is this line of thinking correct?

[cilrais]

Artistry is bugged so that it only has a chance to skill up when you complete an item, therefore for the most skill ups in the least amount of time I should be stopping at crude.

correct?

[Ariadne]

correct. Until the major upcoming patch when they will in theory be fixing it.

[Korsis]

It is also worth noting that as you go up in level, you chances to skill up per combine stay constant (one), but the amount of xp you get per combine (expressed as a percentage) goes down. This means that you will have more chances to skill up per level.

In other words, you naturally level slower as you go up in level, so your artistry skill will eventually catch up anyway (somewhere in the mid-to-low 20s from what I've heard).

[ashynn]

I caught up around 25.

The weirdest thing to me is that when I check my skills lists, I see it maxxed, then just a few items later it dings, increasing the max again. it's strange to me that it moves the max up too. would think that there would be something like 187/192 then 188/192 etc but it doesn't seem to work that way.

/waits hopefully for patch

[Idana Phoenixfyre]

It seems that every new 20% of XP (when you hear that little "bing") your skills are able to go up one point. In other words... If you start the level with the ability to get a skill of 150 in something, at 20% into lvl you can hit 151, at 40% into level you can hit 152, at 60% you can hit 153, etc. I think it's pretty interesting that the max your skill can be goes up within the level, as well as when you first level.

I

[ilumin]

I've assumed that I should be using the lastest tradeskill buttons during preparations, but those salt and pepper buttons got me thinking. Should I be using them according to what a RL recipie require. Who adds pepper to their martinis.

See, I told you it was a dumb question. :D