Cooking and Herbalism
Cooking and Herbalism allows players to create foods, bandages, alcohols, and alchemical potions which provide significant buffs when consumed. Because this profession creates consumable items such as hot meals, it is always in high demand. This profession pairs well with Forestry and Farming. Initial recipes and seeds can be found at the Food and Herb Merchant in any town.
See Cooking, Herbalism, and Alchemy Recipes for a full list of recipes for this profession.
Cooking
Cooking is one of the most vital skills in GV because food only stays hot for 4 hours, and it's very much a profession that, like a restaurant, has busy hours and "off hours." Cooks find themselves making piles of money during sieges, prime time and State of War.
Most food is crafted by players in the Cooking and Herbalism profession, although some lower quality food is available to purchase from NPCs at inns. Food recipes can be purchased from vendors near inns, the market, Glory vendors, or from player-run stalls. Recipes can also be looted from NPCs and chests.
Food has 3 characteristics: Quality, Nourishment, and Digestibility. The effects of eating are seen in the stomach icon.
Most food is best eaten while hot, with bread being a notable exception.
Food Status
Hot Food
Most foods are best eaten while hot. Food stays hot for 4 hours after cooking. After that, it cools and can be reheated, but it will have reduced quality and nourishment. Foods may only be reheated once, and upon cooling down from reheated will turn into fertilizer. Hot food may be sold at the market or in player stalls.
Cold Food
Cold food is food which was previously hot. Cold food can be carried around for approximately 7 days and reheated once during that time. Cold food has a substantially lower quality than its hot counterpart and should not be eaten. Cold food may be reheated with billets which will raise it's food quality.
Reheated Food
- Cold food can be reheated once, restoring part of its lost quality and nourishment.
- Reheated food stays warm for 2 hours and turns directly into fertilizer when its timer expires.
- Food can be reheated directly from the inventory by right clicking your cold food and selecting "show available recipes" and choosing "reheat". There is no need for a campfire or crafting workshop to reheat food.
Example of the Quality difference between hot, cold, and reheated food (Higher Q is better)
- Cold Porridge: Q2.40
- Reheated Porridge: Q5.40
- Hot Porridge: Q7.45
Stomach
The stomach icon displays information about your nourishment and average food quality. The green stomach content represents how full you currently are. The horizontal line running across the lower third of the stomach represents the level at which you will become hungry.
Your stomach averages together the last few dozen things you’ve eaten and provides you with an average food quality. Eating a few low quality things can really affect your overall health, so eating well consistently is key to good health (and good buffs).
Hover the mouse over the stomach icon to get information on your current food quality and nourishment.
Food Quality
All foods have quality scores which range between 1.0 and 10.0. Foods consumed contribute to your stomach’s Average Food Quality. Consuming higher quality foods leads to better overall health and stamina. Hot foods have a higher quality than cold or reheated foods.
Average Food Quality
Your stomach’s Average Food Quality represents how well you are eating and is an average of the last few dozen things consumed.
Eating higher quality foods will result in a better Food Quality buff when at Fed status which can be seen in the upper left in the Status Bar. This buff improves health, stamina, health regeneration and stamina regeneration, so it is important to eat good food regularly to maintain a good Fed buff. Eating low quality food just to fill up will significantly reduce your buff.
Nourishment
Nourishment is how full your stomach is. The stomach has 1000 Nourishment Points in total. Each food provides a certain amount of nourishment. Higher quality foods provide more nourishment. There are three states of nourishment: Fed, Hungry, and Starving.
A Character loses 6 Food points per minute when moving and 2 points per minute when idle
Nourishment does not decrease when character isn’t logged in.
Fed
Well Fed is a buff received when total nourishment is above the hunger line (300 to 1000 points). The strength of this buff depends on the average overall food quality consumed. Consistently eating 6.0 quality food will result in a 6 quality Fed buff, for example. This increases health, stamina, health regeneration and stamina regeneration. Eating better food consistently will increase this buff over time.
Each stack of the buff gives 0.5% health and 2.5% stamina, and it can stack up to 10 times.
Hungry
Being hungry occurs when the nourishment level is below the hunger line, but the stomach is not totally empty. At this point the Well Fed buff is lost. Hunger occurs at 330/1000 nourishment.
