/action apologizes <This is a very OOC document>

I have a bit of an obsession with information. Others keep track of what exiles have acquired ledgers or who has passed what fighter or healer circle test or who can no longer train first tier pathfinding. Those who click mystics seem to want to hoard all information in existence.

I like to count. I count ranks earned, ranks gained versus library cost, slaughter thresholds, % of swings taken that connect, % of furs recovered by value and skea training. I am exactly the player Joe is trying to discourage by all his obfuscations regarding hard numbers in the Clan Lord world. But hard numbers are out there, for the persistent.

There is no real reason why in Clan Lord one should not have ready access to one's own training information, or insight into exactly what mixture of skills a composite trainer (or even any of the apparently 'pure' trainers) is actually teaching.

The true test is always, "OK, you trained some. What can you do with it?"

Still, some of us prefer to know what we are getting. So I keep track of trainers, and specifically, what they actually teach.

One of my pastimes is to calculate the training mix hidden within a rank of the composite trainers, like Master Bodrus, Master Spirtus, Evus and Eva. Basically, I use throwaway library characters who sit in the free library for a year, and have them train with only one trainer, and pay attention to how the other trainer messages increase, with each rank burnt. It's a bit time-intensive, but gives very precise numbers for the training mix on that particular day. For a 'real' character, of course, your current training includes all the historical training, so your 500 ranks of Evus earned over a couple years, off and on, is subject to any fluctuations in what Evus has trained, precisely, over that entire time period.

Having kept track of this stuff now for about 5 years, I can assure you that Joe does fiddle with these mixtures. How often is impossible for me to tell, without having a test char for every day of the week. Some trainers (Spirtus) seem to be very stable[but see note below], while others (Evus) seem more prone to change their emphasis. Most of the changes I have noticed over the past few years have been relatively minor, never more than 5 ranks worth out of every 100. Sometimes there's a major upset (Awaria nerfed, Spirtus realigned in v 284).

I have also noted that for fighters, if you want Evus to tell you the truth, bump Kretski in the Fighter hall. Most often she makes a vague statement about your training, but after a few ranks of training something other than Evus, she will say "I will inform Evus of my observations."

When she does that, she has incremented Evus' counter and he will give you a true estimate of your training equivalent with him. Otherwise, he is ignoring some lessons in other Trainers in making his judgement. This oversight can be huge, depending on when you last bumped her (if ever). I found this out the hard way when my own Evus numbers refused to jibe with his assessment, and then I bumped Kretski and went up by at least 100 Evus ranks.

I have noticed that Kretski "informs" Evus after I train in that skill that is the one currently holding Evus back from a higher estimate (in other words, the skill Evus considers my weakest). When I recently started training with Histia (which was my weak skill from Evus' point of view), I noticed that Kretski "informed" Evus after every Histia rank or two. When I got enough Histia and then trained Darkus (which had become my weak skill), Kretski did the same thing. Talk to her often.

The following estimates are from my own calculations. Others (Thuja (for healers), Bor (for healers), Bor (for fighters), Alchemist (for healers)) have posted similar analyses, but many of these scrolls, if still available at all, are quite dated and appear (to me) inaccurate.

In 100 Bodrus there is: (tested 2/01)
25 Atkus
30 Swengus
21 Histia/Higgrus
'50' Evus
24 other (Detha/Darkus?)

and no Respia, Faustus, Sespus, Horus, Awaria

In 100 Evus there is: (tested 12/01)
25.0 Atkus
57.3 Swengus
21.6 Histia
5.2 Detha
35.2 Balthus
26.7 Regia
16.7 Darkus

In 100 Swengus there is: (tested 6/03)
58.8 Balthus
46.7 Regia

In 100 Atkus there is: (tested 6/02)
100 Atkus
40 Balthus

In 100 Eva there is: (tested 3/01)
37 Respia
33 Faustus
27 Sespus
25 Higgrus
6 Horus
6 Awaria

In 100 Spirtus there is: (tested 8/03)
33.3333 Faustus
30.9 Sespus
0 Respia <<<
17.4 Higgrus
0 Horus
0 Awaria
0 'Eva' (ie., no Horus or Awaria)

Note that there is 18+ missing = "true Spirtus/Rodnus" and that 100 Spirtus gives the same "true Spirtus/Rodnus"component as does 50 trainings with Rodnus or 100 trainings with Sprite.

Major changes occurred in Master Spirtus in Storm 284. An exile I know was expecting to reach the 900 message, and when the message change came - right on time - it was from 650 to 700! That's a 22% shift - an immense change. Word from Joe himself on the Newsgroup is that Respia was dropped to 0 (so that one fighter subclass no longer has access to Respia, apparently), and the other trainers were each tweaked up a bit to make up the difference. This tests true in a from-scratch test character. Note, however, that there was a bug concerning the change, and exiles who were training with Spirtus before the change in v284 were still training in "old" Spirtus until at least v290 but being judged by "old" Spirtus. That is, an exile I know took 65 lessons to go up one 50-lesson message level in new Spirtus. Oops.

Unfortunately, this change horks Spirtus as a good one-stop base trainer for healers. In contrast, Mystics might like Master Spirtus a bit better, for the increased Higgrus/Histia component, although they liked access to Respia too for their own reasons. For healers, instead of needing *only* 40 Respia per 100 Spirtus to maintain a 2:1 ratio with Faustus, one will now need almost 70 Respia trainings per 100 Spirtus lessons to maintain this. Since it takes about 30 Respia per 100 Eva to do the same thing, this make Spirtus pretty darned unattractive by comparison. You need to value the 'Rodnus' training in Spirtus an awful lot to put up with that extra training burden.

Instead, a new trainer, Sprite, has appeared in the Healer Hall (v 298). She is basically "old" Spirtus, and a far far better deal for healers than "new" Spirtus himself because of the lower amount of "extra" Respia training required to keep a decent Faustus:Respia balance.

In 100 Sprite there is: (tested 8/03)
30.3 Faustus
24.0 Sespus
20.7 Respia
10.0 Higgrus
0 Horus
0 Awaria
0 'Eva' (ie., no Horus or Awaria)

This is the same as pre-v284 Master Spirtus. Note that there is 15+ missing = "true Spirtus/Rodnus". Also note that 100 Spirtus gives the same "true Spirtus/Rodnus"component as does 50 trainings with Rodnus or 100 trainings with Sprite. Thus, to acquire "true Spirtus/Rodnus" a healer is indeed better off with Sprite than with Master Spirtus himself, because it comes at a lower Faustus/Respia cost.

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