Do people enjoy this format of "optimization" videos from me? And are there other things you'd like me to cover?

Alchemist is sill one of my favourite classes and it is so versatile. You are kind of a martial version of the wizard, you can prepare for nearly anything if you have knowledge about what to come, but if you haven't dont worry quick alchemy has you covered. You can support your party with all kind of stuff, I rly like that. Are we hunting a troll today? Okay boom everybody has 2 alchemists fire in their arsenal now I decided. You have easy access to every damage type + I guess every statuseffect? What you can ask more for? You are always kind of supporty, guess thats not everyones taste, but I love that there are classes for us support players. Mutagenist makes for a nice offtank or supportank, bomber can make the whole party use every weakness there is, Chirugeon gets a ton of healing on top of support or damage and poisoner can equip everyone with nasty poisons, so much versatility.

Alchemists really should get faster attack progression for bombs, so that they actually can use the bomb as effectively as the martials.

I don't usually comment on videos, but this is exactly what I was looking for! Thanks for the tips - looking forward to the next ones!

Man I love the alchemist. Love the spotlight on the class and how awesome it really is. Super good info

Best kind of video. Positive, creative, and you bring some things we might overlook.

Hey, love the video! I think it is doing a lot of stuff I like, but don't see much in pf2e content. I like the context of why things are good and why some things are not very good rather than videos just reading the passage of the book at me. Took the alchemist dedication on my monk, so I'll definitely be taking this into account for formula accrual and feat choices. You've got a sub/bell icon from me

Love the "make ___not suck" series! Such good advice and info. Thank you!!!

The idea that Alchemists can exploit every weakness but aren't as good at doing it themselves is super funny. Now I wanna make a small mute Halfling/Gnome boy who just goes around the battlefield recalling knowledge and throwing bombs, but then suddenly turns to the Fighter, gives them a weird elemental bombs and points at the monster like: "do it. 👈😐👍" I'm a sucker for these half-serious half-joke characters.

As a new PF2E GM with an alchemist in the party who is also new to 2E this is so exciting!

I was writing up a complaint about Debilitating Bomb, but then I realized that I had completely misread the Additive trait. 😬 Glad I caught that so early into my Alchemist's career. (We started a campaign 2 weeks ago.)

Alchemist and their items are certainly one of the most different of classes in the game, and as someone who loves the class fantasy, this was great to see!

I love my alchemists ! And this is hugely appreciated!

I would love another video in this series about poisons! 💕

32:45 Trust me, if one of the allies is, for example, a mummy or a poppet (both VERY vulnerable to fire) you don't want that Alchemist's Fire anywhere near them.

I think the biggest problem the Alchemist faces is a general clash between theoretical design and player psychology. Paizo assumes optimal play in the way they design things. And when an alchemist is in the team, optimal play means knowing the vast array of options that alchemist can provide, preparing them ahead of time, and employing them appropriately in battle. In a way, when an alchemist is on the team everyone kind of has to play a wizard and be aware of a much larger pool of options. But like, I made my swashbuckler because I want to talk smack about the enemies sister, dance around them, and stab them in the butt laughing. That's the fantasy I sat at this table for. Not keeping track of this huge list of bottled goods. Could you maybe just use them yourself and let me enjoy my own thang? Thanks. That's super suboptimal play obviously. But it's also pretty normal player psychology. From looking at my own table, I can say that the players very rarely use the tools the alchemist gives them. They're more excited about using their own stuff.

Yes! I really like the optimization videos! Thank you!!!

Having seen you in the Knights of Last Call streams lately, I think this is a great parallel to their spell review series. Thank you Rules Lawyer!

