I've spent a month now in the new experience system with with the new training methods (last time I played was back in 2004) and I'm wondering what methods people have found favorable for training these.

SCOUTING:
I use hunt when out hunting, but it seems to only do well in populated areas (how many things you can find around you). If there are others around and I find a lot of things when I hunt, this gets me to ~20/34. If there aren't and it's just things enclosing on my spot, I end up with about ~6/34. If I'm not mistaken, this skill SHOULD (theoretically) scale with critter found, so that it's possible to learn at any level provided the 'training' skill of the critter is at or above the scouting rank. I think there's a timer on use of the ability, but I don't know if the timer is per room or global for the skill.

I still find that I can train scouting relatively easy by running trails. I have a simple scipt that just loops a trail and back that I run while checking email, etc that gets me to mind-locked in about 20-30 minutes. I've heard that hard trails don't train any less than easy trails, so I just use easy ones for now as they're faster. I don't know how long this will continue to be viable though (I'm at 125 scouting and it's defintelly slowed down from what it was at 80).

Anyone have advice on running trails or hunting that I might be missing?

CLIMBING:
This has been a royal pain to train since returning and I've only gotten about 7 ranks. I don't find climb-practice to work at all, but that may just because I seem to be at a range (currently 72) where stairs/ladders, trees are far too easy and city walls/cliffs are too hard to make it over. The only way I can train this right now is to run in circles around a city climbing stairs and ladders in every direction, while trying and failing to climb walls in between. When I try climb practice, it generally stops early due to it being too easy or too hard. In the rare case where it completes, I found I spent 3 minutes and got to 1/34 or 2/34 - neither of which seem to be worth the wait.

Does climbing get better to train once I can actually start to climb walls? Anyone have good methods for training climbing from 70 to 100?

Climbing isn't one my survivals that I train, but scouting is.

Truth is that my scouting never moves much past 2/34 or 3/34 just typing HUNT about once every 90 seconds, but with how long I have to spend training weapons in combat it has never seemed a problem.

Scouting: 489 96% dabbling (1/34)

________________________________________

You manage to collect a pile of coin.
Roundtime: 30 sec.
R> look coin

The perfectly arranged pile of coin echoes a delicate balance that preserves its natural essence.

>Does 90 seconds seem to be the timer on scouting?

75 seconds is the timer on Hunt.

Thanks for the info SugarSnout.

Hanryu, I think I am doing it wrong, which is why I'm asking. :)

And yes, I'm currently down in Shard. I've tried climbing the walls in town, mainly just up and down the stairs/ladders to the walls and not the walls themselves. I can only get to thoughtful after about 5 minutes of going in a circle around the city. I'm probably going to be headed for Ratha/Aesry soon, but I'll try Talus Trail.

I do have SPC, but I'm not sure how much of a boost I can give myself with 90 primary magic (I think I can cast at about 25-30).

Is it better to just climb a lot of things normally or to climb a smaller few with climb practice? I've so far found lots of normal climbing better, but I'm quite sure I'm "doing it wrong". :P

And yes, sorry for all the thread-spam of late. I don't normally post this much, but I've been trying to get resituated a bit after 6 years since the last time I was in Elanthia.

I know other will argue, but I've never run into a situation where climb practice was a good use of time. Then again I've spent most of my time in Shard which has awesome collections of 5 to 30 climbs near each other, so I know I'm spoiled. I use 45 seconds as the timer between learning on a particular climb, though I think it might be shorter than that. Typically (climbing run, collect, anatomy chart)x3 takes about 4 minutes and I'm locked or close enough to it from clear.

P.S. You're past the cap on shard city walls.

~Hunter Hanryu
http://drplat.com/CombatEquipmentCompendium.xls
http://tinyurl.com/HanryuTanning

Thanks for the info Hanryu.

I had no idea the climbing timer was so short. Since it's per climb (once each way from what I've heard), I figured the timer on each climb was much longer.

What do you mean that I'm past the cap on Shard walls? (I could learn a tiny bit from climbing up to the ramparts and some from trying to climb over, but I was only ever to go over the south wall (on the way out), but never in there, or in or out anywhere else.)

I can climb the stairs and ladders up to the walls easily, so I understand how I'm above the skill level of these climbs. However, I can only climb out over the rampart on the south wall (not east, north, or west) and I can't climb in over any of the walls (and this is with Spider Climb at 20 mana). Am I above the learning cap even though I'm below the skill cap to succeed? I'm having a tough time finding climbs that aren't too easy that I can still achieve, as I've assumed this is the best way to learn. Am I better just to try the hardest climb that I can even attempt, even though I'll definitelly fail?