Bishops and Divinity

[sponkly]

In discussions about Bishop-building, I recall people saying things like, "once you get Psionics (or Wizardry or Alchemy) above Divinity, then you can't train-up Div. anymore". Well, since my level 10 Bishop is currently in a state where Wiz. and Alch. are in the high 80's, Psi is in the 60's and Div is a paltry 34, I was hoping there was a way around this .. and it turns out there *is* a nice trick for boosting Div, namely casting "Make Wounds" repeatedly.
To elaborate, every time you are "in control" of a battle (i.e. against wimpy mons., or when you have paralyzed, webbed, "insaned", or otherwise incapacitated your foes) have all your bashers and snipers do defense and/or heal, and cast "Make Wounds" at lev. 7 (or highest green/yellow lev), with your Bishop. I have found that if I do it 3 or more times in a battle, I almost always get a Div. boost after the battle ... that is why my Div is at 34 .. it was at only 20 when I started gaming last night.

A couple of other things ... 1) I am pretty sure (although I have not tried it) that any other spell that is "Priest-only" (i.e. only in the Priest spellbook) will do the same trick .. I stopped looking for such spells after I found "Make Wounds" since it is cheap and at least moderately useful. 2) Does anyone know if you can raise a skill by more than 1 point per combat round? I have always assumed not, and so after 4 shots of "Make wounds" I turn my bashers and snipers back on and let them do the mopping up.

I thought about putting this in the tips thread, but I thought it was a bit too focused on Bishop dev., which I have seen talked about quite a lot in this forum recently. Should I move it into tips?

[ 01-22-2004, 11:04 AM: Message edited by: sponkly ]

[Horpner Sneed]

The folks that say it's "impossible" to train Divinity after Alchemy, Psionics and Wizardry are higher were probably thinking of a slightly larger piece of cheese than casting spells during battle. They want cheese like repeated Knock Knock on big locks, for example.

[Ragash]

I dunno about "per combat round", but you can get more than one skill point per battle. So you can basically use up all your spell points and reap the rewards afterwards.

[dplax]

And also power level doesn't matter for gaining skill points, only the number of times you use the given skill, so using in your case make wounds more times at a lower power level would raise the skill faster.

[Horpner Sneed]

I agree, it is a good tip. Make Wounds is such a weak spell that I hadn't thought of using it for training.

Horpner

That's a total lie, from whoever you heard. For spells that share different spellbooks (i.e. heal wounds, and such), the domain that will increase depends on which one is higher. So, for example, you are a bishop who just learned Summon Elemental. You have pretty high skills in Wizardry AND alchemy. However, alchemy is higher, so the points will go to alchemy, not wizardry. I guess that is what the person meant.

Also, I have a divine bishop, it used to be only Wizardry and Divinity schools in good ol Crusaders for bishops, and I still stick to that.

[Holywhippet]

Make wounds is only a level 1 spell. Higher level spells will boost your skill faster, presuming of course that you can actually cast them. Take a look in your manual for all the distinct priest spells and keep casting the strongest spell you can.

[Scatter]

I train in battle a lot early, so by the time my Bishop is L8 or so, in addition to Knocking, Charming, and Mindreading, i'll have pumped all my realms into the 60's. The best thing is to cast the highest level spell at the lowest power level. Specific to Divinity, for:
Fire--Lightning (unf gotta have Div up already)
Air--Whirlwind Good, but still need 45 Div.
Water's great: Holy Water early, Rest All, and Super, one of my fave Water spells
Earth: just keep throwing Armorplate at PL1, so you can do it more often. (if you Knock much, don't worry about Earth)
Mental is bereft, but you prolly got that if you Charm much. (or ID) (Or Mindread/Insane/etc)
Divine: well, Hello, your very own Realm!!! Make Wounds is one of my faves, and Guardian Angel, then Magic Screen. You gotta throw MS at full power to get good protection, though.
Banish shares with Wizardry, so it's good to have that up so you can GET Banish, 'cause it really grinds up the Undead, esp you got Powercast.
One interesting thing, once you get any wearable Mana regen item, you can work your way around the realms, casting all L1 spells at PL1; your mana will be endless.

I usually also do this (til i got around 90 in all realms) in conjunction with Reflextion training, in the Swamp, where i can exchange Mana Stones and get big mobs of shooters. (usu around L13, no regen items yet)

[ferro287]

@dplax Actually power level _does_ make a difference in advancing but you get the best mana/advance ratio at lvl 1. Some checks indicate that casting 3 times a spell at pl 1 does you about the same good as once at pl 7. So, if mana doesn't matter, but real life time does, it can make sense to use pl 7 spells (you really don't want to fight 3 times as many rounds for the same result?)

[dplax]

Sorry if my meaning was ambiguos. I actually meant what ferro had written, I just meant that if you cast more times at a lesser power level you will get a greater increase in skill for the same amount of spell points.