I once had a build Idea that revolved around a melee Mutagenist / poisoner Alchemist : (I ended up playing a Bard, but this would be my next character) Basicly the Idea was that, if you know what item you need, you can craft way more of them, so here goes : lvl1 -> Alchemical Familiar (Give him independant and valet so you can keep chugging elixirs) lvl2 -> Revivifying mutagen (heal hp AND ends Juggernauts mutagen so you can redrink one to get back temp hp) lvl4 -> is whatever, I like Efficient alchemy, spend downtime to make lot of poison for you and your friends lvl6 -> Sticky poison Poison is seen has weak but with repetitive exposure you can give devastating effects. You will take a lot of damage so get a 10/12 hp ancestry, get toughness and a good medium armor. When a wepon runs out of poison, drop it to the group and get a new one for 1 action thanks to your familiar. You only hit once a turn, but the weapon does not matter, you just want to apply your poisons. At higher level, get energy mutagen, drink one, make it stop to explode, make it come back with Mutagenic Flashback, and explode again. (that can be 20d6 in a 30foot cone)

I don't know about 2e but in 1e there is an item called bomb chucker. Basically a pollo stick specifically for throwing bombs. So you might try and see if that's a thing in 2e, and see if your GM will let you get one. This can save you some feats.

I like the alchemist and they have a lot of options. The major problem is the alchemist falls behind all the other martial classes as it progresses. I originally started planning to outlining some of the many issues I have with the alchemist at late levels including how only the bmbr research field makes sense to take for various reasons. But as I was writing I realize this focus stems primarily from a single major flaw in the alchemist progression. That is it has the slowest and lowest proficiency progression of any martial classes. The alchemist goes to Expert two levels later than every other martial class and then NEVER gets any better so they have the same skill with weapons as SPELLCASTERS late game. I'm not opposed to the less damage more buff/debuff support role style of the alchemist is going for. The issue is that in order to do those debuffs you have to HIT the target. As you like to say every +1 matters well the alchemist is missing a LOT of +1s. Right from the start the alchemist is behind their primary attack stats is likely DEX for throwing stuff and you can only get 16 in that because your class attribute is INT. Here's a break down of typical Martial Class vs Alchemist on their attack roll bonus. Level 1 Martial +7 = +4 (18 Stat) + 1 Lvl + 2 Trained Alchemist +6 = +3 (16 Dex) + 1 Lvl + 2 Trained Level 5 Martial +13 = +4 (19 Stat) + 5 Lvl + 4 Expert Alchemist +11 = +4 (18 Dex) + 5 Lvl + 2 Trained Level 7 Martial +15 = +4 (19 Stat) + 7 Lvl + 4 Expert Alchemist +15 = +4 (18 Dex) + 7 Lvl + 4 Expert Level 13 Martial +24 = +5 (20Stat) + 13 Lvl + 6 Master Alchemist +21 = +4 (19 Dex) + 13 Lvl + 4 Expert Level 15 Martial +26 = +5 (21Stat) + 15 Lvl + 6 Master Alchemist +24 = +5 (20 Dex) + 15 Lvl + 4 Expert Level 20 Martial +32 = +6 (22Stat) + 20 Lvl + 6 Master Alchemist +29 = +5 (21 Dex) + 20 Lvl + 4 Expert As you say every +1 matters. The alchemist starts with a -1 which then increases to -2 when they get to level 5. But thankfully it catches back up at level 7 and due to stats past 18 only going up by 1 it lets the alchemist catch up and stay on par with other martial classes chance to hit up until level 13 at which point he falls back behind at -2 compared to other Martial classes and never recovers. The result is a character that feels a little behind the curve starting out followed by a couple levels that has him really behind the curve and then finally catching his stride for a bit in the middle only to fall flat again the rest of the way which is really sad since a lot of his debuff feats become available late game. I intentionally left equipment out of the numbers because for one they should be getting +1s from equipment about the same time but didn't want to muddy the numbers with the fact that the Alchemist actually has TWO sets of Attack bonus. With perpetuals you get the lower level version of your items which is also where their attack bonus comes from so your perpetual thrown items will be at -1 your level appropriate items making your chance to hit with the alchemist version of cantrips even worse. This is where the Googles come into play and are pretty much a must have so you at least maintain your current level's attack bonus. This lower attack pretty much forces you down the bmbr route even if you don't do the research path because even with mutigen buffs it doesn't help your chance to hit which you need to do for damage and as mentioned with some of the thrown options there is better use of your turn than just damage as other martial characters easily do more. Even the toxin path has the same issue as you have to HIT in order to poison them. The healer path is a joke in my opinion cause any alchemist can make life elixers. But if you can't hit the broadside of a barn cause your to hit is so low then why not just have unlimited items to throw and hope something sticks? That's why bmbr path is my preferred choice. But even then still feels like much of the game your doing hail marys. Which really sucks since your using limited daily resources. Unlike spells which have various degrees of success so often feel like you get something. The splash damage feels extremely minor unless you are lucky enough to match a monster's weakness.

