Alchemy Guide

Alchemy is the brewer's vocation on Rookery Isles: combat potions, the Archeum-refining line that feeds every crafted weapon and armor set, and the pigments that dye your gear, all from one table, all on the live ArcheAge 3.0 (Revelation) build.

Table of Contents

• Requirements
• What Alchemy Is
• Proficiency Ranks and Gates
• Alchemy Stations
• Potions and Elixirs
• The Archeum Extraction Line
• Dye and Pigment Refining
• Regrade and Gemming Reagents (What Actually Exists)
• Worked Examples
• Sourcing Your Ingredients
• On Rookery Isles

Requirements

This craft itself has no character-level requirement. You can smelt, process, and craft at any level if you have the materials. The catch on Rookery Isles is that the raw materials come from world gathering (Mining, Logging, Gathering, Farming, Husbandry, Fishing), and all of those are gated at Character Level 52, so in practice a self-supplied crafting career begins at Level 52. You can still craft earlier from purchased or traded materials.

What Alchemy Is

Alchemy is one of the 22 player vocations on Rookery Isles, and it lives on the Crafting tab of the proficiency window (alongside Cooking, Handicrafts, Machining, Metalwork, Printing, Masonry, Tailoring, Leatherwork, Weaponry and Carpentry). In the game data it is actability group 1, and it owns 353 recipes, a mid-sized vocation, but one with outsized importance because two of its product lines feed the entire endgame economy.

Alchemy does four jobs on this server:

• Step 1. Potions and elixirs, consumables that restore health and mana, buff stats, or grant utility effects in and out of combat.
• Step 2. Archeum extraction, refining high-tier Archeum down into the Dust, Shard and Crystal that every crafted gear upgrade demands. This is the signature Alchemy mechanic and the one most crafters actually grind.
• Step 3. Dye and pigment refining, turning gathered flowers into the colored pigments used to dye gear and craft decor.
• Step 4. Specialty alchemy goods, potion racks and other furniture/utility items, plus a handful of event and faction consumables.

Every Alchemy action costs Labor (the shared pool that powers all crafting and gathering) plus a small Coin fee, and most require a station. The exact Labor cost is stored per recipe and ranges from 1 Labor for the cheapest brews up to 600 Labor for mass-production batches.

The shared crafting model. Like every vocation, an Alchemy recipe has inputs (the mats you consume), outputs (what you get), a Labor cost, a required station, and a proficiency gate. None of it is gated by character level, see Proficiency Ranks and Gates. For the full cross-vocation picture see the Crafting Guide.

Proficiency Ranks and Gates

Your Alchemy proficiency climbs every time you brew. Proficiency uses the same 31-rank ladder as every other vocation. The first 12 ranks are what you will see in the client; the cap is Legend at 1,000,000.

Rank 1 is Amateur, not "Basic." Master is the 50,000 cap; Authority is 70,000. Rank-ups are free in this build, you do not pay to advance, you simply unlock higher recipes as your cumulative proficiency crosses each threshold.

How recipes gate. Each recipe carries a required proficiency value. Across Alchemy's 353 recipes the gates fall like this (verified from the craft data):

The takeaway: about half of Alchemy is open the moment you pick up the vocation, including the entire Archeum extraction line. The gating that matters kicks in on advanced pigments and high-tier consumables.

Higher rank also makes crafting cheaper, the in-game proficiency window shows a Labor advantage that grows as you rank up. The exact percentage formula is not exposed in the server data, so treat it as a directional rule: higher rank = cheaper crafts, not a specific number.

Alchemy Stations

Most Alchemy work needs a station (a doodad you stand next to). The two you will use constantly are the Alchemy Table for potions and dyes, and the Archeum Workbench for extraction. Stations exist on Mirage Isle (free public access), in housing, and around the world.

About 126 Alchemy recipes need no station at all, they are portable and can be brewed from the proficiency window anywhere. Many basic potions and inks fall in this group, so you can keep brewing while you travel.

Potions and Elixirs

Potions are the consumable face of Alchemy. The standard pattern is a Glass Bottle (item 8376) plus a Catalyst plus a couple of gathered reagents (herbs, flowers, water), producing a stack of potions.

A confirmed worked recipe, Rainbow in Reach:

The Catalyst is the alchemy reagent that defines a recipe's tier. Several catalyst tiers exist in the data, Ember Catalyst (15617), Sunrise Catalyst (15618), Starfire Catalyst (15620), plus zone-flavored catalysts like the Windscour Alchemical Catalyst (20113) and Lilyut Alchemy Catalyst (24928). Pick the catalyst the recipe calls for.

