So, I'm going from 26 Batches of Infused Reagents at L20 to 10 Batches (possibly 12 with Class Feat investment) and 8 Quick Vials? Plus, no more two-per-one or three-per-one on Advanced Alchemy?
I need to read the full Class, but this does not look promising to me.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
So, I'm going from 26 Batches of Infused Reagents at L20 to 10 Batches (possibly 12 with Class Feat investment) and 8 Quick Vials? Plus, no more two-per-one or three-per-one on Advanced Alchemy?
I need to read the full Class, but this does not look promising to me.
The Veratile Vials automatically regenerate at a rate of 2 per 10 minutes in Exploration mode, even while you are doing other exploration activities.
With a day having 24 hours, you could in theory regenerate 288 Versatile Vials per day. There might also be feats to speed that up or increase the rate of regeneration.
On the flipside, you get renewable 2+Int vials (renewed at 2/10min) that can always work like bombs+Unique ability based on sub, and can be used for Quick alchemy (which hasn't been revealed, but I assume it's the same as old Quick)
Are these somehow limited to types of object or can you use them on anything whatever your Research Field?
Because if it's limited somehow, my first impression is extremely negative. It means a lot of Alchemists will need to be rebuilt entirely because they were basing themselves on multiple types of items to be functional.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
On the flipside, you get renewable 2+Int vials (renewed at 2/10min) that can always work like bombs+Unique ability based on sub, and can be used for Quick alchemy (which hasn't been revealed, but I assume it's the same as old Quick)Are these somehow limited to types of object or can you use them on anything whatever your Research Field?
Because if it's limited somehow, my first impression is extremely negative. It means a lot of Alchemists will need to be rebuilt entirely because they were basing themselves on multiple types of items to be functional.
Haven't seen any deatils on Quick Alchemy yet, but you can read the whole Mutagenist research field in SwingRipper's video and it doesn't mention anything about Quick Alchemy. So I would assume Quick Alchemy is still free for all.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Indications are that Quick Alchemy with Vials is unlimited, but each Research Field gets some special benefits from them.
Mutagenists, for example, can chug a Vial to repress the Drawback of a Mutagen until the end of your next turn. Weird. Not sure I like it.
Haven't seen any deatils on Quick Alchemy yet, but you can read the whole Mutagenist research field in SwingRipper's video and it doesn't mention anything about Quick Alchemy. So I would assume Quick Alchemy is still free for all.
Overall, the change is... close to none. Drinking a vial seems rather weak, unless there's a way to quickly get such vials at hand. Overall, I'm unimpressed by these changes (and Mutagenic Flashback was nicer than what most people think).
Oh alchemist gets master martial all of tier 4, nice! V vials looks like it solves tier 1 supply issues.
So does this mean bombs splash will not work on a miss? Because otherwise the change their proficiency would have been a pretty simple explanation.
Lol, pretty much exactly what I called. Every serious blunder and improvement. Did not expect them to make the daily A-Alch items *that* limited though, nor to remove any degree of growth w/ level. That's... way too small to get through many AP days.
Similarly for longer lasting buffs, you can give darkvision as an example during daily prep, and like 20 min later you've get your vials back.
In my own Alch Reformulated, I ran into and patched the infinite buff issue w/ recharging vials.
I'm still a bit optimistic (perhaps naively so) that there's one line the early viewers are missing that patches that hole, because holy crap, they cannot release Alch with full book Q Alch and recharging vials.
Alchemical items were written with the Alchemist limitation of per day creation in mind. Many buffs are measured in hours. Only mutagens (and the morph trait, I guess) have a 1 effect limit safety baked in.
It absolutely will break the fun of the experience to have Alchemists mathing out how many buffs they can keep feeding their party.
Items are as specific as 1 hr "+1 item bonus to saving throws against effects that would make you Stunned or Stupified [...]"
Player tokens in Foundry will just be completely encircled with alchemy buffs, ha ha.
F&&%, if that's RaW, it's going to get errated out of the Alchemist, and the class is NOT going to be compensated for the loss.
At low levels, overall the changes seem to be an improvement. Due to how absurdly small the A-Alch limit is, that flips rather quickly...
Okay, my optimism is slipping, so I'm going to stop there.
================
Has their been any word on the bomb splash rules contradiction that Paizo published in the Remaster?
