To Become a Royal Alchemist: Be highly specialized or cover everything?

• davidlzlive wrote on 2011-02-02 00:16
  When I achieved RA, I had about 1800 Journal points, r1 Water Cannon, r1 Alchemy Mastery, and r1 Summon Golem, everything else were still rank 5 or lower and even letter ranks. You definably wanna get r1 Water Cannon though, as for Summon Golem, you might as well throw your weapons away! Lol.
• Fyois wrote on 2011-02-02 02:10
  Well the point of learning golems is mostly because I'm fed up with finding decent enchants and weapons ^^
• Omegatronic wrote on 2011-02-02 13:46
  Way way back the first week of RAs, I made a post wondering if I was the only RA with rN water cannon. In that thread, I listed my skills:
  
  

  r6 synth,
  r2 Alchy Mastery, (1190 crystals to go. :-( )
  r1 metal conversion,
  r6 life drain (because life drain crystals sell well, and I can afk fish-- still r6 because AM is pain)
  rC summon golem (to train early AM crystal making)
  rE fragmentation (because I ranked it to F before I noticed that the success rate for cheap silk goes down)
  Total level 11xx
  
  edit: oh and I guess I have Mana Crystalization at r7 now too. (though I'm not sure what it was when I was accepted)

  
  
  Everything not listed was rN.
  The second week RA was out, I lost the title.
  
  Because being an RA added bonuses to Synth, I was committed to getting my title back.
  
  I ranked AM to r1. Nothing.
  I ranked MaCr to r1. Nothing.
  I ranked LD to r1. Nothing.
  I ranked all my non-shock rN Alchy skills to rF (obviously a few were higher to meet prerequisites). RA again.
  
  Since that time, I have live by the code, "Cover everything with at least rF, then specialize in the skills I want."
  
  With the exception of 1 week when I failed to get 60 RA points, I have been an RA since.
  
  Since re-acquiring my title, I have ranked water cannon to r1, chain cylinder to r1, fragmentation to rC (it's a cheap silk thing), and transmutation to r5. (because of an AP splurge when I woke up one morning and said, "I think, today I will become a mage." my other mastery skills are still rN until after I train Transmutation)
  
  That's my story. Maybe it will help you decide what to do.
  
  My suggestion, "Cover everything with at least rF, then specialize in the skills you want."
• Fyois wrote on 2011-02-03 01:44
  Now THAT is what I was talking about ^^ That was really helpful. Right now the theory I'm still juggling with is spend this weeks AP on the following
  
  Rank Water Cannon to 9 and Air Blast to D (so I can get Frozen Blast and Flame Burst (I know you only need Water Cannon A for Frozen Blast but I have this OCDish thing about skills not being either F, 9, 5 or 1.)
  Rank Flame Burst to F, Rank Frozen Blast to F (so I can spam crystals) and then sounds like maybe I should move all the masteries up to F with the remaining AP. The bit of advice kind of established that getting just three skills to Rank 1 first is not going to cut it ^^ But seriously, that was definitely more helpful than any other advice so far. More like that please.