Guide: Alchemy & Poisoning

[Coffee]

Alchemy + Poisoning:

First off, there are two routes you can take when training alchemy. The method we will discuss here will be for those who intend to train alchemy and poisoning concurrently. One can easily GM alchemy by simply making potions explicitly for poison training, so for anyone with the desire to create an alchemist -- clearly this is the way to go. Kill two birds with one stone, as the cliche goes.

Also, I should point out that while alchemy isn't too terrible of a skill to build up, poisoning is perhaps the most difficult of all of the "crafting-related" skills. It requires a lot of time, and a lot of resources.


Skill training:

0 - 30 ~ purchase from NPC
30 - 50 ~ lesser poison
50 - 65 ~ poison
65 - GM ~ greater poison
90 - GM ~ deadly poison

As you see, there are two ways to attain GM status. The first method of using greater poison is advantageous in that it requires (somewhat) less resources, however it will require a considerable amount of extra time. Using deadly poison, although it may not be as cost-efficient, the time it saves will more than make up for it. Also bear in mind that, aside from success percentage, there really isn't that much of an advantage to go all the way to GM for poisoning. The goal is simply to be able to apply it. I stopped macroing my skill once I hit around 93-95, as that's around the point where you can apply DP with a relatively decent success rate.

Macroing:

BE WARNED: Every so often when you fail to poison an item, you will accidentally poison yourself. With that said, make sure that you are packing cure potions relative the to level of poison you are working with (and perhaps a spare keg). Just toss into your macro a dblclick (cure potion). It will not consume the potion unless you are poisoned, so there's no real harm in having it run through this each time. Also, be sure that you set it to double-click by type. Otherwise, you'll only live through one mistake...

lesser poison --> lesser cure
posion --> cure
greater poison --> greater cure
deadly poison --> greater cure

There are multiple ways to set up a macro for this. I made a fairly basic one, and it seemed to work quite well without locking up or killing me. First off, get together the resources:

-- mortar and pestal
-- nightshade
-- bottles
-- a bladed weapon
-- CURE POTIONS

Poison can be applied to ANY bladed weapon ANY number of times. Any sword/polearm/knife will do. Since you can continually re-apply poison, only 1 item is required. I simply used my newbie dagger.

You will burn through a lot of mortar and pestals. Either buy up an ass-ton before you begin macroing, or include an if/then construct to make more when you run out. Remember you will probably need to setup an alternate restock agent to give yourself ingots, and maybe make another if/then construct for when you run out of tinkerer's tools.

If you use a restock agent for nightshade, I'd suggest putting slightly more than is required for the potion. That way you can just use an "absolute target" and there is less chance of the macro locking up.

It requires 10 seconds to create a potion. There is a 10 second cool-down timer on using the poisoning skill, however it only takes 5 to actually apply the poison.

So, your basic macro should look something like this:

Exec: Restock Agent
Wait for target
Absolute target
Pause 1 second
Dblclick item type (mortar and pestal)
[blah blah, menu responses]
Pause 10 seconds
If: sysmsg "Your pour the potion"
Then: use skill poisoning
Wait for target
Target type (green potion)
Wait for target
Absolute target [your bladed item]
Pause 5 seconds
Dblclick item type (orange potion)
Pause 1 second
End if


So there you go -- you're all set. Again, more intricate macros may be created, but this one will get you by.

[alatar]

So far:

From 65 - 95.5 Alchemy: Greater Posion
From 63 - 91.1 Poisoning: Greater Poison

Dispite your post about Poisoning taking a sufficient amount of time, I found that I gained from 80.6 - 91.1 with about 20 - 23 kegs of greater poison, which was nearly a 4th of what I used to get from 50 - 80.6 (including regular poison)..

Not sure if I hit a gain burst or what, but GM Poisoning isn't too far away now..

[Early Cuyler]

I had to tweak this macro a bit to get it to work for me. But here's how I went about setting mine up:

Get a bunch of nightshade and mortars, cure potions, and some bottles (since you fill a poison potion and then use it to poison, emptying the bottle, you don't need too much, but if the macro stalls and doesn't use the poison it can back them up in your bag so you'll need extras). Stand by bank with bank box opened and bag opened. In the bank: all the nightshade. In your bag: cures, a bladed weapon, all the mortars, bottles, and 1 nightshade. I could only get this to work if I had the 1 nightshade in my bag while recording the macro, I think because then it's getting to target an actual object in your bag, as well as getting to run the restock agent while recording since it will bump you up to 3 nightshade. I had tried it restocking to 2 nightshade, and somehow it used up both nightshade in my bag, restocked 2 new NS to a new bag location, and wouldn't run. These numbers would of course need to be changed depending on which type of poison you're making. I just started so this is for lesser poison.

