(Compiled, Updated) Alchemist Bugs

[Sevans]

Going to try to organize alchemist bugs into neat little categories here.

Inspired by this thread, but here I am going to try to keep a compiled list in the original post, and keep it updated. I am not using any of the bugs from that thread to start, because the last post was over 3 months ago so I'm not sure if any of it got fixed since then.

Reactions

• Orchidium (Purple) reaction: the Alchemical Spellcasting feat describes a boost of 10+ 3 times alchemist level, but actual implementation, and description in the buff bar, is a boost of 10+ 4 times alchemist level
• [FIXED - now consistently 50% across the board] Pyrite (Orange) reaction: the Alchemical Spellcasting feat describes a spell point reduction cost of 20%, but actual implementation is 50%.

Enhancements

Bombardier

• Cores 3 & 4 seem to increase the damage from Burning Ambition dice as if they give an extra die, each. However, neither core mentions giving an extra Burning Ambition die.
• Stone of the Savant description in buff bar includes elemental resistances; description in enhancement tree and actual implementation do not.
• Multivial SLA from the level 20 capstone ability requires a target; Multivial spell does not require a target and can be cast directionally.

Apothecary

• Death Salve does not apply to healing from a pale master's death aura.

Vile Chemist

• Poisoned Shot does nothing unless you are standing still. The animation plays, but no damage is dealt and no Poison vulnerability is put on the target(s).

Spells

Alchemist Spellcasting In General

• Empyrean Magic does not trigger from alchemist spells. Tested with curative admixture: heal, various curative admixture SLAs, and vial of flame. Separately used Rejuvenation Cocoon to confirm that Empyrean Magic does still trigger on non-Alchemist spells.
• Poison Critical Chance sometimes does not update, or displays incorrect values on character sheet unless character sheet is closed and reopened. (Other types of spell critical chance are updated properly without needing to close & reopen the character sheet.) Steps to reproduce: (1) get items with poison spell crit chance - I used Necrotic Forum post ML15, and Stygian Wrath. (2) Equip and unequip these items in various order. Watch the poison spell critical chance number on the character sheet; note it does not give the correct values. (3) Note that closing then reopening the character sheet will cause correct values to be reported.
• Some spells fail to trigger when on partially-wet floors. Some spells refuse to trigger when thrown at your feet on a wet floor; you can use the spell and spend the spellpoints, but the bottle never "breaks" so the effect doesn't occur. Steps to reproduce: (1) find a partially wet floor (e.g. in white plume mountain, the west wing with the "fishtank", the floor in the middle of the "fishtank" area becomes partially wet for a while.). (2) Cast a spell which fails to trigger on partially-wet floors (e.g. the curative admixture spells all fail to trigger on wet floors).

Level 1 Spells

• Stiffen Skin description in buff bar is the same as Elemental Skin's description. Actual implementation seems to be correct, only the description in the buff bar is incorrect.

Level 2 Spells

• (no bugs reported yet)

Level 3 Spells

• Melt Lock describes scaling with Spellcraft. Actual implementation is like the knock spell, and does not scale with Spellcraft.
• Heartstopper Poison can only have the metamagics quicken & extend. This one might not be a bug, but... it seems like this spell is supposed to be the poison version of spells like Voltaic Induction, which can have many more metamagics such as Maximize.

Level 4 Spells

• (no bugs reported yet)

Level 5 Spells

• Multivial spells all have a max caster level which is higher than 10, despite their descriptions all implying MCL 10.

Level 6 Spells

• Curative Admixture: Heal only restores hit points; it does not remove ability damage nor any conditions.
• Curative Admixture: Heal receives full benefit from spell power granted by metamagics (tested with Maximize), but only 50% benefit from other sources of spell power. (E.g. casting this spell Maximized with 400 positive spell power on your character sheet will have an effective spell power of 400 * 50% + 150 = 350.)

Relevant Items

• Heroic Ravenloft Beacon of Magic set bonus "20 Artifact Bonus to Universal Spellpower" does not apply to Poison spellpower. Potential reason: according to character sheet, this set does not actually affect universal spellpower at all; instead it adds +20 spellpower to each spellpower individually, except poison spellpower. (set equipped -> all spellpower numbers on character sheet except universal and poison increase by 20).

