> *Originally posted by **[LordBucket](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=3#posts-7928794):*** > > *Originally posted by **[Gremlion](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=3#posts-7926915):*** > > Skill points passively increase your initial mana. More mana – better gems at the start. > > It’s so little, though. It’s like 6 levels worth of skillpoints to get a grade 2 gem. The game was clearly balanced for premium players with endurance. Those of us without endurance mode need to spend shadow cores to get more xp on a level. It’s incredibly discouraging to look at a level and see that if I spend ~50 shadow cores and beat it, it will give me enough xp for half a wizard level. > > I did eventually get past H4, but I did it by farming F1 for talismans and shadow cores to level them all up. With a 50% damage bonus to reavers and 16% to giants, it was much easier. And then 20 minutes later I was stuck again. Without endurance if I want to get stronger it’s difficult to do that because of the skillcaps. Sure, I can spend 100 shadow cores over several levels to get a couple wizard levels, but most of the time all that gets me is a couple hundred extra mana at the start of the match. I’m up to 1600 mana at match start now. Do you really think starting with 1800 is enough to make the difference between winning and losing a match? Even if you say yes, do you see that grinding easy levels for shadow cores in order to do hard levels for an hour to give me that 200 extra mana is not the most fun thing in the world? > > I think shadow cores for level difficulty was a mistake. For non-premium players, it pretty much means either lots of very tedious grinding, or afk macroing. Do levels with no shadows cores once the first time to unlock map tiles, then get stuck unable to advance and go back and do it again spending maybe 5-10 shadow cores for enough xp to open to be able to advance, get stuck again, go back spend 25-50 shadow cores, come back again when you have more traits unlocked…then again when you finish the game and you’re trying to max everything and you’re easily spending hundreds and hundreds of shadow cores on a single level? I realize this whole mechanic was intended to give players incentive to get premium, but I’ve already found myself needing to grind shadow cores just to get where I am, and it’s looking like that’s going to happen more later on too. > > Especially the way traits and trait caps are slowly unlocked. I can already imagine doing the same level with none, the 5 then 20 then 50 then 100 then 200 then 400 shadow cores, along with all the all the afk macroing that will be needed to get all those shadow cores. > > > I think you stuck because you don’t use your “Bolt” spell effectively. > > No, bolt and now freeze are the only things allowing me to even finish most levels now. In original gemcraft, the winning strategy was to use pure gems. If Chapter zero, the winning strategy was to use red/orange supergems in traps. In labyrinth, it was to use yellow lime in towers and amps. > > So far as I can tell in chasing shadows the winning atrategy seems to be to micromanage spells while on pause. No, the winning strategy is to experiment. Imho, the spells and enhancements really liven it up even more and the animations are splendid. I can hardly believe this is a browser game, with these graphics. I’ve played many, many MMOs that have graphics not even half as good as these. The gameplay can be a bit slow, yeah. Endurance at low levels seems a waste of time, your XP from all endurance waves gets a(according to mana bar, a reduction of 30%, according to waves, reduction of 75%….I think from my experience with it it is the former, just a minor bug imho) rather large reduction, and the HP is exponential, almost as much as GC0, methinks. No blazing through it here. But for risktakers(it took me two tries to get this), you can easily score quite high(by GC0 standards, especially at the level I was) with careful thinking of multipliers, difficulty-per-multiplier, multiplier-per-core, and stuff like that. See here- I got this 85 million score(again, by Gc0 standards, so 85K xp as shown) at level 25. Ok, I had premium, yes, but without Orblets, you can still do it, possibly angering MORE, and still get a nice 40K xp or so. More if you think you can take higher level Mana Lock.  Traits used – Max Haste, level 1 mana lock, max orblets. Skills: Level 7 mana replenish, forge, construction(the first 3 unlocked skills that is), red mastery. Level 0 everything else. Ended level with: 15.5K XP \* 5.5 multiplier. Mana at end: Almost 80,000. Gem- Grade 9 White-Red. Excellent combo, the more you kill, the more chain you get. Chain seems to be the best gem atm, apart from yellow for the few annoying-giants-mainly levels. Bumped me from 25 to 32. Not too much, but enough to give me a feeling of power :D. PS: I didn’t use the orb exploit. It did help initially though that there was a shard there…let me anger waves earlier for more mana later. And dang, looking back on that battle…it was FUN. Hehehe. I’m only having problems with one level, K1….since someone said Glaring is in the K sector, I guess it’s a higher level one? Okay, I’ll do others first hehe. Just that one is the only one to piss me off…I literally got to the last FIVE monsters but ran out of mana to banish…so I got pissed hehe.

