SangoProduction
2021-01-03, 12:50 AM
Last week of the break. I've put in my job applications, and now have the endless abyss of nothingness to deal with. I could be preparing even more in advance of my next sessions, but... Let's review some more spheres.
Spheres of Might, this time. A very potent, but build-demanding sphere - the Alchemy sphere. And its even got 2 spheres put into one. Yeah. They have no interconnectivity whatsoever (save for thrown inhaled poisons and the two throwing talents), and I will be reviewing Poisons separately.
This will be the first sphere where I also put a Flexibility note on it. This is basically a judgement of how well the sphere accepts flex talents, such as from an Armiger.
Post-Review Analysis: It's a pretty nice sphere. Nothing too crazy. At least until you're higher level, with massive bonuses to crafting, which enables you to do things like many-round blinds that hit entire rooms....and largely just do things in larger areas.
Flexibility: Generally, flexing from one alchemy talent to another is pretty fantastic. There are several formulae which you wouldn't mind grabbing, if you've simply got ranks in Craft Alchemy, but no real investment. You'd definitely not be getting the "full" benefit out of anything, but being able to whip up a Salve to heal you is always nice.
Of course, most of the formulae generally function on a particular playstyle (that of a splash weapon thrower), and requires setup and preparation to make use of. So it's hard to see where many of these could serve as splashes for non-alchemy builds. And if it's something that you actually want for covering a weakness, since you need to see it coming, or have it be the 'just in case" deal, then you probably just want it in your build proper.
Ironically, one of the least good talents, War Paint, makes for a nice flex, due to its incredible duration, and not being limited by the horrible "choose one" functionality. So you flex into the exact bonus you want. Spend 15 minutes to an hour to get the buffs your team wants and then move on your merry way with a more immediately useful flex talent.
Ranking system:
(S) Superb: You always want this. It's awesome.
(G) Good: You would certainly not complain about having this, especially in the right builds / situations.
(B) Bad: While perhaps better than nothing, you are giving up something for it, so probably shouldn't without a good reason.
(N) No.
<Angle brackets> around a rating indicates situational usefulness, and how good it is in that favorable situation.
- Special Ratings:
(C) Cheese: A talent so broken that it will be instantly banned if you use it as you could.
(I) Impossible: Can't be rated because it is just not defined enough to give a meaningful rating - it depends too much on DM ruling, or personal use. I'll just place it where I guess the average result would put it.
(F) Flavor: This indicates that the main draw to the talent is going to be its inherent fluff or flavor, rather than raw power or utility.
Mechanics
Formulae Crafting: All formulae have base crafting DC, and a DC required to purchase further upgrades. Crafting the formulae requires 30 minutes (or 15 with an alchemy kit), each. So in the standard 1 hour after resting, you will only get to prepare 4 formulae. Most DMs wave this off, letting you prepare your maximum. However, there is nothing stopping you from sitting down and just spending 15 minutes to craft your health potion in the middle of the dungeon. Aside from the time it takes... No ruling on whether you need to be still, or at least in a cart in order to craft, or even if you could be in combat. You just do you check, and you have it 15 minutes later. I guess.
You cannot fail to craft a formulae you know. You simply don't get increased powerups from higher DC checks. (Which granted, are pretty freaking good. But there's the base scaling off of ranks in Craft Alchemy.)
Generally, it is preferable to assume you take 10 on all such checks for 2 reasons: Easy management of macros and bookkeeping, as well as simply not taking up game time calculating that and buying power ups for each of your individual formulae.
Maximum Formulae: You can not prepare more formulae at once than [1/2 your ranks in Craft (alchemy)] + number of [formulae] talents.
Formulae Instability: Formulae only last for 24 hours after crafting. Which means you must keep up your supply. It's also pretty much impossible to sell these items. they also can't be refined or enhanced by focusing flasks, hybridization funnels, and such things that apply to "standard" alchemical items.
Saves: Save DC is 10+(1/2 ranks in Craft(Alchemy)) + practitioner modifier.
Further, all splash damage gets a reflex save for half damage.
Snap Toss (S): So long as you don't need your swift action, and have a way to regenerate your martial focus, then this is just a free extra formulae down range.
