1st off this is eliphaz,not cresto, hailing from clw proudly, and former high sorcery master The all wiz guild, which only in the latest months went inactive,only becaaus of my lack of time; currently im a member of AOE.My elf wiz is a sorc, strictly becaus i'm a hardcore dd and luv the aoes.I couldnt imagine not taking a tag, w/my 655 dex 55o int(soon to do wh qst :) i maintain a large pwr base w/steady high end dmg on 1 or more targets.Asfor tinker i could see the +'s of saving pre req cms, but the cost of losing a more functionable mca outways saving the cm's.I never especially cared 4 racial tag's on wiz's ; even scholar can be surpassed in pwr by a chann w/proper building imo.Now with sage and the balancing changes the tag stat maxs alone make it a viable choice, not to mention how mant slots it can open in inv w/those crazy bases and both mca's are xcellent for wiz's.In the end a tink is only useful in-itself if you want to solo w/a pet to tank,which isnt so bad i kno kiting is fun. In the end i think it comes down to playstyle, and my own biases are as follows:for soloing i'd prefer sage or merc (Rayslan;)for raiding i like sorc but chann can work well,grinding chann hands down ,unless theres adds or batts in which case im prejudiced to sorc;as for dueling sage will definitly take it,,unless yoou kite'm ;0 ..