Druid wasn't a bad choice. I had one in my good party and they're supposed to be even better if you take the evil path.
Later you'll get lots of extra spell points for GM meditation. GM alchemy will allow to create black potions which permanently raise your characters' stats.

IMO master elemental skills aren't worth squat in the late game--very underpowered compared to Light--and barely measurable when compared to even expert shrapmetal.
The druid cannot learn either dark or light at even a basic level.

Creating black potions is also worthless--as the ability comes late the game---and you have to kill multiple dragons. You should be able to afford and buy them in the early mid game if you completely loot the titans stronghold (difficult to do without ,at least, master disarm BTW)--doing so should net you about 150,000 gold with expert merchant and if you do your business in in Stone City.

FWIW--if your looking for a challenge you shouldn't use black potions anyway--used systematically they create an uberpowerful party that in effect breaks the game,

Unless you are very slow (so the shops can recharge often enough) or lucky you won't get all the black potions you want before the game is over , they aren't sold everywhere or in unlimited numbers and it's random which kind of black potion you can buy. A nice side effect of GM alchemy is that you can also make more money (training is expensive) by mixing black potions.

Druids can't get alchemy grandmastery before the second promotion but before their second promotion clerics and mages are inferior to them at casting. You can use every type of stat raising black potion only once per character, so you "only" get +50 in all stats, not gamebreaking considering that you can reach stats well above 100 without them.

Dude--WTF--save before you enter any shop--if you don't like the selection reload--and re-enter--you get a different selection--it's a random thing

Cheating?? Maybe!! But using this method when visiting the alchemists in Celeste and the Pit--and it's quite easy to get all the black potions you want.

Once your characters are maxed out with black potions you are basically playing in "God mode".

If I remember correctly shop items aren't reset when you enter the shops, they are renewed when a certain amount of time passes. So for save/reload to work effectively you'll have to invest a lot of real time and in-game time.

For mid range stats (50+) raising them by 50 will only grant an additional +2 modifier, it's useful but won't turn the game into "God mode".

after that certain amount of time--restock occurs and then the save& reload things works. I got into the habit of doing that after training. For certain characters you can raise certain stats well over 100--like INT for a wizard. That increases spell points a bunch, increasing endurance increases hit points in a similar fashion. High speed gives extra attacks, high accuracy almost eliminates those annoying whiffs, high might means more damage.

As I said--it's God Mode!!

So... wait a minute. Is GM Alchemy worthless or not? I mean, one can argue that it breaks the game's challenge, I suppose, but a skill that makes you say the game enters "God Mode" hardly seems worthless....

I'm not trying to argue... just sayin'...

I sense that you are being deliberately obtuse. Druids cannot GM Alchemy until very late in the game. Dark players must defeat multiple dragons, if you play the light you mut clear the Maze. What is the point of Black potions if you can win a battle against 5 dragons--including the "Mega Dragon"??

You can break the game buying black potions as soon as you can afford it, somewhere around level 20 assuming you are workking toward master merchant.

It really really doesn't affect the game very much. Black potions just aren't worth it except in Day of the Destroyer. In VI, they hurt your characters for very little benefit, in VII they are nearly impossible to get, only in VIII is there any realistic chance of putting the skills necessary to create them to practical use.

Throughout the game, as in the other games, you will find numerous items, including enchanted equipment and stat barrels, that will bring you much closer to "god mode" than any selection of brews. And once you're that close, the extra fifty points don't count for nearly as much. If you want to play druids, don't do it for the GM alchemy skill.

"in VII they are nearly impossible to get"


Black potions are stocked by the alchemist shops in both celeste and the Pit.

So they are not "impossible to get"--rather they are readily available.

Black potions are the only things in the game that can raise a stat 50 pts--just like that.

The difference between 25 might and 75 is a lot more damage, 50 accuracy and 100 is a lot more hits and much less misses. Characters with a 100 luck evade damage regularly, characters with 100 speed get multiple attacks---more endurance translates into more hit points per level. More int and per translate into more spell points.

Jeez--what's wrong with you guys

With much more saving and restoring than I'm willing to invest. Then again, I am a stickler for having about equal power among my party members, so obviously your mileage may vary. But I always found that I would end up making the survival rate of different party members even more uneven, unless I did a save/restore marathon where I could get the potions I wanted for each character. If this is for you, then it's worth it. Otherwise, don't bother.

It's always been said that the most powerful spells in the game are save and load.

And usually it's less than 5 reloads FWTW.

If you're trying to tell me you haven't saved and reloaded because you didn't like the results of a battle or enchantment--you're just full of it!


Look--once you've played through the game 2-3 times--you should be able to play through the game in different ways with different parties--much more rapidly.

For example:

You can finish a lot of quests with stealth alone, and then go back and clean out the dungeon when your party is more powerful.

It's fun to do stuff like kill dragons and titans and get your party equipped with multiple artifacts.

The first few times I played the game--my party was too weak to tackle dragons and titans--and I ran away from those behemoths. It's nice to know that you can build a party that can go through those monsters like a knife through butter.

The more time you spend saving and reloading, the less time you spend playing the game. Shop stock and enchantments in particular are meant to be random elements, unrepentant to new strategies. Yes, I've saved and reloaded, but if I have to do it more than twice, then as far as I'm concerned, it isn't meant to be.


I've killed plenty of dragons and titans thank you very much. I'd rather invest the time to fight them than to save and restore whenever a blow did not do maximum damage. The game calculates that certain things will happen which may not be to your liking. Even though this is not my favorite entry to the series, I still appreciate and even enjoy that aspect of it.

Haha this is kinda funny.... Oh I saved and reloaded a few times too i mean... come on... but mostly don't i normally just end up being halfway through a cave system or something and get attacked by the flying guy just out of ur viewing range and have to quit cuz i not paying for 3 people to be brought back from eradication lol. too pricey. i'd rather do the whole dungeon over again lol. annoying as it is sometimes I find better stuff in the chests.. mostly not though but i wizz by it much faster... but as for stats yea they help a little but... mostly skills that are important right? i mean you can't save and reload to get better skills...

yep skills are most important---but keep in mind that "expert" skills really don't amount to much for the most part and should be called something else. Expert disarmers, for example simply aren't very useful

For some skills--particularly bow and armor--top notch equipment can make a huge difference. Especially in the early game. A level 2 bowman with a good bow like a composite bow does a surprising amount of damage.

A trick you might want to try at the beginning of the game is to "prospect" for the good ore nuggets (Erudine/Kergar)--they can be readily and safely found in Tatalia, and Bracada. Kergar nuggets can be turned into top of the line armor---find more and you can get good weapons. Makes the early going a lot easier--maybe too easy.