[Micah]

Yeah, Magisters Arcane are gonna be a better bet most of the time, especially since you'll want a lot to get a decent selection of the path randoms, since only 1 in 8 will have a specific path at +1.

Edit: Ah, excellent point thejeff, the fact that you can use them as spies makes them quite useful, and they're pretty cost-effective researchers (especially if you forgo the drain dominion and take some magic with the intent to spam dinky researchers). My above point stands for pure research speed though.