my homebrew to make alchemists more friendly is pretty simple 1) efficiant organazation: a class feature at level 1, alchemists basically have quick draw for all alchemical items, replacing the level 1 feat quick bomber 2) mutagenists can choose strenght or dex as a primary statistic, and bomber can choose dex 3) Chirurgeon has dominion over all non-mutagen elixers, rather than just elixer of life, antipoison and antiplauge

In early Level the Alchemist can be such a great Help for the Party with the Debuffing possibilities in encounters, just take Skunk Bomb and Bottled Lightning as Utility :)

I've played an alchemist lv.1 to 20 during the beginning of pf2e (beta to APG i think) and it's my favourite class i think At low level, it can be very frustrating due to lack of ressources but a high and very high level, your party love you, major juggernaut mutagen preventing crit fail for save or die ability (who is often on fortitude saves) for exemple is so good. At the time i was playing this classe, there were not as many objects and choices and some creatures (like undeads) where a pain in the ... I'm so glad that they changed over the years, with some others changes like powerful alchemy who where a feat back then. But alchemists have some issues. The fact that you cannot choose you're primary stat for exemple, i'd like to see alchemist having strengh for mutagenist, dexterity for bombers, etc ... Cause you are a martial class, for me, you need to hit with bombs or with fist but you cannot have 18 to you're strike stat and you never become master with your weapons wich is a shame. Some feature are outdated for me too. Furthermore, for me, you have a significant gap where you're powerful stagnate between 5 to 10 or 11. But one you've reached lvl 11, it's pure joy, you're so irreplaceable for you're party with powerful mutagen and bombs To conclude, it's a really cool class but deserves a slight rework

Exploitive Bomb Hrmmm... I am with you as it would be better if that resistance reduction was "until the beginning of the target's turn"/"your next turn"...

Would also love to see what archetypes you think would be valuable additions to the Alchemist main.

Directional bomb is good when fighting in tunnels with lots of enemies behind them. Use Sticky bomb to apply a lot of persistent damage in a cone. Unfortunately, I don't think it works with expanded splash or bomb crit effect, which makes this obsolete, especially if you have your group kitted out with backfire mantles.

Exploitive bomb seems like it could be used when the most convenient target is resistant to what the surrounding enemies are weak to for splash purposes.

Not finished yet, but if you make the blindpepper bomb wiht quick alchemy you can use your class DC instead of the regular DC thanks to the Powerful alchemy class feature

I dipped into rogue grabbed advances sneak fear crit feat ( the one that rases crot chance) and all the bow/ range feats that affect bombs im not max 20 level in the crpg but i can pump out some nasty damage and if i do run out of bombs i can chug a mutagen and snipe for nasty damage.

TV released probably the best bomb for the alchemist, the skunk bomb. Fortitude save for everyone in the splash zone. Sickened 1 on a success. With directional bombs, you can easily hit foes and not allies.

I thought this would be a cool, unique class to try (have been building it for days), but I’m preparing for my first game of PF2e ever and now worry this was a poor first PC choice, and that I should stick with my initial thought to have a Fighter (Orc), with 2-handed weapon and focus on learning the game. Thoughts?

When it comes to Exploitive feat you forget that you have a limited number of infuse regents so maybe you don't have any left to make something the monster is weak against. But even with out regents left you can still make perpetual items using Quick Alchemy and say you picked Alchemist fire and Tanglefoot as your perpetual since the list is so limited. Well all you got is Fire damage but the target is resistant to fire damage. You are quick alchemy those alchemist fire so you can make them Exploitive. Granted it's not really an ideal situation to be in but depending on your campaign and GM a lot of those items you mention were uncommon and from supplementary books so you might not have access to them and be more limited on what damage types you can deal. So ideally, yeah you probably want to be playing better options but it could come through in a pinch.

