Food for thought here, but why do they exist in the first place? Considering that it is in everyone's interest to train them asap, why not remove them altogether? I'm not sure how long it takes to train every skill, but the times of other skills could be adjusted to make up for the loss of the learning skills training time. The challenge should come in which skills you choose to train first, not whether you are the most efficient or not.
I regularly 'quest' to gather a big bunch of something that the gods really like. Then I donate that bunch of stuff to a shrine to reduce the time learning a skill takes. Why would another similar function be needed? Go on a personal quest to mine 300 copper ingots.
It already exists. It's called the "I waited too long for BL V and now my life is donating to shrines to cut this as short as glitchenly possible, for giant's sake."
If you couldn't tell by my tone, that's exactly my quest ATM.
Whats the most time you can shave of a skill. Learning Master Chef now as a break from BL 4 but it offers me an hr and something something off for spending an emblem. Seems a little profligate.
yeah optimal skill learning order is definitely the better learning skills first, then the other slow-learning skills. I wish I realized this earlier on!
I think you can pretty much halve the time to learn any skill. Just keep maxing out your shrine donations and spending favor - an hour or two or three at a time, sure, but it adds up. And I believe emblems are generally worth less time off than you can get directly at the shrine, assuming you go over 1K favor and spend before you get the emblem. (But spend the emblem by all means.) Giants named on the skill give a better time bonus.