Topic

potionmaking badges - looking for tips

I am working on Severus Sash (and Libatious Borage Award)

what tips can you give besides just Make More.
which potions were most useful to you in large quantities?
which ones were easier to sell (was this Long ago?)
what other questions should I be asking?

Posted 8 months ago by mr granberry Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • It really depends on your patience level. If you don't like making potions one at a time, make Charades Potions (the only ones that allow 5 per batch). For large herb quantities in relatively short amount of time, plant Purple Flowers and Silvertongue to make Amorous Philtre. Or if you have a lot of guano and use them for Rookswort, make Tree Poisons, which will be needed for potion pouring as well as dead tree chopping badges. Anything is easy to sell if your price is low enough.
    Posted 8 months ago by TomC Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I pretty much realized after I posted that I probably need poisons and antidotes for the other badges, so I'll make those first, using up my stockpile of those herbs, then see what I have left to cook with.
    Posted 8 months ago by mr granberry Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Make Charades, the simplest!
    Posted 8 months ago by AwesomeCardinal2000 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Always thought the rainbow juice was pretty easy since it doesn't really involve any essence, just one herb...

    But, yes, go after potions that will help you with other things later...that seems to be the most sensible...
    Posted 8 months ago by Cabana Boy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yup, poisons and antidotes -- and most especially poisons, since you need many more of those -- are very important for those other achievements.
    Posted 8 months ago by Credulous Ralph Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm working on my herb, tincture and potion badges, at the moment I'm mostly growing and collecting essences.  I agree with "Make the easiest ones", find the ones that require things you already have, and make lots of those! :D
    Posted 8 months ago by Cole Frehlen Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Prior to working on your potion-making badge, you should consider working on your hooch-distilling badges first. You will find that most potions require essences and to create essences, you need hooch. Once you think you've accumulated enough hooch, the easiest way is to go for the Charades potions. If you decide to take this route, consider also completing your gas-plant-harvesting badges as well as your gasmogrificatoin badges since Charades potions require laughing and crying gas. Acquiring all these resources would make it so much easier for you to complete your badge and you will, not only earn your potion-making badge, but also earn many others in distinct categories while in the same pursuit.
    Posted 8 months ago by Deadshot Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Actually, if you have the skills to make all those things (hootch, gases, etc) you will earn your other badges along the way to getting your potion-making badge.

    Some people like to hoard all the ingredients and make everything at once.  Others like to make a few of everything as they go.  Either way will get you all the same badges.  
    Posted 8 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think I'll make a post on my blog to address this issue because it's somewhat complicated, but if you are growing your own herbs and want to achieve maximum possible speed for getting the potion making badge then there are three potions to consider:

    1. Charades - Takes 19 plot hours to grow enough herbs to make it.  Long growing time herbs are good for overnight and daytime
    2. Amorous Philtre - Takes 17.9 plot hours to grow enough herbs to make it.  A mix of short and long grow herbs.
    3. Tree Antidote - Only 6.4 plot hours to grow the herbs, but very costly in terms of other components.

    If your concern is not rushing but making useful potions then Tree Poison is probably one of the best to make (even though it's very slow in terms of herbs) and personally cranked out some elixirs of avarice for personal use as well.  If you are extremely diligent with timing and you have a job or school to go to in the day then I think the fastest possible is probably to plant yellow for charades in the late evening, harvest and replant in the morning, then do three to four rounds of gandlevery when you actually have time to play.

    Edit: Sorry, I left out rainbow potions which are only 8.5 plot hours to make but they also have the issue of having very high non-herb material costs.  Still, if your goal is to get the badge as quickly as possible I'd still with my herb strategy above but make rainbow instead of charades.  It's just an awful lot of work.
    Posted 8 months ago by Humbabella Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I love charade potions.. Easy to make.. easy to pour (for the quaff badge) I just get a friend to stand with me while I continue to use the same answer.. goes by VERY quickly
    Posted 8 months ago by Jessenya Subscriber! | Permalink
  • That's sad-making to me, Jess, that you don't play but just grind.
    Posted 8 months ago by Osprey Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks for the tips, I do like rainbow but it is such a pain to make.

    Well, I have all the planting/harvesting trees/crops/herbs badges and the essence and hooch badges (plus 1.3 mil currants),

    I ended up making mostly Poisons, some Antidotes (turns out I don't even need), Amorous, Ancestral, Door, and whatever else I had ingredients stockpiled for.  Didn't get the Potion-making badge yet, but I'll get back to it when I run out of Poison, (or get that badge)

    So I'm working on chopping dead trees. after making many Poisons.  With my new house (one tree in front, one in back) and my regular house (4 trees) it keeps me busy going back and forth to poison, chop, plant, pet, rinse, repeat.

    Other than that my main badges to work on are meditating, Game of Crowns, Subway (dang that bug!!), Juju evasion, TP, candy eating (oops, too late for that) , kitchen tool repair (slow slow)

    And later (eventually) street projects again, and 2003 seasoned eggs and beans, and dracula (no rush on that one).

    [ETA] I'm not so crazy about Charades, but it might be useful to help those needy newbies that always want handouts.  I could teach them to say "Please"  :-)
    Posted 8 months ago by mr granberry Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Here it is: An analysis of potions with the number of plot hours it takes to make each and and idea of how profitable each one is to make.
    Posted 8 months ago by Humbabella Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Excellent analysis, Humbabella!
    Posted 8 months ago by TomC Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Using the antidotes and tree poisons to save trees and also chop down dead trees for badges gets you very far along with the total quaffing badges.  Once I was past those badges, I made a lot of charades for the badges and sold the majority.  
    Posted 8 months ago by PTB3 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If you don't already have a head start on chopping down trees then that will get you all the way to your quaffing badge and then some.
    Posted 8 months ago by Humbabella Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Humbabella, thank you so much for that thorough write-up! I was trying to figure out which potion(s) to focus on in addition to tree poisons and had been debating between Door Drink (the laziest for me, since it requires only two essences and no additional ingredients) and Amorous Philtre (which takes two essences plus one type of gas). I don't care about profits, but I do care about not having to make a lot of intermediate ingredients in order to finish a potion, so your charts made it pretty obvious that I should stick with Amorous since the only more efficient options, plot-hours wise, involve a lot of additional ingredients. Thanks for helping me figure that out a lot faster than I would have on my own!
    Posted 8 months ago by jessypie Subscriber! | Permalink