You should certainly pick up a runestaff, but you should put training points into other skills before you consider doubling harness.

You should either double Spell Aim or drop it.

With 2x Spell Aim: also 2x MIU until you can always activate any wand whenever you want to (this tends to be about 40 ranks for me), spell priorities are cleric at level, 215, 111, once you are waving ball wands or have learnt fire spirit get a rank of MOC and add another couple when you get to hunting something like skeletal ice trolls or warcamps. Summoning lore is the best lore for boosting your bolt and ball spells. Baseline is 2x in spells, with up to 2.25x possible if you optimise for hunting.

Without spell aim: lots more cleric spells. Your next target is cleric at level +21. The main lore for supporting cleric CS spells is religion. Baseline is 2.5x in spells, with 2.75x possible if you optimise for hunting.

Tripling spells generally provides more benefit than doubling lore. Unless there is a lore benefit you need to train 2x to unlock, get more spells.

If you are ever unsure what to train, train more cleric spells. You get benefit from them, and if you change your mind and want something else, the points come back fast as you level up.

I prefer meditation to fill up fast, and channeling tactics to get the most effect from it rather than doubling harness. (or wands, wands, wands with SA and MIU training) Whether meditation will do much for you depends on race and stats. You'll double the effectiveness of 302 if you channel dance (defensive holding runestaff when critter swings, and offensive with empty hands when you channel) and once you have 319 you don't even need to dance if you use peer to avoid swarms. However, if you would be using the mana, its worth spending the points on 2x harness ranks.

>>definately some things to consider and great advice too boot, thank you Rath for your response and help<<

Rathboner's advice is always good; occasionally other variants are helpful for comparison.

Spell aiming was a somewhat iffy skill for me. Pumping up cleric spell levels will let you ward pretty much any normal creatures in the game once you get enough levels under your belt. SA can be useful if you want to wave wands to conserve mana, early on in your career; you can fixskill this away when this is less necessary. I think I dumped it somewhere around level 55-60. Also, where SA is truly useful is in dealing with invasion critters with ridiculously high TDs but which are vulnerable to bolts (vathors come to mind as the most recent example). This will not be a significant consideration for most of your pre-cap career, however.

I also trained in brawling and shield, rather than rely on hiding behind a twig for protection; my physical DS is quite good, and I don't have to even consider being disarmed, or hit with that wretched weaponfire nonsense. You can, of course, counterargue with some validity that critters with those attack modes are not that common, and that these TPs could be better used being put into more clerical spell ranks. A matter of personal preference.


"So, what does that green line on the graph represent?"
"Oh, that's the projection of a hypothetical offspring from a union between Sauron and Cruella de Ville; we use that as a baseline for determining character alignment."

ah ok, good good, more things to consider, hehe, thanks guys!

~Rayna, cleric of Oleani and Ta'Vaalor