Cluster Toss (G-S): Expend martial focus to throw 2 alchemical items in the same standard action, taking -2 to attack rolls, and +2 to saving throws. Still, 2x 90% is 180%. Great alternative if you already need your swift action. Or good alpha-strike option if you've got multiple martial focus.
Fireworks (<G>): This is incredible at high level. I do kind of wished that it just cut the difference, rather than being overkill at high levels, and quite useless at low levels. I do understand the difficulty of adding greater range with thrown increments rather than raw range is difficult. Maybe if it instead just added a flat amount to the first range increment, that would be easier to deal with?
Fuse Master (G): You can now make your most damaging formulae go off essentially instantly. That's pretty handy. I certainly argue that you lose a good chunk of the zoning prowess by knowing when it's going to explode. The overlapping grenade damage reduction certainly makes sense if you're throwing multiple fuse grenades in one round, which would result in some rather ridiculous damage. But I'd talk with your DM to see if the overlap reduction can be ignored as long as your not doing that.
Demolishing Chemistry (F): Wanna destroy inanimate objects? Here's your opportunity! Interesting to note: It has no clause to not have your alchemy be Demolishing. So it's now an eternal curse to scar the lands wherever you go.
Risky Business (F): I'm not sure why you would ever care about this. You give a chance of afflicting yourself in order to gain a tiny amount of extra DC. But it's pretty meme-y to bring snack bars to people, so sure.
Painter (I): I don't think War Paints are really any good, so getting to wear more paint doesn't seem like it would do any good.
Dynamite Throwing Form (B): Unarmed damage is lousy if you're not heavily invested into it. Sure it is *just* added damage, to a subsection of your formulae, but it's not a lot of added damage. Maybe it's better than power attack though. So if damage is really your thing, and you ran out of ways to increase your craft score...
Shaped Chemistry (N-B): It would be very cool if it simply gave shape variability to your formulae, but man. +10 to craft DC is a lot to spend on something so...side-grade-like. In addition to taking the bloody talent to begin with. If they removed the DC addition (and maybe knocked down the multiplier, if deemed necessary), then this makes for a nice, flavor ability.
Controlled Rupture (N-B): Prevents splash damage from hitting target squares. So exclusively for your splash damaging effects. Even taken twice, it only protects thrown splash weapons. That's much more general, which is good, but that's two talents which should have only been one. (Note: Doctor Scholars can be totally immune, but this requires them being up close and personal, which isn't social distancing.)
Chemical Coating (N-): Wow this sucks. Prepares the formulae as a weapon coating, which lasts for all of a couple rounds after application. Best case scenario is using your disabling stuff with this, but then you're basically asking your martial type to do your job, using (generally) single-target normal AC attacks, rather than AoE touch / saves. And they'd still get their saves against the effects! There is no benefit!
Well, maybe if your applier is using the weapon many, many times per round (with the same weapon). And you literally only care about one guy. But no. Generally that's a bad move, with no real incentives.
Notes: All damaging formulae do compare (very) poorly to Destruction sphere...which has both damage and disable... and often more damage. But these formulae are much more self-contained, requiring (though also having) no real support behind each individual talent.
And you're theoretically able to go all day, so long as you get your crafting time. So, I won't really be dinging them for not living up to the standards of magic, as alchemy is, by default, knock-off magic anyway.
Also, the range increment on basically all formulae is well within waddling range of even a fighter in heavy armor. (With increments as low as 10 ft.) So stay behind your own fighter. Line of walking is as important a rule as line of sight.
For the most part, assume talents have relatively minor (if nice) scaling [like increased AoE, or +1 DC] with craft DC, and damage scaling with ranks of Craft Alchemy. Scaling with ranks make better dips for non-alchemy-focused builds, while good scaling with DC heavily incentivizes specialization. (Specializers obviously get both benefits.)
Salve (S): One of the few healing options that can hit both living and undead. And the healing scales insanely well with craft DC, and quite well with ranks. And you can just keep producing more if you manage to run out. I'd imagine the cap on times per day is a limitation on dippers, as I've never had an Alchemy character who couldn't one-tap someone from dying to full health.