Other confirmed potion-family products include Artisan's Potent Potion (item 28707, a portable 30-Labor brew from a Glass Bottle plus a reagent), and faction-style batch potions such as Titan's Healing Potion (42634) and Titan's Mana Potion (42635), each brewed 10-at-a-time at the Thunderwing Alchemy Workbench from special reagents (Desert Fire / Mossy Pool plus Glowing Prism).

A note on exact potion effects. The server data confirms what each recipe produces and what it costs, but per-potion heal/mana/buff magnitudes and durations live in buff logic, not the craft tables. Test the potion in-game before relying on a specific number, do not trust web-wiki magnitude claims for this build.

The Archeum Extraction Line

This is the most important thing Alchemy does. Archeum refines downward: a higher tier breaks into four of the next tier down. The chain runs:

Essence → Crystal → Shard → Dust, ×4 at every step.

Three skills drive it, and all three are Alchemy. They are open from the very start (proficiency gate 0), cost 10 Labor plus 4 Coin each, and run at the Archeum Workbench:

Each step exists in three color variants, Sunlight, Moonlight and Starlight, because crafted gear chains demand specific colors. Confirmed recipes:

Why this matters. The crafted gear ladder, Apprentice's → Craftsman's → Artificer's → Artisan's → Conqueror's, then the synthesis tiers up to Ayanad (the top crafted tier on this build, there is no Erenor gear), consumes escalating Archeum at each step. Early upgrades want Dust, mid upgrades want Shard, and high upgrades want Crystal, all in a specific color. An armorer who cannot extract is at the mercy of the Auction House. See the Crafting Guide for the full gear ladder.

Going the other way. Bulk "combine" and "disintegrate" jobs exist at the Multipurpose Workbench for players who over-extracted or need to rebuild higher tiers, for example Archeum Crystal: Mass Combination (200 Labor) and Archeum: Mass Disintegration (100 Labor). These are batch operations, not the core loop.

Run the math before you extract. Because each step is ×4, one Essence becomes 4 Crystal, 16 Shard, or 64 Dust, but each extraction is a separate 10-Labor action. Taking one Essence all the way to Dust is three actions for the first unit and many more for the full yield. Extract only to the tier your recipe actually needs.

Dye and Pigment Refining

Alchemy is also the server's dye house. Gathered flowers refine into pigments, and pigments combine into the full color wheel used to dye gear and craft decor. There are 13 distinct dye/ink products in the Alchemy line.

The base color pigments are made from large stacks of a single flower plus a light essence. Confirmed recipes (Regal Alchemy Table, 25 Labor each):

Secondary colors combine two base pigments, for example Green Pigment (28239) is 1 Blue + 1 Yellow + 8 Coin (gate 40,000). Other dye/ink products include Pink, Purple and Black pigments, plus Memory Ink (4053, a cheap 1-Labor portable brew used in Printing's language books).

A separate, lower family of stat-pigments feeds gear crafting directly rather than cosmetics, Small Root Pigment (19448), Small Leaf Pigment (19402), Soft Stem Pigment (19403) and Scented Petal Pigment. These are consumed by the cloth/leather gear upgrade recipes. Confirmed example, Small Root Pigment: 3 Charcoal Stabilizer + 20 Clover + 20 Rose + 1 Coin at the Alchemy Table (15 Labor, open from the start).

For where to gather the flowers these recipes eat, see the Gathering & Herbs Guide.

Regrade and Gemming Reagents (What Actually Exists)

Players new to ArcheAge often assume Alchemy makes the regrade and socketing reagents. On Rookery Isles it mostly does not, but it is worth knowing exactly which reagent families exist on this build, because community guides invent ones that do not.

The three real socket/regrade reagent families on this server:

Lunastone does not exist in this build at all. Lunadrop items do exist in the data (148 of them), but they are a legacy/inert family, no live Alchemy or Handicraft recipe uses them, and the active socketing gem on this server is the Lunagem. So if a guide tells you to craft or farm "Lunadrops" or "Lunastones," ignore it: the gem you actually socket is a Lunagem.

Where these come from. Lunagems are crafted in Handicrafts, not Alchemy (e.g. 10 Fire Lunarite → 1 Clear Fire Lunagem at the Handicraft Kiln, 50 Labor). Socketing a gem into gear and extracting it back out are item actions, not crafting recipes. Lunafrost and Lunascale are enhancement reagents in the gear/regrade system. Alchemy's contribution to the enhancement economy is upstream: the Archeum you extract is what gets poured into gear, and pigments finish the look.