Feel free to include your observations of bugs and I will try to add them to this list!

[IllusionistPM]

Death Salve does not allow a PM to heal another player with their aura (or, presumably, anything else, but I didn't test it).

[TDarkchylde]

Poisoned Shot (Vile Chemist tree) does nothing unless you are standing still. The animation plays, but no damage is dealt and no Poison vulnerability is put on the target(s).

[Carpone]

Curative Admixture: Heal only restores hit points; it does not remove ability damage nor any conditions.

Eight months after release this still isn't fixed, and had been reported multiple times as far back as Lamannia. What's a player got to do to get something fixed? It's annoying as hell when spells don't work as advertised.

[Nazanin]

Level 5 Spells

• Multivial spells all have a max caster level which is higher than 10, despite their descriptions all implying MCL 10.

I think according to the other post that investigated this, real caster level ends up around 30ish for this spell. So currently multivial is doing about 3x the intended damage? I guess with master of spellvials it should be around 20 MCL though

[HungarianRhapsody]

Level 5 Spells

• Multivial spells all have a max caster level which is higher than 10, despite their descriptions all implying MCL 10.

The fix to this should be updating the description. Not nerfing Multivial into the ground.

[Carpone]

Multivial SLA from the level 20 capstone ability requires a target; Multivial spell does not require a target and can be cast directionally.

What's old is new again. This is the same issue that was fixed in U42.4 with Fire Savant's T5 Fireball SLA: Sorcerer's Fire Savant Fireball SLA should now respect the same homing/heading as the original spell.

[Tuxedoman96]

Death Salve does not allow a PM to heal another player with their aura (or, presumably, anything else, but I didn't test it).

I think that's because the Death Salve does not change your racial type (the spell specifies undead allies for the healing).

[Malex]

I think that's because the Death Salve does not change your racial type (the spell specifies undead allies for the healing).

Shouldnt be though, otherwise the ability is completly useless

[Corrupt]

+1: Alchemists Fire and similar crafted grenades cannot be used by alchemists
(They should be usable by everyone who can use basic throwable weapons, but only craftable by trapmakers and alchemists)

[Satyriasys]

How about the bug where alchemists completely trivialize the entire game?

[o2t4f]

Core 3 and 4 used to add burning ambition dice on Lammania, and it was reflected on the lammania description, so that's probably why it's still doing that. Not sure if the extra dice are intended and they just messed the description, or they intended to remove the dice, fixed description but forgot to actually remove them.

Empyrean magic used to work for me last time I played alchemist. At least with multivial of fire. Since multivial worked, I didn't really bother to check other spells, as I would always be at max stacks.

[Kiric]

I tried a palemaster/alchemist dps at level 13 I was hitting for 1k+ damage with my lightning vials (364 spellpower/16% crit), and I was lucky to hit for 300 damage max on a crit with critical inflict wounds with 400 nullification and a 20% spell crit....Is this a bug or intended? I was very disappointed.

[Carpone]

[*] Multivial SLA from the level 20 capstone ability requires a target; Multivial spell does not require a target and can be cast directionally.

For the love of everything holy, please fix this. This is EXTREMELY ANNOYING.

It's the same exact issue that was fixed in the Sorc Fire Savant tree a year ago with the SLA Fireball. If there is no target, respect the recticle like all other AoE damage spells.

Thank you.

[grubenbrobrobroketv]

i get 2 stacks of empy with a fire multi vial evven on targets immue to fire
get one stack from elemental combination, fire sla T1, and vial of flame lvl1 spell
using these four spells its rather easy to get to and maintain 10 stacks and i have done this consistently for many weeks on my cold alchemist

healing spells still dont proc empy though

[symplectix]

I've recently been testing alchemist multivials max caster level with other effects in game that are related. Currently finishing up 2nd Elf life.