Player vs GM core has one of them stating that bomb Strike miss splashes all as a hit does, while the other book claims bomb Strike miss only splashes the attacked target.
Take mutagens as an example, from when they start lasting 10mins+ (level 3 for most of them) you can basically have permanent uptime on all types of Alchemists, since the vial they used for it will be back as the duration finishes.
The Collar of the Shifting Spider was doing something very similar, so being under the effects of a Mutagen was not that much of a problem once level 5 (there's the question of handedness, still). Also, if you use a Mutagen every 10 minutes you lose the benefit of the temporary hit points from Mutagenist. So the Collar stays better for the mutagenist.
But yes, overall, that's a significant improvement... if you can produce whatever item you want. That's the only thing I want to be sure before being happy about the changes.
So, I'm going from 26 Batches of Infused Reagents at L20 to 10 Batches (possibly 12 with Class Feat investment) and 8 Quick Vials? Plus, no more two-per-one or three-per-one on Advanced Alchemy?
I need to read the full Class, but this does not look promising to me.
The Versatile Vials automatically regenerate at a rate of 2 per 10 minutes in Exploration mode, even while you are doing other exploration activities.
With a day having 24 hours, you could in theory regenerate 288 Versatile Vials per day. There might also be feats to speed that up or increase the rate of regeneration.
The big issue is that Alchemists can use a lot of items in a single fight.
My Chiurgeons try to pace themselves at 1 item per turn, but many Bombers will try to throw 2 bombs per turn due to splash damage.
That V Vial recharge is no where close to sustaining that output. In theory, the base design is actually fine, even the slow-ish recharge.
What's NOT fine is how badly the base supply is cut. Any time the V Vials are exhausted, the Alch is pulling from a non-recharging stock. If A-Alch items are limited to elixirs only, that's crazy bad for Bombers.
If an Alch has so much as 2 fights back to back, those 6-7 V Vial items are just about gone.
My estimate is that after L8 ish, Alchemists playing APs will have issues with running out of items where they did not in the previous p day system.
To be frank, there's not many AP scenarios in which the new system is a benefit. You need there to be combats up front to drain the V Vials, then long breaks to recharge before doing more combat. The only sort of AP that fits is the Abomination Vaults "waiting dungeon" type.
Which is super rare to encounter.
However, all this talk about total items per day is burying the lede, whic is the information that V Vials will be using some form of Q-Alchemy.
If V Vials require the old 1A Quick Alchemy, instead of being "premade and in waiting," the "gameplay power" of the Alchemist is dead.
Q-Alch was always great for its out of combat utility, and the recharging V Vials will take that to the extreme, to the point I expect an errata nerf, as it is game-breaking to get infinite buffs.
But, Q-Alch was always something to avoid in combat.
For combat, the action tax of creating the item on the spot kills the actions / effect of alch items. It makes alch items have the same action cost as spells, for laughably worse effects.
Only special cases, like scaling the DC of Skunks, or silver bullet cures, ever made the 2A cost of Q-items worth using in combat.
Using alch items for 1A has always been the key to making Alchemist actually contribute to combat. That's why Quick Bomber was the most powerful Alchemist Feat.
============
All of my Chiurgeons require that 1A item action economy to function. I don't know how much of a Research Field bonus there will be, but at double the action cost, I cannot imagine this Paizo giving Chiurgeons anywhere close to an effect that can compensate.
These may be the last Chiurgeons I can play.
Most games, AP or not, I've played, on average you rest at least 10-20mins in between fights. And THEN you start walking, exploring, and etc to reach the next encounter.
And recharging vials is not even something you actively have to do, simply walking from point A to point B automatically does that for you.
So in general I'm not seeing a problem.
The only thing it impacts greatly are bomber builds that were throwing 2 bombs per turn, which before level 10+ it was rare either way.
We still haven't seen if Bomber Field gets anything to alleviate this issue, since they are the only field that was spamming through their reagents that fast while in an encounter.
This is indeed something that will vary between tables a lot.
Most of the time in the APs I have played, there will be a single fight per day.
Many, many times APs will set up an objective, such as researching a thing in an abandoned city as a "which of the following do you want to investigate for today?" and limit the number of encounters.
Once or twice per book, there will be a "marathon day" on a big battle map.