Panacea (G-S): Another poorly defined formulae that doesn't clearly spell out if it's a "choose one" or "all of the above," type of effects. This rating assumes it's "all of the above." Because...Panacea means Cure-All. If it's choose one, it's probably right in the dumpster.
Elixir (G-S): This is just a great little formulae that takes full advantage of the 15 minute crafting ability. If you run across something unexpected that saps your ability scores, just stop for a moment and recoup the damage. You didn't even need to prepare this in advance, using its prep slot for something else.
Improved Liquid Nice (C): So, basically Charm Monster-lite, on a ridiculously low craft DC, allowing it to be easily made into an AoE by a dipper. A properly dedicated crafter can make it pretty silly, and end most fights in 1 shot of Liquid Nice. If you don't go all out, it's a nice little thing to help in social situations, if no one minds bottles of unknown materials being tossed around.
Instant Foam (G-S): Huh. I've never rated a "Wall" ability too particularly highly. But man. It creates a 10ft radius pillar, which either pushes enemies away, or traps them. And you must break through every 5ft square, one at a time, in order to move through it. That's around 4 turns, from level 1, if someone goes through the center (or if they have no choice due to a dungeon hallway).
Improved Fuse Grenade (<G-S>): It's a fun bit of high-explosive chaos to throw onto the field. It shines is when you've got either some serious lockdown to keep enemies from moving out, or where you've taken the Doctor scholar archetype to make grenades safe areas for your allies to fight in, and thus have some serious zone potential. It's also the highest damaging effect you can have in the sphere, although it requires Fuse Master to make it work instantly like the other effects.
Improved Tanglefoot Bag (G): Touch attack to entangle. Reflex save or they are rooted / have their wings bound. Pretty strong just as a baseline, with a good duration or action sink.
Improved Flash Powder (G): Blind is a great debuff to grant. Too bad it's for 1 round unless you pump some invest into crafting bonuses. No scaling with ranks of the skill.
Improved Itching Powder (G): Basically, it's an unnamed sickened/shaken penalty as a poison effect. AoE and DC scale heavily with craft DC, and doesn't scale with ranks.
Improved Liquid Ice(G): I don't know where to place it, but it's got some water-walking utility, a fair chunk of damage, and a single-target stagger and halves their speed (for 1 round, but still). Its utility even scales with ranks, although doubles the scaling (multiple times) with crafting.
Aligned Liquid (G): It starts off with better average damage than most formulae, but then scales worse. And each formulae is only useful against a particular type of enemy. But you at least get your full range of choices in each of your 15 minutes of cooking up. Evil is the most reliable of the liquids, working against all living creatures. And since it's got that, I can't really fault it *too* hard in that department. Not much more than you would fault Alchemist Fire if you come against a Fire Elemental. So, in total, it's good early levels, and falls off later.
Improved Sneezing Powder (G): AoE stagger powder. But they get a save every turn for 1d4+1 rounds after the initial failed save. Heavy DC scaling with craft. No rank scaling.
Improved Alchemist Fire (G): Simple and boring damage, with a splash of AoE. But it also sets fire to its targets, which must be put out or deal more damage. So it's pretty great early game for damage, and the potential action sink on your foes trying to avoid damage. Still maintains use later on, though the fire doesn't scale.
Grease (<G>): Unlike its spell-namesake, this is not independently good. But it works as a decent support to a tripper. Trippers probably would not want to invest the effort in applying this themselves, as it's a really small penalty, compared to just attempting to trip again, and they probably won't have the craft to impose meaningful penalties for a meaningful duration. But you could try and support your frontline trippers, and make it harder for enemies to get past.
Improved Smoke Bomb (G): Yeah. Smoke Bombs have a variety of uses in real life. Breaching a guarded door becomes a lot easier when you're concealed. Fog spells are good, and get occasional use (though none that I've personally seen). No scaling with ranks. Not too much to scale, after all.
Improved Acid Flask (B-G): A simple, boring acid flask. It's strictly worse than Alchemist's Fire until several levels in, or if you're between AoE breakpoints of the two.
Focusing Formula (B-G): This is a way to regenerate your martial focus without leaving the sphere. It's one of the less good ways, being a consumable rather than a reliable regeneration, but its not a horrible way as it requires no other outside circumstance to enable you to take a sip. Once you can hit +25 to your craft rolls, it is pretty nice.
