Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Willow's Guide to Pottermore Potions: Ingredients

Willow's Guide to Pottermore Potions

My Pottermore username is WitchWillow140, so I take that to mean I'm a witch named Willow (how very Buffy). And this is my potion brewing guide, complete with a cost and time analysis for potion brewing. It turned out quite a bit longer than I'd originally envisioned. I don't intend anyone to read it in its entirety, but hopefully if you have questions or are experiencing some issue or other, you can find the necessary answer. If you find any mistakes, or things that have been changed, let me know.

This guide is broken into the following sections:
1. The Basics - If you've never brewed a potion, read here what it's all about.
2. The Ingredients - Where to find all the ingredients used in the 6 potions currently available.
3. General Tips - Advice that could be useful on any or all of the potions.
4. Potions Walkthrough - What you need to know to get you through the brewing of each potion.
5. Potions Cost/Benefit Analysis - OK, so which potions should you brew? I do a simple mathematical analysis to determine which potions give you the most bang for your buck--or for your time.
6. Video Tutorials - I've started doing screen captures of my potion brewing, narrating with helpful tips. If you want to see rather than just read, check these out.

The Ingredients
Note: I am in the process of updating for the new chapters added for Chamber of Secrets.

Many of the potion ingredients can be found while exploring the Philosopher's Stone chapters. Once one is used to brew a potion, it will respawn in the scene where it was originally found (though you only get a House Point for finding it the first time). That means these ingredients are FREE! Don't bother buying these at Diagon Alley. However, all potions call for at least one ingredient that must be bought at the Apothecary (there are no freebie potions). Here are the details on how to get each ingredient.

Found in chapter: (If you've been in Pottermore, you'll know what I mean when I mention the three "layers" of each scene.)

Bezoar
Used in Antidote to Common Poisons
Philosopher's Stone, Chapter 17, Moment 2 (The Hospital Wing)
Zoom in to the third layer. It's in the cabinet.

Dried Billywig Stings
Used in Wideye or Awakening Potion
Philosopher's Stone, Chapter 8, Moment 3 (Hagrid's Wooden House)
It's the jar in the rightmost window.

Horklump Juice
Used in Herbicide
Chamber of Secrets, Chapter 3, Moment 2 (The Weasley's)
Zoom in all the way. It's in the garden.

Horned Slugs
Used in Cure for Boils
Philosopher's Stone, Chapter 10, Moment 3 (The Mountain Troll)
Zoom in to the second layer. Three sinks are on the left wall, and if you hover your cursor over the front edge of the sink closest to the back wall, the slug will start to climb out. This is the trickiest ingredient to find.

Mistletoe Berries
Used in Antidote to Common Poisons, Forgetfulness Potion
Philosopher's Stone, Chapter 12, Moment 2 (Christmas at Hogwarts)
Zoom in to the third layer, it's in the center on the wall.

Wolfsbane
Used in Wideye or Awakening Potion
Actually found in two locations:

Philosopher's Stone, Chapter 8, Moment 3 (Hagrid's Wooden House)
It's on the ground at the front corner of the house.

Philosopher's Stone, Chapter 15, Moment 2 (Into the Forbidden Forest)
Zoom in to the second layer, you'll see it left of center.

Bought in Apothecary:

Flobberworm Mucus
Used in Herbicide, Sleeping Draught
1 Galleon for 8 uses

Lavender
Used in Sleeping Draught
1 Galleon for 22 uses

Lethe River Water
Used in Forgetfulness Potion
4 Galleons for 16 uses

Porcupine Quills
Used in Cure for Boils
2 Galleons for 36 uses

Snake Fangs
Used in Cure for Boils and Wideye or Awakening Potion
2 Galleons for 36 uses

Spines of Lionfish
Used in Herbicide
2 Galleons for 16 uses

Unicorn Horn
Used in Antidote to Common Poisons
21 Galleons for 55 uses
This one's the most expensive (though in terms of cost per number of uses, it's not far from Horklump Juice).

Valerian Sprigs
Used in Sleeping Draught and Forgetfulness Potion
1 Galleon for 19 uses

Other:
Standard Ingredient
Used in Antidote to Common Poisons, Forgetfulness Potion, Herbicide, Sleeping Draught, and Wideye or Awakening Potion.
You never really know what this is, though it looks like some form of fluffy plant matter. You don't need to find or buy it; it just shows up on your table if it's required.

Ingredient Quantities
Note that each time a potion is brewed that calls for a given ingredient, one "use" of that ingredient will be removed from your ingredient stocks, regardless of however many measures of that ingredient are called for in the recipe. In your Ingredients tab, you can see all your ingredients with numbers showing the remaining quantities. When you brew a potion using one of the ingredients, that number will decrease by 1 even if, for instance, you actually used 6 Snake Fangs.

10 comments:

Evangeline said...

Very useful. Thanks!

Eleni said...

You're welcome! Glad it helped.

Drastic said...

Much easier than wasting time clicking on the books. Thanks for the info

Dustchaser49

Eleni said...

Thanks! Hope it helps :)

Anonymous said...

There are also dried nettles hanging from the corner of Hagrid's house in scene 8 if that's of any use. i only just started playing so i haven't any clue haha

Eleni said...

Right, there are several ingredients found in the Pottermore chapters that I didn't list here, because they're not used in any potions...for now. I would imagine that once Chamber of Secrets comes out, we'll get a "second-year" potion book with new potions to brew, and then we may be able to use some of the ingredients that are for now just sitting in our ingredients cupboard. I'll have to update this guide whenever that happens :)

rainfloo162 said...

This is excellent. (: A small note though: I believe Mistletoe Berries are found in Chapter 12, not Chapter 10.

Eleni said...

Oh, thanks for catching that error! Haha, if it were moment 2 of Chapter 10, that would put Christmas before Halloween, and we know that can't be right :)

Anonymous said...

ShadowMidnight76

Wonderful guide, thanks!!

dffghjkl said...

I love your guide!
Will you be updating it for the new CoS ingredients?