#Alchemist Enhancement Feedback but Again

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radiant sparrow
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For those who are unaware, Alchemist has consistently had the worst enhancements out of any class. Each one is flawed in its own unique way; ranging from unnoticeably pathetic (like Iron Tincture), excessively unreliable (Gruesome), anti-synergistic with the base ability (Unstable Amalgam), to arguably a net negative choice (Bezoar). A few weeks ago, this was dismissed by the statement that Alchemist was “clearly overpowered” and didn’t need the help, which, to be fair, isn’t wrong; it fared quite decently in R3 even if enhancements were a massive disappointment.

But with the recent reworks massively cutting Alchemist’s damage by up to 40%, I think it’s not difficult to argue that Alchemist is now the weakest class in Monumenta. It’s a big step up from the nearly unplayable state of a week ago, but it still consistently struggles in a region where every other class is experiencing a ton of power.

I was talking recently about the new bonus to swift cuts enhancement, and how it seemed that most scouts didn’t really care about it at all, but it got me thinking - alch would kind of love that enhancement - more cooldown reduction would be incredible for alchemist and alch’s terrible melee damage meant that you could get a lot of value out of it against boss mobs or elites. Hell, alch would love most of the “bad” enhancements that most other classes have. Defensive Line’s enhancement which offers 1 free hit of melee damage negation would be so much better than Iron Tincture’s current enhancement. Rogue’s Smokescreen Enhance would so easily slot in for Gruesome or Unstable Amalgam’s Enhancement.

These ideas aren't meant to be hard number changes, more just loose brainstorming for enhancements that could do much better with Alch's kit. If the reasoning for Alch's bad enhancements was a lack of ideas for what to give the class, hopefully this can provide some ideas to whoever feels inspired to make them.

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Iron Tincture:
The current enhancement reads: “The tincture now additionally cleanses all potion debuffs, extinguishes fire, and grants 5% damage resistance when absorption is present for the duration of the absorption.”
In practice, this enhancement does nothing. The damage resistance is a complete joke, providing a measly 1.3 more armor/agility (in R3 when alch builds can get up to 50+ armor), and the status cleanse actively clashes with Iron Tincture’s role as “Alch’s main health bar”. Any alchemist running iron tincture is always casting it the moment that it comes off cooldown, and saving it for a status cleanse is far riskier than just having the bonus health, plus it’s invalidated by Bezoar.

A couple ideas for what could replace this ability:
Some kind of “Shield Gating” effect - make it so that any overflow damage from losing Iron Tincture doesn’t go into affecting your “normal” hp. Could come with short I-frames after losing the shield, could come with some other bonus like speed or damage.

Ailment DR - Iron Tincture’s biggest weakness is ailments like wither or poison - these generally don’t affect other forms of health much since you can just regen through them, but absorption hearts don’t regen, so you end up very quickly losing your entire buffer.
Defensive Line/other “Buffer” effects - Something to block the first hit of damage taken from a specific damage type could be nice.

More AoE/Group Support - This one is what Galactic suggested in their thread, where players near the tincture get some percentage of its effect when picked up, it’s definitely a super minor QoL but would be very appreciated combo’d with some other more significant effect.
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Bezoar:
The current enhancement reads: “When a Bezoar would spawn, 10% of the time it will summon a Philosopher's Stone instead. When the Philosopher's Stone is picked up, the player and the Alchemist gain 4 absorption hearts for 8s and the Alchemist gains 3 potions.”
Bezoar’s enhancement struggles from two main issues. First, it’s incredibly inconsistent - spawning once on average 50 mobs killed, and requiring walking over it for the buff to apply, I basically never notice the effect of the philosopher’s stone, or even take unnecessary damage trying to focus picking it up since it’s such a rare drop. The buff is also incredibly minor; the absorption hearts only ever will help if you play like an idiot and run into the stone ignoring mobs, and the 3 pots regained is nice but entirely underwhelming. (For context, this enhancement increases the average pot gain by Bezoar as a skill by 1.05x. The charm “Lesser Antidote”, which costs 1 charm point, increases the average pot gain of Bezoar by 1.25x).
All this, and the Philosopher’s Stone also doesn’t give the damage bonus from Bezoar level 2, so it is arguably a net negative to run this enhancement in any content outside of Gallery if you have the level 2 skill selected.