War Paint (B-G): You choose from 2-hour buffs, which can easily be increased to 6 or 8 hours with investment/levels. So really, you can cast it, and then prepare something more useful, so long as your party isn't impatient. They are narrow bonuses, but so is something like Skill Focus, and this is...better if you can get good uptime on them. And not many feats grant energy resistance of any kind, so even though you don't get to flex your energy resistance like a caster, and it's less effective than Resist Energy, having an hours-long buff to resistances is decent if you know, right from build-time, the type of energy you are going up against.
Improved Smelling Salts (B): Make it before going to bed. Give it to the night watch. I've literally never had waking up be an issue. Might be useful as a "just in case" where an enemy mage uses Sleep. But that's incredibly, incredibly specific.
Improved Bottled Lightning (B): Basically the single-target option that has virtually no scaling with DC. Generally AoE is effective than single target. The 1 die size difference isn't making up for much. But it is an option.
Universal Alcohol (F): Used for brewing your own beer in the middle of the wilderness in 15 minutes. And several bottles at that. I'd imagine that the best mechanical "use" for this is for Invisible Ichor for a Barroom user. But I've not seen a decent Barroom sphere talent.
Improved Thunderstone (N-B): It's not the talent's fault it was based on something that simply inflicts the most minor of debuffs. Probably could have done baseline sonic damage. Maybe scaling a bit like Liquid Ice, trading the utility of water walking and a good disable for a rare energy type.
Neutralizer (N): Optimistically, assuming you know for a fact that you are running against [element], this is 2*[anywhere from level+5 to level+1] temporary hit points. That sucks. And the huge, unnecessary gap of additional resistance rating is...unnecessary. Granted, you can get more hit protection from a dedicated craft, but...eh.
Cherry Bomb (N): Theoretically, this is supposed to be the "cantrip" of the alchemy sphere, dealing low damage, but being able to do it more times per day...except that this costs a talent, does less damage than a crossbow, and still runs out, unlike a cantrip. You can't even do fancy stuff due to not being able to split bombs from the cluster until you're ready to use it. Make these infinite, like true cantrips, and bump the damage scaling from 1d4/3 levels to 1 per level... and they'd still be bad, but they wouldn't be insultingly bad.
Improved Blanch Bomb (N-): This is a poorly written mess. But basic idea is that, for creatures caught in the AoE, you reduce a certain type of damage reduction by a tiny amount for a minute. Or maybe its for all damage reduction types of DC lower than your final DC. Or maybe it... anyway! That's not well spelled out, and I'm taking an optimistic look at it and just saying: All of the above. Regardless of DC. By level 5, you're reducing the DR by 3. By level 10, that goes up to 4. If they have DR. Let alone a DR that you can reduce. And they get a save to completely negate your reduction. Just use a damaging effect on them. At least you'll get half damage when you fail.
And although it goes outside of the scope of most of my sphere reviews, since I have the resources already readily available:
Patient Calm: Take 12 instead of take 10 on a craft check.
Alchemical Adept: +2 trait bonus when using Craft (alchemy) for alchemical items.
Artisan: +2 trait bonus to a craft skill
Gnomish alchemist: +2 trait bonus to all craft (alchemy) checks.
Skill Focus: +3 to Craft(Alchemy)
Master Alchemist: +2 to craft alchemy, and mundane alchemy is super quick.
Instant Alchemy: Lets you indentify potions with craft(alchemy).... also lets you do spontaneous alchemy as a standard action.
Toilcrafter: Because it's somewhat flavorful to make magical weapons and armor out of your intense knowledge of mundane alchemy. Ask your DM for a homebrew version that works with potions.
Throw Anything: +1 to thrown splash weapons, which are most thrown formulae.
