Alchemy 1 to 300 in WoW Forever: the cheapest route, priced

The route, priced today

Each row below is the recipe to start a 25 point step on. It is chosen from the Alchemy recipe list as the game client has it: a recipe you can learn at the start of the step, still orange or yellow, and the cheapest to make at the median reagent prices on the market with the freshest scan. A trainer recipe beats one a formula teaches whenever both are priced. The table redraws as scans arrive, so the route you read here is the route the market supports right now.

The total under the table is a floor, not a budget. It assumes every craft gives a point, which is only true while a recipe is orange. Yellow crafts miss now and then and green ones miss more often, so the real bill runs higher, and how much higher depends on how long you keep crafting a recipe after it changes colour. Following the rows closely keeps it near the floor.

In a fresh economy the upper brackets are not priced yet. Nobody has Gromsblood or Dreamfoil to sell in the first week, so the rows past skill 250 name the craft built from the herbs Alchemy uses most and say the reagents are unpriced. Those rows fill in as players reach the zones those herbs grow in.

Orange, yellow, green and grey

Every recipe has four thresholds, read from the client's skill table and printed on each recipe page. A craft is orange from the skill you learn it at, and an orange craft always gives a point. It turns yellow at the second threshold, where a point is likely but not certain. It turns green halfway between yellow and grey, where points become occasional, and grey at the last threshold, where it gives nothing.

The route starts each step on a craft that is still orange wherever one exists. If you keep crafting it into yellow, you spend more herbs per point; once it turns green, switch to the next row. A craft that is cheap but yellow can still beat an expensive orange one, and the table only compares crafts at the first point of each step, so check the crafting table if the next row costs far more than the one you are on.

1 to 75: Peacebloom, Silverleaf and Empty Vials

The first bracket runs on two herbs and one vial. Forever starts Alchemy with crafts that Classic Era did not have. Elixir of Minor Force takes a Silverleaf and an Empty Vial, is orange at 1, yellow at 10 and grey at 15. Minor Arcane Elixir and Mana Well both take a Peacebloom and an Empty Vial; the Minor Arcane Elixir goes grey at 15 and the Mana Well at 25. They are short steps, which is why the route moves on quickly.

From 15 the work settles on two classic recipes that share a long orange window. Elixir of Minor Defense (Silverleaf, Peacebloom, Empty Vial) and Elixir of Minor Strength (Silverleaf, Earthroot, Empty Vial) are both learned at 15, yellow at 55, green at 75 and grey at 95. Twenty-five Silverleaf and Peacebloom carry you a long way, and the Strength elixir is one of the few low crafts that has sold above its cost on the scanned market.

Silverleaf and Peacebloom are the first herbs any herbalist picks, and in the opening weeks they are everywhere on the auction house. Empty Vials are a different matter: no herb, so the route assumes the auction house price and the table notes that a vial a vendor sells can be cheaper.

75 to 150: Earthroot, Bruiseweed and the switch to Leaded Vials

Elixir of Minor Fortitude (a Peacebloom, two Earthroot and an Empty Vial) is learned at 50, yellow at 80 and grey at 120, which makes it the bridge into the second bracket. From 95 the vial changes. Forever adds a Discolored Healing Potion made from a Murloc Eye, a Bruiseweed and a Leaded Vial, orange from 95 to 135 and grey at 175. It is the longest orange window in the bracket, and the route leans on it for two steps.

Lesser Troll's Blood Elixir (two Briarthorn, two Bruiseweed, a Leaded Vial) unlocks at 110 and is worth knowing even if it is not the cheapest skill-up: it has sold steadily above its reagent cost on the scanned market, so the potions you make on the way up can pay for part of the climb.

150 to 225: Kingsblood, then a transmute

Kingsblood carries the third bracket. Elixir of Ogre Strength (Earthroot, Kingsblood, Leaded Vial) is orange from 135 to 175, and Mana Potion (Kingsblood, Stranglekelp, Leaded Vial) from 140 to 180. Forever also adds a Greater Discolored Healing Potion at 135, a Murloc Eye and a Kingsblood in a Leaded Vial, which has sold above cost on the scanned market in small numbers.

At 200 the route makes its one detour out of herbs. Transmute: Iron to Gold takes a single Iron Bar, is orange until 240 and grey at 280. Its cost is the bar, not a herb, so if Iron Bars are cheap on your market it is the easiest 25 points in the profession, and the Gold Bar it makes is a reagent in other professions' recipes. The same applies to Transmute: Mithril to Truesilver, learned at the same skill.

225 to 300: Crystal Vials and formulas

The last bracket changes the economics. Crystal Vials appear in 69 Alchemy recipes, more than any other reagent, and Dreamfoil, Gromsblood and Goldthorn come next among the herbs. Most of the recipes that give skill here are taught by a formula rather than by the game's trainer list: 116 of Alchemy's 182 recipes have a teaching item in the catalog. When the route names one of these, the row says it needs the pattern, and the formula's own item page lists the vendors and drops players have reported for it.

Stonescale Oil, a Leaded Vial and a Stonescale Eel, is the one trainer-style step at 225 and needs a fisher's catch rather than a herb. After that the route currently names Draught of Dream Vision (three Purple Lotus, a Crystal Vial), Elixir of the Whale (a Gromsblood, three Dreamfoil, a Crystal Vial) and Major Troll's Blood Elixir (a Gromsblood, two Plaguebloom, a Crystal Vial). Expect those rows to change once the high herbs carry prices.

What to sell on the way up

A leveling route spends gold. A few Alchemy crafts give some back, and on the scans from 6 November on PvP Horde US these sold above their reagent cost after the house cut, with enough daily sales to matter:

• Cerulean Dye, an Alchemy craft in Forever made from two Frilled Lichen and an Empty Vial, learned at 10. Tailors buy it in volume.
• Elixir of Minor Strength, the busiest seller in the bracket by units a day.
• Minor Mageblood Elixir (two Mageroyal, an Empty Vial) and Elixir of Minor Agility (Silverleaf, Swiftthistle, Empty Vial), both taught by a formula.
• Blackmouth Oil, two Oily Blackmouth in an Empty Vial, a fisher's sideline.
• Lesser Troll's Blood Elixir and Transmute: Iron to Gold, further up.

Margins this thin move from one scan to the next. Check each on the crafting table before you buy reagents for a batch, and read which professions make money for why consumables keep selling when crafted gear does not.

Pairing it with Herbalism

Almost every row of the route is herbs, so an alchemist who picks their own takes the largest cost out of the climb. Herbalism also earns while you level it: in the opening weeks everybody is climbing a profession at once, and the herbs on this page are what they are all buying. The trade-off is time. If an hour of picking earns less than the herbs it saves at the median, buy the herbs and spend the hour on something else. The reagent prices in the route table are the number to compare against.