It seems to be common sentiment that the Alchemist's 3 research fields are not well balanced, with the Bomber field being generally a superior choice. I think the most egregious contributor to the imbalance, though, would have to be the Perpetual Infusions ability.
Being able to make free low level bombs is incredibly useful, and also interacts with feats such as smoke bomb or debilitating bomb, allowing you to throw an endless barage of debuffs. While the Chirugeon's free antiplagues and antitoxins let you immunize your party for free, and the Mutagenist's 2 free types of mutagens could be situationally useful (especially if you pick skill focused ones), in practice both amount to only a few saved reagents, and neither option has any feat synergy.
I'd like to suggest a change to Perpetual Infusions and its later enhancements: allow Alchemists to select Perpetual Infusions from any field's options. I think this would go quite a ways toward putting the fields on more equal footing, and would allow for more varied Alchemist builds.
I think the reason they made it specific was future proofing. I would agree that although somewhat useful the bombers ability to crank out utility/debuffing bombs is way more generally useful than the other two research fields.
That said always being able to crank out poison or disease protection as needed on the fly can situationally be a total life saver.
Also mutagenists can potentially use their free stuff to hulk out and then burn it to heal repeatedly but that may be squashed at some point or I could be reading those feats wrong.
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I think the reason they made it specific was future proofing. I would agree that although somewhat useful the bombers ability to crank out utility/debuffing bombs is way more generally useful than the other two research fields.
That said always being able to crank out poison or disease protection as needed on the fly can situationally be a total life saver.
Also mutagenists can potentially use their free stuff to hulk out and then burn it to heal repeatedly but that may be squashed at some point or I could be reading those feats wrong.
I don't think it needs to be changed. You heal 1d6 from it until level 17 if you plan on using it with perpetual mutagens. Out of combat, we already have unlimited healing from treat wounds, and since this only works for alchemist it isn't like the rest of the party won't still be stopping for 10 minutes or more to recover. In combat, you can spend 3 actions to heal 1d6 health. At 7th level. Not that big a deal. Also, as an amusing side effect, doing this with quicksilver mutagen will kill you long before you fully heal.
I won't be surprised if they nerf it, but I don't see the point. You can end a mutagen's drawback, and the healing you get ranges from abysmal to mediocre. The cancellation of drawbacks is the only reason to use it in combat.
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I think the reason they made it specific was future proofing. I would agree that although somewhat useful the bombers ability to crank out utility/debuffing bombs is way more generally useful than the other two research fields.
That said always being able to crank out poison or disease protection as needed on the fly can situationally be a total life saver.
Also mutagenists can potentially use their free stuff to hulk out and then burn it to heal repeatedly but that may be squashed at some point or I could be reading those feats wrong.
The poison and disease protection lasts 6 hours and 24 hours, respectively. A dose of each will last the average character through a whole adventuring day, so you're unlikely to need more than one of each per party member per day. It's not useless, but as I said, it really amounts to just a few saved reagents. A Bomber alchemist could probably spare the reagents to make a few during preparation, since they have so many bombs. A Chirugeon, however, has to spend their reagents via Quick Alchemy to use debuffs like debilitating bomb, which is much less efficient. One reagent for a single attack, vs one reagent for a 6 hour buff for 2 people. The Bomber can just about do what the Chirugeon does with its Perpetual Infusions, but the Chirgeon cannot get anywhere close to what the Bomber can do with its own.