Welcome to the Top 5 Potions list for Baldur’s Gate 3. Here we will list five of the most powerful potions in BG3, along with the ingredients needed to craft them.
Potions are consumable items that either heal your character or give them a buff of some kind. They can be consumed in or out of combat, and drinking them uses up a Bonus Action which means you can still attack or cast most spells on the same turn that you drink the potion.
Please note that some of the potions in this list are Elixirs. This is important because you can only have one Elixir active at a time per character – drinking another one will replace the effects of the first one! This is a balancing measure that stops you from abusing potions to become too strong, since some of the effects you can get from potions are really powerful.
Without further delay, let’s get into the top five potions!
5 – Healing Potions
The purpose of Healing Potions is self-explanatory. There are several different strengths of healing potions in the game, and you’ll begin encountering the stronger ones as you progress to higher level areas. These are great for keeping a party member alive in combat, and mean you don’t just have to rely on spellcasters with healing spells (like Cleric and Druid).
You can also throw a healing potion at an ally to give them the effect of the potion, however this will use a normal Action rather than a Bonus Action.
You can also use them outside of combat to make sure everyone is at full health ready for the next fight, however if your party has taken a lot of damage then it’s much more efficient to just use a short or long rest to heal rather than spending potions or spell slots.
Here is what you need to craft some of the Healing Potion variants:
Potion of Healing
This is the basic version of the healing potion. It heals 3-10 HP per potion.
To craft it you’ll need to combine:
- Any Suspension (see the bottom of this page for info on making suspensions)
- Salts of Rogue Morsel
- Create this by combining 3 Rogue’s Morsels
Potion of Greater Healing
An upgraded version, the Potion of Greater Healing will heal 5-20 HP per potion.
To craft it you’ll need:
- Ashes of Balsam
- Create this by combining 3 Balsam
- Any Salt (see the bottom of the page for info on making salts)
Potion of Superior Healing
The Superior Healing Potion will heal you for 16-40 HP per potion.
To craft it you’ll need to combine:
- Salts of Musk Creeper
- Create this by combining 3 Yellow Musk Creeper Petals
- Any Suspension
Potion of Supreme Healing
The strongest variant of healing potions, the Supreme Healing Potion will heal you for 30-60 HP per potion. These potions are rare but you get a lot of HP back. Let’s take the BG3 Barbarian Build, if you are heavily damaged this will almost take you back to full health if you are lucky and gives your character a standing chance against tough bosses.
To craft it you’ll need:
- Sublimate of Ki-Rin Hair
- Create this by combining 3 Ki-Rin Hairs
- Any Ashes
4 – Elixir of Universal Resistance
Thick as molten iron with a taste to match. Coats you from your throat to your fingertips.
The Elixir of Universal Resistance gives the drinker a 50% resistance to all damage for 10 turns, making it an extremely strong defensive potion for tough fights. No matter how tanky or evasive your party is in BG3, there are some enemies in the game who are still going to hit you really hard. This potion is made for such encounters. If you have someone in your party performing a tank role (Example: Barbarian, Druid, Paladin, Fighter) taunting enemies or otherwise drawing a lot of attention to themselves, then keep a supply of these potions on them.
Additionally, if you think your more squishy Rogue Build, Sorcerer Build or Necromancer Build need some extra resistance to stay alive, then it is also a wise move to have the Elixir of Universal Resistance ready.
To craft these, you need to combine:
- Vitriol of Divine Miasma
- Combine 3 Divine Miasma to make these
- Any Sublimate (see the bottom of the page for info on making Sublimates)
3 – Elixir of Guileful Movement
Though textured like half-frozen honey, this liquid flows as effortlessly as mercury.
The Elixir of Guileful Movement gives the drinker the Freedom of Movement condition until their next Long Rest in Baldur’s Gate 3. This basically means that you cannot be slowed down by difficult terrain (but you’ll still receive any damage associated with it, such as from Spike Growth!). You also cannot be slowed down by spells, and you’ll be immune to the Paralysed and Restrained conditions.
This makes it much easier for you to stay one step ahead of your enemies, and they’ll have a much harder time pinning your character down. It’s absolutely a good idea to keep at least a small supply of these potions handy – you never know when you might need them.
The Elixir of Guileful Movement is perfect for melee characters like the Barbarian Build, Fighter Build, or the Paladin Build in BG3. Stealthy characters like the Rogue class can also make good use of this, but they often get immunity at higher levels to movement-impairing effects.