NOTE: I did not yet get the chance to watch the whole video, so I will add additional comments after I do. After I had went through the Alchemist probably for the equivalent of 50 hours or so, I came to the conclusion that they serve to buff the rest of the party, with damage and debuffs that can be used in a pinch. If you are trying to fit the Alchemist into a role that is not support/utility, you are going to have a bad time. Enemies with weaknesses to area of effect and even elemental weaknesses are completely overstated. As the resident PF2E psychopath, I went through all 6 books of Age of Ashes to see how many enemies with weaknesses you had to deal with. **Minor Spoilers** I fervently believe that weaknesses to energy damage are heavily overstated. There are 3 spider swarms you find in book 1. From that point forward there are no swarms. Across all of Age of Ashes, there are 77 enemies with what I defined as "easily exploitable weaknesses", out of a total of 457. (Some enemies have weird weaknesses, like light sensitivity of the duergar, which I separately categorized) That's about 17%, or 1/6 of the enemies, with a majority in the latter half of book 4, and all of books 5 and 6. The problem here is that their weaknesses are all the same -- cold for the magma dragons, and good for the evil dragons. At this point of the game, martials could very easily get a frost rune and holy rune to attach to their weapons, thus nullifying the benefits that the Alchemist could provide. To add to that, the Alignment Ampoule, a staple for any Alchemist at around level 11 or so, did not exist until October of 2020, so until then, Alchemists in this campaign were SOL, since all the book 6 dragons with the exception of 1-2 are only weak to good.

Combo question: Uncanny Bomb + Strong Arm (rogue dedication + Basic Trickery) = 70 ft throw? And yes, I enjoyed this video.

I need a video on what to buy to gradually migrate myself and my group from being deep into 5e (like $350 deep) over to Pathfinder (2e).

Think they buffed them in pf2e remaster? I assume the second book in August 2024

I'd actually love a video for for assistance for a optimized necromancy if that's something you'd be interested in

exploitive bomb seems very situational but perhaps it can be used if you don't really have a weakness to exploit or if an enemy resists all damage types at your disposal? Direct damage isn't the alchemist's forté but there are creatures that just resist basically all kinds of damage except maybe force, they are pretty rare but maybe that's the point of this feat? Or maybe there's smth else I'm not seeing, does hardness count as a damage reduction? If that's the case maybe this feat allows you to spontaneously destroy objects rather than setting up a demolition charge which takes a minute. Perhaps it's also just for lazy alchemists that are also really bad at recall knowledge so they can't figure out any weaknesses so with this they can atleast chip some damage in regardless of someone's defenses.

As far as limited range, why not use the bombs as sling bullets?

one problem I have with optimization is that we tend to only consider it from the perspective of combat. Because your "typical" (at least for Bomber/Poisoner which I think we can concede are the vast majority of alchemists) alchemist has 18 int, 16 dex, 14 wis at level 1 they also have a large pool of known languages, a wide pool of skills, crush Recall Knowledge checks, are good healers even outside of elixir of life (very viable to have Assurance + Battle Medicine by level 3). Depending on party composition they're your Stealth-iest and Thievery-est member as well. While Crafting during dowtime has its drawbacks, they can use Crafting to transfer runes, disarm traps, determine if that mystery juice is a potion or poison, Repair shields/armor in addition to the actual Crafting activity for Snares, Magic Items, or anything else with Specialty Crafting. I'm sure you'll cover the Injury poisions in another video, but the RP potential of the ingestible poisons is huge and there is great synergy if someone in your party takes any of the Disguise feats. You can poison an entire dungeon by having your high CHA member give the baddies laced food. I'm sure there are a hundred other things I'm not even thinking of. The point is that I think more than any other class the Alchemist is meant to play jazz while everyone else is playing the guitar riff from Smoke on the Water.

the main issue I have with alchemist is that the power of the bombs means nothing when you need to roll a 14/15 (quicksilver mutagen yes/no) to hit at higher levels, (12/13 if you can spend an action hiding). Sure, you can resolve to just doing splash damage, and if the enemy has a weakness you can exploit, there's damage in that. But without multiclassing into wizard and getting true strike, there's almost no chance your class features like Sticky Bomb will actually ever hit anything. And nobody really tells you this up front, so you get to level 8 with a familiar that turns out to be nigh useless because "familiars are great and you get an extra reagent!", and end up having to beg the GM to let you retrain some earlier feats into wizard multiclass because it's almost impossible to hit anything without it. The bombs mechanically aren't really any more powerful than cantrips, but it's a limited resource that you're almost guaranteed to never actually hit with.

