Quick-minded and curious, Fae Alchemists travel throughout Crystalia searching for obscure ingredients and reagents for their alchemical concoctions. Highly regarded by all Heroes, Fae Alchemists are in constant demand. Their potent potions can easily turn the tide of any battle.
Stats[]
- Type: Elf Hero
- Crystal Affinity: Ruby
- Abilities: Alchemy, Potion Master
- Unique Actions: None
- Potions: Experimental Concoction, Secret Ingredient, Unstable Mixture
- Movement Points: 7
- Action Points: 3
- Strength: 2B (Melee: 1)
- Armor: 3B (Defense)
- Willpower: 2R (Magic: 6)
- Dexterity: 3B
- Hearts: 5
- Potion Quantity: 3
Gameplay[]
Stats: []
The Fae Alchemist has above average offense of 2R WILL and average defense of 3B ARM. Like most Elves, she has above average 7 movement. She can hold 3 Potions, which is currently the highest number of potions a hero can hold. She has Alchemy, which allows her to gain potions instead of hearts when they are rolled, which is critical since her effectiveness is reliant on having a steady supply of potions. She is also a Potion Master, which allows her to use an additional potion during her activation.
Abilities: []
The Alchemist has no offensive or support actions.
Potion:[]
Experimental Concoction is the Alchemist's trademark potion that only she may drink and makes her potentially one of the strongest heroes. It allows her to gain access to the benefits of a treasure regardless of slot until her next activation. In most cases she will look for WILL treasure to increase her magic attacks, but if additional defense is needed, she may use ARM.
If her Experimental Concoction is unable to pull treasure to increase her WILL, increasing her STR and performing a basic melee attack is still an option since 2B 1R (2.5 avg/7 max) and 2B 1G (3.33 avg/8 max) STR are higher than her base 2R (2.33 avg/6 max) WILL, but this is only relevant until she increases her WILL to 1B 2R (3 avg/8 max) or 3R (3.5 avg/9 max).
Experimental Concoction is powerful when combined with Potion Master because it allows the Alchemist to benefit from two treasures during her activation in addition to her existing equipment. This means it's plausible for the Alchemist to have 2R 2G (5.33 avg/12 max) WILL before accounting for buffs from equipment, Auras, or Tile effects. Depending on the treasure used, max equipped Alchemist can plausibly have 3R 5G (13.5 avg/29 max) or 2R 6G (14.33 avg/30 max). This may vary between games since the base Explore and Arcade treasure decks do not have Green WILL for every slot so how the treasure deck is constructed will impact the value of Experimental Concoction.
At the same time, Experimental Concoction can also fail to draw any treasure to improve the Alchemist's offense and thus may not provide any value during her activation. This may still have benefit b/c the treasure she selects will be discarded, so this can help thin the treasure deck so drawn treasure is better for other heroes, but may also increase the likelihood of drawing Boo Booty/negative treasures. If the Heroes are somehow able to deplete the treasure deck, the discarded treasure are reshuffled to form the new treasure deck.
Note that Experimental Concoction is not affected by Cursed treasures and Boo Booty are discarded and another treasure is drawn, but other negative treasure cards will still take effect before the Alchemist can draw another treasure.
Don't neglect treasures that grant additional abilities. Some may give her access to mobility skills such as Fly or Teleport for the duration of her activation or additional benefits to a hero that activates after the Alchemist during the same turn. Some treasures have powerful one use effects that the Alchemist may be able to take advantage of before they're discarded during her next upkeep.
Secret Ingredient may be used by any hero during their to add 1G to their next dice roll and is the source of the Alchemist's support. This will most often be used by the Fae Alchemist or other heroes on their next offense roll, typically a Blaster attack or AOE that they need to succeed and/or costs many action points. The Alchemist may prefer to use Secret Ingredient over Experimental Concoction as it's more consistent and guarantees an increase in offense. It is not generally advisable to use with a basic attack unless the party is already full on potions and needs to spend one to avoid losing potions on the next attack roll. It may also be used defensively for the hero's next defense roll before the end of their activation, but if not used, the potion buff expires during the hero's next upkeep. As the heroes start with a single potion, Secret Ingredient will typically be used by the heroes for their first AOE attack during their first activation to greatly increase the chance it hits and potentially help them snowball the match by providing sufficient Loot from defeated monsters to keep the Alchemist supplied with potions.
