Same Wand and Apprentice skills

[csutorasa]

It seems that using the same Wand and Apprentice skills is punished. You get +3 skill cap for the skill of the Wand, but -1 for the opposite skills (e.g. for Water Wand, Fire and Earth). This often makes them capped to 0, so they cannot perform basic tasks of that type.

On the other hand, having a synergy skill (e.g. for Water Wand, Dark or Air) you get no -1 skills, but +2 skills for both Wand and Apprentice skills, and if you have Attuned to skill relics, you get get the remaining +1 skill cap. This often allows you to get another level 3-5 skill, so mages can perform all basic tasks and all tasks in 2 types, as tasks now require maximum level 4 skills.

I have tried to get use of that +1 skill cap, by using the same Wand, Apprentice and Relic. It seems there is a level 8 skill cap. This mage should be at level 9 skill cap for water otherwise with 1 base stat + 2 Water Wand I + 1 Water Wand II + 1 Water Wand III + 3 Water Apprentice + 1 Attuned to Water Relic.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3281619027

I believe level 8 is not worth it for now, let alone trying to push further. You get all combat spells at skill level 7. The benefits are having a little bit faster work rate for 2-4 tasks and +20% in teaching speed. Overall, it is just a ~9% bump (220% to 240%) in a small subset of tasks per level, and these effects seem to have a diminishing return.

I like the Apprentice update, but I will stick to a maximum of level 7 skill cap, and therefore never choose the same Wand and Apprentice. I would be happy to see the benefits of overspecialization and pushing to the limits. Level 8-9 or maybe even 10 mages could gain way more efficiency on tasks and teaching, exclusive combat abilities, or ability to perform tasks that requires level 5-9 skills.

[Jilocasin]

I agree, that the higher work rate usually isn't worth it. I hope the developers impement additional bonuses for high magic skills

[Aldehydra]

A small bonus to one task is very valuable if it's a task that's likely to keep someone occupied full time. Cooking and research mainly. It does also make them a bit better at teaching that element, which allows you to level up apprentices and farm higher level relics faster.

It would be nice if there was a spell that required 8 skill, though. Something to make specialists feel a bit more special.

[csutorasa]

I feel that the Relics will change a lot in the future, this is just their introduction update. Currently, the skill cap level 8 is not even difficult to achieve with Tier III wands and a Relic. I do not see a good reason to pick the same Wand and Apprentice skills.

[Asa]

The difference between level 7 and 8 currently really only come into play when you use those task speed relics. My current lightning mage could attune to three of those (lightning, vivified, diligence), and if I were to attune all three research speed 3x relics, the difference between level 7 and 8 for every cast would be 42. Could potentially be a significant difference.

[Jilocasin]

Originally posted by Asa:

The difference between level 7 and 8 currently really only come into play when you use those task speed relics. My current lightning mage could attune to three of those (lightning, vivified, diligence), and if I were to attune all three research speed 3x relics, the difference between level 7 and 8 for every cast would be 42. Could potentially be a significant difference.

Highly situational but wow, research would be done in a minute :D

[csutorasa]

I have not found any research speed ones, but it might make sense for Lightning skills. I would prefer that researches require lightning skills, so simpler ones (like Wand I) would require level 3, and gradually the more useful ones (like the Magic Support) would require level 8 Lightning skill.

Now the size of the staff matter due to the Discordance Conviction debuff, I believe a staff of 4 covering all tasks of the 7 skills could be better than a quicker task/teaching and 7+ staff members with the -20-60 Conviction for the whole school. If level 6-8 mages would be necessary for endgame, more people would opt in to the apprentice path and the same skills for both.

[PyroMancer]

Originally posted by csutorasa:

I have not found any research speed ones, but it might make sense for Lightning skills. I would prefer that researches require lightning skills, so simpler ones (like Wand I) would require level 3, and gradually the more useful ones (like the Magic Support) would require level 8 Lightning skill.

I didn't get any research boosting wands until after I finished the research tree ironically.

As for 7 vs 8 I don't think the single point is worth the trade off. If you Apprentice in an Adjacent element you get 2 extra points in that skill so when the mage engages in that activity they will also be faster allowing your Mage to potentially do two task better.

A Perfect skills spread for a Mage that rolls 3 of the same element on it's random would be Either 7&6 or 6&6 depending of if the secondary on wand is adjacent or not. This also gives the Mage more combat options which I think is important as well.

If you choose to do a single skill that means you'll end up with a mage that is 8 can only cast in that one skill and at best 4 in one other skill so they will be slow helping with other task.

The only area it might make sense in is a field the mage would be doing exclusively. The only 3 fields I think this applies to is Research, Cooking, and Farming. Each have a somewhat limited usage though.

Farming you have a lot of Mages and even Quilted tending to and I'm not sure having a better skill even really matters. So handy capping a mage just to get a slight Harvest/Tending bonus seems like a waste.

Cooking seems nice as you want faster cook times but the low even is 36 fire which means 7 takes 6 cast while 8 takes 5. It sounds nice but that is with NO bonuses. The fine kitchen gives 200% bonus meaning 7 gets it done in 2 cast and 8 gets in done in 2 cast. Because massively over casting doesn't help it much.

On the Highest end of food it's 144 Fire which in a fine kitchen means 7 Skills takes 7 cast while 8 skill takes 6 cast. Again only saving a single cast. I ran them numbers on the 1.5, 2, and 3 times cooking speed and 8 Skill still maintains the 1 cast benefit. So there is a marginal use case here if it's only gonna cook and never do anything else.

Thus for my cooks I also have them double as tank since Fire and Earth are next to each other. Their primary is 7 in Fire for better cooking and 6 in Earth is plenty for Earth Armor.

Research takes a long time and having an extra point compounded over a long time seems like a good idea at first. But when your starting out your staff is extremely limited and you need Mages doing lots of different roles so you can't always have a mage doing nothing but research. Also I tend to setup 3-4 research stations so that when mages get done with other task they can go research. Thus I have multiple mages doing things around the base and then falling back to research in their off time. As such I'd rather they work on other things.

The other issue with research is apprentices are more of a mid game and setting up mages for the long haul. Thus training up an apprentice mage you'll likely wanna force on combat builds to help clear underschool and such rather than putting time into a slightly better researcher.

For research since I go quantity over quality a lot of early Apprentices are 2ndary lightning mages so they can both get their main jobs done fast and then contribute to R&D in their off hours. With 4-5 research stations the R&D goes pretty quickly. Once it's done you no longer need a lot of lightning mages so I start cycling out those staff.