Skyforge Alchemist Guide (by Kessel @SA)

Okay. Classified as support, alchemists are basically force multipliers in groups - they do okay damage on their own but their abilities can provide significant group damage boosts, enemy debuffs and a lot of healing/mitigation.

Basic attacks
Your left click is Acidic Solution and your right click is Combustible Solution. The basic idea is to stack one solution on the enemy, then detonate with the other solution.
Single-target: left click eight times, right click to detonate
AOE: right click five times, left click to detonate
Doing this nets you catalyst (your mana) to spend on heavy hitters.

Slot 1
You have a choice between Creeping Horror and Predatory Ecto, both of which do the same thing: summon oozes that sidle on over and explode on your target. The former costs less mana but does less damage; the latter costs more but has special effects in PVP. Damage to mana wise, the former is more efficient in PvE.
There's a trait which increases the damage on follow-up oozes after a summon, which is in your interest to keep up. That means your basic damage rotation will be left/right click combo -> summon two oozes for max bonus -> repeat.

Slot 2
PBAoE skill - you fly up and cover the area in chemicals. Same deal with the two choices: one costs less; the other costs more but does impulse damage without consuming a charge. You can trait for a 50% chance to get a second activation for free.

Slot 3
The catchall util slot. You have some very interesting choices here.
Janus Essence - coats the ground in goo, slowing enemies down and granting you extreme dash distance within the circle. You can trait it to deal AOE damage every time someone lands a crit within the circle.
Skipjack - you point your cursor where you want to go, and activate the skill to use your kit like a jetpack. You'll fly to your cursor location and slow enemies as you land. You can use it three times in a row before the cooldown kicks in. Can be traited to upgrade the slow to an immobilise. This skill is fiddly to use, but offers great crowd control and is a very good bailout skill for when someone is breathing down your neck.
Prot Membrane - you root yourself, spinning a wall of acid in front of your face. It reflects damage back to attackers. This skill is utter bullshit - it can reflect boss oneshot lasers and room-wide AOEs, allowing you to stand in place and ignore mechanics as other players flee to safety behind rocks or out of death zones. Can be traited to start its cooldown upon activation rather than end, or to upgrade its reflection from 100% to 180% of damage. Keep in mind that the damage component of an attack is reflected, but not its other effects - including things like knockback, boss attacks that poison you or set you on fire etc.
Some gas bomb I can't remember the name of - you throw it and it paralyses people. If you tap the key you get a delayed paralysis; if you hold it down you get an instant paralysis on detonation. Costs a hell of a lot of mana but is good for pissing people off in PvP.

Slot 4
Biotrap - you throw some flasks. One yanks people in, the other two deal damage. Use this in conjunction with your damage buffs for more damage for everyone.
Monster form - you turn into a punchfists monster with two skills - left click punches, right click charges at the enemy. Can be traited to extend duration when you kill something with it.
Massive Transformation - you get a transform, he gets a transform, everyone gets a transform! The cooldown is five minutes. C'est la vie

Slots 5 through 8 - These are fixed skills.
Prot Shield - it's a shield you can put on yourself or on allies. Can be traited to completely absorb the first hit (allowing you to soak oneshots) and recharge instantly if it blows up.
Stim Injector - makes someone do more damage.
Alch Terminal - weird but powerful skill. You tap to summon a terminal at your feet, or hold to summon a terminal at your target's feet. Teammates who use the terminal (use is instant) gain four seconds of invuln. Can be traited to add immunity to CC, and to increase its use range. Nobody in your team will understand what the terminal does so don't hold out hope that people will use it.
Energy Shower - damage boost for you and people near you. Can be traited to offer increased movespeed, immunity to slows and free dashes for its nine-second duration. Tell your team to look out for the yellow piss spray coming out your ass. Everyone will do sick crits and love you.

Ultimate
You soar through the air, spraying everything below you with healing piss. Massive cooldown, but can unfuck a fight that is going badly. Can be traited to give you damage mitigation after it ends.

The tutorial doesn't do a good job of showing you what the alch is capable of, but the promo missions do. If you get a promo mission for alch, try it out - you might like it.

-Kessel @ Something Awful