To craft this Elixir, you’ll need:
- Suspension of Ochre Jelly
- Combine 3 Ochre Jelly to create this
- Any Sublimate
2 – Elixir of Bloodlust
Those willing to immerse themselves in savagery often reap a blood-red reward.
The Elixir of Bloodlust is a great potion for your most damage-oriented characters to use. As with most elixirs in BG3, it will last until your next Long Rest. This elixir will give the drinker bloodlust whenever they kill an enemy, granting them 5 THP and an extra Action on the same turn. This works especially well on melee damage dealers like the Fighter and the Barbarian, but it can also work with spellcasters, potentially allowing you to recast an active Concentration spell like Call Lightning an additional time on your turn.
To craft the Elixir of Bloodlust, you need:
- Ashes of Worg Fang
- Created by combining 3 Worg Fangs
- Any Salt
1 – Potion of Speed
This solution ripples and splashes of its own accord, almost like it’s trying to escape the bottle.
The Potion of Speed gives the drinker the Hastened condition for 3 turns. This has the same effect as the Haste spell, giving you doubled Movement Speed, +2 to Armour Class, Advantage on Dexterity Saving Throws, and most importantly an extra Action. The downside is that when the effect expires, the drinker will become Lethargic for 1 turn, preventing them from moving or taking Actions for that turn.
The Potion of Speed can also be thrown – doing this will give the same Hastened buff to all creatures within a 1 metre radius of where the bottle lands. This means it’s possible to buff multiple party members with one potion, although that is a little risky as it will leave them vulnerable to AOE attacks due to being stacked together so tightly, and also you will have several Lethargic characters 3 turns later.
While the Lethargic debuff is something to be wary of, the Hastened buff is just so good that this potion has to rank #1 on this top 5 potions list for BG3, taking the place as the best potion in Baldur’s Gate 3.
Every BG3 Character Build should have one or two Potion of Speed in their inventory. During our playthrough, we most often used the Potion of Speed on our Cleric Build to support our party members and cast additional summons. A Rogue or Ranger can also become very powerful if they get additional turns per round, though this counts for almost all classes anyway.
To craft the Potion of Speed, you’ll need to combine:
- Ashes of Hyena Ear
- create by combining 3 Hyena Ears
- Any Salt
Note that you can find quite a large supply of Hyena Ears in the northern areas of the Wilderness (Act 1) near the Risen Road. Defeat the Hyenas and Gnolls in the area and loot the Hyena Ears from them.
How Alchemy Works in Baldur’s Gate 3
In this section, we’ll go over the basics of Alchemy in BG3, so that you know how to craft the items on this Top 5 Potions list.
You’ll have noticed terms like Salts, Suspensions and Sublimates above. Collectively, these are called Extractions. Every Alchemy ingredient in BG3 must be made into an Extraction before it can be used for making potions. To create an Extraction, combine three of the same ingredients together.
Every potion recipe in Baldur’s Gate 3 has two components:
- A specific extraction – must be an extraction of an exact ingredient
- A generic extraction – must be a particular type of extraction (e.g any Salt), but the exact ingredient does not matter
To help further explain this, below are all of the types of extractions along with the ingredients that will make that type of extraction when you combine three of the ingredients together:
- Sublimate
- Autumn Crocus
- Belladonna
- Bloodstained Hook
- Ki-Rin Hair
- Poison Spores
- Tongue of Madness
- Wispweed
- Salt
- Chasm Creeper
- Mugwort
- Rogue’s Morsel
- Tree Bark
- Viridian Crystal
- Essence
- Acorn Truffle
- Crystalline Lens
- Mightlight
- Swarming Toadstool
- Sylvan Stone
- Timmask Spores
- Ashes
- Balsam
- Daggerroot
- Dragon Egg Mushroom
- Fire Amber
- Hyena Ear
- Worg Fang
- Vitriol
- Bonecap
- Lolth’s Candle
- Oleander
- Shadowroot Sac
- Weavemoss
- Suspension
- Bullywug Trumpet
- Laculite
- Mergrass
- Muddy Goo
- Ochre Jelly Slime
- Night Orchid
- Spider Silk
Note that even if you haven’t learned the recipe for a specific Extraction type yet, you can still create it by right clicking the ingredient in your Inventory and clicking Extract, as seen below. This will work as long as you have at least three of them in the same character’s Inventory or Alchemy Pouch.
I hope you liked this Top 5 Potions List for BG3. Enjoy using the potions!
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