@Dominionofgod max time for the military boosts at the max of level 101 is 12 hours. I don't know if the critical effect from using spell shards makes that longer or just guarantees the max amount of time you have researched,
You can have a look at the results of my recipes
here. I got over 22 hours critical effect.
And yes, you can look at the downside of it or upside of it or both sides or no side. All up to you
Its no much much the upside or downside.. im more of a realist and thinking of how it will actually play out in use. And while the cauldron has a lot of interesting possibilities, it seems like every avenue of being able to utilize it to its top potential is blocked off.
We chose an effect to go after: Great. For me, its military boost. Since im using barracks troops atm, in chap 9 (Start of woodelves), im aiming primarily for increase barracks strength.
Combat takes place across 6 some days iir. Spire starting sunday? and tourney ending saterday.
Since i can do spire all in one day/one run, i can do that anytime during tourney. So now its down to 5 days of combat.
Those combat days are tuesday through saterday.
I have 5 goblets. Using them individually would give me a chance at the military boost through out the week.
Cant use them individually. Must use them all at once.
That would mean only one day of combat unless the boost lasts for a good bit of time.
Boost does not last a good bit of time. If max is 12h duartion then you only get one tourney round, period.
Maybe the duration can be increased more by the critical effect...?
Critical effect boost is increase form donated Spell frags.
I simply do not get enough frags each week to apply any of them to the cauldron. Even doing full spire and only crafting military buildings.. most of my fragment use is already accounted for. So no good chance at critical effect to increase duration.
So, with where i am, im basically forced by the system to only getting a single days tourney boost. But it doesnt stop there.
If i only get one use a week.. the best use would be on the last tourney day. Use the boost on the hardest fighting day. But if i do that, id miss out on all the spire.
So ill do it thursday (?). Last day of spire and a middle of tourney. Thats more efficient then just tourney.
If i wait until thursday to use it and get the most out of it.. then i lose out on the option to donate resources to the cauldron for 4-5 out of 6 days.
If i want more days to donate resources, then i have to use the boost at the start of the week when fighting is minimal and thus the boost doesnt mean a whole lot.
Its an interesting addition to the game, but it feels like every time i try to get the most out of it, the system has something there to make sure I cant do that. Thats the part that annoys me.