Good idea to take alchemy on impossible?

[Metathron]

When I was playing as mage previously on normal, I liked how I could level up most spells by maxing alchemy early on, even if I did not need a lot of them. However, now that I am playing on impossible, I am wondering if the runes are better invested into something else (probably into maxing chaos as soon as possible), or is it still a good idea to try and get Alchemy 3 as soon as possible?

[Gatts]

Based on what you write, you could be capable to answer your own question:
if you know most or maybe all spells, you know how much it takes to level them up, you know how much crystals you will probably get... you could prepare you own calculation deck, which may give you your answer =

collect all spells you need/want, count the crystals needed to level them up and think about the difference in crystals (on impossible you start with less crystals, also in the game you may not find as many as on normal)

You can rely on the fan manual if you do not remember the exact costs of the spell upgrades...

as counter metric get the incoming RUNES - and check how much runes you will have from level ups (you get less on impossible I assume, it is again in the fan manual) and how much you need to get normal skills- like chaos magic, order magic...

I used to get to Chaos level 3 + higher magic level 1, then I invested all further runes into alchemy, so I could have larger variety of spells, also I waited with scribing them into book/leveling them up till I had alchemy 3 - I leveled only really necessary spells till alch 3... I always liked to have more spells, but honestly I did not use most of them often... so I could save leveling them - and not need alchemy at all

in anyway - check the fan manual, read through all the spells you want - make some calculations

[Metathron]

Are you sure about getting less crystals and runes on impossible? And here I thought less gold, stronger enemies, less rage increase in combat and slower growth of rage spirits' experience was punishment enough.

[lauvhk]

Not counting on buying them in Bogacho and rewards for selling the map to Elven Queen, there are at least 400 Crystals and 200 Magic Runes on Impossible so you can have a rough idea on what you are going to expect.

[Metathron]

If you check out the Post your high scores here thread, you can see that people who played on impossible collected pretty much the same amount of runes as those who played on any other difficulty. So that's good.