Alchemy Lifeskill Guide

Introduction

Alchemy is an important profession/life skill in BDO. It is used to create MP potions, elixirs, crystal sockets, alchemy stones, etc.

High Alchemy skill can be quite profitable and is a great way to make money whilst AFK. All you really need to start is an Alchemy Tool and a house to put it in. A basic Alchemy Tool can be bought from an Alchemist for 5,000 silver, crafted using a Tool Workshop, or bought from the Central Market.

After you have acquired an alchemy tool and placed it in your house, you can interact with it by pressing the R button to open the alchemy window. Here you can select ingredients or a recipe from the list highlighted in blue. The recipe list will not tell you the ingredients for items you have not prepared before.

When you prepare some items (such as elixirs), you have a chance of earning a higher item grade. Higher item grades will give you better stats.

There are 5 item grades (lowest to highest):

• White
• Green
• Blue
• Yellow
• Orange

You may also occasionally receive “trash” items, which can be exchanged for other alchemy ingredients, contribution EXP, alchemy EXP, or silver.

I recommend using BDOlytics for Alchemy Recipes to help you work out what is best to make.

Alchemy Tools

Ideally, you want to use Advanced Alchemy Tools for the alchemy time reduction and because of its high durability but this is really one of the biggest bottlenecks when it comes to alchemy because it’s even harder to make than the Advanced Cooking Utensil and can only be made in a Level 4 Tool Workshop (currently the only one is in Glish). You may have a hard time buying these off the marketplace and should make them yourself if you can. The other alternative is to use the Intermediate Alchemy Tool which has less durability but does not give the alchemy time reduction.

The base Alchemy Tool and the Balenos Traditional Alchemy Tool can be bought from a general goods vendor for the prices listed below.

Item Name	Durability	Effect	Cost to buy	Workshop	Workshop Recipe
Alchemy Tool	100		5,000	Level 2 Tool Workshop	Rough Stone x18 Melted Iron Shard x10 Black Stone Powder x3
Balenos Traditional Alchemy Tool	500	Alchemy time +5 sec	50,000	Level 2 Tool Workshop	Rough Stone x10 Melted Iron Shard x12 Black Stone Powder x12
Intermediate Alchemy Tool	500			Level 3 Tool Workshop	Rough Stone x40 Log x25 Melted Iron Shard x20 Black Stone Powder x10
Serendia Traditional Alchemy Tool	1250	Alchemy time +6 sec		Level 3 Tool Workshop	Rough Stone x20 Log x15 Melted Iron Shard x20 Black Stone Powder x20
Advanced Alchemy Tool	900	Alchemy time -1 sec		Level 4 Tool Workshop (Glish only)	Polished Stone x30 Usable Scantling x15 Melted Iron Shard x24 Black Stone Powder x20
Calpheon Traditional Alchemy Tool	2000	Alchemy time +7 sec		Level 4 Tool Workshop (Glish only)	Polished Stone x15 Maple Plywood x8 Melted Iron Shard x30 Black Stone Powder x30

How to Repair Alchemy Tools

You can repair a Supreme Alchemy Tool or Advanced Alchemy Tool to restore its max durability. To obtain the Repair Tool, you need to exchange a full durability Alchemy Tool of the same type.

• For example, to obtain a Repair Tool to restore an Advanced Alchemy Tool, you must exchange a full-durability Advanced Alchemy Tool.

Unlike Alchemy Tools, the repair tools stack in your inventory and have a low weight, so you can keep lots of them in your inventory or storage and use them to repair your Alchemy Tool, instead of having to replace it each time the durability runs out. Simply use the (F5) key on your Alchemy Tool to use a repair tool.