Set a Restock Agent to place 3 Nightshade from your bank into your bag, and set it to a Hot Key on Razor. Set an in game macro to use skill poisoning. Press Record, and get it to look like this:

Exec. Restock Agent-1
Absolute Target -yourself when setting it up
Pause 1.00sec
Double Click (mortar and pestle) -record clicking on mortar, change to dclickbytype
Pause .50sec
Wait for Target
Absolute Target
Wait for Menu(Any)
MenuResponse 1 -depending on which poison you're making
Pause 10.00sec
If (SysMessage "You pour the potion")
UseSkill Poisoning
Pause .50sec
Wait for Target
Pause .50sec
Target by Type (Green Potion) -record click on pot, change to target by type
Pause .50sec
Wait for Target
Absolute Target -your bladed weapon
Pause 5.00sec
Double Click (orange potion) -record click on pot, change to dclick by type
Pause 1.00sec
End If


I had to put all these little .50sec pauses in to reduce macro breaks/stalls/resets. However, it still breaks. Most often it will break after target by type (green potion), so obviously there's some problem with it recognizing what to use. It has also broken after double click (mortar and pestle) as well, but rarely. After 10-15 minutes I will have backed up 6 or 7 poison potions in my bag. I'll check back later and see if it has just continued backing them up.

If anyone knows how to fix this break please let me know.

[eyesdearth]

Have you tried putting the mortar and pestles and the weapon in a bag/pouch by themselves? Don't know if that will help much.

When alchemy fills an empty, it randomly shift it in the backpack. That might be part of the problem, since it can interfere with targeting objects beneath it. I can't think of a way to separate the empties from the filled ones, since filling them I believe will always put them into the top level of your backpack, in a random spot.

[Early Cuyler]

Ok, I moved the mortars, weapon, and cures into a pouch within my bag, and the macro has been running for 30 minutes unbroken, and without any backed up poison potions. Thanks, that seems to have fixed it.


Update: A few hours later the macro was still working, but it had backed up like 25 potions in my bag.

[vteclude]

will a poisoned wep slowly have its durability eaten away by the poison?

[Early Cuyler]

I believe weapon durability on a poisoned weapon only decreases upon striking something, and then exaggeratedly so. Poisoning the weapon doesn't seem to degrade it. At any rate, my katana hasn't broken in my bag.

[eyesdearth]

will a poisoned wep slowly have its durability eaten away by the poison?

No, "poisoned" is just a flag that a weapon can have, like "silver". It doesn't cause any time-based effect on it. It's not impossible to do that, but it certainly wasn't in T2A. It's poison, not acid. Whether it degraded faster on strike, I don't know, but it doesn't seem that unreasonable that OSI would have done that to give poisoning a slight disadvantage for the sake of balance.

[Kaivan]

Weapon "corrosion" as they called it on OSI was not introduced until UOR. During T2A, poisoning was a straightforward skill.

[Early Cuyler]

Does that mean poisoned weapons don't corrode or lose durability faster than non-poisoned weapons in this T2A version?

[Derrick]

Does that mean poisoned weapons don't corrode or lose durability faster than non-poisoned weapons in this T2A version?

That's correct

[Artemis]

It should cost 220k-250k to Gm alchemy.
Greater poison would not take you to GM you HAD to use deadly for the last 5-6 points of gain, and while MAKING deadly poison there was a chance would get poisoned by it.

[Early Cuyler]

I did greater poison until 99.6 or so, and I only stopped because I had to fill kegs of greater cures, greater heals, greater str/agi, and deadly poison. So I figured I may as well work on those for GM.

I've never poisoned myself while making deadly poison, only while applying it.

[Gund]

Im going to start stocking up for alchemy/poisoning I think. Just how much NS/kegs/mortars/bottles .....whatever might I need?

[Coffee]

I've never poisoned myself while making deadly poison, only while applying it.

This is truth.

Also, and I'm not sure if it's simply coincidence or if there's an actual figure for it -- but at a certain point I no longer poisoned myself while applying. This was towards the upper levels though.