17 replies to this topic

[IronPlushy]

Was wondering how an alchemist levels in pvm? Do you like summon a bunch of plants and throw acid on things? Is it just ctrl clicking with a homunculus not doing much?

[fr0stn0va]

you go afk

[kasshin]

Cart revolution, mammonite.

Biochem can acid bomb MVPs for exp.

[IronPlushy]

Why arent plants viable in pvm?

[kasshin]

It's expensive, they're immobile after summoned, they don't AOE, and other players tend to mistakenly kill your plants.

As alchemist I used magnum break until I had enough job levels to do the cart revolution test. Leveling beyond 80 as alch is a pain so you'll likely want to do TIs, dual client leech yourself, and so on.

It's possible to solo MVPs as a lvl 70-80 Biochem if you have enough reduction gears, namely a shield with a reduction card.

[IronPlushy]

yeah but on an aggro or TI map an immobile plant would be a lot more effective right?

[sb120495]

If you have a linker alt then you can get him to eske your plants for fun.Even then plants are not viable.

[shpongled]

i found leveling incredibly easy now that my pet is lvl 99. pretty much just auto attack monsters and pet does most of the work. Bombs and acid bombs for fun (its not that hard farming mats honestly). I cart revved my way to lvl 60 and you COULD do this to 99, but its a crappy spell really and is kinda useless in the later levels of alch/biochem. Honestly, if your pets lvl 99, leveling is a cakewalk with just auto attacking. You could always try the mobbing into plants method if you get bored

[DrAzzy]

DPS of plants is poor, and monsters aggro on you (not the plants) when hit by them.

Pre-renewal, plants were good for semi-afk leveling (I used to out exp everyone in OD2 by using a pair of hydras to pull aggro, get exp taps, and proc autocast skills). But I don't see value for them in renewal.

[chaletamale]

If you advertise that you are a healer and are willing to shell out your coveted potions, you can get parties fairly easy. I actually enjoy playing healer on alchemist more then on priest. The heals are higher (i can get up to 2400 hp heals), it only costs 1 SP to heal, and I get my white pots for free anyways because of all the white herb drops in TIs. You also have a pet to help peel monsters off of you and do dps for the party AND you can tank if you stack enough vit. I was in a party last night that didnt even notice that our flakey priest (who was not healing at all) bailed from the party, because i was healing so much better then she was. we managed to all finish our tis with no priest in party with me as primary healer. Alchemists are fun! XD

[Anchors]

Plants are nice to draw in monsters from long distances or to proc your autocasts/item drop effects... but they don't last that long and the best you can do is either four Hydras or two Parasites... and Geographer, which heals you, only lasts a minute, and in PVM will heal anyone within range who is missing HP, with a mandatory 5-ish second delay between heals... meh.

If you can afford to chuck grenade bottles everywhere, Bomb is a really nice skill for TI maps on aggro, short-range, non-fire-resistant mobs. Set one down near you, walk onto/near it, and just wait out the four-minute duration - the Wiki lists it as only 200% atk per hit, but each Bomb hits around every half second and each monster will take a hit for each Bomb it's touching. Depending on the range of the monsters you're after, you can arrange bombs on the ground such that anything that approaches takes hits from at least two.

Cart Revo is actually a pretty nice skill. It only costs 12 SP per cast, doesn't miss (no dex needed), is highly spammable, and is affected by your weapon element. Fill your cart to its max weight. Combine it with Moonie dagger or Earth Deleter card to really stretch out your limited SP pool. Mob monsters into a single spot and cart revo them to death without worrying about splitting up your mob by carting them into a wall (any mobs on the cell your target is standing on will be shoved two cells west. Anything else will be pushed out radially from the cell your target is standing on, so gather mobs onto a single cell for maximum mob control). The only real drawback is that it requires j35 to learn...

A Potion pitching alchemist can also pull cast-sensing mobs. Shift click cast-sensing monsters with Aid Potion and you'll get their attention without spending any pots or SP (or any other indication that you used a skill at all). Other players might get confused on how you're drawing in mobs, though, since it'll look like they're just randomly attacking you...

[IronPlushy]

I have some money and I'm debating whether or not to return to RO. Alchemist is the only class in the game I have not played. I love the idea of summoning plants, can def see how 4 hydra can irritate the crap out of monsters, maybe combined with a rental tomahawk and a trusty homunculus sounds like fun. Then eventually get acid bomb and can do legitimate MVPing. I really like the idea of the class but so often in this game you go through all the skills get really excited, ask about them in the forum and all the skills are worthless.
Can you have bombs, acid bottles, full plant skills, marine spheres, and a full functioning homunculus simultaneously as an alchemist?
I'd rather take longer to level and enjoy it then zip through it spamming one skill to death.