Alchemy Tool	Repair Tool	Exchange NPCs
Advanced Alchemy Tool	Lomerun’s Advanced Alchemy Repair Tool	[Wandering Alchemist] Dalishain located in any major city or Velia
Supreme Alchemy Tool	Lomerun’s Supreme Alchemy Repair Tool	[Wandering Alchemist] Dalishain located in any major city or Velia

Alchemy Gear

When doing alchemy you really want to achieve the fastest possible alchemy time for your convenience. This is done using a combination of various buffs but it is much harder to achieve than with cooking because the Alchemy tool is harder to obtain.

You want to prioritize the alchemy mastery over the alchemy time unless you really don’t have a lot of time to spend doing alchemy. Unlike Cooking, the Alchemy Mastery clothes do give an Alchemy time reduction, but the reduction only compares to the Silver Embroidered Alchemist’s Clothes when they are at high enhancements. For example, you need +7 Loggia Clothes to even get any time reductions, and you need PEN Loggia Clothes for the -4 second reduction.

Ideally, to get 1 second alchemy time, you would want to use: Pearl store costume (-2s), Advanced Alchemy Tool (-1s), Mastery Clothing if possible, or +3 Silver Embroidered Alchemist’s Clothes (-4s), Sharp Alchemy Stone of Life (-1.4s) and Seafood Cron Meal (-0.6s). If you don’t have the pearl store costume you can use the Verdure Cron Elixir instead for -1 second and a +4 Silver Embroidered Alchemist’s Clothes or highly enhanced manos clothing.

	Item Name	Buffs	How to obtain
	Teff Bread	Cooking/Alchemy TIme -0.3 sec	Cooking (Beginner Lv.6) Recipe for one: Teff Flour x5, Mineral Water x3, Leavening Agent x2, Salt x2
	Teff Sandwich	Cooking/Alchemy TIme -0.5 sec	Cooking (Professional Lv.1) Recipe for one: Teff Bread x1, Freekeh Snake Stew x1, Grilled Scorpion x1, Red Sauce x3
	Seafood Cron Meal	Cooking/Alchemy Time -0.6 sec Life EXP +10% Processing Success Rate +10% Gathering +2 Movement Speed +2 Fishing +2 Weight Limit +100LT All Life Skill Mastery +25	Processing window (L) > Simple Cooking Recipe for one: Balenos Meal x3, Calpheon Meal x3, Margoria Seafood Meal x1, Ancient Cron Spice x1
	Alchemy Stone of Life	Cooking/Alchemy Time -0.5 to -2 sec depending on alchemy stone	Alchemy (Skilled 5) Recipe for one: Shining Powder x8, Blood of the Sinner x5, Powder of Time x6, Pure Powdered Reagent x9, Clear Liquid Reagent x9
	Life Spirit Stone	Cooking/Alchemy Time -1.1 sec	Dropped from monsters in Kamaslyvia region
	Verdure Draught	Alchemy/Cooking Time -1 sec Life EXP+20% Processing Success Rate +20% Gathering +3 Movement Speed +3 Fishing +3 Weight Limit +200LT	Processing window (L) > Simple Cooking Worker’s Elixir x3, Elixir of Swiftness x3, Elixir of Time x3, Tears of the Falling Moon x1
	Sethra’s Artifacts – Alchemy EXP	Alchemy EXP +5%	Obtained from Imperial Crafting Delivery (low chance when handing in Alchemy Boxes)
	Sethra’s Artifacts – Alchemy Mastery	Alchemy Master +10	Obtained from Imperial Crafting Delivery (low chance when handing in Alchemy Boxes)
	[A Fragment of a Star, a Spoonful of the Moon] Lightstone Set	Alchemy Time -2 seconds Alchemy EXP +13% Alchemy Mastery +25 Max Carrying Weight +50LT	Lightstone of Flora: Time Lightstone of Flora: Malleable Lightstone of Wind: Feather Iridescent LightstoneMore info in our Artifacts and Lightstone Guide
	Dim Magic Crystal: Life	Life EXP +3%	Obtained from Challenge (Y) rewards when reaching Apprentice in a Life Skill
	Life Crystal	Life EXP +5%	Obtained through Repeatable Quest [Repeat] Life Crystal – from Hyunyong NPC Hand over Forest Crystal, x1, Trace of Forest x50 Forest Crystals are obtained from Black Shrine Bosses
	Vital Crystal	Life Skill Mastery +10	Obtained through Repeatable Quest [Repeat] Vital Crystal – from Hyunyong NPC Hand over Forest Crystal, x1, Trace of Forest x50 Forest Crystals are obtained from Black Shrine Bosses
	Silver Embroidered Alchemist’s Clothes (up to +5 enhancement)	Alchemy Time -1 to -7 sec depending on enhancement	Costume Mill (Level 1) Wool x10, Powder of Darkness x10, Black Stone Powder x15
	Loggia Alchemist’s Clothes (up to +20 enhancement)	Alchemy Time -1 to -4 sec depending on enhancement	Sold by Camellia Loggia and Zaaira for 1 million silver
	Gorgath Alchemist’s Clothes (up to +20 enhancement)	Alchemy Time -1 to -5 sec depending on enhancement	Sold by Geranoa and Zaaira for 10 million silver
	Manos Alchemist’s Clothes (up to +20 enhancement)	Alchemy Time -1 to -7 sec depending on enhancement	Processing window (L) > Manufacture Pure Gold Crystal x200, Manos Stone x5, Essense of Perfection x20, Enlightend One’s Cotton Fabric x15
	Pavilla Costume Set	Alchemy Time -2 sec	Pearl Store (F3) > Apparel > Costume (2,200 pearls)

