High level alchemists lag behind

[Chunes]

So here's the short story: alchemists scale pretty well until the end game, and then they lag behind.

They are impressively effective against large groups of frail enemies but they are not at all capable of taking on fewer, tough enemies. Everything about the class is designed for tiny AoE damage over large areas — the class is *not* capable of burst damage at higher levels.

The golem dies quite easily against later bosses, particularly Aeryn and the final fight. I believe my golem lasted about 10 turns against Elandar and Argoniel before biting the dust. Now take note - when the golem drops in the final fight, there is no way to get it back. Ever. It is crippling. I simply cannot recover from that. I can't do any damage against the final bosses at all. I'm not sure if everyone here is aware, but alchemist bombs only do about 200 damage at endgame on a 5 turn cooldown. Add in Elandar's 90% resistance to fire and.. well.. you can see what the problem is.

I'm not sure what I'd rather have more - a golem that isn't paper frail, or at least the ability to get him back once he dies - or the ability to do burst damage. It took me easily 1000 turns or so just to drop Aeryn, because she dropped my golem and I couldn't do enough damage to outpace her healing. Yes, in b20. And yes, with everything in the fire alchemy tree turned on, using my bombs and channel staff..

I kinda like the idea of being able to control the area of effect of the bombs — say, you can make the radius really big and have it do a little damage, or you can make the radius really small and have it pack a punch. In my opinion, this is something that would balance alchemists a lot better in the late game. There has been talk of changing fire alchemy's damage types to be affected by infusions, but that isn't the real issue at all, in my opinion. Golem needs help, and damage output in general needs to be increased.

Still, I have proven that the class is at least capable of *making* it to the last fight, so that's something. And I do indeed consider that it may be my tactics to blame, but I used everything I had in that fight and there wasn't anything I could do to keep my golem from dropping, and then myself.

See, the problem is that alchemists need many, many turns to whittle down tougher enemies while they're busy with the golem. They do not pack a punch by any means. If the golem drops, their whole paradigm goes down the tubes. They are not capable of standing alone in the final fight.

[edge2054]

Idea

Life Link

Links the golem and the alchemists hit points, splitting damage and healing between the two of them. (Note that AoE would be pretty nasty with this talent)

[HesDeadJim]

doesn't address the real problem of high level play which is that all your damage numbers are just to low, even using the other bomb types you just can't outpace the healing on the high HP foes. It just takes to long to do any appreciable amount of damage. With the low cost of rest and healing burst damage is king, and the alchemist can't burst or use disablers to lengthen the damage window.

[edge2054]

doesn't address the real problem of high level play which is that all your damage numbers are just to low, even using the other bomb types you just can't outpace the healing on the high HP foes. It just takes to long to do any appreciable amount of damage. With the low cost of rest and healing burst damage is king, and the alchemist can't burst or use disablers to lengthen the damage window.

Actually it addresses one of the problems Chunes mentioned, the golem being paper thin. It also increases DPS on Boss fights since your Golem (hopefully) won't be dead.

I liked Chunes other ideas about tighter explosion radius on bombs increasing damage, it makes sense.

[HenWen]

I don't have any suggestions, but I will verify that this was a problem for me too. My alchemist is the only one of my 4 endgame characters that just couldn't reliably survive orc patrols... the other 3 had no problem (Berserker, Archmage, Anorithil).