So you can take ranger dedication and far shot to yeet bombs 240' at their prey?

Directional Bomb: If the enemy is just at/outside the edge of your range and you cannot afford to take the next range increment...? Such as in addition to MAP?

Question from a brand new alchemist: does the feat powerful Alchemy also affect the DC for persistent damage? So increasing the flat 15 DC to the higher class DC?

Opinions on the alchemist dedication? I’m a mastermind rogue and trying to decide if I should take it or not. I’m worried the items won’t scale well.

Here's my problem with alchemist. Many people say that their role is to 'support. hand out buffs'. I find this... lacking as an explanation of their strength. The buffs alchemists can actually give are item bonuses to skills and saving throws. Both these things can be attained via items. The alchemist is generally +1 ahead of worn items on these things, so for all of play your role really is to give a +1 item bonus to skills and saving throws, while giving an untyped -2 to other saving throws and skills at the same time. Is this good? Is it worth playing alchemist for these things? I cannot fathom thinking so. The aid action, inspire competence, guidance and heroism all are quite cheaply available to spellcasting classes, and provide functionally the same benefits as the alchemist does in the form of status bonuses. But the classes that can do these things also have full spellcasting progression, scaling to legendary proficiency in their spell attacks and dcs... Saying that alchemist are support not dps is not an answer on why they are good. Any spellcaster is a superior support than alchemist given their far superior versatility, scaling, and actual ability to support.

In defense of Drirected Splash: It can nice if your DM uses a lot of mobs of similar enemies since to can splash deeper into enemy lines. I've also found it's nice for not splashing your teammates if you have a party that uses a lot of flanking (since you can attack perpendicular to them to avoid hitting them) That said, my character is a poisoner in a free archetype game; I use an air repeater to shoot poisoned bullet and quick bomb to chuck a low level crafted bomb that I almost certainly expect to miss, but I'll still almost certainly get splash. At level 10, paying 3 gp for 5 extra damage that might luck out and be 1d6+ flat footed or something on a target or two aint half bad when I dont have a better third action, especially since I get a lot of downtime and auto crit crafting rolls for alchemical items That said, I would not recommend it for bomber. I might if it interacted with expanded splash and the bomber's bigger AoE (adding 5 ft to a radius is usually and extra 10 to cone, and I could think of a lot of ways a spammable 35 ft cone would be handy), but tbh, this is more a friend fire avoider for bomb spammers

persistent and poison after 1 or 2 failed saves and the damage gets much better. toxicologist is the best for this style.

My two problems about alchemist are: 1. They're only Expert in Weapons, so they get maybe 1 hit per turn, and splash damage is too negligible if the enemy doesn't have a weakness. 2. Mutagenist Is the worst person to use their own mutagens, even when they're able to take feats to improve them or gain the ability to have two at the same time. I'm fine with the idea of the alchemist basically being the vending machine of the party, but let the problem is them trying to then pretend like chugging a beastial mutagen and waiting into combat is going to let them do much better than a wizard doing the same thing. At least the wizard has a battle form spell.

What happened to the mutagenist video? Haven't got to it yet or I'm just not looking in the right place?

Unfortunately, I don’t believe the Bomber’s Eye Elixir helps bypass the AC increase from raising a shield. It specifically says “circumstance bonus to AC…from cover”, and although Raising a Shield does apply a circumstance bonus, it’s not “from cover”.

On one hand his job is not to attack. On the other hand... Every time you say attack weakness I think caster. And every time you splash weakness for damage value that is, most of the time, up to the creature's level, a 9 in level 9 on 2nd attack is somthing even a monk can deal more of.