Weight Limit Crystals for Alchemy

You can find alternative crystals in our Weight Limit Guide.

Best crystal setup for a total of 490 LT:

• Ancient Magic Crystal – Hystria x4 (or x6 with Fiery Weapon equipped)
• HAN Magic Crystal – Gervish x4
• WON Magic Crsytal- Cobelinus x2
• BON Magic Crystal – Hystria x2

How to start Alchemy production

To mass produce a recipe, you simply go to your Alchemy Tool in your house and press “R” to use it. Right-click your ingredients and make sure you enter ingredients for 1 result. (Entering more will consume all of your ingredients and only give you 1 result.

Next click “Batch Production”.

Click “Yes” then enter the amount you wish to make. You can click “Maximum quantity” or press “F” to create as many as possible. Then click “OK” and you will automatically make as many as you have ingredients or energy for.

Imperial Alchemy Boxes

You can pack alchemy or cooking boxes each day and deliver them to an Imperial Crafting Delivery NPC for silver. Even a newer player can make a minimum of 50 million silver per day by spending just a few minutes buying the items and turning them into boxes.

For more information about Imperial Crafting Delivery, check our dedicated guide!

Ingredient Substitutions

With Alchemy Recipes, there are various ingredient Substitutions you can use.

• For example, if you are making Clown’s Blood, the recipe requires Blood Type 1 x2, so you can use any of the ingredients that are under the Blood Type 1 group.
  • Such as Rhino Blood x2, Wolf Blood x2, Cheetah Dragon Blood x2, Flamingo Blood x2

As well as substituting the ingredient, higher quality ingredients can also be used. Using Mushrooms as an example, we can see from the table below that 1 Big Mushroom is the same as 3 white-grade Mushrooms, 1 High-Quality Mushroom is the same as 18 white-grade Mushrooms, and 1 Special grade Mushroom is the same as 108 white-grade Mushrooms.

This means that in a recipe where you need x5 or less Mushrooms, you can use x2 Big Mushrooms instead of using x5 white-grade Mushrooms, or you might use x1 High-Quality/Special Mushroom instead.

You can also mix and match the rarities of the ingredients as long as you have at least the number of ingredients required in the recipe.

