Alchemy difficulty imbalance (deepwater inks)

[Ydiss]

This is mainly feedback, with a possible solution proposal, based on my experience with tradeskills.

I've leveled up most skills to grand master and alchemy stands out by a wide margin in terms of difficulty and grind, above all the others I've done so far. The drop rate for inks is much lower than other skills for the same stretch. Over 1000 combines are needed to attain 300, a similar figure to all other skills, yet the farming bottle neck is much harsher.

Blacksmith skills requires airated waters, which can drop multiple times per kill.

Tailoring requires tae ew hides and blood to reach 295, which is still slow, but again multiple items drop per kill. It's possible to get well over 100 items in a relatively short farming session (a couple full clearances of CT).

Jewelry requires no farming at all to reach 300, you can complete it sat in front of a merchant and it takes a fraction of the time to level up to 300 (it costs more but cash is not a bottle neck for most players past t6, and the fiscal demands aren't great - the time taken to farm the cash required is minimal compared to farming inks).

Baking is the same as jewelry. You can get 300 sat in the guidhall, by doing a few combines, all easily made using merchant items.

Fetching can be completed similarly to blacksmith as pre-requisite combines are used to level up.

I've yet to complete tinkering, so I admit I am ignorant to the comparison.

Poison making isn't necessary at 300 for any quests so far, so it's fine around 250 which takes no time to attain; again, the farming is less arduous, with multiple venom drops per kill.

Deepwater inks for the most part are on a 50% shared table with up to another 3-4 items. The actual drop rate is less than 20%, with only 1 per kill excluding about 3 mobs which drop a stack of 2. A complete clearance of sirens usually nets fewer than 30 inks. On top of that, it takes much longer to get that number of drops as clearing sirens takes longer due to it being largely a water zone, so navigation is much slower than all other farm zones. The sheer number of hours required to gain 1000+ is enormous. Players will pay 600pp per ink, which is an indication of the rarity (and there aren't many who farm them to sell these days). That's over 700kpp in total. No other tradeskills have nearly that level of cash requirements to time.

I'm aware and appreciate that many players already have done the grind. The option is always there to ask for help to make items. I also appreciate that it's not practical to make all tradeskills equal in difficulty and I have no issue with alchemy being the hardest, but the margin is glaring.

All tradeskills require a lot of time and patience to master, even those that require no farming. Alchemy just stands out as being way above and beyond normal demands to complete. I can imagine many players will be put off attempting to complete this skill. I found most tradeskills challenging but relatively fun. Alchemy is simply too much of a grind and became extremely dull.

My only suggestion would be to do one or both of the following:

1. Place inks on their own loot chance, so they have 50% to drop.

2. Make them drop multiple items, much like other tradeskills loot does.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

[Ydiss]

This is an old post but I thought I should reply to say thanks for making the change to Philter of Concealment (in 2015 , I only just noticed this week). It's so much better farming Exceptional Shissar Blood in Shadow Haven than farming deep water inks and Alchemy is way more balanced as a trade skill now (it's actually really fun now because SH is a great zone for xp and loot). I really appreciate it, just wanted you to know.