A couple ideas for what could replace this ability:
Mobs Picking Up Bezoars for You - This was the idea I suggested to Galactic; this would help with the main issue of Bezoar, being that you need to wade into a group of mobs to take advantage of the pot regen while in a fight. If mobs could pick them up for you (getting debuffed in the process while giving you the buffs like a teammate picked them up), that’d really help.
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Improve the Effect and Consistency of Philosopher’s Stone - change them to drop after 10 bezoars instead of being a 10% chance to drop, and give them a stronger effect. This could be anything from always giving a full 8 potions on pickup, or giving a temporary cooldown reduction buff, or reducing cooldowns on existing abilities, or giving a 1-time use effect like empowering your next attack(s) or blocking the next hit(s) you take. - Honestly this change could be as small as making Philosopher's stone give a longer/stronger damage buff + a longer/stronger heal buff + more significant cleanse + what it already currently does, so it just becomes a super-powered Bezoar that you really want to pick up

Different Kinds of Bezoar - Making more varied types of bezoars that can drop more frequently. Maybe there’s like a 40% chance for bezoars to drop unchanged, and 20% for one to drop that gives 2 potions, 20% for one to drop that gives more healing, and 20% for one to drop that increases damage dealt by a bigger amount and with a longer duration (each one still keeping the base functionality of bezoar but just getting a slight boost in their other additional effect)

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Unstable Amalgam:
The current enhancement reads: “Enemies hit by the Amalgam's explosion become unstable for 8 seconds. When an unstable mob is killed, a potion that deals 40% of your potion damage is dropped at its location. These potions apply both Brutal and Gruesome effects.”
This is a less bad enhancement than the previous two, but still acts pretty anti-synergistically with the base ability. My statement I made 3-4 months ago when R3 first released still holds up pretty well; the issue with this enhancement is that it actively rewards clustering weak and strong mobs together and being able to mark the weak mobs with a “corpse explosion” like effect where on death they’ll help contribute to the dps against the strong mobs, but the issue is that mobs don’t really spawn like that, and even if they do, the insane knockback of amalgam ensures that the weak mobs will absolutely not ever die next to the strong mobs to help contribute to damage. It has some niche use in automatically triggering esoteric enhancements but that’s basically its only function.

A couple ideas for what could replace this ability:
An “Antimatter Drop” like effect - This is an idea from Warframe, where you can cast an ability that absorbs all the damage going into it for like 1-3 seconds, and then explodes dealing all of the absorbed damage in a much bigger AoE. How this could work with UA would be if UA got like 300-500 health, and while it was able to be manually triggered with a recast, it couldn’t be so easily killed, and the damage of the UA scaled with how much health was taken away from it during the 3 seconds of “arm time”. This would incentivize not immediately popping UA the moment it’s spawned in, and instead you basically utilize alch’s AoE abilities to deal damage to both your UA and the enemies you’re fighting, and when the UA finally explodes, it’ll basically guarantee death on the few hard enemies you have left.
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Some Kind of Rocket-Jump Bonus - This could take a couple different forms, either a cooldown refund if the unstable amalgam hits no enemies (so you can freely use it to rocket jump), or you get some damage bonus or defense bonus while rocket jumping + a few seconds after, or any other number of different rocket-jumping focused synergies. (Maybe slow fall? Might be too op? Idk?)

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Reposting cool ideas brought up in chat:

Move UA's current enhancement onto AA, which would make use of it much better since it doesn't have absurd knockback + it's still a neat effect - Galactic

Bezoar (u): When you pick up a Bezoar, you gain +1 max potion capacity for X seconds, stacking up to Y. Picking up a bezoar refreshes the timer. At Y stacks, Bezoars have a Z% chance to become Philosopher's stones (which are based and not the weird little things they are now, maybe they instantly max out your capacity) - Eternal
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Alch's other enhancements really aren't that great but I wanted to focus on these 3 because they are imo the worst and also the most wasted potential

(Although I would love it if AA's enhance was like a bouncing bomb, where it just got recast for a smaller effect with less velocity at the explosion point. It wouldn't be that great but it would be really funny)

lunar sentinel
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Tried running gruesome enhancement in 25pt brown earlier and it felt like it did nothing
Probably not very useful feedback but I'm not sure how else to comment

radiant sparrow
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Yeah I was going to write up something on gruesome but I kind of had no ideas 💀

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I liked Galactic's idea of higher root chance but

lunar sentinel
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I run galvanic 4 on my melee set and it feels more noticeable than the enhancement to me, for comparisons

radiant sparrow
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it's still very boring

lunar sentinel
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My guess is that alch, unlike melee classes, doesn't require the same kind of precision when it comes to movement and distancing, so a mob stopping for 1s is unnoticeable to the alch when strafing but will probably mess up a melee teammates attacks if they are around

raven moth
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While ur not wrong I still love energizing enhancement

radiant sparrow
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Energizing is the only decent alch enhance

raven moth
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Yes

lunar sentinel
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Energizing enhancement is redeemed by the damage multiplier and the addition of the qol autocast this week

radiant sparrow
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and while I do not personally like it, I respect it for what it is

