>Ok, so I've had my level + 20 in the sorcerer circle forever and I got all the spells in the minor circles I care about some time ago. At the moment I have >93 Sorcerer spells, 31 Minor Spirit spells, and 44 Minor Elemental.

>For CS, am I better off getting Minor Elemental spells until I have 73 ranks or should I be dumping all the TPs for spells into the sorcerer circle for now?

>Starchitin

Your distribution is very close to maximizing CS right now. The only improvement would be to move one MnE rank to the sorcerer circle and gain +1 CS.

1st: Sorcerer ranks to level + 21 (the 21st rank rounds up from .5 to 1)
2nd: MnE ranks to 2/3rds level
3rd: Sorcerer ranks to level + 60
4th: MnE to 73 ranks


Mark

<You do realize you will continue to see benefits to both CS and DS by training in Minor Spirit, yes? Minor Elemental training will see more(up to 2/3rds level), but almost completely neglecting Minor Spirit seems odd to me.>

I'll eventually get more ranks in the Minor Spirit circle, but that will likely be post cap.

For DS, 102 and 120 only add a combined .8 DS per rank while the Sorcerer circle gives 1 DS per rank due to 712. So if I was having problems there I'd be better off getting more ranks in the Sorcerer circle.

With CS, the Sorcerer circle gives the most benefit up to a certain point due to it being our professional circle. Once diminishing returns set in on the Sorcerer circle, the Minor Elemental circle starts providing more CS per rank for a while due to the benefits of 425. Once both of those circles have gotten to certain points, it finally becomes beneficial to start picking up ranks in the Minor Spirit circle for the purpose of CS.

Since I'm only about 2.3X in Spell Research, it'll be a while before I get MnE up to 2/3 level while also maintaining the Sorcerer circle at level+21. It'll also likely be somewhere near or post-cap that I manage to get the Sorcerer circle to level+60... so since neither 135 or 140 are important to me, I'm getting ahead by focusing on the other circles til then.

<Your distribution is very close to maximizing CS right now. The only improvement would be to move one MnE rank to the sorcerer circle and gain +1 CS.>

Thanks, I knew where I needed to end up. The best path to take to get there was eluding me though.

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.

<The bonuses from 712 are capped at level so unless I did my math incorrectly(always possible), at this point Sorcerer Circle overtraining gives you zero bonus from that spell.>

That is true, my sleep deprived brain over-looked that detail. Regardless, DS hasn't been a problem for me since I was in my 30s. Since then all my deaths have either come from maneuvers, ranged attacks, or swarms. In all these cases a sorcerer's best defense is being able to kill and/or disable them as fast as possible.

Unless I want to hunt exclusively with 720 (which one of the critters I'm hunting now is immune to), I need to get my warding margin as high as possible to make sure I get the maximum effect from them. This also allows me average less mana per kill, which is important when I'm in situations where I need to use 711, 719, 715, 417, or any other attack spell with a relatively high mana cost (which is most critters I find myself in front of anymore). I can always spend 33-35 mana to kill near anything with 711 and an occasional blast of 702, but why should I limit myself to a single hunting tactic when there are many others that require less mana?

Even if I find myself in a hunting ground where focused 710 is the best spell to use again, I'll still want a high enough CS to ensure 706 stuns them long enough or 708 blows off their leg so they can't run.

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.