Starving
Starving is a debuff that reduces health and stamina by 10% when the stomach is entirely empty. Starving does not affect Average Food Quality.
Digestibility
Foods are either “easy to digest” or “hard to digest”. Eating too many hard to digest foods can result in Gout. Hard to digest foods are rich red meat meals such as Knight’s Chuck. Easy to digest foods include poultry and fish dishes such as Codfish Filet.
Gout
Gout is a debuff that occurs after the consumption of too many hard to digest meals. This debuff reduces the quality of all foods eaten by 3.0 for several hours. To avoid this debuff, eat “hard to digest” meals sparingly. There is no warning for Gout, so keep track of how many hard to digest meals are consumed in a row.
How to Cook Food
Food can be cooked at the Herbalist's Workshop within inns. Inns can be found at guild provinces, and inside the walls of major locations on the link system. Some simple foods can be prepared at campfires.
Other Uses for Food
Cooked food fulfills needs in each location's Bastion which helps raise the Bastion's efficiency, and certain meals are required materials for upgrading Guardhouses. After food gets cold, it will eventually decay into Fertilizer, which is used to speed up the growth of crops. Bread can be disassembled into bread balls and used as a low quality fishing bait.
Herbalism and Alchemy
Alchemy is part of the Cooking and Herbalism craft. Alchemical elixirs, tinctures, brews and potions provide significant buffs when used correctly. When used incorrectly, their effects are very minor. Alchemy's main ingredients are various herbs, plants, and alcohols.
Alchemy is done at the Herbalist's Workshop, located inside of Inns.
Buff Slots and Dosage
Each alchemy item uses 1 of 3 specific buff slots, and each item's effect is minor until it is dosed correctly. All 3 buff slots may be used simultaneously. Using a second, different item that uses the same buff slot will overwrite the currently active buff. There is no "synergy" or relationship between buffs on different slots. They act independently.
The three slots are:
Tincture
Alcohol
Potion
"Dosing" is consuming a specific quantity of alchemy items one after another to achieve a long lasting, powerful buff. Failure to properly dose results in very low and insignificant buffs. Correct dosages can result in strong buffs which last around 6 hours. Discovering the correct dosage and which buff slot an item uses is a matter of trial and error in game.
Linked below is a full list of all current alchemical items, effects, buff slots, and optimal dosages.
Warning: This chart contains significant spoiler information about the system. If you enjoy discovery, do not click this link.
Alchemy Buff Chart
Trying to figure out how to get a specific effect? Try this chart on the right.
Ultimate Buff
Using this formula
Full Dose + (Full Dose - 1) = Ultimate Buff
boosts the maximum effect of a buff in any slot by a few percentage points for 1 hour. It is not common to do this, but it is possible and usually reserved for State of War because this is highly resource intensive for a relatively minor additional effect.
For example, a normal full dose of the Protection Tincture item results in 10% damage reduction. However, using the above formula, one can achieve an Ultimate Buff:
7 Protection tinctures + 6 protection Tinctures = 16% damage reduction for 1 hour.
Ultimate buffs only last 1 hour, after this, it will go back to the remaining maximum buff timer. In our example above, once the 16% damage reduction buff runs out after an hour, the player will still have 5 hours of the 10% damage reduction buff.
It is possible to use 2 different consumables that use the same buff slot (such as using a full dose of Mineral brew + A full dose minus 1 of Protection tincture). However, usually people stack the same item twice because the overall effect is higher.
For example: 7 Protection tinctures + 6 Protection tinctures = 16% damage reduction.
16% damage reduction tends to be more appealing than, for example:
7 Protection tinctures + 6 Mineral Brew= 10% damage reduction and 6% stamina regen for example.
The Ultimate Buff only applies to Potion and Tincture slots. Alcohol cannot be boosted in this way.
Toxicity
Even proper dosages of potions and tinctures result in a debuff called Toxicity. Therefore, it is best to consume your potions about 15 minutes before a battle begins when possible.
Recipes
Cooking and alchemy recipes may be bought from Food and Herb merchants in each city near Inns or Markets. Different cities have different recipes, so look around. Recipes can also be looted from humanoid enemies, chests, purchased at the Glory Vendor, or purchased on the player Market.
It is not possible to learn recipes by disassembling or consuming food/alchemy items as it is in other professions.
Also see:Crafting | Forestry and Farming | Food
