[Saber Cherry]

I like to use my pretender and prophet together in the early game. Especially if my pretender has different paths than the rest of my nation, and my prophet is a powerful mage (Vanheim, Pythium, Abysia, Mictlan, etc) this searches many paths and holy at once, and doesn't really slow me down since the searchers were already in that province anyway (having just conquered it) and it gives me a chance to shuttle in fresh reinforcements from the capitol.

As soon as I get indy mages or random picks in death or astral I use search spells, since they only require level-1. I don't find level-2 search spells to be all that great at default magic site abundance... and I tend to cast them only at terrains most likely to have magic sites.