>so, I had been training in elemental lore to help with DC flares. I suspect I am crazy (I date back to when DC really rocked), and that I'd be better off changing these to necromancy lore. Any feedback?

While recently a NIR stated that training up elemental lores would be of benefit (no quantifier there,) old NIR statements, as well as PC testing suggests that elemental lores may be all together a waste, and if not, there is significant diminishing returns beyond 10 ranks of each.

I can't say I did enough experimentation myself to be 'statistically relevant' but I did notice a big difference between 0 ranks and 10 ranks in each...and it seemed to grow as I worked towards the goal. I haven't gone beyond that, but others have cited research that suggested it was not worth it, at least as compared to any of a dozen other skills you could be spending those points on. I think Virilneus did significant amounts of research on the topic...but I could be wrong. My memory sucks...especially with names...in GS or otherwise.

Short version...until WAY past cap, I suspect your points can be better used elsewhere...without a noticeable difference in DC effectiveness.

--Jurp

Nice link! And it makes me sad because that graph was made by my BFF from high school (Denil). He still plays sometimes, but not in 2014 really.

I'm not 100% sure how to interpret it, though, so I might shoot him an email and ask. Critical rank should not be continuous but discrete (but the analysis might use aggregate data that somehow gets crit ranks on a continuum).

Anyway, here's how I interpreted it here in a simplistic way.

Check when each line crosses the 6 crit rank threshold, see the required endroll seems in the neighborhood of 135 with lore and a bit over 150 without lore.

So let's call that the difference of 15 CS, and assume training between 0 and 20 ranks over 1x for the Sorcerer Base, which is exactly 20 ranks to get +15 CS, at a cost of 640 MTP. 10 ranks of fire lore costs 0/70. 40 ranks of elemental lore, 10 to each, is 0/280.

We only used the rank 6 threshold, but it was a factor of 2 more effect per training point to achieve a rank 6 instead of a rank 5 critical for each elemental flare.

So, you can use that information to decide to what extent the expenditure of points is worthwhile. These lores will more or less only affect DC, where as, in principle, a higher CS for sorcerer spells (and perhaps in some cases over training in ranks in general) benefits many spells besides DC. You also have the fact that with 15 more CS you can successfully ward (and get some mana back, hopefully) when lores won't be helping you. So it's sort of like you want to do both of these to make DC really killer (especially with the more diminishing returns of further 700s training for CS). DC is also mainly in its crits so, if you didn't hit it versus getting an endroll like +115, you still have to cast again anyway, I expect.

>Short version...until WAY past cap, I suspect your points can be better used elsewhere...without a noticeable difference in DC effectiveness.

That point seems not totally correct. It's clearly significantly more powerful. It's mainly a question of if you like DC that much. If you love DC, I'd say go for it! Personally I haven't, but I do have 40 ranks of picking locks and disarming traps...

'course, last time Kaldonis was using DC was on minotaur magi. I'd just curse them first, then DC them and they'd drop like a stack of bricks more often than not. Mana is hardly an issue for halflings not in Voln/GoS.

If you want to train for only some of the lores, do the lores with the earlier damage cycles first. Or the ones that bane creatures you are likely to encounter!

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>An officer of the Sorcerer Guild arrives and glances around. "Ah, there you are, Vathon!" he says in a slightly agitated tone. "I have come to formally declare that your membership privileges have been revoked."