Part 102: Alchemy
Alchemy TutorialSo I’ve promised this for a long time, and it’s about time I deliver! Lydie & Suelle has a pretty deep crafting system, and I hope this post helps you make the most of it if you're playing it yourself.
We’ll be crafting an Ice Bomb for the first part of this tutorial. First things first, pay attention to the effect levels; this is my postgame file at alchemy level 50, and a basic effect level of 16. You start the game at alchemy level 3, where your basic effect level is 10 and you can transfer 0 traits without a catalyst. You get more goodies with higher alchemy level, though:
Alchemy level 10: you can transfer 1 trait without a catalyst.
Alchemy level 15: basic effect level raised to 11.
Alchemy level 20: basic effect level raised to 12.
Alchemy level 25: basic effect level raised to 13.
Alchemy level 30: you can transfer 2 traits without a catalyst.
Alchemy level 35: basic effect level raised to 14.
Alchemy level 40: basic effect level raised to 15.
Alchemy level 45: basic effect level raised to 16.
Alchemy level 50: you can transfer 3 traits without a catalyst.
Materials themselves can have up to four components of various colors (Red, Blue, Green, Yellow or Purple), which can range from a single square to various shapes that can fit in a 3x3 grid).
Did I say grids? Because that’s a great opportunity to segue into Catalysts!
Catalysts
Ilmeria introduces you to catalysts once you hit Alchemy level 8, and you’re no longer limited to a 4x4 grid then. Some other early-game catalysts are also 4x4.
Some are 5x5, like Ertona Crystals and Darkshrooms.
Some are 6x6, like Rubies and Sapphires.
Finally, some late/endgame catalysts have a 7x7 grid.
You’ll notice that catalysts have other panels that have their own effects, even aside from affecting grid size. From chapter 6 (when you can first craft them) onward, Rubies are probably your best all-purpose catalysts, since you can use them to transfer up to 3 traits on items until you hit level 50, and for a massive +5 effect level cap boost. Providing an extra of whatever you craft is also super useful.
All you have to do is put something on the effect panel, and it’s activated.
Going back to the first screen, you might notice that effects (in this case, Ice Damage, Speed Down and Expand Effect Area) aren’t just tied to colors, but also to astral signs. Catalysts also help you hit (or prevent you from hitting) effect levels tied to these thresholds; in the case of a Ruby, it has panels that can raise Mars and Sun-tied effects by 4 and decrease the Mercury and Moon-tied effects by 4 when activated. For an Ice Bomb, only the Mercury-decreasing panel is relevant, but since each recipe has different astral effects, you can tailor your use of Catalyst accordingly.
Enhancing Agents
You probably first come across these in the Luminous Ice Grotto at the end of Chapter 4, but after this comes another layer of depth that can help you hit effect levels. Enhancing agents are sorted by color (Red, Blue, Green, Yellow and Purple) can be divided into a few categories:
-Those that change tiles of a color and adjacent tiles with the same color to the enhancing agent’s respective color;
-Those that change ALL tiles of a color to the enhancing agent’s respective color;
-Those that change the colors of all the component pieces for one material to the enhancing agent’s respective color;
-Those that change all squares between selected square and enhancing agent-colored squares falling on a line into the enhancing agent’s respective color.
-One enhancing agent, a Dragon’s Eye, can let you reuse a material. (Fittingly, it’s vanishingly rare and can be found in bone piles at the Merimer Depths in the Great Cascades of Anfel).
tl;dr enhancing agents are a pretty big deal! If your components by themselves aren’t large enough or if you don’t have enough components of a relevant color, using enhancing agents can make the difference in hitting the effects you want or need. You can only use the once per synthesis, though.
(Also, yes, if the game thinks you made a good play then you get treated to a cut-in!)
Traits
I’ve talked a bit about traits, but here’s a section where I really want to explicate on them. They can add all sorts of effects to your items (e.g., make bombs more destructive, make medicine heal more, increase critical hit rates, increase use speed, add uses, give more stats on accessories, etc.)
For this section, let’s start by making some Moffcloth. We’ll need some Wild Cotton, some (Thread), some (Animal Materials), and some (Cloth).
Let’s select this Wild Cotton with the trait Parameters +15%…
This Wool with Parameters +12%…
This Big Scale with Quality Up ++…
And finally, this Wind God’s Bag with Quality Up +.
After synthesizing, let’s look at the trait pool we can select from:
That’s right, the traits I mentioned up and vanished! Except not really: traits of the same category (e.g., quality-boosting, price-reducing, or stat percent increasing) can merge. In this case, Parameters +12% and Parameters +15% both merged up to Draw Out Power (which increases all stats by 20%) and Quality Up + and Quality Up ++ merged up to Pro Perfection (increases item quality by 35%). Merging traits is how you get from piddly early-game traits to the top-tier ones.
For instance, here are some Destruction traits…
Recovery traits…
Critical hit-boosting traits…
Stat-boosting traits…
Equipment Effect-boosting traits…
Skill Power-boosting traits…
Buffing traits and more!
You might notice that for these various traits, certain categories of items are either filled in or shaded out. This shows which items can have which traits; a bomb can’t have recovery traits, a healing item can’t have destruction traits, weapon cores and accessories can’t have critical hit traits, and so forth.
Items categorized as Synth, such as neutralizers, weapon and armor materials, gemstones, and a lot of other things in this tab, can have any trait; if you want a particular trait on a bomb or weapon core or what have you, then you can make Synth items with said traits first before doing synthesizing what you really want. Neutralizers in particular have a diverse array of sources (e.g., poison materials, clay, plants, oil, fuel and more), so that’s your key for getting useful traits from raw materials into your greater trait pool for future use.
Finally, on the subject of usable items comes categories thereof. You might have seen me coyly referencing how Sue can’t use healing items or how Mathias can’t use bombs, so here are the three categories for usables:
Bombs: Self-explanatory. Throw bomb, cause damage, etc.
Medicines: Also self-explanatory. They restore HP and/or MP. Maybe they’ll have some side effects like buffing a stat.
Support Items: Covers a wide variety of things! They can buff allies (e.g., raise critical hit rates or raise evasion rates), debuff or inflict status ailments on enemies, or change the terrain. (You’ve seen a precursor to this with the Falgior fight when the twins drew Falgior into the world of the Frozen Palace, but you’ll get the full gist of it in Chapter 7.)
What does this have to do with traits? You might have noticed in the previous screen that there’s a category for “Heal”. Spelling it out, Medicines and Support Items draw from the same trait pool.
Finally, here’s a handy chart on which party members can use which items:
Anyway, I hope that was thorough, and coming up next is a tutorial on forging!