Dragon Age Inquisition

Dragon Age Inquisition

54 Achievements

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106-134h

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Master Alchemist

Master Alchemist

Upgrade your alchemic potions, grenades, or tonics 30 times in a single playthrough.

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How to unlock the Master Alchemist achievement in Dragon Age Inquisition - Definitive Guide

You can start upgrading potions in Haven with Adan, and once you progress the story, in Skyhold, in the crypt next to your throne.

Upgrading potions requires a lot of ingredients, so it's advisable to collect all plants you see. Also, each region has it's own set of reagents (though some common plants like elf root of blood lotus seem to grow almost everywhere). Hence, whenever you have enough power available, open a region, and do a sting hunt for some reagents. Once in Skyhold, you can also get access to 'retrieve resources' missions at the war table. Send either Leliana or Josephine to bring some reagents (usually around 6), but never Cullen, as he seems to focus on metals. Also in Skyhold, once you have access to your garden, every time you harvest a plant in the wild, there's a chance you get seeds to plant in the garden. Finally, you can also purchase over-priced reagents from some vendors, which I don't recommend.

You can find the ultra-rare plant Prophet's Laurel on the Storm Coast, in a cave in the most south-east corner of the map. That cave also holds a rift. Every time you enter the map two plants spawn in that cave.

The following list is not complete, but there are more than enough to get you the achievement. I'll update the list if I find any of the remaining recipes. I'm not typing out all reagent requirements as you can easily look them up in the game by approaching the potion upgrade bench.

Healing Potion 2 upgrades

Regeneration Potion 6 upgrades
*Missable* Speak with Adan in Haven to receive this recipe for free.

Lyrium Potion 4 upgrades
*Missable* Retrieve Taigen's notes for Adan from the hut north of Haven.

Rock Armor Tonic 5 upgrades
Hidden in the tower ruins just west of the 'Thelm Gold-Handed, the Dreamer' landmark in the Hinterlands. Use the search function to reveal it.

Healing Mist Grenade 3 upgrades
In Crestwood. After taking Caer Bronach, enter the caves underneath it. Defeat Snowball and loot the recipe from her corpse.

Antivan Fire Grenade 5 upgrades
Buy the recipe from the merchant at the Crossroads in the Hinterlands.

Jar of Bees Grenade 5 upgrades
After recruiting Sera, do the 'Red Jenny: Inquisition Needs Beeees!' quest on the War Table.

Pitch Grenade 5 upgrades
In Valammar, behind a breakable wall (requires a warrior).

*Added:

Tears of the Dead 5 upgrades
Acquired in The Fallow Mire for completing the 'Beneath the Mire' quest. Best done in tandem with 'Beacons in the Dark'.

Confusion Grenade 5 upgrades
*Missable* During the mission 'Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts'. After you climbed to the balcony, solve the bust puzzle in the Grand Library and loot exposed crypt.
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13 Dec 2014 16:40

8 Comments
Nice guide. Just one thing-- Caer Bronach is in Crestwood, not the Storm Coast
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By OrphanOfSoss on 16 Dec 2014 16:49
Thanks for pointing that mistake out.
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By TriRock on 17 Dec 2014 00:16
I appreciated the missable indications! Thank you.
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By Meszerus on 19 Dec 2014 20:28
If it helps anyone:
Felandris can be found in Emprise's Suledin Keep (lots of difficult fights within this location though).
Prophet's Laurel can be found at various places in the northern half of The Emerald Graves. I even found some growing within seeing distance of a camp I set up.
Blood Lotus is used a lot in recipes, and I found it most common in The Fallow Mire. It will almost always be found along the shore, and I found the most reliable picking spot was the marshes that take you to the Old Windmill.
Spindlewood is everywhere, but there's a few growing next to your initial camp in Crestwood.
Arbor Blessing can also be found in many of the new places after reaching Skyhold, such as in Suledin Keep.
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By Meszerus on 26 Dec 2014 10:17
I planted my 1st Prophet's Laurel in the garden in Sky Hold that way you can farm 6 of them from there and work towards the botanist achievement at the same time.
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By Calex dEUS on 02 Jan 2015 23:13
fabulous advice Elite11111...
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By bryan dot exe on 11 Feb 2015 04:25
The elemental tonics, once upgraded, are super useful against dragons as well. Use the pots in skyhold for the rarer herbs, make it a habit to check them on each return.
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By DEVILS UMBRA on 19 Sep 2016 04:01
Personally I found the easiest potions to upgrade were the different elemental resistance tonics.
I looked it up, seems you buy them from the store in Southeast Val Royeaux.
Also found the ingredients for each one.
Increase Duration I - 5 Spindleweed, 1 Witherstalk
Increase Duration II - 5 Rashvine
Increase Potency I - 5 Spindleweed, 1 Witherstalk
Increase Potency II - 5 Rashvine
Theres a fifth upgrade but I never got it. Each of the 4 resistance potions has these 4 upgrades. So thats 16 of the 30 upgrades, only costing 5-6 herbs each.
Spindleweed is around a lot of water, Witherstalk is in the Forbidden Oasis, and Rashvine is on ruin walls in the Exalted Plains.

Also there is Prophets Laural (3 plants) behind a tree in the northeast corner of Villa Maurel in the Emerald Graves. There was only 3 the first time for me, every other time only had 2.