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and will not bash it for what it does

raven moth
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I’ve always used it and brutal enhancement bc what else

lunar sentinel
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I was testing pretty much all the enhancements in brown earlier and I honestly couldn't find a decent second pick outside of energizing
Amalgam is good for dreads? But that's kind of it

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More of a comfy pick against dreads honestly

raven moth
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I think amalgam enhancement is counterproductive

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Ua spreads mobs

radiant sparrow
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yeah that's what I talked about in the post above

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it's anti-synergistic with UA

lunar sentinel
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Yeah it only works on dreads because the dread takes no knockback

raven moth
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Tru

narrow obsidian
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AA enhancement needs rework

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its boring rn

radiant sparrow
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I do really like the "Antimatter drop" UA idea but idk what you guys think

lunar sentinel
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So you blow up all the dreadlings and the enhancement damages the dread
But that's it

craggy sage
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hear me out: unstable amalgam gives slow falling for like 3s

narrow obsidian
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UA (u) is fine, just the kb anti synergizes with it

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wish its enhancement on another skill

raven moth
narrow obsidian
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it would be nice as AA(u)

craggy sage
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enchancement should be summoning a damaging zone

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for aa

lunar sentinel
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idk what AA (u) is even for outside of proccing esoteric with gruesome + AA cast

craggy sage
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25% of a potion's damage woooo

raven moth
radiant sparrow
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that would be the best of both worlds

narrow obsidian
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I personally think my AA rework idea fits more but it can work

raven moth
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An alch abil that pulled mobs together would be great

craggy sage
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unstable claws

narrow obsidian
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I want to see an enhancment focused on giving pot more radius

radiant sparrow
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As much as having everything would be nice, I don't know if alch really should get an implosion effect/a taunt

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seems like too much utility

craggy sage
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no taunt for alch

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it's probably counterintuitive to the class anyways

narrow obsidian
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alch isnt a tank so no taunt

radiant sparrow
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Taunt as alch would be so freaking strong

raven moth
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Yeah not taunt

radiant sparrow
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too strong

raven moth
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Idk

craggy sage
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what about amalgam just becoming horseman's world ender

radiant sparrow
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That's kind of what the antimatter drop idea is

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except you need to feed it damage

narrow obsidian
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I think there needs to be ways to increase pot radius

craggy sage
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hmm
there's not many charms that do it either

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for pot radius

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although it's not the best stat

radiant sparrow
lunar sentinel
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I'm just gonna say that I was using the brown bag
And half the time I'm wondering if I'm an actual aoe class because the radius is abyssmal

craggy sage
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darkest depths bag is the best buff bag

lunar sentinel
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It's 2.5 while the old radius was 4

craggy sage
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even in r1/r3

restive geyser
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lets GO

lunar sentinel
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So just keep that in mind

restive geyser
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another alch feedback post

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will make sure to read this one

fathom geode
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i was thinking of a tinct enhancement: The next attack taken by Iron Tincture's absorption will only deal 2 absorption hearts maximum to any player affected by the ability

craggy sage
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huh, interesting

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but I feel like I'll get poked by a sweet berry bush and immediately lose it

fathom geode
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maybe it has to do more than a certain amount to count

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not hard to do

craggy sage
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what if it was just "you take max of 2.5 hearts of absorption per hit"

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"while on tincture"

radiant sparrow
restive geyser
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Tincture U
The next attack you take converts the absorption lost into health
🤝 nanomachines son

craggy sage
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WHY WON'T YOU DIE
chuckles Warding remedy, son. It activates in response to physical trauma!
*unstable amalgams Raiden off the robot*

restive geyser
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Making the mother of all omelettes here Jack. Can't fret over every nerf

formal basin
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with the nerfed radius I don't think a pull would be absurd, but it's still just an absolutely minmaxed synergy. I would definitely enjoy UA enhancement on AA though

lunar sentinel
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Most alch bags have a radius of 2.5
You know what else has a radius of 2.5? Sweeping edge
Yeah you have about as much AOE range as a melee class

narrow obsidian
restive geyser
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if you're always at full health then the class clearly needs a nerf.

lunar sentinel
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What usually happens for me in brown is that I'm either at full health or some randomass engineer nukes me in a single hit

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Does that count gigachad

restive geyser
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Still needs a nerf

narrow obsidian
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I want my aa rework in the game so hard

restive geyser
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How hard? GalacticAC?

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What would you sacrifice to obtain it?

