Black Alloy Medallion  

 

The higher of wisdom and int will indeed be what is used to evaluate your chance of a raise in skill. Wisdom does not however increase your chance of a successfull combine. I suggest you check out the web site WWW.EQTRADERS.COM for one definitive site to do with trade skills. I myself have done trade skills in many characters, from wisdom (with bonuses) from 70 to 230+ and over much time doing so, I am certain that this is correct. Yes, in game many people say wisdom will help in not failing a combine, however this is simply not true. I would suggest that you might wish to try over a more extended period of time, with a greater variety of wisdom vs skill levels and see for yourself. I wish wisdom did help more, would love to not fail trivial items with JC of 250 time and again like can happen, even with 190 wis (my jeweler is maxed in skill and only used for jewelcraft since I optimised him for wisdom (originally I listened to the opinion about wis and combine successes) I do not play him as my play enchanter just my JC one.. I keep his wisdom at 189 most times and failure rates are not apreciably lower than if I let his wis drop to 100 or so..

As for the skill raises almost every other attempt that is indeed 'normal' for very high int/wis stats when learning skills. within the variation of skill level vs max level possible and difficulty being attempted.. All in all just do what you think works, however my opinions are (like yours were) based on experience with the system.. again, check out WWW.EQTRADERS.COM for their opinions, I would happily say that the accumulated wisdom on that site, is far more representative than my extensive experience, or any other isolated incidents.