Hmmm... I have 1 issue with the "give bombs to martial characters who are more accurate with them than the alchemist" ... They would have to invest in the weapon type through a feat to remove the malus from not being trained with the weapon and hopefully they are dexterity based for accuracy. And I likely am reading "Weapon Proficiency" wrong but I'd say, no one can become expert in Alchemical Bombs using that one at least as it only talks about becoming trained in all simple weapons, then all martial weapons and then one advanced weapon of choice and it does not look like Alchemical Bombs even register as advanced weapons. If, and only if, I read it correctly, only the Alchemist will have "Level+2 or 4+Dex" for attacks with bombs while everyone else would be simply "Level+Dex" so unless the alchemist is neglecting Dexterity, they will be the best at hitting targets using Alchemic Bombs, not other martial characters. Just to reinforce it, I might be missing something and reading something wrong (thanks to rules as written vs rules as intended vs rules as interpreted...) and I did not dig into all the additional rules and thus feats introduced so far, just the Core Rules.

Toxicologist going to be made not suck?

There's no worse condition for someone that was just trying to be unobserved, than ON FIRE! Bombers can flub the flat check on that! Because if they were in the splash zone they're probably still on fire. Not much worse status for a troll than just shot by an erosion round by an investigator who shared the stratagem. Best way to optimize is to do it as a group.

IMO alchemists should get expert in alchemical bombs and alchemical crossbow at level 7 and get expert in simple weapons + master in alchemical bombs and alchemical crossbow at lv 13.

Every time you mention that alchemical bombs are really cheap and easily bought with a little bit of gold, it makes me think that they’re pretty bad. If a lot of the utility of the alchemist can be replaced with a little bit of gold, then what’s the point? Why bother with an alchemist when you can make a fighter, buy some bombs and in most cases use those bombs more effectively than the alchemist? I apologize if I’m misunderstanding something but that’s what I took away from the video

It can be rough being a class that can be replaced by just having some money.

Unfortunately, deafened does not give fail chance to spells that don't have the auditory trait. Verbal component does not give it.

at low levels alchemists are monumentally underpowered. At levels 1 and 2 bombs are shorter-ranged cantrips that you need a free hand to cast, except you can run out of and need to prepare them or else suffer an action and resource tax. A few elixirs almost approach the level of a 1st level spell, though even some of those have mutagen drawbacks. You're like a mediocre caster that starts with 0 first level spell slots. At level 3 your items are now more consistently hitting the strength of a level 1 spell, so you're a weird pseudo-caster that still needs a free hand, but has 14 (f you prep everything in advance) first level slots and no cantrips instead of 3 first levels, 2 second levels and 5 cantrips. Weird, but kinda playable now, at least. By 5 you feel a bit like a buff-despenser but at least you don't feel like a WEAK buff dispenser anymore. If you need more oomph start recruiting hirelings, summons, and familiars to hold onto items like crackling gum or greater energy mutagens and fire them off for free action economy. Eventually the alchemist becomes a bottomless well of utility and power, akin to having a caster that, if they prepare in advance, has 50 7th or 8th level spell slots at 20. The main issues are the needing a free hand, levels 1-2 feeling pathetic as hell, and 3-4 just being mediocre. Oh, and martials using your bombs better than you isn't a balance problem but it really feels like a slap in the face.

The problem I have with alchemists in pathfinder 2e is that they're exceedingly clunky. Their damage output and increase isn't consistent in the slightest. What abilities they have access to are dependent largely on their level, as a variety of the options they can take at lower levels only give a +1 or +2 bonus, where the improved version of the same item is literally just numerically better. The way pathfinder 2e is designed, very linearly, no matter what level you're at a +1 is pretty well never going to be amazing, while a +5 is pretty much always great, especially because alchemy items stack with almost everything else. Why this matters becomes clear when comparing lower level play to high level play. When you have to decide between bombs, healing potions, or utility items at low levels, it's basically always bombs or healing potions. That same choice at high levels is going to see more of a balanced decision, but will lean more towards the utility items because the bonuses are massive at that point, and an alchemist is still only likely to hit with one bomb per turn and other classes meant to heal are going to massively outpace them at that job. Compare that to pathfinder 1e, where the alchemist felt like a more balanced class at all levels. Bombs don't compete with the utility provided by extracts, and mutagens even get their own usages per day. While extracts were basically just bottled spells, the unique composition of the alchemist spell list meant they had a huge variety of options to choose from for utility that didn't take up 300+ "unique" item descriptions. ("Unique" in that most of them are just vaguely different justifications for providing a mechanical bonus that scales with level, with most of them being literally the same item at different levels) More over, the variety that having bottled spells gave them made the fact that alchemists are supposed to be themselves magical in nature, and not just fantasy chemists, seem more apparent in play. Sure, it makes sense that a 2e alchemist is Just someone really good at making alchemical items which literally anyone else Could make. However, the entire point of having an alchemist class is to highlight that the class is capable of standing on its own feet as a full adventurer that can provide something uniquely its own. That literally anyone with enough money can completely replicate, or in many cases even surpass, what an alchemist can do brings into question why any party would ever feel the need to have an alchemist come with them. Why not seek out something better at filling a specific role? Why choose to bring along someone whose only 'job' is passing out things you can buy at a shop? Literally everything they offer is lesser quality than what another class can do, and any specialty item you might need in a pinch they can provide can be purchased.

