Hey all. There’s a lot of content that released with the Brewing Update today, and I’d like to take a bit to explain the strengths, weaknesses, and obtainment methods of all the new potions, as well as helping you all better understand how you can utilize them.
Potions are incredibly powerful. They make farming bosses easier, can make you night unkillable in PvE situations, help with traversing faster and looting structures much easier, and can absolutely turn the tide of almost any battle in PvP.
Note two things. First, that this list is my opinions and first impressions alone. Second, most ‘status’ brews, such as Burning or Artic potions will be left out, as you can probably infer based off of the strength of the base status where they’d end up on this list.
Without further ado, let’s start with S tier.
S-Tier:
Healing - Brewed with Lifebloom. Most effective when used as a drinkable or as a brew.
We all knew this was coming, but Healing potions are undeniably an S-tier choice for PvP and PvE alike. When used as a drinkable, Healing potions are an incredibly quick method of regenerating mid-fight, allowing you to keep yourself topped off or live a little longer in dire situations. Like Gale potions, they do have an innate cooldown, but this hardly matters if you’re staggering your potion use correctly. The brew version of Healing potions is also absurdly strong, creating portable health stations mid-combat. When combined with a decent health pool and Recovery V food, you’re practically unstoppable.
What else is there to say, when even low-tier versions of this brew can heal for more than 500 a pop? Healing potions are S-tier, without a doubt.
Electric - Brewed with Fulgurite and Thunder Crystals. Most effective as a throwable.
The raw damage and CC you get out of Electric potions when they’re used as a throwable is absolutely insane. From the damage of the thunderbolt to the extended paralysis, this thing is a nightmare to play against when brewed in higher tiers. Thought I’ve yet to do extensive testing of it, this one seems to be the best status potion so far by a mile.
Love - Brewed with Pink Apples. Most effective as a throwable, and can be countered with a drinkable.
Losing a fight? Throw a love potion. It really is that simple with this update. Complete immunity to all damage from a single player is comically annoying. Sure, you can’t damage them either, but why would you need to? These potions are a pacifist’s dream, and can completely salvage any losing fight presuming you can land the throw.
Agility - Brewed with Luminous Coral. Most effective as a drinkable.
There is, quite simply, very little reason to build into Agility anymore now that these are in the game. One of these things brewed to its maximum is gunna give you the equivalent of what feels like roughly 100 agility for over ten minutes a pop. Great for running, great for catching players, and great for cheating in races with your friends.
One of the reasons Agility is a somewhat unpopular stat is because the armor that offers it as a secondary stat (Elius) simply isn’t the best, and Attack Speed tends to be more valued. Now, with a steady supply of these, there isn’t any need to make that choice anymore. S-tier, no doubt.
Luck - Brewed with Golden Fish Scales. Most effective when used as a drinkable.
Luck completely revolutionizes farming in this game. Drops become far more frequent, and seem to net higher tier rewards. At tier 5, you’re looking at a 50% increase to drop rates from all sources. Lasts for a very long time and trivializes boss farming, allowing you to absolutely blaze through getting sets quickly, and will be incredibly useful in the future, when new bosses and drops to grind for are released.
Though ineffective for PvP, the value of Luck potions cannot be understated. Keep your eyes on this one, and stock up before the Darksea’s release.
A-Tier:
Power - Brewed with White Eyes Scales. Most effective as a drinkable.
When brewed with max potency, these things provide around a 15-20ish% damage increase for upwards of fifteen minutes. Very strong, but still beaten out in overall value by some S-tier choices. Can never go wrong with them, but it’s hard to say that they’re one of the best.
Energizing - Brewed with Arcane Salt or Coppershroom. Most effective as a drinkable, or as a brew.
In an era where the balance team loves amping energy costs for certain spells just to see what happens, Energizing potions should be your new best friend if you’re not interested in getting to Perfect-tier Jewelcrafting. The increase is very noticeable, and is one of two potions on this list that heavily assists Vitality hybrids, making up for their piss-poor energy cap.
Simple to understand and even more simple to use, Energizing potions are always going to be a great choice for PvE and PvP alike.
Blinding - Brewed with a Glowcap or Esca of Obulus. Most effective as a throwable, or as a lingering throwable.
This one isn’t here so much as for the effect as it is for the duration. I was only able to test one of these things (killing Obulus 5 times for one brew isn’t very efficient), but my god are you blinded for ages. Very disorienting, and can quite easily lead to some very embarrassing situations for whoever’s hit.
Solid A-tier choice, and great for putting a dampener on any well-aimed opponents mid-fight.
Gale - Brewed with Amphibious Bloom. Most effective as a drinkable.
