Hello again! I'm now fairly comfortable with my training path aside from Lore. Please share your thoughts and experiences with how to map out lore training.

I know there are variances depending on goals and training so here's what I'm thinking personally...please comment if necessary:

1) overall 1x lore training for life?
2) chrisms are easy to get so I don't care about making 100% chrisms any time soon
3) my main goal is maximizing the benefit of my lores with priority to hunting power/efficiency - there are also some useful spell buffs that would be nice eventually

I'm currently level 25 with 1x Lore all in Religion. I am pure CS (46 ranks of cleric spells) and hunting with Bane exclusively. I have no idea when I will need to start using 312/317 so I'm not sure how/when my Religion lore will be important for those.

Thanks in advance!

Looks like my last use of FixSkills was in the third quarter of 2016, probably after some spells came out and Lore updates happened and suchlike.

At 49th level, I wanted to ensure I had certain capabilities, so I went with:
Minor Spiritual...| 30
Major Spiritual...| 40
Cleric............| 40

and

Spiritual Lore - Blessings....| 15
Spiritual Lore - Religion.....| 25
Spiritual Lore - Summoning....| 25

I realize that this is at double your level, but that should give you some idea of where I'm headed.

On the cleric which is closest to your training, after 30 religion I added 10 blessing to allow intercession gems to be made. If no utility bonuses are desired I'd go to 51 religion before branching out.

312 benefits quite a lot from the sort of lore you have, but the diminishing returns are strong and I reckon religion is of little use beyond about 50 ranks.
317 has a pretty small lore benefit and I wouldn't train lore for it
335 has a breakpoint at 51 lore, so if going for 50ish, get 51.

If there's some utility effect you like the look of, you won't hurt your combat build by going for it now, if there isn't I'd stay with religion to 51.

>Not sure it's pertinent but at 25 I have 204, 118, 346. Aiming for 120, then 220, then 130 I think...while maintaining +21 cleric.

I tend to go 107/204, then 213 for foraging/picking up bodies I run across, and then 120, then 225. It doesn't matter a whole lot compared to the defense 120 gives, but you start wasting CS if you go over 2/3rds level in the other circles. Foraging is pretty good bounty points at low level if you have the patience for it. You'd probably get triple the points on average from a forage compared to a critter task at your level.

a different view:

Crazy as it sounds, Amminar was 2x lores for most of his life, until level 91 or so. (Stopped at 66 blessing, 60 religion, 60 summoning.) Maybe less in early years when TPs were scarce or neat spells were within reach, but always more than 1x. If you don't train Spell Aim, this is very feasible. (2x SA is 21 PTP equivalent per level, whereas a second rank of lore is 24 PTP equivalent.)

I also think training level+21 cleric is highly overrated. If your secondary circles are below 2/3 your level, you're effectively getting +0.5 CS for each rank above level, compared to training in secondary circles. (.75 per rank vs .22 per rank.) Even if you're already at 2/3 level in secondary circles, it's a LOT of TPs for just +14 CS (compare to level+2).

Amminar prioritized getting fun/useful spells when he was younger, then fell back into level+2 cleric and level*(2/3)+1 major and minor for the rest of his life (currently 95). Have never had a problem uphunting 5 or 6 levels, and there's always 212 if you need to push down a tough critter's TD.

I always found lores to be very worthwhile. Blessing has a number of defensive effects, also good for manna bread and eventually 340 and 350. Summoning is important for 240, also helps with 212, 335, and also some fun things like 106 or 125.

Since Religion mostly helps 312 and 335...can you give me some idea when I might be using those spells regularly to replace 302? If I boost those spells but don't use them yet the TPs are probably better off in Blessings for the time being.

You'll never really use 335 other than for having fun in a crowd. You should expect to use 302 until you have enough mana to complete a hunt using 317 or 312 as an opener (and usually 302 after that until dead). For me, this coincided with being able to cast 340, which makes using that much mana worth it.

I hate foraging and actually dropped first aid altogether before I hit level 20. It's very boring and with 1x First Aid I was still quite bad at it. It seems that the CS penalty for getting 120 at 26 instead of waiting until 30 is only about -1 and it goes away in a few levels anyways so I won't worry about it. 120 is too good and I am even skipping other training for 1 level to get it early then I'll catch up before going up the 200s.

First aid has nothing to do with foraging. You want survival. Amminar has mostly 1x-ed that for life (and is currently 1x), mainly for RP reasons, but it has made these bounties a breeze. I wouldn't ever pass these up as a cleric or empath with 213.

Skinning uses both First Aid and Survival, and those bounties have always sucked, even though 1x in both. I skip them.

@Amminar - thanks for the reply. I thought a lot about +21 cleric today and ran some numbers...and basically I have to give up +10 CS if I give up +21 cleric spells. Yes, I get more utility spells earlier but when I hunt now it's really just spam 302 and nothing else. At this point, the +10 is 10% increase warding chance because there is very little that I hunt where I am more than 90% chance to hit unless I am under-hunting for a bounty. Maybe down the road the gap between CS/TD becomes large enough that the 10% isn't a huge difference, but right now I think it is a big deal. I will get the spells I'm missing eventually and being a better hunt will get me there quicker/easier.

