WoW Forever Alchemy leveling guide 1-300: route, recipes, and trainers

An alchemist makes what everybody needs: mana potions while leveling, elixirs before a dungeon, flasks for raids. Consumables get used up, so the demand lasts the whole game, not just the first week after launch.

In Forever the profession pays off long before 60, because Blizzard added more than 50 new recipes and a lot of them are low level. Minor Mender's Potion adds healing power for half a minute, Minor Spellblasting Potion adds spell damage, Minor Frenzy Potion adds attack power, and the low-level Cleric's and Mageblood elixirs last 30 minutes each. You'll want these yourself as early as your first dungeons.

Alchemy almost always goes with Herbalism. Alchemy eats herbs by the hundred, and picking your own makes leveling far cheaper. Fishing pays off too. Midway through, the route needs more than 130 fish for oils, and Fishing doesn't take up a primary profession slot.

• Regular healing potions belong to First Aid now. The whole line, from Minor to Major Healing Potion, left Alchemy, and alchemists got Discolored Healing Potions instead. How they work and where to learn them is covered below, and how the regular ones are made now is in the First Aid guide.
• More than 50 new recipes. Some drop from mobs, but most are sold for Merchant's Favor at the trading company camp. The Merchant's Favor guide has the details.
• Camp items. At skill 20, the quest Camping 101: Alchemy teaches you to make a Mana Well. Set it up by a campfire and everyone sitting nearby gets their mana back faster. Later you unlock the Fermenter (skill 140) and the Alchemy Laboratory (skill 300), and some recipes can only be made next to them: oils and dyes at the Fermenter, flasks at the Laboratory.
• Transmutes. In Forever, Transmute: Iron to Gold and Transmute: Mithril to Truesilver only have a one-hour cooldown, not a day or two like in Classic. Every transmute needs a Philosopher's Stone.
• Legacy. You earn a Legacy point the first time you reach 150, 225, and 300, and the Working Overtime perk in the professions branch adds up to 20% to your skill-up chance. You can set its rank in the profession calculator.

The route is built from the beta client data. Each step uses the recipe that raises your skill the cheapest, but it skips green recipes once your chance of a point drops below half. Craft counts are averages. While a recipe is yellow you get a point almost every time, but as it nears green you might need a couple of extra crafts, so buy a few spare materials.

You don't need to buy anything from the trainer until 75. Minor Arcane Elixir and Elixir of Minor Defense come with the profession, and they use Peacebloom, Silverleaf, and Empty Vial. Fish come in at 80: Blackmouth Oil takes Oily Blackmouth, the same oil later goes into Swim Speed Potion, and Fire Oil takes Firefin Snapper. Discolored Healing Potions carry you from 91 to 100, from 175 to 196, and from 264 to the end, and every one of them needs a Murloc Eye.

If you're missing a recipe or want to price the route for your realm, open it in the calculator. You can start from your current skill, take a recipe out, and pick the cheapest or the fastest path.

The route above raises your skill fast and cheap, but it earns almost nothing. Nobody wants the leveling elixirs, and their recipes go gray quickly. If you want Alchemy to pay for itself, craft something else. Here's what will definitely sell in Forever, and why.

You won't find exact prices here, and we're not adding any. The beta was capped at level 30, so nobody has seen real level 60 prices yet, and after launch your realm's Auction House will show them. Before you brew a batch to sell, compare the price of the finished potion with the price of the herbs that go into it.

Every Alchemy trainer in the capitals and starting towns teaches Apprentice (up to 75), but after that your options narrow. Journeyman unlocks at skill 50 and character level 10, Expert at skill 125 and level 20, and Artisan at skill 200 and level 35. The level requirements are low, so it's easy to level Alchemy alongside your character instead of saving it for 60. If your character falls behind, your skill just waits at the rank cap.

Discolored Healing Potions are the big new thing in Forever Alchemy. Take the mid-tier Discolored Healing Potion. It heals 600-680 instantly, and then you lose 75% of what it healed, because that damage comes back as a poison over 6 seconds or a disease over 12. Sounds weird, but in a fight, getting your health up right now matters most, and the poison or disease can be cleansed if someone in your group can do that. They're on a 2-minute cooldown, like regular healing potions.

