Alchemist/notes
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Alchemist Gems
One of the unique aspects to the Alchemist is the use of alchemist gems. Alchemist gems are items that go to your quiver, and work as a resource for many of your skills. Alchemist gems are created from regular gems by the use of the Create Alchemist Gems skill. Converting a single gem will net you approximately 40~60 alchemist gems. The alchemist gems have special effects when used for your throw bomb skill, depending on the gems used. You can see the different effects they can have on the gems page. Note that alchemist gems sell for 0.1 gold apiece. Most items you don't require will be worth more as either gems or even more likely a bundle of alchemist gems if you gain the necessary general skill to convert items to gems.
General Tips
The alchemist is a mage that manipulates gems and has a golem for a companion.
Two general game-play strategies both involve maxing the first 4 bomb skills, making for a super bomb. Then eschewing the infusion skills (except to put 1 point in acid to unlock a non-fire damage bomb), you can either work to buff your golem to the max with your abilities, or you can buff yourself with fire alchemy skills. If you plan on buffing your golem after maxing out your bomb skills, you may find it helpful to pour your class points into Supercharge Golem, Golem Portal and Runic Golem.
Supercharge Golem is basically a Refit Golem skill that revives your golem instantly with (at max level) enough life and temporary regeneration to fully recover from death. Even better, it doesn't cost the full 15 gems that Refit Golem requires to resurrect your golem. It also buffs the golem's damage temporarily; however, the most important part of the skill is the insta-revive - this lets you resurrect your golem on the fly during a boss fight rather than in between battles. If you're in a fight, don't cast Supercharge Golem if your golem is about to die. It won't get the free revive and will probably die soon anyway regardless of its regeneration.
Golem Portal seems like a useless skill, but it can be a life-saver at times. At max level, it has a 100% chance to make every enemy targeting you retarget your golem. When you're in a big fight surrounded by enemies, the temporary respite could give you enough turns to bring a shielding rune or Supercharge Golem out of cooldown. Just beware that some enemies have AoE attacks that may hit you and your golem regardless of whoever's being targeted.
By the time you start working on Runic Golem, you should have a few good runes on hand. Keep an eye out for Shielding Runes; even just one can increase your golem's lifespan greatly in a fight.
If you're having trouble with dungeon delving/boss encounters, you could add a Teleportation Rune to your golem. Upon entering a new level and clearing out the nearby rabble, control your golem and teleport away. Try to run into as many enemies as you can. If you can't find any enemies, cast Invoke Golem and try again. If you do find some enemies, then control will switch back to your character after some time and you will (unless your golem is quite strong) probably see your golem's HP drop quickly in no time at all. Cast Refit Golem/Supercharge Golem to bring your golem back to life. If you wait around, the enemies your golem angered will usually come to you looking for a fight. This situation could tip the tides in your favor, since you already know what the battlefield looks like. The enemies also tend to cluster themselves up when they all head for you, making it easy for you to damage the whole crowd with a well-placed bomb. Fighting bosses also tends to be a whole lot easier when you're right on the stairs in case something goes horribly wrong. If you would like to explore for longer at a risk of dying, you could let your alchemist do the exploring instead of the golem. Simply use Golem Portal after teleporting your golem away (given that there's no enemies around, of course), and when you see many enemies that are too much to handle, cast Golem Portal to end your scouting adventure. If Golem Portal is still on cooldown and you don't think you can cast it in time (the cooldown for Golem Portal is quite short though), cast Invoke Golem and try to shield yourself from the onslaught of enemies. Note that these teleport techniques, while effective, tend to explore dungeons much slower than the traditional dungeon delving methods.
If you want to be sure escort will reach portal safely, you can use your golem to bodyblock escort and making him wait by setting his leash anchor to himself. This will give you all the time you need to clear whole map while escort and your golem wait.