Vaporized Formulae: Allows you to create vaporized versions of a formulae for +10 DC. Reflex saves are instead fortitude saves (letting you root that stupid rogue), and gives a 5ft AoE to single-target formulae like Salve
(Portable) Alchemy kit: +1 or +2 to craft alchemy checks, and halves time to craft formulae
Masterwork tools: another +2 for 50 gp, if your DM doesn't rule that's already handled by the above
Ioun Stone (one that adds bonuses to skills)
Spheres of Might, this time. A very potent, but build-demanding sphere - the Alchemy sphere. And its even got 2 spheres put into one. Yeah. They have no interconnectivity whatsoever (save for thrown inhaled poisons and the two throwing talents), and I will be reviewing Poisons separately.
This will be the first sphere where I also put a Flexibility note on it. This is basically a judgement of how well the sphere accepts flex talents, such as from an Armiger.
Post-Review Analysis: It's a pretty nice sphere. Nothing too crazy. At least until you're higher level, with massive bonuses to crafting, which enables you to do things like many-round blinds that hit entire rooms....and largely just do things in larger areas.
Flexibility: Generally, flexing from one alchemy talent to another is pretty fantastic. There are several formulae which you wouldn't mind grabbing, if you've simply got ranks in Craft Alchemy, but no real investment. You'd definitely not be getting the "full" benefit out of anything, but being able to whip up a Salve to heal you is always nice.
Of course, most of the formulae generally function on a particular playstyle (that of a splash weapon thrower), and requires setup and preparation to make use of. So it's hard to see where many of these could serve as splashes for non-alchemy builds. And if it's something that you actually want for covering a weakness, since you need to see it coming, or have it be the 'just in case" deal, then you probably just want it in your build proper.
Ironically, one of the least good talents, War Paint, makes for a nice flex, due to its incredible duration, and not being limited by the horrible "choose one" functionality. So you flex into the exact bonus you want. Spend 15 minutes to an hour to get the buffs your team wants and then move on your merry way with a more immediately useful flex talent.
Ranking system:
(S) Superb: You always want this. It's awesome.
(G) Good: You would certainly not complain about having this, especially in the right builds / situations.
(B) Bad: While perhaps better than nothing, you are giving up something for it, so probably shouldn't without a good reason.
(N) No.
<Angle brackets> around a rating indicates situational usefulness, and how good it is in that favorable situation.
- Special Ratings:
(C) Cheese: A talent so broken that it will be instantly banned if you use it as you could.
(I) Impossible: Can't be rated because it is just not defined enough to give a meaningful rating - it depends too much on DM ruling, or personal use. I'll just place it where I guess the average result would put it.
(F) Flavor: This indicates that the main draw to the talent is going to be its inherent fluff or flavor, rather than raw power or utility.
Mechanics
Formulae Crafting: All formulae have base crafting DC, and a DC required to purchase further upgrades. Crafting the formulae requires 30 minutes (or 15 with an alchemy kit), each. So in the standard 1 hour after resting, you will only get to prepare 4 formulae. Most DMs wave this off, letting you prepare your maximum. However, there is nothing stopping you from sitting down and just spending 15 minutes to craft your health potion in the middle of the dungeon. Aside from the time it takes... No ruling on whether you need to be still, or at least in a cart in order to craft, or even if you could be in combat. You just do you check, and you have it 15 minutes later. I guess.
You cannot fail to craft a formulae you know. You simply don't get increased powerups from higher DC checks. (Which granted, are pretty freaking good. But there's the base scaling off of ranks in Craft Alchemy.)
Generally, it is preferable to assume you take 10 on all such checks for 2 reasons: Easy management of macros and bookkeeping, as well as simply not taking up game time calculating that and buying power ups for each of your individual formulae.
Maximum Formulae: You can not prepare more formulae at once than [1/2 your ranks in Craft (alchemy)] + number of [formulae] talents.
Formulae Instability: Formulae only last for 24 hours after crafting. Which means you must keep up your supply. It's also pretty much impossible to sell these items. they also can't be refined or enhanced by focusing flasks, hybridization funnels, and such things that apply to "standard" alchemical items.
Saves: Save DC is 10+(1/2 ranks in Craft(Alchemy)) + practitioner modifier.
Further, all splash damage gets a reflex save for half damage.
Snap Toss (S): So long as you don't need your swift action, and have a way to regenerate your martial focus, then this is just a free extra formulae down range.
