Gargamel wrote:And 'cheaper' it may be... but FAAAAR from cheap in general.
Even on grey recipies, you're talking at least 1g per breakdown.
Lets be generous and say in every 4 breakdowns you get 1 powder, so thats 4g minimum per chance at a skill up. (assuming you have plenty of lapis/coral fragments at T1/T2)
On average it'll take 4 combines to get 1 skill up, so we're talking 16g per skill up.
5 skill ups = 1 level, so around 80g per level
10 levels in a tier, so 8plat per Teir.
7 tiers in game, so at the end of the day you better have, and be willing to sped at least 56plat.
(25% chance of powder is probably a bit optimisic, and 1g per adept1 spell even a t1/t2 adept is low... 1.2 to 1.4 with broker fee is more likely IMO)
The only part of this I'll quibble with is the implied assumption that you'll get your powders by xmuting 4 treasured items. You can save a teensy bit of cash by xmuting T1 Ad3s. The improved rare spawn rates shouldn't make harvesting loam/copper/rough lapis too terribly time consuming--but it would still be far too tedious for my taste.
I was able to find a fair bit of copper for 2-3 gp when I was skilling up my muter. (Not sure why, but lapis and solidified loam were harder to come by.) I would buy copper, make it into an Ad3, and then get either a powder or an infusion from the Ad3.
This is hardly a huge improvement on the method you suggest, but every gold piece counts when you are starting out (which I was).