Cooking and Food Buffs

What are some of the better food buffs in the game, ideally among those available a little earlier on than other? I've been cooking Venison Surprise and Wolf Surprise using Obsidian Stag and Wolf meat from the butchering station.

Are there any benefits to the Cooking skill other than making food buffs?

 

Currently the only benefit in raising cooking skill is increasing the chance for an exceptional crafting. 90% of all cooked foods only yeild 100 crafting xp to make, and then 500 xp for exceptionals - however the cooking stations have never been observed to show a higher value than 28% chance of exceptional regardless of level of cooking, though this has only been confirmed by someone with lvl 131 cooking, two epic jones rings, and the cooking buff for an effective cooking level of 158.


There was talks of adding exceptional versions of foods that could be crafted due to that exceptional chance that will have better than standard effects. If this is still a plan, I do not know, but it does seem that the recent change to butchering indicates that the cooking skills are potentially going to get some more love this year.

 

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...ent-food-buffs-and-the-channel-system.165326/

 

Possibly not up to date, but should be pretty close.

 

As far as the best combinations of foods, that entirely depends on what you are trying to accomplish as the food buffs have a huge variety of buffs as it is, and the 6 points of food buffs available offer a lot of flexibility.


While you can buy higher tier food for very cheap to supplement what you want to focus on cooking, here are some of my favorite combos though, that are very accessible for lower level chefs:

• Tank Special
  • Dragon Stew (3 points) [mid tier food] / Bear Steak and Potatoes (3 points) [low tier food]
  • Bark Bread (1 point)
  • Drach Bock Beer (1 point)
  • Fish Sticks (1 point)

• Archer Special
  • Wolf Surprise (3 points)
  • Spider Soup (1 point)
  • Spider Legs and Garlic Butter (1 point)
  • Darkstarr Smoked Duck (1 point)

• Mage Special
  • Baked Salmon (3 points) / Squirrel Stew (2 points) & Sugar Cookie (1 point)
  • Edelmann Beer (1 point) / Paladis White Wine (1 point - Once it gets fixed next release)
  • Sautéed Bass (1 point)
    
  • Piece of Caramelized Onion Quiche (1 point)

This then has some variants:

• Fire Mage Special
  • Grilled Ammonite (3 points)
  • Anomalocaris Surprise (1 point)
  • Sautéed Bass (1 point)
    
  • Piece of Caramelized Onion Quiche (1 point)

• Air Mage Special
  • Tuna Steak (2 points)
  • Sugar Cookie (1 point)
  • Edelmann Beer (1 point) / Paladis White Wine (1 point - Once it gets fixed next release)
  • Sautéed Bass (1 point)
    
  • Piece of Caramelized Onion Quiche (1 point)

There's a variation appropriate for every mage build - while, currently, fire mages are the only ones who benefit from rare high-tier foods.