MM7 potions or spells ?

[Lone_Wolf]

NOTE: this is intended for parties that have not been promoted .
Max alchemy level is master, max magic rank is expert .

In past playthroughs I mainly used harden item + red & blue potions and relied on spells for other effects. I never went above expert alchemy rank.
Currently I'm using MM7Rev4mod A Radical Redone which has much stronger reagents then vanilla (lowest tier reagent has power 50) .
This made me take a fresh look at potions for buffing/healing.

I noticed several things that may not be common knowledge.

Bless - heroism - stoneskin potions: long duration , but only add 5 points to hit/damage/AC .

Bless is a basic spirit spell so does at minimum add 6 points, heroism & stone skin are expert level spells so do at minimum add 9 points.
(Investing 18 skill points in spirit / earth magic expert ranks early seems worth it) .

For haste , shield, preservation, water breathing , remove curse, remove fear potions the duration is the only factor that matters which makes them much better then the spells.

cure insanity is the same but the spell requires master rank in mind magic which is not attainable until first promotion.


recharge item : needs to be checked to see whether potion power increases amount of restored charges.


Master level potions

The attribute & resistance boosters depends largely on the reagent strength & alchemy skill level.

A potion created by master alchemist from a power 1 reagent will have a strength of 8 .

Resistance booster potion of power 8 will add 24 points for 12 hours .
Resistance spell at expert 7 level adds 14 points for 7 hours .

The difference gets bigger with stronger potions .
According to grayface 60 resistance reduces magic damage by 50% , this would be reached with a potion of power 20.
Vanilla has lots of power 10 reagents which would already give power 17 .



Attribute booster potions : party has no access to attribute boost spells.

I haven't looked at the restorative or weapon enhancer white potions yet.

First impression : master & expert level potions seem to beat many spells.

[Tomsod]

Makes sense potions would be stronger overall, as they require (potentially limited) reagents, while spells only need (easily replenished) magic energy. But yeah, bless/heroism/stoneskin potions are useless in vanilla mm7-8. OTOH haste and shield are great because haste spell has annoyingly short duration, and shield spell flat out doesn't work (unlike the potion).

Cure insanity is better than the spell because it doesn't inflict weak.

Recharge potion absolutely works and with 70 power will not waste any charges -- arguably easier to reach than GM20 water magic. Harden item is also very useful, especially on body armor.

Cure paralysis appears on the same tier as "cure (almost) everything" (but is slightly cheaper to brew). The latter can also cure multiple conditions at once. Overall the condition cure potions are good because they don't care about potion power, so you can use garbage reagents for them.

Stat boost potions and some other buff potions can be pretty good, but you need to use 3-6 reagents per buff per character per rest and will quickly run out if that's your default strategy. Also stats and resistances have diminishing returns.

Weapon-enchanting potions (effect tier 1-2) are all beaten by master fire aura (tier 3), with the possible exception of swift potion.

Divine cure/power are not necessarily better than just red/blue potions as they have x5 effect (a bit less, even) for x6 reagent cost (but half the reagents are yellow which cannot restore hp/sp on their own). At least they can be drunk faster, and you can save on catalysts.

Finally, keep in mind that you can hire NPCs that add +12 total power to brewed potions, then fire them after you have a decent supply. There are also enchanted item boosters (up to +25).

[Lone_Wolf]

Thanks, hadn't considered the npc/item bonuses and they can increase potion power a lot.

Given the finite amount of reagents, I'm guessing reserving the boost potions for tough situations is best ?

For a solo playthough with an alchemy expert (like the thief) this may be less of a problem.