The War Within Alchemy Specialization Guide and Builds (2024)

This guide is here to help you navigate the different Alchemy specializations in War Within, so you can make the most out of Alchemy.

I'll break down each specialization, showing you the best ways to spend your points and pointing out which paths might not be worth your time. By the end, you'll have a few example builds to kickstart your own talent build.

Table of contents

• # Alchemy Specializations
• # Choosing a Specialization Build
• Build 1. Crafting Potions and Flask for Personal Use
• Build 2. Selling Consumables at the Auction House
• Build 3. Transmutation and Thaumaturgy Build

Alchemy Specializations

Currently, in Alchemy, there are four specializations. You will unlock your first specialization at 25, the second at 50, the third at 60, and the last one at 75.

Alchemy Master

This is the generic tree of Alchemy. You will have a central node that will give a bunch of skill points to all alchemy crafts, and you will have 5 sub-specializations corresponding to each new War Within herb. Putting points into these sub-specializations will give skill points to any Potion, Flask, or Phial that uses that herb as a material.

There are two recipes that you can unlock inside this tree:

• Alchemical Mastery (20): Harmonious Horticulture - A crafting reagents that is used in some Alchemy recipes.
• Alchemical Mastery (30): Formulated Courage - Consumable item that will allow you to continue your Alchemy experimentation even after you get the "failed experiment" debuff.

Fantastic Flasks

This skill tree is much more simplified than it was in Dragonflight. Not much to say about it, pretty self explanatory. Increase your Skill and Resourcefulness when crafting Flask or Phials.

Putting 30 points into Fantastic Flasks will teach you the Algari Flask Cauldron recipe.

Potent Potions

Same as the Flask specializations but for Potions. Increase your Skill, Multicraft, and Resourcefulness when crafting Potions.

Putting 30 points into Potent Potions will teach you the Algari Potion Cauldron recipe.

Thaumaturgy

You can learn a lot of different transmutations inside this specialization but the most important is the Gleaming Glory. This transmutes turns 80x Gleaming Transmutagen into one Blasphemite, which is the high end gem that you will need for Jewelcrafting. There is no other source to get this gem, only Alchemists can make them.

# Choosing a Specialization Build

There is no "best alchemy build" because everyone has a different play style and goals in the game. Someone who wants to mass-produce potions and flasks to sell at the Auction House won't have the same build as someone who just wants to log in for a daily transmute.

Below you will find three different builds that you can use as a sample build and then maybe make a few changes here and there that fits your play style.

The numbers below aren't a ranking of how good each build is; they're just there to help you navigate the guide more easily.

1. Crafting Potions and Flask for Personal Use

This build is for those who craft potions, flask or phials in smaller quantities for personal use and rarely sell them at the Auction House.

2. Selling Consumables at the Auction House

If you want to sell large quantities of Potions, Flasks, or Phials at the Auction House, this is the build for you.

3. Transmutation and Thaumaturgy Build:

This build is for those who just want to get some extra gold by doing their daily transmutes.

Build 1. ### Crafting Potions and Flask for Personal Use

This build is for those who craft potions, flasks or phials in smaller quantities for personal use and rarely sell them at the Auction House.

First 15 points

I recommend putting your first 15 points into Fantastic Flasks to increase the duration of your Flasks and Phials by 100%. Refreshing your Flasks every 2 hours instead of 1 will save you a lot of gold.

Fantastic Flasks

Next 50 points

Putting 50 points into the Alchemy Master specialization will give you 60 skill points for every Alchemy recipe, and you will get an increased chance to discover new recipes when experimenting. With 60 extra skill points, it will be a lot easier to complete NPC crafting orders with lower-quality materials and without concentration. You will also need less concentration for any recipe you might want a Quality 3 version of.

Alchemy Master

Next 15-45 Points

I'd recommend finishing Fantastic Flasks and start putting points into the Potent Potions specialization.

Fantastic Flasks, Potent Potions

Getting a Guaranteed Quality 3 Potion or Flask

At this point, you probably have most Alchemy recipes from your daily experimentation. I'd start focusing on one Flask or Potion that you craft the most and want a guaranteed Quality 3 without using concentration.

So, using Tempered Potion as an example. It uses Mycobloom, Luredrop and Arathor's Spear as reagents. You'd need to put 40 Points into each sub-specialization inside the Alchemy Mastery Tree, so you would end up with something like the build in the picture below.

If you pick a Potion and not a Flask, you should definitely put points into Mycobloom Lore first and then the rest of the herbs. Mycobloom is used in every single potion, so you will get extra skill points for every potion, and guaranteed Quality 3 Healing Potions.