Unstable Mixture gives the Alchemist's party access to a range 3 Magic Burst 1 AOE attack. This may be used by her or other WILL heroes in her party to gain access to AOE and combos well with Potion Master to allow the Alchemist to attack up to 5 times during her activation (2 red potions and 3 basic magic attacks). It can be combined with Secret Ingredient to give the 2R 1G WILL AOE attack (4.33 avg/10 max).
Strategy: []
The Fae Alchemist is an offensive AOE/Blaster/Support magic hero that is reliant on a steady supply of potions to maintain her effectiveness. She has no unique actions, so her activation is primarily deciding whether and when to drink potions to increase her offense for her basic magic attack, perform additional red potion attacks, or increase her defense for the upcoming Consul activation.
Unless the Alchemist is potion starved, Potion Master allows her to drink two potions to improve her offense and allow her basic magic attack to Blast a high defense monster or use two red potions to perform 5 attacks in a single activation. Potion Master also allows her to drink a potion to improve her offense and then use a red potion that benefits from the buff on its attack. Her ability to Blast and AOE is heavily reliant on the party's ability to keep the Alchemist supplied with potions as she is restricted to basic magic attacks when the party has no potions available.
As the Alchemist will typically have increased offense from her potion buffs, it is not atypical for the Alchemist to refill the entire party's potions during her activation since she every Blue and Red dice has a 1/6 chance to return her a potion and Green dice have a 1/6 chance to give her two potions. As such, it may be advantageous for the Alchemist to use basic attacks instead of AOE on weak monsters to increase the chances of successfully rolling potions.
If she is already holding 3 potions, she should typically use a potion before attacking in case she rolls a potion or heart unless there are other heroes with open potion slots to avoid wasting potions. During her activation, she will typically drink at least one potion to increase her offense and increase her chances or rolling potions on her following attacks. If she refills her potions during her activation, she will typically want to use her second potion from Potion Master on an attack to benefit from her potion buff and have an additional chance to refill the potion.
In most cases, you will want to wait to activate the Alchemist until she has at least one potion to improve her basic magic attacks during her activation. During her activation she will typically use a combination of Experimental Concoction andSecret Ingredient to buff her attack or defense and then Unstable Mixture for AOE or use her basic magic attack.
Equipment/Buffs: []
The Alchemist needs WILL to increase her offense and ensure she can consistently succeed on her attack rolls to gain the potions generated from Alchemy. Consider prioritizing Green WILL on the Alchemist as her Alchemy can allows her to gain two potions on a successful attack when heart/potion is rolled. ARM will increase her defense, but if she's consistently using Experimental Concoction, if she is not able to pull WILL, she will typically prioritize pulling ARM for defense. The Consul may focus the Alchemist to deprive the party access to her powerful potions so in most cases, she will need some ARM to improve her defense unless the heroes are dominating the match. She will not typically need STR or DEX.
Consider giving her equipment that increases the number of potions she can carry as Secret Ingredient is good enough to be used practically every Hero activation if possible. She can make use of gear with Luck to increase the number of treasure cards she draws with Experimental Concoction. Giving her additional action points is often beneficial even if she's using it on additional basic magic attacks as it increases her chances to roll potions through Alchemy.
Limitations: []
The Fae Alchemist's effectiveness is reliant on how well the party can keep her supplied with potions. A potion starved Fae Alchemist adds very little value to her party and if the entire party is struggling, she tends to remain potion starved. Monsters with high defense can make it harder for the Alchemist and her party to gain a foothold early to earn loot to consistently roll potions during the Hero activations. Even with improved offense, rolling potions is still reliant on RNG so it's possible for the heroes to through a dry spell and successfully wound monsters, but not roll potions or roll too many potions and fail to successfully wound.
Experimental Concoction adds another layer of RNG to the Alchemist's effectiveness so her performance can be inconsistent between activations. She has no special defense and Secret Ingredient can only increase the Alchemist's defense for a single dice roll so if she and her party run into a string of bad luck, she is not difficult to focus and defeat.
Party: []
The Fae Alchemist is a powerhouse WILL hero that can perform well or poorly in any party depending on treasure and potion RNG. She parties better with heroes that have high offense and can keep her supplied with potions, but her Secret Ingredient can also help lower offense party members get the edge they need to successfully wound monsters. She parties well with other WILL heroes that also have access to red WILL potions as they can use each other's red potions as the situation calls, but they can then vie for WILL equipment as the Alchemist may run use up desirable WILL treasure with Experimental Concoction. Soda Master Candy deserves special mention since she can generate potions using her Cola ability and 'vend' them to the Alchemist, thus mitigating potion shortages until the party can increase their offense to consistently roll potions without Cola.