Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Guild Cauldrons

Recently our guild unlocked the first level of cauldrons by crafting 1000 Cataclysm flasks. We had to powerlevel it it mainly by buying herbs and volatile lifes. It wasn’t easy but then again we are a 25-man progression guild, so flasks and cauldrons are highly beneficial. So here is all the information we have on guild cauldrons, Cauldron of Battle and Big Cauldron of Battle.

How To Unlock the Guild Reward and Recipe

Earn the guild achievement Mix Master (craft 1000 Cataclysm flasks) the Recipe: Cauldron of Battle will be availiable from a guild vendor and requires Friendly reputation or higher.

Earn the guild achievement Better Leveling Through Chemistry (craft 3000 Cataclysm flasks) Recipe: Big Cauldron of Battle will be availiable from a guild vendor and requires Friendly reputation or higher.

Guild Perks That Affect Cauldrons

Guild Level 10: Chug-a-lug (rank 1) – 50% longer flask duration.

• A normal flask is 1 hour. Perk will increase it to 1.5 hours.

Guild Level 20: Happy Hour – 50% additional flasks

• Currently, there are no level 20 guilds yet. The highest possible level you can be at the moment is level 12. (1/24/2011)
• Cauldron of Battle contains 7 flasks, guild perk will increase it to 10.
• Big Cauldron of Battle contains 17 flasks, guild perk will increase it to 25.

Guild Level 22 – Chug-a-lug (rank 2) 100% longer flask duration

• A normal flask is 1 hour. Perk will increase it to 2 hours.

*Alchemists with Mixology will not gain additional duration with Cauldrons IF your guild already has Chug-a-lug (rank 1). See current bugs below.

Cauldron Usage and Limitations

Step 1: Your guild alchemist will be able to craft and drop multiple cauldrons.

Step 2: People who want one, can right-click on it and receive a single Flask of Battle. It has no stats until you drink it, then it will decide which stat to give you based on your class and talents. Usually you highest stat is chosen (see below for current bugs). This flask is Unique, meaning only one can be in you inventory at a time and spam clicking the cauldron doesn’t give you anymore. It is also Conjured, meaning that if you log out for more than 15 minutes it will disappear.

These limitations are here to control the flask market since cauldrons would be an amazing way to produce flasks for cheap. Although you could technically “sell” cauldron flasks and make a profit, it may take some work to track down people willing to pay for one. From the buyer standpoint, you may end up paying less per flask and it will have the benfit of an additional half hour of time.

Cauldron Efficiency and Cost

Making a cauldron is always more efficient than drinking a normal flask. For Recipe: Cauldron of Battle you receive 7 flasks for the price of less than 5, as 8x Deathblood Venom is not as expensive as a flask. The larger version, Recipe: Big Cauldron of Battleis even more efficient, as it requires no deathblood venom, and you simply receive 17  flasks for 12 flasks.

Assuming your guild is level 22, you do 25-man raids, and you have unlocked Recipe: Big Cauldron of Battle with the achievement Better Leveling Through Chemistry, you will need 48% as many flasks as usual for everyone to be flasked up (12 flasks required for 25 people), and the flasks will last twice as long as normal, for a net flask-effectiveness of 416.67%, or alternatively a net flask-material-reduction of 76%.

Multiple cauldrons may be dropped at the same time, so as soon as you unlock Recipe: Cauldron of Battle for maximum material efficiency you should drop one cauldron in a 10-man raid, or 3 cauldrons in a 25-man raid, and have the people that miss out flask or elixir themselves normally. (Source – Thanks to Hungraa)

According to our estimates, our guild flasks went from 200g down to about 110g plus they last half an hour longer. A flask on our realm costs 150-250g to produce. After factoring elixir master flask procs (conservative estimate of 2 extra procs per 20 crafts), this brings it down to 110g per flask or 770g to craft a cauldron of battle. Being a 3 hour raiding guild, two 1.5 hour flasks is all we need.

Before: 3 flasks x 200g each = 600g per raid night

After: 2 flasks x 110g each – 220g per raid night.

Results: 63% cheaper flasks per raid. On the PTR flasks had their reagent counts change, so flasks from cauldrons will be even cheaper in 4.0.6. This is good news for all you guild bankers out there.

Current Bugs and Problems

Druids: In bear form, you will receive +300 Stamina, in ALL other forms, you will receive Agility. Probably will be fixed in the next patch.

Healers: You will receive +300 Intellect. It is speculated that it chooses your highest stat, which is usually Intellect. Further testing needs to be done to see if you will gain +300 Spirit if that is your highest stat. Possibly trying using a spirit trinket to inflate it and then drinking the flask.

Spirit Flask: Since the Cauldron’s don’t rerquire  the spirit flask, this is probably why the above problem exists. Your guild alchemists and healers that favor spirit will want to use their own flask. From a guild banker standpoint, you could charge everyone the same price for flasks to keep things fair.

Alchemists do gain additional effect and duration from Cauldron flasks, *but* once you have the guild achievment Chug-a-lug (rank 1) there is a bug, that sets the duration to 1.5 hours for everyone including alchemists.

Before we had the guild achievment, flasks from the Cauldron lastet 2 hours for me (as they should for an alchemist) and 1 hour for non alchemists. After we got the achievment, they now last 1.5 hours for everyone (whether alchemist or not).

I think this is a bug and will hopefully be fixed in the next patch. (Source – Grookshank)