SL Goldmaking: First look at alchemy

Today we will continue to preview what professions will look like in Shadowlands. The beta is still in full effect, and I don’t have access yet, so I will have to rely on what Wowhead has available for us. 

Alchemy overview

As usual alchemists get to craft both flasks and potions. The basics of the profession are pretty much unchanged with healing and mana potions, stat and output potions, utility potions and flasks as the main consumables. Alongside these alchemists get some new transmutes. What is new this time around is the re-addition of weapon oils that you apply to your weapon, which is a whole new class of consumables. 

Another new aspect is the addition of intermediate crafting materials in the form of ground herbs, and of course intermediate crafting materials for use as optional reagents when crafting armor. 

Combat Potions

The main potions are very similar to what we’ve typically had. We get the normal mainstat potions, healing, rejuvenation and mana potions and a potion for slow mana regen out of combat. In addition there are 6 new output oriented potions with various effects. Some of these interact with your weapon oil and will be stronger if you use the correct oil. 

As usual I expect players will math out whatever the strongest option is for their spec and flock to that. Pairing a weapon oil and a potion will be mandatory for the potions with weapon oil increased effects. 

As far as we know ranks are going away. At the moment potions cost between 2 and 6 total herbs to craft. They just require basic herbs without grinding them up, so you won’t have to spend too much time crafting intermediate materials. 

Utility Potions

There are 4 utility potions in Shadowlands. Shaded sight gives increased stealth detection, Soul Purity removes a curse,a disease and a poison, Specter Swiftness increases movement speed while dead and Hidden Spirit gives 18 seconds of invisibility. Spiritual Anti-Venom removes all poisons and reduces the duration of any poisons that get applied to you by 50% for the next 2 minutes. 

None of these seem particularly interesting and I doubt you will make too much gold with these recipes. 

Flasks

Flasks are getting consolidated it seems. There are two flasks, one for primary stat and one for stamina. It’s interesting that they kept the main stat potions separate, but merged the flasks. Obviously the main stat flask should sell very well, but with this amount of consolidation the market will be more cutthroat than ever. 

You can also craft cauldrons for 8 flasks and two shadestone that you get from transmutation. Shadestone are tradeable, but the finished cauldrons are bind to account so they are useless for goldmaking. This will be by far the cheapest way to get flasks for a raid, so flasks might not be too strong in SL. 

Weapon Oils

Two new consumables!

Shadowcore Oil seems to be the one for DPS and embalmers oil for healers. Assuming they don’t overwrite anything else these will be used by any player engaging in high-end PvE and PvP. I suspect they will sell really well and the interaction with potions is also pretty cool. 

Transmutes

There isn’t too much information out on transmutes yet. We know that you can transmute Shadestone that is tradeable and used in cauldrons. This will presumably 

be on a cooldown. The transmute requires the ground version of the herbs, so you will have to do some intermediate crafting, but as it is on a CD it will be limited. 

Optional reagents

Alchemists also get to craft a bunch of optional reagents used in armor crafting. The effects include increased flask duration and various main stat procs. Overall it’s extremely hard to gauge these. I do think they will do better if you also have the armor crafting profession for the full supply chain. 

Overall thoughts

To me potions and weapon oils seem like the most profitable recipes. Flasks will also often be profitable, but as it’s just one flask for everyone the competition and undercutting will likely be extremely intense. As such I think other recipes may be a better in practical terms. The optional reagents will probably only be useful for crafting your own armor, and we have no idea if the cost or power will be worth it as there are still some placeholders. 

Alchemy should remain a strong goldmaking profession as the main consumable crafter and will always be a good choice as long as that remains the case. 

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