The presentation of that narrative varies a great deal, but most of the time we cannot in-story justify sitting on our butts while the foes in the next room twiddle their thumbs and wait for us. I am aware that a lot of veteran players hand-wave the immersion breaking of the 10 min water breaks, but being able to take them really is not an automatic/guaranteed thing.
Moreover, an Alchemist that uses an average of 5 items per fight will need ~25 min to recharge them. Even IF you assume an average of 10 min between every fight, that's still a rather short time before the Alch has gone empty, and will be the first member asking the party to stop for a while.
It stinks, but the nature of putting tokens onto maps really means that non-combat speedbumbs are crazy rare in APs, so the passive recharging, while a great detail of design, is not going to help all that much. Most of the times that players do multiple combats in one day, the fights are all right next to each other.
Combat wise?
That was never my experience. If we exlude like 1-2 items per fight that you started with, and like 1-2 per fight fetched by the familiar, the "draw 2 for 1 action" produced by later levels of Quick Alchemy always felt superior to me.
???
Why would you exclude what's in your hand at combat start?
Double Brew is a L9 Feature. Even for the minority of players that will level high enough see it, they will learn that it's not compatible as written with 0 reagent Perpetual items.
Even if you are so overflowing with spare reagents to not worry about the horrid reagent efficacy, a Double Brew turn is using all 3 actions on items, and 3A activities are a hard sell in pf2. This is even WORSE as Double Brew requires both hands to be empty, which item relay tactics do not. Double Brew is a terrible class feature, that even when every caveat is cleared, is still worse action economy than item relaying.
========
My "normal" Alchemists use a Retrieval Belt, item familiar, and Quick Bomber.
This lets me carry 1 buff item to use turn 1, have 2 familiar items ready for Independent hand-offs, and have a free action belt item, which lets the familiar reload w/o any turn gap.
That's 5 turns of 1A items, plus however many bombs I want to throw via Quick Bomber.
Numerically speaking, an Alchemist kinda needs to do that in order to keep up with the other classes. If you have no issue with your own contribution, that's fine, but this discussion is within the context of the class needing to measure up to the other player class choices.
And needing to spend 2A to make + use a reach-range Elixir of Life, which at exact matching unlock level performs worse than a Healing Potion...
Yeah, it's not a good look.
Bombs are the only class of alch item designed to compare well, and that only really works at lower levels. Once the elemental property runes come into the picture, Alchs depend on having multiple Feat lines to enhance their consumable-costing Strikes to try to keep up, and struggle to do so.
===========
I truly expected Remaster Alch to get something to help with the item action economy. Not only does that appear to not be the case, it seems that alch item economy was gutted via locking combat items behind Q-Alch.
That was my worst-case, most pessimistic prediction.
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
Damn no Martial weapons.
Like sure, alchemist doesn't need them, given where their damage is coming from, but g&*@*&n are there some martial weapons I'd love to play properly on a toxicologist.
This seems like a good use for the various ancestry feats that peg weapon proficiency in specific weapons to the lower tier. Normally martials skip these unless there's an ancestral advanced weapon they want, but there are plenty of decent martial weapons with an ancestry tag. Want to use a breaching pike on an alchemist? Be a hobgoblin.
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
I agree with shroudb. Assuming only 10 minutes between two encounters seems very pessimistic in my experience. At least 20-30 minutes is the norm, even during dungeon crawls. And it's amazing that you get your Vials back while treating wounds, looting bodies or searching rooms.
|
This seems like a good use for the various ancestry feats that peg weapon proficiency in specific weapons to the lower tier. Normally martials skip these unless there's an ancestral advanced weapon they want, but there are plenty of decent martial weapons with an ancestry tag. Want to use a breaching pike on an alchemist? Be a hobgoblin.Damn no Martial weapons.
Like sure, alchemist doesn't need them, given where their damage is coming from, but g@*#@&n are there some martial weapons I'd love to play properly on a toxicologist.
Oh yeah there's some fun ones I've spotted before, including breaching pike, actually.
My big gripe is injection weapons (all martial) [though I think treasure vault has an adjustment], as well as tethered weapons, as you'd be able to enjoy the benefits of ranged strikes without wasting a posion on every single miss as with ammunition weapons. Though now that I've said that "out loud" it has occured to me the returning rune exists...