Cluster Toss (G-S): Expend martial focus to throw 2 alchemical items in the same standard action, taking -2 to attack rolls, and +2 to saving throws. Still, 2x 90% is 180%. Great alternative if you already need your swift action. Or good alpha-strike option if you've got multiple martial focus.
Fireworks (<G>): This is incredible at high level. I do kind of wished that it just cut the difference, rather than being overkill at high levels, and quite useless at low levels. I do understand the difficulty of adding greater range with thrown increments rather than raw range is difficult. Maybe if it instead just added a flat amount to the first range increment, that would be easier to deal with?
Fuse Master (G): You can now make your most damaging formulae go off essentially instantly. That's pretty handy. I certainly argue that you lose a good chunk of the zoning prowess by knowing when it's going to explode. The overlapping grenade damage reduction certainly makes sense if you're throwing multiple fuse grenades in one round, which would result in some rather ridiculous damage. But I'd talk with your DM to see if the overlap reduction can be ignored as long as your not doing that.
Demolishing Chemistry (F): Wanna destroy inanimate objects? Here's your opportunity! Interesting to note: It has no clause to not have your alchemy be Demolishing. So it's now an eternal curse to scar the lands wherever you go.
Risky Business (F): I'm not sure why you would ever care about this. You give a chance of afflicting yourself in order to gain a tiny amount of extra DC. But it's pretty meme-y to bring snack bars to people, so sure.
Painter (I): I don't think War Paints are really any good, so getting to wear more paint doesn't seem like it would do any good.
Dynamite Throwing Form (B): Unarmed damage is lousy if you're not heavily invested into it. Sure it is *just* added damage, to a subsection of your formulae, but it's not a lot of added damage. Maybe it's better than power attack though. So if damage is really your thing, and you ran out of ways to increase your craft score...
Shaped Chemistry (N-B): It would be very cool if it simply gave shape variability to your formulae, but man. +10 to craft DC is a lot to spend on something so...side-grade-like. In addition to taking the bloody talent to begin with. If they removed the DC addition (and maybe knocked down the multiplier, if deemed necessary), then this makes for a nice, flavor ability.
Controlled Rupture (N-B): Prevents splash damage from hitting target squares. So exclusively for your splash damaging effects. Even taken twice, it only protects thrown splash weapons. That's much more general, which is good, but that's two talents which should have only been one. (Note: Doctor Scholars can be totally immune, but this requires them being up close and personal, which isn't social distancing.)
Chemical Coating (N-): Wow this sucks. Prepares the formulae as a weapon coating, which lasts for all of a couple rounds after application. Best case scenario is using your disabling stuff with this, but then you're basically asking your martial type to do your job, using (generally) single-target normal AC attacks, rather than AoE touch / saves. And they'd still get their saves against the effects! There is no benefit!
Well, maybe if your applier is using the weapon many, many times per round (with the same weapon). And you literally only care about one guy. But no. Generally that's a bad move, with no real incentives.
Notes: All damaging formulae do compare (very) poorly to Destruction sphere...which has both damage and disable... and often more damage. But these formulae are much more self-contained, requiring (though also having) no real support behind each individual talent.
And you're theoretically able to go all day, so long as you get your crafting time. So, I won't really be dinging them for not living up to the standards of magic, as alchemy is, by default, knock-off magic anyway.
Also, the range increment on basically all formulae is well within waddling range of even a fighter in heavy armor. (With increments as low as 10 ft.) So stay behind your own fighter. Line of walking is as important a rule as line of sight.
For the most part, assume talents have relatively minor (if nice) scaling [like increased AoE, or +1 DC] with craft DC, and damage scaling with ranks of Craft Alchemy. Scaling with ranks make better dips for non-alchemy-focused builds, while good scaling with DC heavily incentivizes specialization. (Specializers obviously get both benefits.)
Salve (S): One of the few healing options that can hit both living and undead. And the healing scales insanely well with craft DC, and quite well with ranks. And you can just keep producing more if you manage to run out. I'd imagine the cap on times per day is a limitation on dippers, as I've never had an Alchemy character who couldn't one-tap someone from dying to full health.
Panacea (G-S): Another poorly defined formulae that doesn't clearly spell out if it's a "choose one" or "all of the above," type of effects. This rating assumes it's "all of the above." Because...Panacea means Cure-All. If it's choose one, it's probably right in the dumpster.
