Alchemist run-down! (tell me if I forgot any! xD)
Imma just steal this...
Water Cannon: Water Cannon works a lot like Firebolt. You charge 1-5 loads, and it fires all at once. Has somewhat poor knockdown, but quick load time.
Wind Blast: Does no actual damage, or marginal at best. What it DOES do is blow enemies back very far, and I believe it has a quick load time. This is great if you've got some irritating slow enemies, such as zombies. It's an excellent support skill.
Fire Blast: Fantastic flamethrower. It's worth getting into alchemy just so that you can laugh maniacally. It deals a spread of damage 5 times, with different damage and (I think) range depending on the number of charges. This can be a fantastic way to injure enemies, or simply stall them. As long as they're in the blast, they're basically stuck in place and vulnerable to other attacks - or provide time for allies to run and hide.
Heat Buster: It's neat, sorta. It explodes and sends you flying back. Nice way to gain distance quickly, but you have to "warm up" your cylinder by using other skills first. Not a main skill, but it's a neat one, if only for the visuals. Also hilarious watching the 10 year old elves flying backwards.
Cloud Casting: Causes rain above you. Grants a boost to water alchemy skills, and most importantly, improves production rates. Being under a raincloud, natural or artificial, will increase production success rates. That's fine at low levels, where you have a 50% change to fail iron ore. Nice but meh. But in higher levels it means a whole lot. When you've got a 30% chance to fail Finest Firewood, then every little percentage boost counts.
Tower Cannon: As said, not a skill, but rather equipment. The Tower Cylinder gives a hefty boost to range and damage, perhaps reload times as well, not sure. It takes a moment to deploy and to retract, but once in place it provides heavy firepower. For normal dungeons it's overkill, the room is cleared by the time you deploy, but for difficult dungeons, boss rooms, and (most importantly?) rafting, it can provide a major boost. Rafting is particularly fun. You can set up on the raft and be a mobile turret! A pair of tower cylinders firing water cannon and int magic crystals can earn a lot of points.
Sand Blast: Very crucial support skill. It stuns the enemy by blinding them. Can cause significant delay as they fail to move and fail to attack, and against bosses it can turn a tough fight into a sitting duck. A serious "tackle" skill, it's not much on its own, but if you've got an archer backing you up then it means a LOT of potential for damage.
Frozen Blast: Doesn't do much (if any) damage on its own. But it freezes enemies solid, rendering them stationary and unable to use any skills of any type. It also increases the damage being done to them. Another fantastic "tackle" skill, it'll keep an enemy pinned AND lower their defense, while the other players are able to chain up big-hitting combo moves.
Chain Cylinder: Pretty awesome. It allowed you to "skip" charges. Where you load one, you're suddenly loading multiples. So when you're charging water cannon, you can press the key once, but end up loading two charges at a time. It cuts down on a lot of time. It can be toggled on and off.
Spark: Very good, if you're doing it right. The "Spark" status works on the target, so you apply it to a friendly creature, either yourself, an ally, a golem, or whatever. Spark works by shocking enemies nearby, so if you put Spark onto a melee character, then when the melee character gets close to an enemy, the enemy will get shocked. This does some good damage, and it also stuns enemies very well. Done right, it can leave a whole room stunned for a long time, while still getting wailed on by everyone. Works well with golems.
Life Drain: IIncredibly powerful, it
may have been nerfed, I forget. If your HP is lower than full, you can "vampire" an enemy, refilling your own life while draining theirs. It can be very powerful as well as healing yourself, but requires some unusual ingredients to produce.
Golem Creation: Pretty awesome. Generates a golem of whatever material you're using. The golem will go spam attack, or you can assume control via astral projection or some other shit. Golems themselves aren't weak, and they get buffed by a few different skills to produce some very powerful ones. The main thing is, free damage without putting you at risk, and windmill. Golems using windmill are very powerful and can be used as extreme area-denial weapons - golems have a HUGE hitbox, so their windmill will hit everything everywhere ever.
Barrier: Throws up a small palisade. After a certain level, then you can shoot over it, so you can put it in front of you and your archer friends, and then use it for cover as you fire over it. At later levels, enemies who melee your barrier will take damage from it, and this damage is often non-filtered. Enemies who usually take no damage, will take damage from the spikes. This can result in some VERY potent ways to really piss off a boss. Can only be used in dungeons and shadow missions, NOT open field.
Passive & Non-combat SkillsMetal Changing: Not bad. If you have a lot of something, it can be neat. Unknown Ore Fragments and Copper Ore can be changed into something actually useful. A good utility skill that helps with blacksmithing.
Mana Forming: Turns intermediate magic into crystals that anyone with a cylinder can fire. Reduces damage, but costs no MP to fire and takes less time to load. Works best if someone charges magic and another crystalizes it.
Dissolving: (Do not know English name) Break down items into component parts.
Synthesis: Opposite of Dissolving. Can be used to create the best sword in Mabinogi, with a three Mabinogi percent chance of success. (Note that Fergus's fixing has a 90% chance of success but obviously succeeds less than that.)
Alchemy Mastery: Enhances all alchemy skills, be it damage, speed, success chance...
Creation Mastery: Involved in Synthesis, Dissolving, Mana Forming, and creation of crystals. Increases success rate.
Water/Fire/Wind/Ground Alchemy Mastery: Increase elemental damage, as well as some tricks. Water Alchemy Mastery increases the duration of Rain Casting. Clay Alchemy Mastery increases the power of golems and the duration and HP of barrier spikes.
Equipment:[Element] Cylinder: The default cylinders. They enhance one element and penalize the others.
Tsunami/Volcano/Earthquake/Hurricane Cylinder: They enhance one element more and penalize the others even more. These are a bit rare and expensive, but they're worth their money. Hurricane Cylinders provide buffs to Rain Casting, and Earthquake buffs golems and barriers.
Tower Cylinder: Huge, both on your character and in the inventory, but you might use them to become a siege tank. :3
Alchemy Bag: If you have a paid service, they're useful for holding all of your crystals. I think you can have more than one, but I'm not so sure about it.
So Alchemy is a fantastic support skill, Spark, Barriers, Wind Blast, etc all provide great utility, but the pure offensive skills are still strong enough that you're not a pure support role. Water Cannon and whatever still does enough damage that you're not worthless in a fight!