My caster is acid spec and has taken all cores in the bombs tree(+3CL). At lvl 20 I went magister 5 conjuration line(+3CL&MCL) and twisted in Black Dragon Spell Knowledge Acid(+3 CL&MCL). I took alchemical studies and advanced alchemical studies: Pyrite(+1CL&MCL). All of this adds up to CL 35 and my combat log reports CL 35. Some observations:

1. In addition to alchemical studies pyrite at level 4, I took alchemical studies: Orchidium in at level 8 thinking that Crimsonite would then be +2CL this was not the case. Swapped for Tonic of Toxins.

2. At level 24 I took master of spell vials (+10 MCL). My caster level remained 35. Swapped for Intensify.

3. Bard Song of Arcane Might does not increase CL beyond 35.

** I suspect that Dragonborn may get CL 37 with the racial enhancements but have not tested it.

[HungarianRhapsody]

I've recently been testing alchemist multivials max caster level with other effects in game that are related. Currently finishing up 2nd Elf life.

My caster is acid spec and has taken all cores in the bombs tree(+3CL). At lvl 20 I went magister 5 conjuration line(+3CL&MCL) and twisted in Black Dragon Spell Knowledge Acid(+3 CL&MCL). I took alchemical studies and advanced alchemical studies: Pyrite(+1CL&MCL). All of this adds up to CL 35 and my combat log reports CL 35. Some observations:

1. In addition to alchemical studies pyrite at level 4, I took alchemical studies: Orchidium in at level 8 thinking that Crimsonite would then be +2CL this was not the case. Swapped for Tonic of Toxins.

2. At level 24 I took master of spell vials (+10 MCL). My caster level remained 35. Swapped for Intensify.

3. Bard Song of Arcane Might does not increase CL beyond 35.

** I suspect that Dragonborn may get CL 37 with the racial enhancements but have not tested it.

How are you determining your caster level in these tests? Are you just looking at what the combat log displays as your caster level? Because the combat log is wildly inaccurate on that displayed value. For all classes.

[symplectix]

How are you determining your caster level in these tests? Are you just looking at what the combat log displays as your caster level? Because the combat log is wildly inaccurate on that displayed value. For all classes.

I was using the combat log. Are we sure it is wrong? If so I'll switch to damage averages.

[HungarianRhapsody]

I was using the combat log. Are we sure it is wrong? If so I'll switch to damage averages.

It’s super wrong. It lists what your caster level is before any max caster level cap is applied (and there are some situations where it doesn’t even correctly display that uncapped caster level). Try throwing a bunch of vials without Intensify turned on and then swap intensify back to master of spellvials and see the difference.

it’s a shame that there isn’t a way to dump the combat log to a text file so thst you can actually get usable numbers into excel or something like that. Having to copy down damage numbers by hand from the log is what keeps me from doing more serious testing.

[symplectix]

It’s super wrong. It lists what your caster level is before any max caster level cap is applied (and there are some situations where it doesn’t even correctly display that uncapped caster level). Try throwing a bunch of vials without Intensify turned on and then swap intensify back to master of spellvials and see the difference.

it’s a shame that there isn’t a way to dump the combat log to a text file so thst you can actually get usable numbers into excel or something like that. Having to copy down damage numbers by hand from the log is what keeps me from doing more serious testing.

EE Trackers Trap Luggan the Cudgeler as test dummy:
All metamagic off - Acid Spell Power: 389

Master of Spellvials = No

251 noncrit,nonsave hits with multivial of acid
Max Damage - 880
Min Damage - 603
Mean - 722.8
Median - 723

Master of Spellvials = Yes
All metamagic off - Acid Spell Power: 399(I ate a Halloween cookie..oops)

156 noncrit,nonsave hits with multivial of acid
Max Damage - 1066
Min Damage - 842
Mean - 956.4
Median - 954.5

CL35 Multivials here should average to 35(21/6+2)3.89 = 748.825
CL45 Multivials here should average to 45(21/6+2)3.99 = 987.525

The test average is slightly underperforming the expected value for CL35 and CL45 by 30ish. Master of Spellvials is working and the difference in damage shows that it is working as stated in the feat description(+10MCL):

Expected average damage difference: 987.525-748.825 = 238.7
Tested average damage difference: 956.4-722.8 = 233.6