Spending the Rest of your Points

You can focus on finishing the Alchemy Mastery specialization to guarantee Quality 3 in all potions and flasks. Alternatively, you could finish the Fantastic Flasks and Potent Potions specializations to get Resourcefulness and Multicraft. It will take a long time to get to this point, so you will probably have enough knowledge to know where you want to spend the rest of your points.

I'd personally go for the Bulk Production tree in Fantastic Flasks or Potent Potions, depending on which recipe did you pick in the previous step.

Build 2. ### Selling Consumables at the Auction House

If you want to sell large quantities of Potions, Flasks, or Phials at the Auction House, this is the build for you.

Concentration and Guaranteed Quality 3

Before going into how to spend your knowledge points, it's important to talk about Concentration, so you understand why I think it's important to specialize in one recipe and go for extra Alchemy skill first.

Concentration allows you to craft an item one quality higher than you would normally be able to. Using Concentration is the only way to get Quality 3 until you get enough knowledge points to guarantee Quality 3.

The amount of Concentration you need depends on how much skill you are missing, but there is always a minimum amount of Concentration that you have to spend. Even if you miss 1 skill point you will still need like 150 Concentrations to craft a quality 3 consumable, and concentration regeneration is around 240 daily. So, you can only craft one or two Quality 3 consumables daily until you max out your build. (more if you get Ingenuity procs)

The focus of this build is to first get to crafting at least one recipe at max quality without concentration. Those who get to this point the fastest will probably make the most gold. Once more people reach the breakpoint, the prices will probably start going down a lot faster.

First 50 points

Putting 50 points into the Alchemy Master specialization will give you 60 skill points for every Alchemy recipe, and you will get an increased chance to discover new recipes when experimenting. With 60 extra skill points, it will be a lot easier to complete NPC crafting orders with lower-quality materials and without concentration. You will also need less concentration for any recipe you might want a Quality 3 version of.

You will also learn the Formulated Courage recipe, so if you are extremely unlucky with experimentation, you can speed up the process a bit. (will still cost a lot of gold to buy the herbs)

Alchemy Master

Flasks, Potions or Phials?

Now you must decide if you want to sell Flasks, Potions or Phials. Going for all three is not a good strategy here, it's better to specialize.

You probably can't go wrong with Flasks or Potions, but Phials is a bit more risky I think.

Potions

There are two new DPS potion this expansion: Tempered Potion and Potion of Unwavering Focus.

DPS potions are usually what most people are after, so I'd definitely try to focus on these ones first. They share 2 out of the 3 herbs, so you can safely start putting points into those herbs. We don't know yet if Potion of Unwavering Focus will actually outperform the other potion on single target. We will have to wait until the class guides are out. It's possible Tempered Potion will be better and few people will use the other potion.

Flasks

All four of these new basic DPS flasks will probably get some use. I don't think you can go wrong with any of them, but we don't know yet which one will be more popular.

• Flask of Tempered Aggression
• Flask of Tempered Swiftness
• Flask of Tempered Mastery
• Flask of Tempered Versatility

There is a fifth DPS Flask Flask of Alchemical Chaos, that might be better than the four above. It uses all four uncommon herbs as a reagent, so you must put points into all herbs to guarantee this one at maximum quality anyway. (except Mycobloom)

Flask of Saving Graces is a healing Flask that I'm not sure how popular it will be. We will have to wait for the healing class guides. It's the only Flasks the uses Mycobloom, but I'd avoid putting points into Mycobloom Lore at first until we know people will actually use this flask for healing.

Phials

I think Phials might be a bit risky because players might not pay that much premium for a max quality phial than they would for a max quality DPS Flask. If players are okay using Quality 2 Phials, you don't need to put any points into the Phial tree to craft Quality 2 Phials. The only benefit you get is Multicraft and Resourcefulness.

Phial of Truesight	This is a really good phial that allow you to see camouflaged mining and herbalism nodes, and it also gives you some extra Perception. But, the quality of the Phial does not affect how many extra camouflaged nodes you see. The difference between a Quality 2 and a Quality 3 is only 0.8% Perception.
Phial of Concentrated Ingenuity	Might get popular, but there is only 1% difference between Quality 2 and 3.
Phial of Bountiful Seasons	This will only be used by Skinners during the summer since it currently gives Finesse. Herbalists and Miners will use Phial of Truesight, and crafters don't benefit from Finesse.
Phial of Enhanced Ambidexterity	Only gives crafting speed and has very limited use. Not many people would need a Quality 3.

Next 30 - 35 Points

Put 30-35 points into the Fantastic Flasks or Potent Potions spec depending on which route you want to go.