Elixir (G-S): This is just a great little formulae that takes full advantage of the 15 minute crafting ability. If you run across something unexpected that saps your ability scores, just stop for a moment and recoup the damage. You didn't even need to prepare this in advance, using its prep slot for something else.
Improved Liquid Nice (C): So, basically Charm Monster-lite, on a ridiculously low craft DC, allowing it to be easily made into an AoE by a dipper. A properly dedicated crafter can make it pretty silly, and end most fights in 1 shot of Liquid Nice. If you don't go all out, it's a nice little thing to help in social situations, if no one minds bottles of unknown materials being tossed around.
Instant Foam (G-S): Huh. I've never rated a "Wall" ability too particularly highly. But man. It creates a 10ft radius pillar, which either pushes enemies away, or traps them. And you must break through every 5ft square, one at a time, in order to move through it. That's around 4 turns, from level 1, if someone goes through the center (or if they have no choice due to a dungeon hallway).
Improved Fuse Grenade (<G-S>): It's a fun bit of high-explosive chaos to throw onto the field. It shines is when you've got either some serious lockdown to keep enemies from moving out, or where you've taken the Doctor scholar archetype to make grenades safe areas for your allies to fight in, and thus have some serious zone potential. It's also the highest damaging effect you can have in the sphere, although it requires Fuse Master to make it work instantly like the other effects.
Improved Tanglefoot Bag (G): Touch attack to entangle. Reflex save or they are rooted / have their wings bound. Pretty strong just as a baseline, with a good duration or action sink.
Improved Flash Powder (G): Blind is a great debuff to grant. Too bad it's for 1 round unless you pump some invest into crafting bonuses. No scaling with ranks of the skill.
Improved Itching Powder (G): Basically, it's an unnamed sickened/shaken penalty as a poison effect. AoE and DC scale heavily with craft DC, and doesn't scale with ranks.
Improved Liquid Ice(G): I don't know where to place it, but it's got some water-walking utility, a fair chunk of damage, and a single-target stagger and halves their speed (for 1 round, but still). Its utility even scales with ranks, although doubles the scaling (multiple times) with crafting.
Aligned Liquid (G): It starts off with better average damage than most formulae, but then scales worse. And each formulae is only useful against a particular type of enemy. But you at least get your full range of choices in each of your 15 minutes of cooking up. Evil is the most reliable of the liquids, working against all living creatures. And since it's got that, I can't really fault it *too* hard in that department. Not much more than you would fault Alchemist Fire if you come against a Fire Elemental. So, in total, it's good early levels, and falls off later.
Improved Sneezing Powder (G): AoE stagger powder. But they get a save every turn for 1d4+1 rounds after the initial failed save. Heavy DC scaling with craft. No rank scaling.
Improved Alchemist Fire (G): Simple and boring damage, with a splash of AoE. But it also sets fire to its targets, which must be put out or deal more damage. So it's pretty great early game for damage, and the potential action sink on your foes trying to avoid damage. Still maintains use later on, though the fire doesn't scale.
Grease (<G>): Unlike its spell-namesake, this is not independently good. But it works as a decent support to a tripper. Trippers probably would not want to invest the effort in applying this themselves, as it's a really small penalty, compared to just attempting to trip again, and they probably won't have the craft to impose meaningful penalties for a meaningful duration. But you could try and support your frontline trippers, and make it harder for enemies to get past.
Improved Smoke Bomb (G): Yeah. Smoke Bombs have a variety of uses in real life. Breaching a guarded door becomes a lot easier when you're concealed. Fog spells are good, and get occasional use (though none that I've personally seen). No scaling with ranks. Not too much to scale, after all.
Improved Acid Flask (B-G): A simple, boring acid flask. It's strictly worse than Alchemist's Fire until several levels in, or if you're between AoE breakpoints of the two.
Focusing Formula (B-G): This is a way to regenerate your martial focus without leaving the sphere. It's one of the less good ways, being a consumable rather than a reliable regeneration, but its not a horrible way as it requires no other outside circumstance to enable you to take a sip. Once you can hit +25 to your craft rolls, it is pretty nice.