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
It's still a possibility that is impossible to ignore though. Unless I see that Perpetual Infusions has survived in some manner (I've been looking; I've seen nothing either way) I have to consider that they've now insured that a Bomber Alchemist can run out of Bombs in any encounter. Or possibly start an encounter with only two Bombs (I've been in situations where we barely got ten minutes to patch ourselves up and get ready for the next wave.)
I really wish Paizo could put the PDFs on sale at the same time they send out the advance copies. I understand why they can't, I just really wish they could.
It's still a possibility that is impossible to ignore though. Unless I see that Perpetual Infusions has survived in some manner (I've been looking; I've seen nothing either way) I have to consider that they've now insured that a Bomber Alchemist can run out of Bombs in any encounter. Or possibly start an encounter with only two Bombs (I've been in situations where we barely got ten minutes to patch ourselves up and get ready for the next wave.)
I really wish Paizo could put the PDFs on sale at the same time they send out the advance copies. I understand why they can't, I just really wish they could.
If the few remaining prep items are elixir only, you can't even use Quick Bomber anymore. Hopefully the Feat was modified to be compatible with the "throw the raw V Vial" option, but it may not have been.
If Bombers need 1A to Q-Alch a V-Vial into a bomb before even being able to throw a proper bomb...
that's a huge nerf that forces bombs to compare against 2A cantrips and spells.
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
Quick Alchemy:
- Limits duration of alchemical item effects to 10 minutes.
- Can turn one Versatile Vial into an alchemical consumable or your level or lower (must be in your formula book). Item is infused and lasts until the start of your next turn.
- Alternatively, can create a Versatile Vial that lasts until the end of your current turn and can only be used either as the Versatile Vial Bomb (Acid damage default, bomber can also choose cold, electricity or fire) or for the Vial option of your research field.
The last is basically a poor man's cantrip. 2 actions for a bomb Strike. Scales a bit with Double Brew at level 9 if you can spend 3 actions on it to throw both Vials.
Quick Bomber feat (level 1) allows you draw a bomb or to use Quick Alchemy to create a Bomb and throw it for the same action!
|
|
Quick Alchemy:
- Limits duration of alchemical item effects to 10 minutes.
- Can turn one Versatile Vial into an alchemical consumable or your level or lower (must be in your formula book). Item is infused and lasts until the start of your next turn.
- Alternatively, can create a Versatile Vial that lasts until the end of your current turn and can only be used either as the Versatile Vial Bomb (Acid damage default, bomber can also choose cold, electricity or fire) or for the Vial option of your research field.The last is basically a poor man's cantrip. 2 actions for a bomb Strike. Scales a bit with Double Brew at level 9 if you can spend 3 actions on it to throw both Vials.
Is that "Limits to 10 minutes" a cap on maximum duration, or just the default duration of a QA item?
NVM I worked it out, ty
- Can turn one Versatile Vial into an alchemical consumable or your level or lower (must be in your formula book). Item is infused and lasts until the start of your next turn.
And as usual the question with poisons... Because if you need to create it, apply it, and use it as your entire turn, then poison use is over.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Quick Alchemy:Is that "Limits to 10 minutes" a cap on maximum duration, or just the default duration of a QA item?
Duration cap. Basically, if you create an items with a duration of more than 10 minutes duration, it's limited to 10 minutes instead.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
However, all this talk about total items per day is burying the lede, whic is the information that V Vials will be using some form of Q-Alchemy.
If V Vials require the old 1A Quick Alchemy, instead of being "premade and in waiting," the "gameplay power" of the Alchemist is dead.
Q-Alch was always great for its out of combat utility, and the recharging V Vials will take that to the extreme, to the point I expect an errata nerf, as it is game-breaking to get infinite buffs.
But, Q-Alch was always something to avoid in combat.
For combat, the action tax of creating the item on the spot kills the actions / effect of alch items. It makes alch items have the same action cost as spells, for laughably worse effects.
Only special cases, like scaling the DC of Skunks, or silver bullet cures, ever made the 2A cost of Q-items worth using in combat.
I'm not sure why this is being presented as a negative thing.
2 actions in total - one to make the item and one to use it - does indeed put the Alchemist into similar action usage as most spellcasting. That isn't a very harsh criticism. Spellcasters work just fine.