Now, the thing about +21 is that it has me at like 2.8x spell training and I think I could cut that a bit if I went to something like 332, 220, 120 at level 30 but again, there's still the +10 CS loss to gain spells and 6 x 32 MTPs (granted that would be me points for more Lores, but I just don't find Lores THAT appealing, especially considering how much of them you need to really make a difference).

Btw thanks for the info about 302/312/317/335 usage. I actually tried using 312 (6s charge) on some zombies today (I am a few levels above them and using Bane, so 302 isn't THAT efficient) but I still think 302 was better. I guess the Zombies can die to criticals so that definitely swings it in 302's favor (got quite a few 1 or 2 shots with it) but against non-corporeal with no crits maybe 312 is starting to get decent. I was doing 200+ damage with it on a decent roll, but usually still needed an extra 302 to finish the deal.

Thank you both for correcting me on the FA/Foraging training - I was thinking of skinning. Two tasks that I found difficult and boring!

@Rathboner

I am 1x perception but 0x FA 0x Surival.

I am converted to IVAS - not sure if that's a common or rare choice but I did choose it for RP reasons and the fact that I felt like hunting living more than undead.

In the end, I am still not really convinced that I need to do more than 1x Lore. Again it's just such a steep climb to get the really good stuff and 1x in Religion has been enough for hunting. The question is whether I stop at 30 and get 10 in Blessings or go all the way to 51 Religion before branching out. Perhaps it's simply better to focus on Religion for now and down the road I can use my FIXSTATS to get a bunch of Lore at once if I decide to change course a bit and maybe note do the +21 thing for the +10 CS.

Thank you both for your opinions and all the information - very helpful.

PS: @Rathboner: I'd love to hear you thoughts on what Amminar said regarding +21 being highly overrated.

Finally, I'll leave my Character Sheet info here in case there's something worth pointing out. When I hit Level 26 in a minute I'm going to train to 120 and then catch up in the other stuff before starting after the Major Spiritual circle.

Name: Tsalinx Race: Dark Elf Profession: Cleric (Post name shown as: Soul Keeper)
Level: 25 Gender: Male Age: 500

Experience:
Experience: 781,084 Next level at: 781,500 exp.
Exp. until next lvl: 416
Fame: 1,385,433 Deeds: 9 Deaths this level: 0
Your mind is completely saturated.

Wealth:
Silvers: 7,037 coins

Skills:
Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Armor Use..........................| 40 8
Physical Fitness...................| 111 27
Arcane Symbols.....................| 35 7
Magic Item Use.....................| 90 20
Harness Power......................| 152 52
Spirit Mana Control................| 105 25
Spiritual Lore - Religion..........| 111 27
Perception.........................| 111 27
Climbing...........................| 40 8
Swimming...........................| 40 8

Spell Lists
Major Spiritual....................| 4

Spell Lists
Minor Spiritual....................| 18

Spell Lists
Cleric.............................| 46
Training Points: 43 Phy 0 Mnt (772 Phy converted to Mnt)
(Use SKILLS BASE to display unmodified ranks and goals)

159 days remain until the annual FIXSKILLS is to be granted, on 05/20/2018.

Your 30 day migration period will begin when you choose to degrade a skill.

Further information can be found in the FAQs.

Spell Ranks:
Minor Spiritual :18
Major Spiritual :4
Cleric Base :46

Stats: Normal (Bonus) ... Enhanced (Bonus)
Strength (STR): 78 (14) ... 78 (14)
Constitution (CON): 73 (6) ... 73 (6)
Dexterity (DEX): 58 (14) ... 64 (17)
Agility (AGL): 73 (16) ... 73 (16)
Discipline (DIS): 78 (4) ... 78 (4)
Aura (AUR): 85 (27) ... 85 (27)
Logic (LOG): 83 (16) ... 83 (16)
Intuition (INT): 93 (26) ... 93 (26)
Wisdom (WIS): 92 (26) ... 92 (26)
Influence (INF): 42 (-9) ... 42 (-9)

<At this point, the +10 is 10% increase warding chance because there is very little that I hunt where I am more than 90% chance to hit unless I am under-hunting for a bounty. Maybe down the road the gap between CS/TD becomes large enough that the 10% isn't a huge difference, but right now I think it is a big deal.>

It's prolly not as big a deal in most towns where you can be picky about what you hunt until your 40s or 50s, but this is precisely why I trained both my empath and cleric in Spell Aim (I brought them both up in River's Rest). Bolt spells might not be everyone's cup of tea, but there are hunting areas where they're superior to any CS spell even if you don't train in the appropriate lores (Fire Spirit in any hunting ground with trolls, for example).

Specializing will mean you'll have a cakewalk when in places with critters susceptible to what you train for, but training to take advantage of your full arsenal will mean you'll rarely have to avoid a hunting ground all together.

Starchitin

A severed gnomish hand crawls in on its fingertips and makes a rude gesture before quickly decaying and rotting into dust. A gust of wind quickly scatters the dust.