Get rid of quivers

[Grey]

1. Remove alchemist gems and instead give alchemists a gem focus slot like mindslayers from which they draw their powers.

2. Remove arrows entirely and merge some of their egos onto bows.

[lukep]

I agree with both of these, though there would need to be some hand-waving involved with alchemists, so they don't get the "on wield" bonuses from the gem, and maybe prevent Artifact gems from being used as well. Alternatively, they would need to be rebalanced to account for it.

For Bows/slings, the egos could just be copy/pasted over from ammo (except Annihilation) and they would be about the right power IMO. A few more lesser egos would need to be added (+ physical power, + some different stats etc...), and many greater egos (there's some floating around the ego idea thread). It doesn't really make sense for a ranged weapon to have infinite ammunition packaged with it (as it is now, and will be even more so with the removal of arrows), but I would sacrifice realism for fun any day.

[marchewka]

re: removal of arrows - why? I mean, now what you do is to juggle arrows. Which more or less makes sense - e.g. you can first slime enemy down, and then use those sweet arrows of annihilation on him. With arrow egos transmitted to bows, you'd be juggling bows, which at the first glance seems strange.

[Grey]

Practically speaking juggling bows is no different, and it would put archers in line with warrior types. Juggling bows is actually better supported in the interface with the swap weapons command...

The main reason is to remove consumable items and vendor trash. Alchemist gems aren't even vendor trash since they can't be sold... The less inventory management the better, in my opinion.

[Miruko]

If so the alchemists should have a massive rework of the skills, right? Having a gem focus is enough to handle the skills wich right now ask for a gem cost?

[Grey]

Rework to a mana cost instead - simples.

[Frumple]

Or just get rid of alchemist gems and leave the talents as-is. Functionally, the most the alchemist gems impact gameplay is by -- very rarely -- making you take one extra turn to swap in your other multi-hundred stack of gems.

Running out of ammo for an alchemist doesn't really happen, from what I've seen. Removing the alchie gems without any adjustment wouldn't make much of an impact.

[Aquillion]

Alchemist gems are fine (and by 'fine' I mean, as someone else said, so common that they never actually impact gameplay.) You sacrifice a bit of money for them by converting gems to alchemist gems, but you earn a lot more money anyway by converting metal objects to more valuable gems, so it balances out (in general, in the Alchemist's favor.)

As for adding another disadvantage -- I don't think that'd be a good idea. Anything like that would be an unnecessary nerf to Alchemists. In particular, higher mana costs are a bad idea, since that would make them more similar to Archmages. If you want to play an archmage, play an archmage -- it's important to keep Alchemists distinct, and the low mana cost of their bombs (allowing them to be spammed) is a major part of that. They pay for it by having much less variety in their talents, especially mobility and scrying (and by being stuck with one bomb every three turns and nothing else that comes close to its power); the ammo thing is flavor, not their real trade-off.

But honestly, alchemist gems are fine. They're weightless, available in massive supply, and so on. There's no real need to remove them -- I don't think anyone finds them annoying. They're mostly just flavor, but flavor isn't a bad thing, you know?

[snoop]

Alchemist gems are fine (and by 'fine' I mean, as someone else said, so common that they never actually impact gameplay.) You sacrifice a bit of money for them by converting gems to alchemist gems, but you earn a lot more money anyway by converting metal objects to more valuable gems, so it balances out (in general, in the Alchemist's favor.)

As for adding another disadvantage -- I don't think that'd be a good idea. Anything like that would be an unnecessary nerf to Alchemists. In particular, higher mana costs are a bad idea, since that would make them more similar to Archmages. If you want to play an archmage, play an archmage -- it's important to keep Alchemists distinct, and the low mana cost of their bombs (allowing them to be spammed) is a major part of that. They pay for it by having much less variety in their talents, especially mobility and scrying (and by being stuck with one bomb every three turns and nothing else that comes close to its power); the ammo thing is flavor, not their real trade-off.

But honestly, alchemist gems are fine. They're weightless, available in massive supply, and so on. There's no real need to remove them -- I don't think anyone finds them annoying. They're mostly just flavor, but flavor isn't a bad thing, you know?

It might be nice if there was *some* use for non-alchemists. Hmm... well, they are like alchemist "trade secrets", so that's why you can't get them unless you are an alchemist or you kill one. What if there was a black-market alchemist somewhere in the world, who would be willing to trade for your found gems? If you're an alchemist yourself, of course, you'll be wanting to kill this traitor; that prevents the alchemist from abusing gem selling.

[Aquillion]

It'd be better to just make it so NPC alchemists don't drop them when they die unless the player has the alchemist bomb talent tree or something. Or just make it so they don't drop them period.

(Though, this would make the alchemist wall-passing talent useless to non-alchemists, who can get it through an escort quest currently.)

[Nori]

Hmm, I like the Grey's idea... I haven't played Alchemist a lot but when I do I never run out of gems... They are pretty pointless IMO. Same with arrows, I'd rather carry two bows than worrying about stacks of arrows.

[Postman]

I'm all for Grey idea. Not competent about alchemists, but arrows not only annoying form UI point of view - it's difficult to estimate their effectiveness, and they could even be harmful IIRC. So most of players just sell/transmogrify them. Better make possibility for imbuing bows with gems or make weapon-specific infusions. That would be in line with the game concept "no consumables".

[lukep]

I made an addon that nearly does the arrow/shot half of this. I moved all of the damage egos from ammo to shooters, changed a few, and added a couple more as well. I didn't do anything about alchemist gems in this addon, but I wouldn't imagine that it would be difficult to do.