Spoiler: alchemists are NOT too weak.

My issue with Alchemist is that they are no longer weird. Where is my ability to grow an extra limb? where is my ability to pickle my own organs? To go on a specific diet to have the skin of a mummy? The ability to raise dead with SCIENCE!!! Alchemists in 2e are bland as they are no longer wacky magical scientists.

I think in a way, it is good to compare the Alchemist(PF2e) to it's predecesor, Alchemist(PF1e). NUMBER OF RESOURCES In Pf1e, an Alchemist (18 INT) at level 1 has 5 Bombs, 2 Extracts, and 1 Mutagen. Late game in PF1e, an Alchemist(24 INT) could make up to 27 bombs, 39 Extracts, and 2 Mutagens In PF2e, an Alchemist(18 INT) at level 1 has 5 Infused Reagents for 10 items average. Late game, Alchemists(22 INT) have have 26 Infused Reagents for an average of 52 Alchemical Items I actually find this to be balanced at each every level, with versatility and greater ease of crafting giving the win to the PF2e Alchemist, even when i low-balled them a bit. (What alchemist doesn't take a healthy of their research field Infusions?) BOMB VERSATILITY In PF1e, you altered how your bombs worked with Feats, and if you didn't take any feats, you only had Fire damage. Most people chose 1 or 2 extra elements. In PF2e, your bomb's basic function is in the formula book, and you have more freedom to target weaknesses. that makes it much more versatile at every stage of the game in PF2e. And you can hand them out to your party for tactical use, something that isn't even an option in PF1e. ATTACK ACCURACY In PF1e, Alchemists are a 2/3s BAB class, similar to Rogues, Monks, and Magus. In PF2e, Alchemists have Expert with Simple Weapons and their bombs and Master Class DC. Their comparative classes of Rogue, Monk, and Magus all got Master with their specific weapons as well as Class DC. Honestly, i think that in combat, Alchemists should be treated as Martials, and should have gotten the bump to Master/Master. Bombers throw bombs, Mutagenists and Poisoners need to hit with their attacks, and Chirugeons are usually next to the people taking damage. BOMB DAMAGE in PF1e, bombs scale in damage at 1d6 every 2 levels, same as the Rogue's Sneak Attack. They also added their INT to the On-Hit and splash damage of all Splash alchemical weapons. 1d6+4(5 splash) at low level, 10d6+7(17 splash) at high level. In PF2e, damage of each bomb is severely reduced, both in base damage and with INT-scaling missing. Damage is lower in PF2e for sure. I think the INT to damage was replaced with the bonus damage they get from hitting a weakness. Rogues Sneak Attack was also nerfed. It feels bad, but that's game balance for you. OVERALL I would buff them to Master in their Weapons. That would be my only change, everything else seems ballpark equivilent to their old power comparisons. Maybe they thought that infinite crafting of "alchemical spell slots" was too strong? It does seem strong in a vacuum.

Sad to hear make the thing but have to give it to someone who can actually use it better That isn't a good thing to hear ...

Just play 1e and deliver bombs with crossbows. It's untyped damage and therefore broken.

As a storyteller, I feel bad for you. You should be playing chess or some kind of strategy game. You don't strike me as any kind of role-player, and I don't think this experience is for you. With your big brain, you are what I would call a "smart stupid guy." You seem really nice and I'm sure you're a decent person, but you're not a gamer. Good luck.