Regrade itself is scroll-driven, not an Alchemy recipe. You apply a Regrade Scroll (Weapon 28298, Armor 28299, Accessory 31928) to an item, optionally with a charm to improve the odds. Regrading is safe through Unique (grade 6); the risk of breaking or downgrading first appears at Celestial (grade 7). Sockets open at Grand grade and cap at 7 on a Divine+ weapon. All of that lives in the gear system, see the Regrade and Gemming Guide for the full mechanics, charm list and grade ladder.

Worked Examples

Worked example 1, Feed your armorer (Archeum to Dust). You bought 5 Moonlight Archeum Essence and your tailor needs Moonlight Dust for a Craftsman's upgrade.

• Step 1. Stand at an Archeum Workbench (Mirage Isle has free ones).
• Step 2. Run Extract Archeum Crystal on each Essence: 5 Essence → 20 Crystal (5 actions × 10 Labor = 50 Labor).
• Step 3. Run Extract Archeum Shard on the Crystal: 20 Crystal → 80 Shard (200 Labor).
• Step 4. Run Extract Archeum Dust on the Shard: 80 Shard → 320 Dust (800 Labor).
• Stop at the tier your recipe needs, if the upgrade wants Shard, do not waste Labor going to Dust.

Worked example 2, Brew a stack of potions. You want a stack of Rainbow in Reach.

• Step 1. Gather or buy 4 Aloe, 2 Scarlet Rose Petal, and craft/buy 5 Glass Bottles and 1 Sunrise Catalyst.
• Step 2. Make sure your Alchemy proficiency is at least 300 (a few starter brews gets you there).
• Step 3. At an Alchemy Table, run the recipe: 15 Labor → 5 Rainbow in Reach.

Worked example 3, Dye your gear red. You want Red Pigment.

• Step 1. Reach 20,000 Alchemy proficiency (mid-Novice rank).
• Step 2. Gather 200 Rose, Dewstone Plains and Halcyona are the densest Rose zones (see the gathering guide).
• Step 3. Acquire 1 Dawn Lake Light Essence.
• Step 4. At a Regal Alchemy Table, run the recipe: 25 Labor + 4 Coin → 1 Red Pigment.

Sourcing Your Ingredients

Alchemy is downstream of gathering and mining. Your two big input streams:

Flowers feed dyes and potions. Rose, Narcissus, Lavender, Clover, Aloe and Lily are the heavy hitters; the gathering guide lists exact spawn zones. Cornflower in particular is a confirmed pigment feedstock.

Archeum is the bottleneck. Raw Archeum Essence does not gather casually, it comes from Archeum Ore processing, world events and the Auction House. Because extraction multiplies it ×4 per step, Essence is the high-value unit; buy it low, extract to the exact tier your buyers need, and sell the Dust/Shard/Crystal into the gear economy.

On Rookery Isles

A few places this server differs from canonical ArcheAge, all relevant to alchemists:

• World gathering requires Character Level 52. Mining, Logging, Gathering, Farming, Husbandry and Fishing all carry a Level 52 requirement on this server, and the client enforces it. You cannot gather the flowers, herbs or Archeum feedstock your potions, dyes and extraction need in the open world until Level 52. Alchemy itself stays ungated, so you can still craft earlier from purchased or traded materials, but a self-supplied alchemist begins at Level 52.
• No character-level gate on Alchemy. Alchemy recipes gate on proficiency, never character level. The entire Archeum extraction line is open from your first point of Alchemy.
• Ayanad is the top crafted tier, there is no Erenor or Hiram gear on this 3.0 (Revelation) build. The Archeum you extract feeds the Apprentice's → Ayanad ladder, not an Erenor endgame. "Erenor" exists only as a cosmetic Hero Cloak.
• The active socket/regrade reagent families are Lunagem (299), Lunafrost (188) and Lunascale (16). "Lunastone" does not exist; "Lunadrop" exists only as a legacy/inert item family (148 entries) with no live recipe, the gem you actually socket is a Lunagem.
• Regrade is safe through Unique (grade 6); risk begins at Celestial (grade 7). Sockets open at Grand grade. This is the gear system, not Alchemy, but it is the destination for everything you extract.

See also

Crafting & Gathering Overview · Gathering & Herbs Guide · Mining & Ore Guide · Gear Progression · Regrading & Lunagems · Handicrafts & Printing · Labor Points & Proficiency · Cooking Guide · Gearing Supply Chain