• For example, if you are creating Elixir of Swiftness, the recipe requires Arrow Mushroom x5, so you can use x1 of the High-Quality Arrow Mushrooms
  • You can also mix and match by using Big Arrow Mushroom x1 (equal to x3 Arrow Mushrooms), and Arrow Mushrooms x2 = x5 Arrow Mushrooms.

Other Substitutions:

• Weed can be replaced with Wild Grass and vice versa in a 1:1 value. Eg. Weeds x3 can be replaced by Wild Grass x3.
• Salt can be replaced with Sun-dried Salt in a 1:1 value. Eg. Salt x5 can be replaced with Sun-dried Salt x5

Items	White	Big/Pile/Bunch	High-Quality	Special
Arrow Mushroom	1	3	18	108
Fortune Teller Mushroom	1	3	18	108
Dwarf Mushroom	1	3	18	108
Cloud Mushroom	1	3	18	108
Sky Mushroom	1	3	18	108
Tiger Mushroom	1	3	18	108
Ghost Mushroom	1	3	18	108
Fog Mushroom	1	3	18	108
Hump Mushroom	1	3	18	108
Bluffer Mushroom	1	3	18	108
Ancient Mushroom	1	3	18	108
Amanita Mushroom	1	3	18	108
Sunrise Herb	1	3	3	18
Fire Flake Flower	1	3	3	18
Dry Mane Grass	1	3	3	18
Silk Honey Grass	1	3	3	18

Alchemy Byproducts

When crafting any item using an Alchemy Tool, you have a chance to obtain a random Alchemy byproduct. This is an additional item you gan as well as the item you are crafting.

Mysterious Catalyst is the most common Alchemy Byproduct, and can be exchanged at Dalishain in any major city, or at Bofin in Olvia for the following rewards:

Required Item	Exchange Item
Mysterious Catalyst x10	▼ Select one of the following for exchange: Powder of Flame x200 Powder of Rifts x200 Powder of Earth x200 Powder of Time x200 Shining Powder x5

In addition to Mysterious Catalyst, you have a chance to gain the following other items when performing Alchemy:

Alchemy Stones

There are 3 types of Craftable Alchemy Stones

• Destruction Stones
  
  • Buff: Attack, Accuracy, Ignore Resistances, Attack Speed, Casting Speed
  • Duration: 5 minutes
• Protection Stones
  
  • Buff: Damage Reduction, Evasion, Maximum Health, Resistance
  • Duration: 5 minutes
• Life Stones
  
  • Buff: Reduced Cooking/Alchemy Craft Time, Processing Success Rate, Weight Limit increase, Gathering level, Fishing level, Gathering Drop Rate
  • Duration: 10 minutes

There are also lots of different types of Alchemy Stones other than the craftable ones. For more information, check our Alchemy Stone guide.

How to create an Alchemy Stone

Players with alchemy at apprentice level 1 or above can now try and upgrade all versions of alchemy stones.

The recipe to create an Alchemy Stone is:

• Shining Powder x9,
• Sinner’s Blood x6,
• Clear Liquid Reagent x10,
• Pure Powdered Reagent x10,
• Powder of Time x7

You won’t create an Alchemy Stone every time, sometimes you may fail and get a broken Alchemy Stone which can be sold to a merchant for 5,000 silver. A higher Alchemy level will increase your chances of being successful.

You can view the chances of creating each stone below based on the Alchemy level:

Leveling & Grades/Rarity

You can level your Alchemy Stone to increase the level, grade/rarity, or both. In turn, increasing the buff stats.

Item grade/rarity (lowest to highest):

• White
• Green
• Blue
• Yellow
• Orange

Below is a table of each level and the buffs it has.