I haven't taken all that close of a look at what alchemical items are capable of compared to spells or other character's 2-action abilities, but I was under the impression that they do compare quite well. Bombs usually have lower damage than spells, but have splash damage. It is easier to get status effects using alchemy. The bonuses that alchemical items give are often higher than other abilities give and are often item bonuses which rarely conflict with other bonus types given out by other characters.
So at the moment Alchemist has the same action economy and equivalent impact as a spellcaster.
The biggest difference that I see is that spellcasters have to choose what spells they have very carefully. Either when they create their Repertoire, or when they prepare spells for the day during Daily Preparations. Alchemist does not have to choose what alchemical items they have available for the day at or before the start of the day. It is the equivalent of a Wizard being able to cast their spell slots directly from their spellbook rather than having to prepare spells in the morning.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I agree with shroudb. Assuming only 10 minutes between two encounters seems very pessimistic in my experience. At least 20-30 minutes is the norm, even during dungeon crawls. And it's amazing that you get your Vials back while treating wounds, looting bodies or searching rooms.
Yes, I can't imagine fewer than 20 minutes being common with the focus recovery changes in the remaster, and 30 will often happen with some parties. I doubt many casters will burn feats to recover all their focus in 10 minutes.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Wow. Maximum duration of any Quick Alchemy'd elixir is ten minutes. Which means any of the longer duration buffs is now competing for a slot of your tiny 5-13 daily item pool (depending on Int Mod and Feat Choices. 13 only possible if you take the unlikely step of grabbing an Int Apex.) That is really, really sad.
My 11th level Bomber would have 9 daily items under this system. Under the old system, I could easily make myself 8 doses of Greater Quicksilver a day and have tons of stuff left over. Not now.
Perpetual Infusions are gone. In its place is Quick Vial. So, instead of being able to make a Sticky Moderate Acid Flask when I have no other options, my guy would now do a Moderate Versatile Vial that does 2d6+Splash of Acid, Cold, Electricity or Fire. (Versatile Vial Bombs are 1 level behind normal Bombs. Greater Versatile Vial appears at L12.)
On the bright side, the Quick Alchemy section confirms that even Alchemists only need one formula for any Tier Item. So that is a lot of gold back in my pockets.
Quick Alchemy:
[...]
- Alternatively, can create a Versatile Vial that lasts until the end of your current turn and can only be used either as the Versatile Vial Bomb (Acid damage default, bomber can also choose cold, electricity or fire) or for the Vial option of your research field.The last is basically a poor man's cantrip. 2 actions for a bomb Strike. Scales a bit with Double Brew at level 9 if you can spend 3 actions on it to throw both Vials.
Quick Bomber feat (level 1) allows you draw a bomb or to use Quick Alchemy to create a Bomb and throw it for the same action!
Could you clarify this 3rd use of Q-Alch making a V Vial into a bomb or RF-specific action bit?
I had assumed Alch could always throw the VVial raw for 1 Action.
Are VVials location-tracked items that need to be drawn in-hand before being raw thrown or used for the RF-action?
It sounds like the action economy for VVials is not going to be pretty.
==============
It's good that Paizo at least foresaw the infinite buff issue, though it does have the inverse effect of prep buff items becoming more precious than utility spells, especially as they removed the 2:1 prep tradeoff.
Prepping Witches Fingers for the cold weather for the party would now cost more than half my daily prep limit. Yikes.
Found a YT video with a snip of new Quick Alchemy, here's a quick OCR of the text:
Quick Alchemy | 1 Action
Requirements You’re either holding or wearing an alchemist's toolkit and you have a free hand.
You can either use up a versatile vial to make another alchemical consumable at a moment's notice or create an especially short-lived versatile vial. Any effect created by an item made with Quick Alchemy that would have a duration longer than 10 minutes lasts for 10 minutes instead.
• Create Consumable | You expend one of your versatile vials to create a single alchemical consumable item of your level or lower that’s in your formula book. You don't have to spend the normal monetary cost in alchemical raw materials or need to attempt a Crafting check. This item has the infused trait, but it remains potent only until the start of your next turn. (As normal, you need only one formula for an item to create any level of that item.)
• Quick Vial | You create a versatile vial that can be used only as a bomb or for the versatile vial option from your research field (it can't be used to create a consumable, for example). This item has the infused trait, but it remains potent only until the end of your current turn.