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Your soul? Your family?

narrow obsidian
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you

restive geyser
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I am not your possession silly Alchemist.

narrow obsidian
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bet

radiant sparrow
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shhhh get out stop clogging up this with non-enhancement discussion

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go talk on galactic's post

restive geyser
# narrow obsidian bet

I'm simply an interrogation agent sent by the government, to find out what you are willing to sacrifice to obtain this so called "AA Rework"

restive geyser
formal basin
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I'll think on my alchemist experiences in R3 and see if I have more input on enhancements

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something something bezoar chain lightning pick them all up at once

narrow obsidian
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well people need to start talking in my post first

restive geyser
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-50% Ailment damage with Tincture U up

image.png
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🤝

formal basin
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that one specifically was b/c bad positioning or greed and I ran out of yellow health and fell down and broke my legs (they are very small)

radiant sparrow
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just get one of these I genuinely have forgotten that monumenta has fall damage

image.png
restive geyser
formal basin
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that's one for sure

restive geyser
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negative ailment damage on an enhancement would definitely help

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I suggest removing bezoars and replacing it with a +5% ailment dr skill.

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Any agreers in the chat?

formal basin
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Don't want to keep sending one liners but I would probably like to see a minigame skill like AS chains for alch

lofty jetty
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agree

formal basin
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add some more management to pot eco simulator

lofty jetty
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since I run perma taboo

radiant sparrow
restive geyser
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Brah the only thing your mind can manage is throwing alch pots

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you fo sure you can crush me with that?

formal basin
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ok here's a simple one to get ideas going
Bezoar (u): When you pick up a Bezoar, you gain +1 max potion capacity for X seconds, stacking up to Y. Picking up a bezoar refreshes the timer. At Y stacks, Bezoars have a Z% chance to become Philosopher's stones (which are based and not the weird little things they are now, maybe they instantly max out your capacity)

radiant sparrow
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iirc extra potion capacity was something that was difficult to add but if it's possible that's neat

formal basin
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I have finished cooking.

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Iron Tincture (u): You can throw a potion at a deploy Iron Tincture to modify it (throw the same potion again to reset it's state)
No Potion: Preemptive Tincture: If the player that picks this tincture up is missing health, they gain an additional amount of absorption health equal to the amount of health they are missing, up to 25% of their health.
Gruesome Potion: Toxicant Tincture: Up to One Time (modifyable by charm!), when you are affected by a non infinite debuff, cleanse it and become immune to debuffs for 2 seconds. Only functions while you have absorption health granted by this skill.
Brutal Potion: Deathlust Tincture: When an enemy is hit with a brutal potion while you have absorption from this skill, they are marked with Deathlust. A player that kills a Deathlust marked enemy gains empowered on Kill effects (1.25x more likely to trigger effects, or 1.25x longer duration of the effect if it is 100% chance)

radiant sparrow
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Seems neat but seems like it'd slow alch gameplay to even more of a crawl than it already is + other teammates can accidentally mess you up while you're infusing a tincture

formal basin
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Brutal Alchemy (u): Hitting an enemy 3 times with brutal potions within X seconds (X less than 1 second, you'll need to spam for this one) infects it with a bioparasite. When the enemy dies, it becomes reanimated and will follow the direction of your potion throws (moving jerkily, like a cordeceps infested organism, but controllably/consistently in how much it moves, if flavor and implementation allows). The Parasite spreads Brutal alchemy effects to enemies within Y blocks (low radius), and if they are infected this way, further brutal alchemy dots stack up to 2 times. The Parasite dies after Z seconds.

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More damage like brutal alchemy, but requires setup, and is a lot more horrifying to think about. Experimental "trigger" with the triple potion, meant to be a concentrated effect. These spammed potions need not be on separate iframes- the frequent collisions is sufficent to activate the enhancement.

formal basin
radiant sparrow
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iirc iframes are 0.5 seconds

formal basin
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You can quickly spawn a creeper by hitting with brutal after gruesome in extremely quick succession- there must be some method of tracking if they are hit by a potion, even if they are not damaged

vale oak
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Mage enhancements: arcane strike: decay and inferno applied to every mob even if u dont hit
Frost nova:30% more dmg AND cd reduction
Mana lance: basically 2x burst dmg, spellshock and onen is much more op now
thunder step:pair this with cry havoc u can nuke something 30 blocks away and instantly come back, also makes tstep not tp you into the void
earrows: screwdriver op
Spellshock: funny 350 dmg mana lance
Magma shield:funny inferno dmg
prismatic shield:why tf u enhancing this skill

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10x better than alch

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or negative 10 times better than bezoar u

radiant sparrow
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it's literally worse in every way but the slightly increased pot regen than normal bezoar

narrow obsidian
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also doesnt have skin so big L

thorn sequoia
narrow obsidian
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only problem being its not that good, although can be good as enhancment

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like bezoar (u): picking up bezoar with full bag gives extra potion (up to 2 extra)