Level & Grades	Destruction Stones	Protection Stones	Life Stones
Imperfect
White	All AP +2	All Damage Reduction +2	Alchemy / Cooking Time -0.5 sec
			Processing Success Rate +5%
Green	All Accuracy +2	All Evasion +2	Weight Limit +15LT
Blue	Ignore All Resistance +1%	Max HP +50	Gathering / Fishing +1
Yellow	Attack Speed +1%	All Resistance +1%	Gathering Item Drop Rate +3%
	Casting Speed +1%
Rough
White	All AP +3	All Damage Reduction +3	Alchemy / Cooking Time -0.7 sec
			Processing Success Rate +7%
Green	All Accuracy +4	All Evasion +4	Weight Limit +30LT
Blue	Ignore All Resistance +2%	Max HP +70	Gathering / Fishing +1
Yellow	Attack Speed +2%	All Resistance +2%	Gathering Item Drop Rate +5%
	Casting Speed +2%
Polished
White	All AP +4	All Damage Reduction +4	Alchemy / Cooking Time -0.9 sec
			Processing Success Rate +9%
Green	All Accuracy +6	All Evasion +6	Weight Limit +45LT
Blue	Ignore All Resistance +3%	Max HP +90	Gathering / Fishing +1
Yellow	Attack Speed +3%	All Resistance +3%	Gathering Item Drop Rate +7%
	Casting Speed +3%
Sturdy
White	All AP +6	All Damage Reduction +6	Alchemy / Cooking Time -1.1 sec
			Processing Success Rate +11%
Green	All Accuracy +8	All Evasion +8	Weight Limit +60LT
Blue	Ignore All Resistance +4%	Max HP +110	Gathering / Fishing +2
Yellow	Attack Speed +4%	All Resistance +4%	Gathering Item Drop Rate +10%
	Casting Speed +4%
Sharp
White	All AP +8	All Damage Reduction +8	Alchemy / Cooking Time -1.4 sec
			Processing Success Rate +14%
Green	All Accuracy +10	All Evasion +10	Weight Limit +75LT
Blue	Ignore All Resistance +5%	Max HP +140	Gathering / Fishing +2
Yellow	Attack Speed +5%	All Resistance +5%	Gathering Item Drop Rate +13%
	Casting Speed +5%
Resplendent
White	All AP +10	All Damage Reduction +10	Alchemy / Cooking Time -1.7 sec
			Processing Success Rate +17%
Green	All Accuracy +12	All Evasion +12	Weight Limit +90LT
Blue	Ignore All Resistance +6%	Max HP +170	Gathering / Fishing +2
Yellow	Attack Speed +6%	All Resistance +6%	Gathering Item Drop Rate +16%
	Casting Speed +6%
Splendid
White	All AP +13	All Damage Reduction +13	Alchemy / Cooking Time -2 sec
			Processing Success Rate +20%
Green	All Accuracy +14	All Evasion +14	Weight Limit +105LT
Blue	Ignore All Resistance +8%	Max HP +210	Gathering / Fishing +3
Yellow	Attack Speed +8%	All Resistance +7%	Gathering Item Drop Rate +20%
	Casting Speed +8%
Shining
White	All AP +16	All Damage Reduction +16	Alchemy / Cooking Time -2.5 sec
			Processing Success Rate +25%
Green	All Accuracy +16	All Evasion +16	Weight Limit +120LT
Blue	Ignore All Resistance +10%	Max HP +250	Gathering / Fishing +3
Yellow	Attack Speed +10%	All Resistance +8%	Gathering Item Drop Rate +25%
	Casting Speed +10%

To level your Alchemy Stone you must put extra materials into it to convert it to EXP.

Open your inventory then click the Alchemy tab at the bottom to open the menu. You then need to select the Polishing option and put the material in the top slot and your Alchemy Stone in the bottom slot. Next press “Polishing”.

Below you can see which materials you can convert to EXP

When your Alchemy Stone EXP is between 80-150% you can attempt to level your stone (a higher EXP has a higher chance to be successful). Select the Growth tab in your Alchemy Stone menu, and place a Black stone in the top slot and your stone in the bottom slot. Next press “Growth”.