Would have made a seperate guide but figured people would be more likely to see it in yours, so you're welcome =P
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By Elite1111111111 on 03 Jan 2015 07:53
View all 8 comments Show less comments
This was one of the last achievements I needed for the game and I thought it was going to be such a grind getting the herbs for the upgrades of the little potions I discovered. 40-60 herbs per upgrade for some of the bombs? That's ridiculous.

I traveled to Val Royeaux and walked over to the merchant on the bottom right. He sells you Elemental Resistance potions (Fire, Ice, Lightning, Spirit) and the upgrades for those potions only require 5-10 herbs (I think it was mostly rashvine). Either way, you can get more than half of the required upgrades from these.

The other half, I just recommend picking up all of the herbs that you come across while playing the game normally. If you have some spare inquisition perk points then you can get the large assortment of herbs (I was given like 80 of them) which helped immensely.
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30 May 2015 23:54

2 Comments
Awesome find man, I probably would have never figured this out. I would have spent hours trying to find rare plants to upgrade the few other potions I had left.
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By Hexa Fox on 25 Jan 2019 05:18
Wow, this saved me from such a grind. Thanks!
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By Tuxie Duck on 25 Jun 2019 23:08
If you don't want to farm and you have the tresspasser dlc you can wait until you get to the dlc then just buy all the herbs you need to upgrade potions. Bring a decent amount of gold for that though
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04 May 2017 14:44

If you have the Trespasser DLC then this trophy is a cakewalk. Be sure to obtain the recipes for tonics and grenades throughout your play-through of the main game and as soon as you get to the Winter Palace go the merchant there and buy all the herbs you need to upgrade them.

A list of every potion, tonic, and grenade(including their location and a description of how to obtain them) can be found here: http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Potions_(Inquisition)
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16 Dec 2016 04:27

Throughout your adventures in Thedas, you will come across various alchemical materials such as Elfroot and many others, mostly by keeping an eye out in the wilderness and utilizing your Search feature by pressing , as well as being able to purchase select materials from random vendors. As the game progresses, you will stockpile these ingredients (you will need hundreds), and eventually you will be able to spend them at your potions table. Keep in mind that you must discover or purchase some additional recipes as the base potions will not provide enough upgrade opportunities. 

When farming herbs, if you travel out of the zone and travel back, the spawn nodes will have instantly refreshed themselves (does not include the garden pots in Skyhold). Simply fast traveling within the same zone will not accomplish this, so find some nodes near a camp you want to farm and go to town. Travel there, harvest the nodes, leave the zone, and travel back; lather, rinse, repeat.

Interact with your potions table and choose to upgrade any of the three categories by spending the required resources. Do this process thirty individual times to unlock the achievement.

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Throughout your adventures in Thedas, you will come across various alchemical materials such as Elfroot and many others, mostly by keeping an eye out in the wilderness and utilizing your Search feature by pressing , as well as being able to purchase select materials from random vendors. As the game progresses, you will stockpile these ingredients (you will need hundreds), and eventually you will be able to spend them at your potions table. Keep in mind that you must discover or purchase some additional recipes as the base potions will not provide enough upgrade opportunities. 

When farming herbs, if you travel out of the zone and travel back, the spawn nodes will have instantly refreshed themselves (does not include the garden pots in Skyhold). Simply fast traveling within the same zone will not accomplish this, so find some nodes near a camp you want to farm and go to town. Travel there, harvest the nodes, leave the zone, and travel back; lather, rinse, repeat.

Interact with your potions table and choose to upgrade any of the three categories by spending the required resources. Do this process thirty individual times to unlock the achievement.

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If you go to an Upgrade Potions table in Skyhold or any Keep, you'll be able to see all the potions you've unlocked, their upgrades and what is needed for the upgrades. With just the few potions you have, you won't able to get 30 upgrades in total. You'll need to find new potions, tonics and grenades through recipes. There are 3 Potions in total. The Healing Potion has 2 upgrades, The Regen Potion has 6 upgrades and the Lyrium Potion has 4 upgrades. There are 7 Tonics in total, all of them have 5 upgrades. And finally there are 5 Grenades in total, four of which have 5 upgrades and one has 3 upgrades. The total amount of upgrades available is 70.

Many of the upgrades require rare herbs. These are found in the wilderness and you need to get a bit lucky to receive them. When you get to Skyhold, you'll receive the "Nursery Seeds" quest to gather seeds. Whenever you pick up a herb, or even a rare herb, you have a chance of obtaining a seed of that herb. You'll be able to plant whatever you seed you have in the Skyhold Garden and easily harvest them there. For more info on this, see the Botanist trophy. Before picking up a Rare Herb, manually save your game. If the Herb didn't give you a seed, reload that save and try again. This might take a few tries, but shouldn't take more than five tries. You can also leave an area and return right after as this will immediately respawn all herbs you've harvested.

There's a Inquisition Perk called Optimal Cutting, which gives you a 10% chance to receive more herbs each time you harvest a herb. The Eagle-Eyed Inquisition perk will increase the range of the ping (search) function. Herbs that are farther away will be easier to find. They also show up on your minimap as a fading dot. The Trainee, Veteran and Master Herbalist perks give you an one time only batch of herbs per perk. They also have a change of giving you herb seeds if you don't have them already. Whether they're worth it or not, is up to you. You can always save before using it, obtain the trophy and reload that save afterwards. You'll of course lose all your upgraded potions and whatever else you did in the meantime.

Click here for a complete guide on the Recipe Locations, the upgrades, the Herbs required, all the common/rare Herb locations and all the Herbs you can receive from the Trainee, Veteran and Master Herbalist Perks. This guide also includes some extra tips.

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