Thought not as consistent an escape method as Love potions, these potions, when brewed even as low as Tier III, send you sky-high in the blink of an eye. Gale Sickness prevents them from beind spammed, similar to Healing potions, but it hardly matters when each gives you so much air time. Good traversal, good escape, and decent mix-up. Also synergizes pretty well with mosquito builds, as they don’t require an Air Movement to be used.
Invisibility - Brewed with Jade Pearls. Most effective as a drinkable.
Even at the absolute lowest tiers, these things possess great strength for one reason alone; they hide your name. The higher the tier, the greater the transparency, presumably becoming completely invisible at Tier V. Amazing for escaping, sneaking up or spying on foes, or just scaring the fuck out of your friends.
Slowness - Brewed with Blue Urchin Spine or Lunar Moss. Most effective as a gel, or as a throwable.
At lower tiers, the slow is fairly negligible. However, if you can get the potency to a decent level, these things are amazing for PvP. Arcane Odyssey is a very movement-centric game; aside from just catching runners, these can severely throw people off their game in most fights. There isn’t too much to say about them, just note that they are pretty powerful at higher tiers.
Scorching - Brewed with (???). Most effective as a gel, or as a throwable.
Everyone knows Scorch is a great status, arguably the best DoT status in the game with a fair variety of positive interactions. Being able to apply it on every hit is insanely good on classes like Mage and Warrior, but is useful for the roster all-around. I’m going to keep most of the ‘status’ potions brief, since they’re all fairly simple, but know Scorch potions are very strong.
Revealing - Brewed with Lurker Eyes. Most effective as a drinkable.
Finally, you can bounty hunt and chase runners with ease. Though this thing has fairly limited use cases, it’s so incredibly nice when it works out in your favor. The duration is decent, all things considered, and the range is quite far. With these in your hotbar, nobody will be escaping your grasp again.
Unless they have Gale, Love, or Agility potions. Then they probably will be escaping. Quite easily.
Corroding and Melting - Brewed with Caustic Cloth and Magmatic Stone, respectively. Most effective as gels.
For similar reasons to Scorch, these are great gels to use in most builds. Where Scorch gel shines a bit brighter on builds that land hits more quickly, these are better on heavier-hitting, slower builds, as re-application is not as important.
Bleeding - Brewed with Shark Tooth. Most effective as a gel.
A lot of elements have positive interactions with bleed. Even at the lowest tiers, these gels are going to give most Magics a nice boost to their damage output. Very consistent and reliable.
C-Tier:
Harming - Brewed with Bones. Most effective as a throwable, or as a lingering throwable.
Very underwhelming, even at higher tiers. Sure, that little damage boost on each hit you get from running them as a gel is nice, but Power potions will always be more effective in that department, by quite the margin. They’re okay as a throwable, but don’t expect much from these. The only real thing they have going for them is that they’re alright as a lingering potion at doing some alright damage to grouped or AFK players, such as if you’re jumping someone who’s fishing.
Ironskin - Brewed with Metal Scrap or Golden Apples. Most effective as a drinkable.
Not bad, just very gimmicky. You’re slowed to a crawl at higher tiers, in exchange for super high damage resistance. If someone gets low, they can kinda just run from you and you’re stuck there akwardly standing around. Very fun, but not the most effective.
Insanity - Brewed with (???). Most effective as a throwable.
Though these would be great with gel if they had a bit more potency, the effects are pretty minimal when brewed as such. Throwables are your best option for getting use out of these things. Though even more gimmicky than Ironskin, Insanity potions can make a fight much, much more tedious for your opponent.
Smoke - Brewed with (???) or Cloudroot. Most effective as a drinkable, or as a throwable.
Who doesn’t love a smoke grenade? At the highest tiers, the cloud is absolutely gargantuan, providing easy escapes or a good mix-up mid fight against anyone who’s not using Revealing potions. Though they’re more funny than anything and there are certainly better options, Smoke potions aren’t terrible.
Tide - Brewed with (???). Most effective as a throwable.
I don’t know much about these, but what I do know is that they’re pretty good for ship combat, and little else. A very edge use case, but still good under the right circumstances. For its limited usage I can’t really put this any higher than C-tier in good faith.
Untiered:
Mystery, Clearsight, Warding, Interchange, Shark Repellent and Water Breathing all have very clear use cases. Untiered doesn’t mean any of them are bad, obviously; they’re just very limited in their usage, and aren’t really going to interact with the game very much aside from providing QoL.
I hope this little guide helps. Let me know if there’s anything I missed, got wrong, or forgot, and whether you agree or disagree with my placements. Have a good one.