Academy[Spoilers]

[General Malaise]

This is what the Wiki page says:

Spirit of the Authority Master: +5 Memory, -5 Strength
Spirit of the Intelligence Master: +5 Intelligence, -5 Finesse
Spirit of the Wits Master: +5 Wits, -5 Constitution
Spirit of the Finesse Master: +5 Finesse, -5 Memory
Spirit of the Constitution Master: +5 Constitution, -5 Intelligence
Spirit of the Strength Master: +5 Strength, -5 Wits

However, I'm talking to the Finesse Master, and she wan't Wits for Finesse. Seeing as Finesse is maxed, and I'm now putting into Wits, that's a pretty pointless trade. It's also not as written above.

Intel for Finesse is a fair trade. Memory for Strength is a fair - both on mages. Wit's for Con, I guess on anyone. They seem to be the only worthwhile trades, unless you have a strength build.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2363319813

[General Malaise]

Even though it said Wits, it did take memory. I took Wits for for Con on Archer, and took Wits for Memory on Rogue. Now I wish I'd done the other way around - so I'll see how far back a savegame I've got.

[General Malaise]

I guess they don't want to give something for nothing, but generally Academy choices suck.

Intel for Finesse on a mage was fine.

Wits for Con on Archer was fine.

I tried Memory for Strength on another mage. That was rubbish. I didn't really need the memory, so went back to ship and removed Memory she already had. That gave me 5 points to put into Wits as Intelligence already maxed. That gave me a higher Crit chance - however, I could no longer use the strength weapon that was giving me 20% Crit. Net loss there, unless I spec the strength back.

Rogue got Wits for Memory I think. Well I had to give him 2 memory back, and even now he only has 5 Rogue skills, of which 2 come from equipment. Not really a good trade.


So to me, only 2 are worth doing.

[chipofsalt]

The main reason is these choices allow you to permanently (and slightly) break the point cap for your main attributes. You're right; you can easily go towards the end of the game and completely skip these academy choices. They give you more ability to min-max your characters.

Obviously some of these choices are horrible. For example, sacrificing wits for any reason is usually a no-go, since stacking crit modifiers is overpowered.

[Chaoslink]

Yeah, that wits one is a typo error that never got fixed properly. The wiki has it correct.

Really, all they're good for is picking a single attribute to raise and chaining the swaps around until you successfully traded something you don't want for something you do.

As an example, if you want the +5 strength you can take the -5 wits but then just take the +5 wits to cancel that out and make it -5 Con instead. I've done it for Finesse where I do the finesse for memory trade, then the memory for strength trade but the carry cap is annoying at just 50 so I then do the strength for wits trade and the wits for con trade and everything is canceled and I have the stat trade I wanted, finesse for con.

You just have to play it carefully as every trade can only be done once per game. So if you want multiple characters to benefit, you have to really plan it out.

Its always worth doing for at least one character because +5 anything for -5 con is a no brainer. Con is worthless. With the spider kiss, I typically always have one character with only 3 con after this area.

[General Malaise]

Maybe they should have have made armour protect you from 75% of damage, something like that - to make Con have some relevance.

I ended up putting Memory back on Rogue - but just 2, though really he's short on skills now.
I ended up putting Strength back on Mage, because basically trading Strength for Wits to get higher Crit, and denying myself 20 Crit from a weapon makes no sense.