Alchemy

How mcMMO's Alchemy skill works. Catalysis for faster brewing and Concoctions for brewing custom potions with new ingredients, with the real speed formula, ingredient tiers, and per-stage XP values.

Alchemy is mcMMO's potion-brewing skill. Unlike the combat skills, it has no super ability and nothing to swing. It works at the brewing stand. As you level it, your potions brew faster (Catalysis) and you unlock the ability to brew new potions from ingredients vanilla Minecraft doesn't normally accept (Concoctions).

You train Alchemy simply by brewing potions. Every successful brew at a stand grants XP based on how complex the potion is.


Type	Gathering / non-combat (no super ability)
How you train it	Brewing potions at a brewing stand
Sub-skills	Catalysis, Concoctions
Command	`/alchemy`

Type /alchemy in-game to see your current brewing speed and your Concoctions rank (which ingredients you've unlocked).

Catalysis: faster brewing

Catalysis speeds up the brewing process. A normal vanilla brew takes 400 ticks (20 seconds). Catalysis multiplies your brewing speed, shortening that time as you level.

The speed formula

Brewing speed scales linearly from a minimum to a maximum as your Alchemy level rises:

speed = MinSpeed + (MaxSpeed − MinSpeed) × (level − unlockLevel) ÷ (MaxBonusLevel − unlockLevel)
        capped at MaxSpeed

With the defaults MinSpeed = 1.0, MaxSpeed = 4.0, and unlockLevel = 0:

At level 0 you brew at 1.0× speed: a normal 20-second brew.
At the MaxBonusLevel you brew at 4.0× speed: the same brew finishes in about 5 seconds (400 ÷ 4 = 100 ticks).
In between, speed rises smoothly with level.

Mode	Reaches max speed at level	Min speed	Max speed
Standard	100	1.0× (≈20 s)	4.0× (≈5 s)
RetroMode	1000	1.0× (≈20 s)	4.0× (≈5 s)

Alchemy:
    Catalysis:
        MaxBonusLevel:
            Standard: 100
            RetroMode: 1000
        MinSpeed: 1.0
        MaxSpeed: 4.0

The in-game guide text is out of date. It says Catalysis is "unlocked at level 100" and reaches "max speed of 4x at level 1000." In mcMMO 2.2.054, skillranks.yml sets Catalysis to unlock at level 0 (it works from the very start), and it reaches the 4× cap at level 100 on Standard servers (1000 in RetroMode). The guide text describes old RetroMode-only behavior.

The Lucky Alchemy perk further boosts brewing speed by an extra 4/3 (≈1.33×) on top of the calculated speed.

Concoctions: brew custom potions

Concoctions is the heart of Alchemy. It unlocks the ability to brew potions from ingredients the vanilla brewing stand won't normally take, plus it controls which of those special ingredients you can use. It has 8 ranks, and each rank you reach unlocks a new tier of ingredients.

Rank unlock levels

Rank	Standard level	RetroMode level	Unlocks
1	0	0	Tier 1: all vanilla potion ingredients
2	10	100	Tier 2 ingredients
3	20	200	Tier 3 ingredients
4	35	350	Tier 4 ingredients
5	50	500	Tier 5 ingredients
6	75	750	Tier 6 ingredients
7	90	900	Tier 7 ingredients
8	100	1000	Tier 8 ingredients

Ingredient tiers

Your Concoctions rank decides which special ingredients the brewing stand will accept from you. The default tiers are:

Rank	New ingredients (and the potion they make)
1	All standard vanilla brewing ingredients (Blaze Powder, Fermented Spider Eye, Ghast Tear, Redstone, Glowstone Dust, Sugar, Glistering Melon, Golden Carrot, Magma Cream, Nether Wart, Spider Eye, Gunpowder, Rabbit's Foot, Pufferfish)
2	Carrot → Potion of Haste; Slimeball → Potion of Dullness
3	Quartz → Potion of Absorption
4	Apple → Potion of Health Boost; Rotten Flesh → Potion of Hunger
5	Brown Mushroom → Potion of Nausea; Ink Sac → Potion of Blindness
6	Fern → Potion of Saturation
7	Poisonous Potato → Potion of Decay
8	Golden Apple → Potion of Resistance

The exact ingredient-to-potion mappings are defined in mcMMO's potions config and can be customized by server owners. The list above is the default 2.2.054 set.

How a brew works

You brew exactly like vanilla: put bottles in the brewing stand, place an ingredient in the top slot, and wait. mcMMO takes over the timing so Catalysis can speed it up, and it hands you the result when the timer finishes. Concoctions just widens the set of ingredients the stand will accept based on your rank.

Earning XP

You earn Alchemy XP for each successful brew, and the amount depends on the potion stage, essentially how complex the resulting potion is. mcMMO classifies the output into one of five stages:

Stage	What it represents	XP per brew
Stage 1	A base potion	666
Stage 2	Base potion + one ingredient	1111
Stage 3	Base potion + ingredient + one amplifier (Glowstone/Redstone, etc.)	1750
Stage 4	Base potion + ingredient + two amplifiers	2250
Stage 5	A re-brew where the amplifiers are swapped (no real progression)	0

Experience_Values:
    Alchemy:
        Potion_Brewing:
            Stage_1: 666
            Stage_2: 1111
            Stage_3: 1750
            Stage_4: 2250
            Stage_5: 0

The "stage" is worked out from the output potion's properties: whether it has an effect, whether it's been strengthened (glowstone), extended (redstone), or made splash/lingering (gunpowder/dragon's breath). The more steps a brew represents, the more XP it pays, until Stage 5, which is a "no real change" re-brew worth 0 XP to discourage farming the same potion back and forth.

Alchemy XP is awarded passively (it shows up like smelting XP, not combat XP). Each potion in the stand is scored individually, so brewing 3 bottles at once pays out for all 3.

Commands & permissions

Node	What it grants
`mcmmo.skills.alchemy`	Use the Alchemy skill at all
`mcmmo.commands.alchemy`	Use the `/alchemy` command
`mcmmo.ability.alchemy.catalysis`	Catalysis (faster brewing)
`mcmmo.ability.alchemy.concoctions`	Concoctions (custom ingredients)
`mcmmo.ability.alchemy.all`	Both sub-skills (parent of the two above)
`mcmmo.perks.lucky.alchemy`	"Lucky" perk: ~33.3% faster brewing via Catalysis

The real permission nodes have no underscores. See Permissions for the full list and how to assign them.

Quick reference

Sub-skill	What it does	Scaling	Effect
Catalysis	Speeds up brewing	1.0× → 4.0× (level 0 → 100 Standard)	A 20 s brew drops to ~5 s at max
Concoctions	Unlocks custom ingredients	8 ranks (levels 0–100 Standard)	Brew new potions vanilla can't make

Alchemy

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