[Anchors]

Well, the skills aren't entirely worthless... just highly situational. You can max Acid Terror, Bomb, Summon Marine Sphere, Summon Flora, potion toss, and Homunc Res on an Alchemist and still have 6 points left over, but once you trans and go bio, despite having 20 more job levels, you have to drop something to go with the basic MVP build because of the stupid 20 points of prereqs for Full Chem Protection.

I gotta say, fully funded/supplied alchemist is fun to play, but supplying the funds and supplies is a different story. If you make sure to pick up Cart Revo as a merch, though, then you'll always have a backup leveling skill to fall back on - even with 1 str, it's so spammable it'll still be viable with decent gear through 99.

[shpongled]

I gotta say, fully funded/supplied alchemist is fun to play, but supplying the funds and supplies is a different story. If you make sure to pick up Cart Revo as a merch, though, then you'll always have a backup leveling skill to fall back on - even with 1 str, it's so spammable it'll still be viable with decent gear through 99.

yea genes are very gear dependant. it sucks. merchant classes were meant for rich players with money to blow. good news is that you dont have to be rich to play alchemist/bio at least (might wanna hold off on transing to gen till you have the money for all of the gear). although it does drastically improve your gameplay/the amount of fun you have. imo, farm the mats you need for bombs/acid/plants before you make the character (or setup a mass buy shop). That way you can really enjoy your character to the fullest instead of just afking or auto attacking crap

if youre megarich, get yourself auto cast gear and crank up agi. all of the autocasts + pet dmg = godmode.

[kasshin]

Biochems don't get very many skill points leftover. FCP is just too important to miss, unless you are going to dual client a biochem to FCP you and your party wherever you go. Pretty sure you don't want to be doing this for 100 floors of ET or other instances when you can just FCP yourself or FCP your party. And of course the homunculus skills are a must (at least Homu Ress lvl 1).

[shpongled]

Biochems don't get very many skill points leftover. FCP is just too important to miss, unless you are going to dual client a biochem to FCP you and your party wherever you go. Pretty sure you don't want to be doing this for 100 floors of ET or other instances when you can just FCP yourself or FCP your party. And of course the homunculus skills are a must (at least Homu Ress lvl 1).

thats what a free stat reset is for lol. you can ditch the aid potion spells once you you have enough job points to learn cart cannon. but yea it sucks that they dont leave us enough points to keep aid potion since it heals for so much for so little sp =(. btw if you are part of an active mvp guild, you can get away with not even having full chem protection because there is usually somebody with it in party. at least in my guild thats how it is XD

[kasshin]

Yeah, there's the free reset, but I typically level a biochem as MVP-er, getting exp from MVPs I can solo or have a friend tank. There isn't a super good biochem PVM build anyway, unless you don't have a witch hat + alarm mask and are leveling as AGI build. There was a pretty long thread with people arguing about alchs / biochems using aid pot or aid condensed pot at TIs. I think most biochems do get at least aid potion lvl 4, but it's pretty wasteful in my opinion to get aid condensed potion. I don't think it's worth sacrificing your free reset just for aid condensed pot. The people who can afford to spam slim whites are probably the people who can afford to MVP for EXP till they hit gene anyway.

[shpongled]

Yeah, there's the free reset, but I typically level a biochem as MVP-er, getting exp from MVPs I can solo or have a friend tank. There isn't a super good biochem PVM build anyway, unless you don't have a witch hat + alarm mask and are leveling as AGI build. There was a pretty long thread with people arguing about alchs / biochems using aid pot or aid condensed pot at TIs. I think most biochems do get at least aid potion lvl 4, but it's pretty wasteful in my opinion to get aid condensed potion. I don't think it's worth sacrificing your free reset just for aid condensed pot. The people who can afford to spam slim whites are probably the people who can afford to MVP for EXP till they hit gene anyway.

im keeping my biochem at 99 with aid/condensed pot until i can afford to buy a full gene set. no point going past 99 with crappy gear on since i wont be able to kill crap/will get killed to crap in upper level stuff and you cant really mvp in eden gear anyways. at least i can enjoy being a party tank/healer and save up some eden badges. its actually alot of fun playing as this build imo and witch starsand isnt really that hard to farm if you have time. im in no hurry to get 150 (there really isnt even that much to do at max level anyways other then mvp). would rather enjoy the ride there

last night i was in a mid ti with a gene that had bad gear. He was pretty much a worthless party member because his cart cannon was doing garbage damage and he didnt have anything else to offer since he didnt have aid condensed pot or aid potion. pretty much reaffirmed why im waiting till im geared up lol