this thread is a few months old....but just to bump, the snakeblood and medicinal use perks are still not working.

I was hoping in the future that the negative effects would be used to make poisons for weapons (a 1 encounter enchant like in other TESO games, on top of rune enchants) and that snakeblood would simply affect potions, but I'm worried this will never be implemented, leaving a good portion of the herbs absolutely useless.

I'm relatively fine with alchemy not being a huge money maker atm, but I totally agree with others about reorganizing naming of potions so people know wtf they are searching for in guild stores. This alone would solve a lot of our sales problems.

I also really enjoy the idea of the more effects there are, the better quality of potion it becomes (green, blue, purple). OR maybe implementing types of bottles as the coloured item that upgrades a potion. Every other profession has the ability to improve items....I'm not sure why alchemy got the short end of the stick. All it would have to do is add extra stats to each effect, I don't see why this would be hard to program in.

Regardless...just fix what is in the game atm, alchemists have it bad enough lol.

JessieColt · June 2014

As a VR7 the only potions I use are the +3 restore stats. (Restore Health, Magika, Stamina).

I personally have no use for any of the other potions.

I have leveled up Alchemy so that I can make my own +3 potions. I gather all types of herbs when I am farming, but I sell off the ones that I cannot use to create that +3 restore potion.

The negative potions really should be poisons that can be applied to your weapons.

Zebug · June 2014

would be nice if we got SOME word on the plans for Alchemy....is it going to be poisons? or will snakesblood and medicinal use be fixed (or are they somehow working as intended....then I don't know how they are suppose to work)

Adramelach · June 2014

I only use the 3-stat potions as well. I have an auto-loot filter that auto-junks any potions I find (among other things) and I either sell them all off (along with everything else in my junk folder) in one go at a vendor, or trash everything in junk with a click in the field if I need more room in inventory. They have no value to me, otherwise.

Gisgo · June 2014

I use plenty of detection potions and buy tons of ingredients, if i had more potions i think i could sell them easy too.

Chuggernaut · June 2014

gothickaiserub17_ESO wrote: »

Sad to hear about snake blood not working (though its mostly avoidable). As i side note Medicinal Use only partial works as well (I made another thread details about it a few hours ago).

However the big thing i would really like is to see special names for potions that do additional effects (Its not a Dram of health (white) {Health +160hp +110/10s} looks the same as Dram of health (White) {Health +160hp +154/14s ; Magicka +160hp +110/10s : Stamina +160hp +110/10s}

A super simple lazy fix would be if it has 2 effects its green, if it has 3 effects its blue, if it has 4 effects (meaning 3 but one has triple property boost (i think that's the max possible) its purple, don't count negative effects.

That would be an awesome update!

Greatfellow · July 2014

I'm fine with having the character who drinks a potion be responsible for having the skill points to enact Snakeblood and Medicinal use. No problem with that. But to offer those skills and have them not work is just ridiculous. I mean, come on! You (the Game Maker) freaking built the skill line, did all the graphics and all the calculations for the effect, and put it in the game...and It Doesn't Work? What the f*** ? Seriously.

Mataata · July 2014

I don't use snakeblood, but potions save my butt all the time and most definitely give me an edge. It's all about timing.

Hears_Bright_Colors · July 2014

Has there been any update/info about the alchemy issues? Is Medicinal Use really not working or are the potion descriptions just not updating?

Pele · July 2014

gothickaiserub17_ESO wrote: »

Sad to hear about snake blood not working (though its mostly avoidable). As i side note Medicinal Use only partial works as well (I made another thread details about it a few hours ago).

However the big thing i would really like is to see special names for potions that do additional effects (Its not a Dram of health (white) {Health +160hp +110/10s} looks the same as Dram of health (White) {Health +160hp +154/14s ; Magicka +160hp +110/10s : Stamina +160hp +110/10s}

A super simple lazy fix would be if it has 2 effects its green, if it has 3 effects its blue, if it has 4 effects (meaning 3 but one has triple property boost (i think that's the max possible) its purple, don't count negative effects.

That's a great idea.

Srugzal · July 2014

Covyn wrote: »

My big beef here is the Snakeblood effect. A high level alchemist should be able to neutralize the negative effects of a potion for anyone who drinks it. As it stands there is no much difference between a random person combining flowers, than an alchemist who invested the skillpoints.