The usual trainers don't teach these. Your first teacher is the Odd Child, in a barn at Moonbrook in Westfall, who starts you off with two easy quests: My First Alchemy Set asks for 5 Empty Vials, 5 Silverleaf, and 5 Peacebloom, and My First Real Potion asks for 3 Murloc Eyes. After that, the Odd Child teaches the rest of the line for gold, like a normal trainer. Horde players have something closer, since Apothecary Renferrel at the Sepulcher in Silverpine Forest teaches the same recipes.

Every potion in the line needs a Murloc Eye, so start saving Murloc Eyes while you level instead of buying them on the Auction House later.

Potion	Heals	Learn at skill	Recipe cost	Herb
Minor Discolored Healing Potion	150-170	50	10c	Peacebloom
Lesser Discolored Healing Potion	300-340	85	1s	Briarthorn
Discolored Healing Potion	600-680	135	5s	Bruiseweed
Greater Discolored Healing Potion	975-1105	175	15s	Kingsblood
Superior Discolored Healing Potion	1500-1700	230	50s	Sungrass
Major Discolored Healing Potion	2625-2975	250	1g	Plaguebloom

Forever's new recipes come from two places. The early ones drop from mobs. The Minor Mender's, Spellblasting, and Frenzy Potions and the low-level Spirit, Mageblood, and Cleric's elixirs drop as early as the starting zones, and the next tier of Mender's, Spellblasting, and Frenzy Potions drops from level 20-30 mobs.

Most of the rest are sold by Nina Surefire at the Alliance camp in Redridge Mountains and by Apothecary Durelle at the Horde camp in the Barrens. You pay in Merchant's Favor. Simple recipes cost 45 Favor, and the stronger ones cost 120 and 180-240 and need Friendly and Honored with the trading company. How to build up Favor and reputation is in the Merchant's Favor guide.

You barely need these recipes for leveling, since most of them only give about 10 points before going gray. Get them for the potions and elixirs themselves, and level your skill with the route above. By default, the calculator only falls back on recipes you learn from items when there's no other option.

Almost every Alchemy recipe needs a vial. The regular ones (Empty Vial, Leaded Vial, and Crystal Vial) are sold by nearly every trade goods vendor, plus alchemy and herbalism suppliers. Imbued Vial is only sold by alchemy and herbalism suppliers, usually near the trainers. Vendors sell vials in stacks of 5, so buy enough for the whole stretch in one go.

Early on the route uses the most Peacebloom and Silverleaf, then Kingsblood, Wild Steelbloom, and Goldthorn, and Arthas' Tears and Plaguebloom near 300. You can catch the fish (Oily Blackmouth and Firefin Snapper) yourself or buy them, and Murloc Eye drops from murlocs. The exact amounts for your stretch are in the list under the route.

We don't list herb prices. There are none before launch, and afterward they'll change every day. The general rule: herbs from the start of the route grow in every starting zone, every herbalist picks them, and they usually cost next to nothing. The exception is the first few days after launch, when everyone's leveling professions at once. The higher the skill, the rarer and pricier the herb, especially while there are few high-level herbalists around.

• Crafting green recipes until they go gray. The last points on a green recipe take several times more crafts than on a yellow one. As soon as a recipe turns green, check whether the next one is ready.
• Forgetting about ranks. At 75, 150, and 225 your skill hits the cap, and the next rank needs a character level: 10 for Journeyman, 20 for Expert, and 35 for Artisan.
• Leveling with transmutes. Transmutes have cooldowns from an hour to two days, so they're useless for leveling. They're for money, not skill points.
• Selling your Murloc Eyes. Discolored potions use one per craft, and the route needs about 80 of them.
• Buying everything the trainer has. Half the recipes on the trainer's list aren't needed for leveling. Learn what the route uses, and the rest when you actually need those potions.