My point was, this isn't quite what Might Over Magic was designed for, and thus would be sub optimal.
Oh, agreed entirely.
In any limited resource system, spending resources on two ways to solve the same problem (in this case, combat/dealing damage/etc) is suboptimal until one of those ways is already "maxed out." Multiple specialities is more useful when th, ose specialities aren't two ways of doing the same thing. A "gish" is more viable when it is done with a single mechanical speciality that has the flavor of a hybrid, rather than attempting two mechanical specialities which are used to solve the same type of problems.
That's certainly true to some degree, but I'd argue that magic is a much bigger toolkit than that, and that it's intentionally designed to have a couple of big gaping holes if used as a sole means of combat, making some non-magical combat ability in combat, in many ways, an entirely different thing, and one that shores up a weakness in the existing skillset (never a bad thing to do).
Or to put it another way: Because of how magic works, it has several weaknesses in combat. Adding in some mundane skill helps remove those, making it in many ways more focus on a particular area rather than a truly divergent specialty. It's robably less effective than grabbing Rapport or Scholarship or some other truly different area...but it's very effective at making you
even better at combat.
I tend to see control as more useful than power because the system increases damage with accuracy, while power only increases damage. And since extra shifts of power are easier to come by (through taking more stress), I find having control at at least Power+3 is best for evocation. The only thing lost out on is a mental consequence, while a character with higher power is more likely to burn out through backlash.
I'd only want Conviction 5 if my Discipline were already 5, but would love to be proven wrong on this point, if someone has math showing that higher power is more optimal for evokers. Or even as optimal. But in a different thread.
All true (at least offensively...defense is a bit different, but then that's optimally handled with Enchanted Items anyway), but Conviction at Superb gives you that all-important extra Mild Mental Consequence, and thus potentially an extra Evocation almost every combat (or at least pretty regularly). You're better off going with that and jacking up your Control with Specialties and Focus Items than going the raw Discipline route.
Or, to put it another way: Control>Power but Conviction>Discipline. At least if going with a Superb skill cap (which is, I think, typical of Wardens).
