Why use potions?

Savince · November 2021

I am having problems understanding usage of potions. If I have "eaten food" or "drank drink" then consuming potion would destroy their effect. For example if food gives me 10% more magicka for two hours consuming a potion that gives me 5% more magicka for 50 seconds, would just destroy my food buffs. I would have to eat again that food to get back to 2hr/+10% magicka buff. So I sell all potions I get from all questing.

I know I am missing something here. All the online builds suggests foods and potions. I just don't understand how they would add up but not destroy each others buffs.

Can someone clarify this?

And yes, I have survived years without potions. But I do solo content not trials or anything like that. Just started to touch Undaunted stuff. Got some head trophies for the wall already. So that's why I am curious about benefits of potions which I can't see many..

Other than potions and lockpicking ESO has been great experience for me.

Thanks for understanding a newbie sounding question.

nesakinter · November 2021

Foods and Potions are not related in any way. They don't cancel each other out and act as separate unique buffs.

Daffen · November 2021

Buff food grants max stats and recoveries, using potions restore the max stats or give special buffs and does not cancel your food buff.

If you use bewitched sugar skulls you GET 4.6k hp (health points), 4.2k magicka and stamina to your total resource pool. If you use an essence of magicka potion, you RESTORE 7k magicka and get more magicka recovery.

To clarify, if you have 20k MAX HP without food buff, you will have 24.6k MAX HP or more when you use bewitched sugar skulls. If you drop down to 18k/24.6k hp from taking damage you can consume a health potion which restores your current health by 8k meaning you will get healed by 8k and reach your max hp cap of 24.6k.

Potions are important because they restore your resources and increases your magicka/stamina recovery allowing players to use less magicka/stamina recovery glyphs on their jewelry, mundus or foodbuff and instead build for more damage. Not sure what your current level is but potions are very usefull, for new players and endgame players.

colossalvoids · November 2021

Foods/drinks and potions are a different sort of buffs. Example being a food giving you constant XXXX mag and YYY mag recovery for a hour or two and a potion boosting your recovery further by percentage, restoring your lost resources and giving some major damage buffs like Sorcery etc. for a short duration of 20-50 seconds depending on your alchemical passives.

It just helps your damage and sustain, or just sustain indirectly helping with damage as you have less downtime recovering your lost resource and proceeding with casting abilities.

Savince · November 2021

Okay. Thanks for the quick replies. I will try them again today. Maybe I just did something wrong.

kringled_1 · November 2021

Is it possible you used a drink in your earlier testing? Drinks (tea /alcohol etc) count under the same category as foods and will cancel out food buffs, but again are independent from potions.

Fennwitty · November 2021

kringled_1 wrote: »

Is it possible you used a drink in your earlier testing? Drinks (tea /alcohol etc) count under the same category as foods and will cancel out food buffs, but again are independent from potions.

This also was my thought.

'Food' and 'Drink' are categories of things that give long term buffs of usually an hour or more. Players can craft them using the Provisioning skill. Many players refer to both of them together as just "food buff".

The difference between 'Food' and 'Drink' is primarily that 'Food' gives you more attribute bonus for bigger numbers (Health/Magicka/Stamina) where 'Drink' gives more recovery bonus (Health Regeneration, Magicka/Stamina Regeneration).

'Potions' and 'Poisons' are short term buffs and debuffs. Players can craft them with Alchemy skill.

Food and Drink share one "slot" -- you can only have one or the other.

But Potions are a separate "slot." They will stack with your Food/Drink.

Poisons are still a separate "slot."

At a single time, you can benefit from:

1 food or 1 drink buff
1 potion buff
1 poison effect (a few poisons actually help the user, they are not purely offensive)

It's a little complicated how Poisons work with Weapon Enchantments, but they do not conflict with either Food/Drink or Potions.

There are also other considerations with Potions and Poisons which can grant named buffs, and the same name buff from different ways won't stack up. So if you have a potion that grants you Major Brutality, and you are also using a skill that grants you Major Brutality, they don't both increase your damage at the same time. It's the same named thing.

Syrpynt · November 2021

Honestly, I hate the fact that one must use potions in order to maximize efficiency in the game. Food/drink I can understand. But potions is just another thing to manage imo... I've gotten by not using potions beyond the ones that mobs drop, or the "crown tri-pots". I never use health potions, and I only use poisons for endeavors or for poison builds. I use enchantments for everything else.

I know I'm not maximizing my output this way, but to complete vDLC's on hm this way, is simply more gratifying tbh.

But yes, as others have mentioned--pots and provisioning are separate, but both must be used if you want to maximize survivability or damage output. Or you could simply use looted pots and use the passives to at least decrease cooldowns.

El_Borracho · November 2021

Main reasons in PVE:

1) The UH OH moment when your health gets blown up and you are short on magicka or stamina to heal
2) Regeneration in certain boss fights where your resource pools get sapped
3) THE MAIN REASON: Weapon/Spell Damage Pots for vet group content like DLC bosses and trials

Athan1 · November 2021

I don't think the game ever properly explains this, but you can have one food OR drink buff active AND one potion buff active. Food/drink buffs have long duration (30min-2hours), while potions last for only a few seconds.

And if you are a cheap hoarder like me use only the trash food and potions we get from dailies and events

Vevvev · November 2021

Another thing I'll add is that potions that restore resources and/or health also apply a long lived recovery buff to the values they restored. This makes cheap tri-potions incredibly useful for sustain, and if you're like me in PvP you're going to benefit from this greatly. In fact I rely on it so much I got the Clever Alchemist set just to give me a massive injection of spell and weapon damage when I do so.