War Paint (B-G): You choose from 2-hour buffs, which can easily be increased to 6 or 8 hours with investment/levels. So really, you can cast it, and then prepare something more useful, so long as your party isn't impatient. They are narrow bonuses, but so is something like Skill Focus, and this is...better if you can get good uptime on them. And not many feats grant energy resistance of any kind, so even though you don't get to flex your energy resistance like a caster, and it's less effective than Resist Energy, having an hours-long buff to resistances is decent if you know, right from build-time, the type of energy you are going up against.
Improved Smelling Salts (B): Make it before going to bed. Give it to the night watch. I've literally never had waking up be an issue. Might be useful as a "just in case" where an enemy mage uses Sleep. But that's incredibly, incredibly specific.
Improved Bottled Lightning (B): Basically the single-target option that has virtually no scaling with DC. Generally AoE is effective than single target. The 1 die size difference isn't making up for much. But it is an option.
Universal Alcohol (F): Used for brewing your own beer in the middle of the wilderness in 15 minutes. And several bottles at that. I'd imagine that the best mechanical "use" for this is for Invisible Ichor for a Barroom user. But I've not seen a decent Barroom sphere talent.
Improved Thunderstone (N-B): It's not the talent's fault it was based on something that simply inflicts the most minor of debuffs. Probably could have done baseline sonic damage. Maybe scaling a bit like Liquid Ice, trading the utility of water walking and a good disable for a rare energy type.
Neutralizer (N): Optimistically, assuming you know for a fact that you are running against [element], this is 2*[anywhere from level+5 to level+1] temporary hit points. That sucks. And the huge, unnecessary gap of additional resistance rating is...unnecessary. Granted, you can get more hit protection from a dedicated craft, but...eh.
Cherry Bomb (N): Theoretically, this is supposed to be the "cantrip" of the alchemy sphere, dealing low damage, but being able to do it more times per day...except that this costs a talent, does less damage than a crossbow, and still runs out, unlike a cantrip. You can't even do fancy stuff due to not being able to split bombs from the cluster until you're ready to use it. Make these infinite, like true cantrips, and bump the damage scaling from 1d4/3 levels to 1 per level... and they'd still be bad, but they wouldn't be insultingly bad.
Improved Blanch Bomb (N-): This is a poorly written mess. But basic idea is that, for creatures caught in the AoE, you reduce a certain type of damage reduction by a tiny amount for a minute. Or maybe its for all damage reduction types of DC lower than your final DC. Or maybe it... anyway! That's not well spelled out, and I'm taking an optimistic look at it and just saying: All of the above. Regardless of DC. By level 5, you're reducing the DR by 3. By level 10, that goes up to 4. If they have DR. Let alone a DR that you can reduce. And they get a save to completely negate your reduction. Just use a damaging effect on them. At least you'll get half damage when you fail.
And although it goes outside of the scope of most of my sphere reviews, since I have the resources already readily available:
Patient Calm: Take 12 instead of take 10 on a craft check.
Alchemical Adept: +2 trait bonus when using Craft (alchemy) for alchemical items.
Artisan: +2 trait bonus to a craft skill
Gnomish alchemist: +2 trait bonus to all craft (alchemy) checks.
Skill Focus: +3 to Craft(Alchemy)
Master Alchemist: +2 to craft alchemy, and mundane alchemy is super quick.
Instant Alchemy: Lets you indentify potions with craft(alchemy).... also lets you do spontaneous alchemy as a standard action.
Toilcrafter: Because it's somewhat flavorful to make magical weapons and armor out of your intense knowledge of mundane alchemy. Ask your DM for a homebrew version that works with potions.
Throw Anything: +1 to thrown splash weapons, which are most thrown formulae.
Vaporized Formulae: Allows you to create vaporized versions of a formulae for +10 DC. Reflex saves are instead fortitude saves (letting you root that stupid rogue), and gives a 5ft AoE to single-target formulae like Salve
(Portable) Alchemy kit: +1 or +2 to craft alchemy checks, and halves time to craft formulae
Masterwork tools: another +2 for 50 gp, if your DM doesn't rule that's already handled by the above
Ioun Stone (one that adds bonuses to skills)