So that is an unfortunate yes. There are 2 different V-Vials. The vials on the hip that recharge, and the V Vial item that is created after 1A Quick Alchemy.
It seems that Q-Alch is still an action tax before the action(s) needed to use the item.
==================
Uh oh, there's some jank/conflict with how this interacts w/ the new Quick Bomber.
Quick Bomber | 1 Action
You keep your bombs and bomb-related reagents in easy-to-reach pouches from which you draw without thinking. You Interact to draw a bomb, draw a versatile vial, or use Quick Alchemy to create a bomb, then Strike with the bomb. If you have the ability to create more than one bomb at a time with Quick Alchemy (such as from the double brew class feature), you can Strike with only one of the bombs you create with this action.
I do not think this is compatible with throwing V Vials, as they need Q-Alch to become throwable, and become unusable after a turn.
You can still use Quick Bomber to Q-Alch and throw formula-made bombs for 1 Action, which is a big deal.
To rephrase; this will likely be the most powerful Alch Feat, again. Note this means that Additives will now become compatible with 1A bomb throws, meaning this is much more potent than before.
To the point that it will be hard for even non-Bombers Alchemists to find any other use of their VVials in combat beyond throwing bombs 1A bombs.
Bomb splash optional is still there
But the larger issue is that non-Bomb items are still locked behind 2A, which kills the in-combat use of V-Vials for all those items.
Having a 1A way to make+use bombs, which already were the best class of alch item, only further renders non-bomb usage of VVials in combat that much worse by comparison.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Versatile Vials are Bombs. They have the Bomb trait. So when you use the Quick Vial version of Quick Alchemy, you are using Quick Alchemy to create a Bomb and hence Quick Bomber applies.
It means you can use Quick Alchemy to "create" a Versatile Vial, but you can only use said versatile vial as either the base bomb option or the unique versatile boon of your field.
Basically, an infinite resource akin to perpetuals but with more limitations.
And if that RF-specific use is still stuck behind the action tax of Quick Alchemy, I struggle to see how it'll be at all viable in comparison to Quick Bomber turning the same vial into a formula bomb & throwing it for a single action.
Hmm, none of the YT previews I've seen mention this, but I think that Quick Vial option is ex nihilo, and is making an extra VVial on the spot w/ no need to recharge, and is *not* a required action to prime the vial for throwing/RF-use.
That would square the circle of Quick Bomber talking about drawing and throwing a vial raw, though it still begs the question of why that would be done when it could be turned into a crafted bomb.
That would also indicate that you need to draw and have a VVial in hand to do the RF-actions. While that may seem like a bad thing, it gives Paizo more room to set the potency higher, while leaving a chance for Draw circumvention via familiars, etc.
If the RF-actions can be done w/ VVials for 1-Action, they could be usable. Though they are still stuck competing w/ Quick Bomber.
It means you can use Quick Alchemy to "create" a Versatile Vial, but you can only use said versatile vial as either the base bomb option or the unique versatile boon of your field.
Basically, an infinite resource akin to perpetuals but with more limitations.
Welp, that's what I get for having too many tabs open searching for info while not checking the thread for replies first.
Yes, it seems that Quick Alchemy: Quick Vial is a safety to prevent the Alch from ever fully running out of vials at the cost of an action tax.
No clue why that function was put inside Q-Alch and not VVials itself, lol.
If you can never be truly out of VVials, that unlimited nature does essentially guarantee that Chiurgeon's going to have harsh limits on using their VVials for healing.
Still a 100% good move to have that mechanic in there.
================
I think the Quick Vial being inside Quick Alchemy is a clue that Paizo is intending for Quick Bomber + Quick Vial + Double Brew to be the key for Bombers that want to throw more bombs than their VVials would allow.
Each turn, a post Lvl 9 Alchemist can Quick Bomber + Quick Alch to turn an existing VVial into a bomb and throw it, while also putting a free i-VVial in-hand for just a single Action.
The Bomber's Action 2 can be spent throwing that insta-VVial for lower damage yes, but it imposes 0 additional attrition on your limited resources.
Similar routines will be available to the other Alch types, with their action #2 being the RF-use of that insta-VVial.
Hopefully that routine may be enough for non-Bombers to consider the cost of keeping both hands empty for Double Brew.