Fantastic Flasks, Potent Potions

Next 80 - 120 Points

Now pick a Potion, Flask, or Phial that you will focus on getting to guarantee Quality 3. Let's say I pick Flask of Tempered Versatility. I would check which herbs are used in crafting the Flask, in my case it's Orbinid and Arathor's Spear. So, I would put my points into Arathor's Spear Lore and Orbinid Lore. The final build would look like the build on the picture below.

If you pick a Potion and not a Flask, you should definitely put points into Mycobloom Lore first and then the rest of the herbs. Mycobloom is used in every single potion, so you will get extra skill points for every potion, and guaranteed Quality 3 Healing Potions.

Alchemy Mastery

Spending the Rest of your Points

You can focus on finishing the Alchemy Mastery specialization to guarantee Quality 3 in all potions or flasks, or you could finish the Fantastic Flasks and Potent Potions specializations to get Resourcefulness and Multicraft for your Quality 3 consumables. It will take a long time to get to this point, so you will probably have enough knowledge to know where you want to spend the rest of your points.

Build 3. ### Transmutation and Thaumaturgy Build

This build is for those who want to get some extra gold by doing their daily transmutes.

There is a possibility that Thaumaturgy will have great shuffle opportunities. But it is hard to tell right now without knowing the prices of the materials. Even after the expansion launch, prices will take some time to stabilize.

First 45 points

1. Thaumaturgy (10) to unlock a sub-spec.
2. Gleaming Transmutagen (20). This will teach you the Gleaming Glory transmute.
3. Thaumaturgy (10 -> 20) to unlock the second sub-spec.
4. Ominous Materials (5) to unlock the ability to learn better transmutes.

Thaumaturgy (45)

Unlocking new transmutes

Use your Thaumaturgy ability on Weavercloth, Mycobloom, Bismuth or Storm Dust to get some Ominous Transmutagen, then perform Thaumaturgy on Ominous Transmutagen until you discover the Ominous Herbs, Ominous Call or Ominous Gloom transmute. You don't have to discover all three, one is enough.

You will use these transmutes to generate Gleaming Transmutagen. The Ominous Coalescence is not really worth using. (Ominous Coalescence currently doesn't even give Gleaming Transmutagen, but that might be a bug)

Next 15 points

Put 15 more points into Thaumaturgy

Using Thaumaturgy will now also give Gleaming Transmutagen not just transmutes. This means you can generate Gleaming Transmutagen without a CD.

You will need around 500x Weavercloth, Mycobloom, Bismuth or Storm Dust to generate enough Gleaming Transmutagen for one Blasphemite. It's impossible to tell if this will worth it or not without knowing the prices of reagents.

Thaumaturgy (60)

Next 35 points

1. Thaumaturgy (35 -> 55). Learning the final node will give you a huge amount of extra Gleaming Transmutagen on your first act of Thaumaturgy each day.
2. Transmutation (15). This will reduce your Transmute cooldown from 24 hours to 20 hours.

Thaumaturgy (95)

Is it worth putting more points into Thaumaturgy?

Putting more points into Mercurial Materials, Ominous Materials and Volatile Materials will give you more Volatile Transmutagen, Mercurial Transmutagen and Ominous Transmutagen when performing acts of Thaumaturgy. So if using Thaumaturgy on one material will end up being profitable, it will probably be worth it to put some points into these, but it is hard to stay right now. You will need a lot of points to even get to this point, so the price of materials will be more stable at that point.

You can also use your concentration with Thaumaturgy and Transmutation to turn lower-quality materials into higher quality, so getting more skill points means you will use less concentration, or you can turn Quality 2 mats into Quality 3.

Goblin and Kul Tiran Thaumaturgy

It's currently not possible to get enough skill points to turn Quality 1 materials into Quality 2 without concentration with the Thaumaturgy spell, but Goblins and Kul Tirans can actually reach a point where they can do this because of their racial (+5 and +2 Alchemy skill). You will have to spend a lot of points to get to this point, and I'm not sure if this is an oversight by Blizzard or if it will stay this way. Quality 2 to Quality 3 without concentration is not possible for anyone.

Just to make it clear, I'm talking about the Thaumaturgy ability, not the transmutations like Mercurial Herbs. You can get to Q2 with those with any race.

You will need these talent points:

• Alchemical Mastery (50) (Alchemy Mastery specialization)
• Mercurial Materials (25)
• Ominous Materials (25)
• Volatile Materials (25)

So, you will need an extra 120 Alchemy knowledge points, and you will also need all 3 rare Quality profession Equipment.