Hmm, the real thing this game could use is to have the mouse able to move you to a spot as long as you have the path to it mapped already. That would really speed it up.
Ok, on further analysis, it seems that the damage appears to be in the form of a ratio. At level 1 on floor 16 my damage ratio was 2-5. When I tried at level 4 with the same equip, my damage changed to be 6-13. It seems that the damage reduction is in a direct ratio between your levels, in that case it was 1:16 so I was doing 1/16 of the damage originally, and it got bumped to 1/4 when I leveled up. There may be a minimum which would explain the discrepancy a little. I never missed with the grenades, so it didn't bump damage into misses.
Hmm, it also seems that critical damage doubles whatever is left over after your damage is reduced. It also seems that grenades can't do critical damage as far as I can tell.
I've been working on this, and I have determined some things so far. I've found that your level to the monster's level really makes a huge difference. It seems the game reduces your damage by about 1 for every level the monster is higher than yours. I'm not sure I really like this, since the monsters already have a health bonus over yours, and a damage bonus when your level is lower. This just makes it more dangerous by far.
Oh yeah, forgot one thing. Red doesn't show a message until you get the splash over 15 radius, but it always hits at least 2 targets. It maxes out at 6. All gems below grade 6 have maximum stats they can have, that you can't raise past, so you should get your main gems to grade 6 as soon as you can.
You are sort of right, and sort of wrong. The best gem for making mana traps is red/orange/lime. This will make the gem hit 6 targets for 10.1 mana steal, with a 70% chance to hit each target twice. The downside is you'd have to get the gem to about grade 10 to max out the attack speed. More efficient is red/orange which can be maxed out as a grade 6 if you add enough lower gems to it. The actual strongest attack gem is a yellow/red in a trap, which maxed out with an attack speed of 1183 hitting 6 targets. While adding lime to it would boost the damage, you'd lose out on the dual gem bonus to max and min damage, so you'd lose in the end. The Yellow/Red has far more killing potential than any other gem.
There is no grinding in this game. The reason people are having troubles is because they aren't finding ways to get better scores. You get more points and mana by angering incoming waves and still defeating them. If you increase your mana pool you also get more mana and score from monsters. Once you find a balance between angering monsters, raising your mana pool, and building stronger gems, your score will improve.
You are wrong about artillery. You cannot stop it from coming, but you can control it. Artillery will always strike the half of the map which has the greater number of your guys. As long as you have a bunker, or preferable several bunkers of men on the top half of the map the enemy will bombard itself with artillery. You will lose your bunkers. Oh yes you will, but as long as you replace them and keep them full of cheap soldiers and keep your valuable ones at the bottom you will find it easier to survive a long time.
This is how I beat level 34 . . . Max Life, Endurance, Mana, Mana Regen, Flaming Body, Fire Gem, Shadow Gem. Rest of points mixed between Power, Speed, and Regen. By putting the Gold Fire ones spread covering all the paths, and the Shadow ones all around your dude. This makes it so any enemies that get close to you will be hurt by your flame, and probably sent back to the beginning to run the whole gauntlet again anyways.
 "Dungeon Explorer RPG 1.0"){kind=icon}
 "Cyber Recession Warrior: Edgar"){kind=icon}
 "GemCraft chapter 0"){kind=icon}
 "Mud and Blood 2"){kind=icon}
 "Orbs"){kind=icon}