Perhaps it's just my twitching about the wording. Potion = Positive, Poison = Negative.....so a "Potion of Ravage Health" Should not do anything to me anyways with the snakeblood perk. But tested today at rank 3 snakeblood and....it ravaged my health. There is something seriously wrong here.

A lot of people get this wrong, it's understandable. Snakeblood mitigates/removes effects with duration, not immediate effects.

This is exactly what the tooltip says for Snakeblood III:

Reduces duration of negative effects in potions by 100%

It does not say "Reduces negative effects." It says "reduces duration of negative effects." It's referring to effects with a duration. So if you have a "Ravage X health immediately, and Y over 10 seconds," it will only remove the "Y over 10 seconds." If you have "Lower Weapon Power by 10 for 10 seconds," it will remove it completely.

In short, the key word is duration.

Srugzal · July 2014

Greatfellow wrote: »

I'm fine with having the character who drinks a potion be responsible for having the skill points to enact Snakeblood and Medicinal use. No problem with that. But to offer those skills and have them not work is just ridiculous. I mean, come on! You (the Game Maker) freaking built the skill line, did all the graphics and all the calculations for the effect, and put it in the game...and It Doesn't Work? What the f*** ? Seriously.

I just tested this potion:

Imp Stool + Mountain Flower. It should lower my weapon power and raise my armor, if, as you say, Snakeblood doesn't work. But I can confirm that it raises the armor but does not effect weapon power, because of the Snakeblood passive, which I have maxed. People have generally misunderstood the meaning of the tooltip. Perhaps it should remove ALL negative effects, and that's a legitimate concern that is worthy of discussion. But it DOES work as advertised.

ShiftControl · July 2014

Covyn wrote: »

Mats honestly haven't been that large of an issue with the trade deals I have worked out with others...they send me mats, I send them their professions mats. I feel sorry for the people buying mats at 20 gold a flower, + 20 gold for the water. If they are not crafting 4 at a time they are spending 80 gold on a pot....and I know a few of them are not making 4 at a time

I wish If could buy herbs for 20 each i'm buying 1000 each right now for that price.
its going for 100+/herbs like Bugloss, Lady's Smock, Mountain flower, Columbine, on EP, 50-80 on less important one.
The problem is also the supply of the herbs I can't farm enough for my personal daily use.
And none seems to have any for sale when I wanna buy some, seriously I would buy a stack of each for 8k/stack @ any given time. if you have any for sale send a personal mail thx.

by the way I agree to most of the post up here they should fix some stuff in Alch but is not game changer as of now, there are much moar important things they should fix 1st. Imo they will over haul it when DB coming out because of the poisons

hakunamatadab16_ESO2 · April 2015

Srugzal wrote: »

Covyn wrote: »

My big beef here is the Snakeblood effect. A high level alchemist should be able to neutralize the negative effects of a potion for anyone who drinks it. As it stands there is no much difference between a random person combining flowers, than an alchemist who invested the skillpoints.

Perhaps it's just my twitching about the wording. Potion = Positive, Poison = Negative.....so a "Potion of Ravage Health" Should not do anything to me anyways with the snakeblood perk. But tested today at rank 3 snakeblood and....it ravaged my health. There is something seriously wrong here.

A lot of people get this wrong, it's understandable. Snakeblood mitigates/removes effects with duration, not immediate effects.

This is exactly what the tooltip says for Snakeblood III:
Reduces duration of negative effects in potions by 100%

It does not say "Reduces negative effects." It says "reduces duration of negative effects." It's referring to effects with a duration. So if you have a "Ravage X health immediately, and Y over 10 seconds," it will only remove the "Y over 10 seconds." If you have "Lower Weapon Power by 10 for 10 seconds," it will remove it completely.

In short, the key word is duration.

Yup, and it DOES not remove the duration. I made a pot with a negative effect of reducing spell power by 190 for 40 seconds and with 3 SP in snakeblood, my spell power is diminished by 190 for 40 seconds after drinking the pot. Snakeblood is broken.

Tarukmockto · April 2015

Yep, has been since day one. Maybe one of these days ZOS will get around to either eliminating it or fixing it.

Haxnschwammer · April 2015

Yes... this has been reportet in beta. I mean the official beta before launch, not the paid beta for consoles.
It's been live for over a year now and it still gets reportet and asked about. And is still ignored.
There are some things about alchemy that are broken or unfinished. Posion, anyone?
Make a stun potion you can use...on yourself?
You can make potions without a unwanted side effect, that's why this bugs have such a low priority...
It's still shame to kep those bugs around...