[Xietor]

yeah,

I agree that getting him to 5 is not cost effective, but i do not spending gems on old mages(though old age can be offset with treelord's staff and an elixir of life.

I pump up my pretender's stats a good bit to get lamp to summon Al Khazim, and a few other of my favorite artifacts. That is more for fun in a sp game. When I play mp i typically only pump my pretender to 2 or 3 air, for buffs like mirror image, mistform. The crones occasionally have 4 air, and if they do i try to keep them from getting old age afflictions.