> *Originally posted by **[Takiza](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=4#posts-7929083):*** > I got this 85 million score(again, by Gc0 standards, so 85K xp as shown We’re talking about Gemcraft 2 in this thread. There is no “score.” You’re multiplying your xp by 1000 for no reason. > Max Haste, level 1 mana lock, max orblets. Orblets aren’t an option for non-premium. And unless they’re free for premium players, two level 7 traits would cost 56 shadow cores. > More if you think you can take higher level Mana Lock. Again, shadow cores. Put mana lock to 7, and you go from 56 to 84 shadow cores. Yes, sure you can do that. You can even go higher. But how long does it take you to get that many? And later on you’ll unlock even more traits. I spent 112 shadow cores on traits the last time I did a level for xp. And if you’re going to invest 100 shadow cores into a field, you may as well invest another 100 for the rarity boost to be efficient. It’s wasteful to not. So now we’re talking over 200 shadow cores to do a level. Personally I’m only receiving about 10 shadow cores on a typical level. Yes, sometimes more. Sometimes less. 10 is typical. So we’re talking about grinding a minimum of 5 and as many as 20 levels in order to enhance traits on one? > I’m only having problems with one level, K1….since someone said Glaring is in the K sector, I guess it’s a higher level one? He said he thought but wasn’t certain that glaring was unlocked on K4. Which I can’t yet confirm. But note that one of the locks on K4 requires that you have the beam skill from D4.

Confirmed. K4 unlocks Glaring difficulty:  Yay. Now I can burn 224 shadow cores per field instead of 112. : /

> *Originally posted by **[LordBucket](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=4#posts-7929120):*** > > *Originally posted by **[Takiza](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=4#posts-7929083):*** > > I got this 85 million score(again, by Gc0 standards, so 85K xp as shown > > We’re talking about Gemcraft 2 in this thread. There is no “score.” You’re multiplying your xp by 1000 for no reason. > > > Max Haste, level 1 mana lock, max orblets. > > Orblets aren’t an option for non-premium. And unless they’re free for premium players, two level 7 traits would cost 56 shadow cores. > > > More if you think you can take higher level Mana Lock. > > Again, shadow cores. Put mana lock to 7, and you go from 56 to 84 shadow cores. Yes, sure you can do that. You can even go higher. But how long does it take you to get that many? And later on you’ll unlock even more traits. I spent 112 shadow cores on traits the last time I did a level for xp. And if you’re going to invest 100 shadow cores into a field, you may as well invest another 100 for the rarity boost to be efficient. It’s wasteful to not. So now we’re talking over 200 shadow cores to do a level. > > Personally I’m only receiving about 10 shadow cores on a typical level. Yes, sometimes more. Sometimes less. 10 is typical. > > So we’re talking about grinding a minimum of 5 and as many as 20 levels in order to enhance traits on one? > > > I’m only having problems with one level, K1….since someone said Glaring is in the K sector, I guess it’s a higher level one? > > He said he thought but wasn’t certain that glaring was unlocked on K4. Which I can’t yet confirm. But note that one of the locks on K4 requires that you have the beam skill from D4. 1) My point was, it’s easy enough to get “high scores”, sorry for comparing it to GC0, but I like marking my progress between both equally, so I can see like, the level cap. Sorry, hard to explain, it makes more sense to me, because I’ve played only GC0 the last 3 months. 2) Yes, I was talking premium. Even without orbs, you’ll get 40K xp about(half the multiplier, and you will indeed be able to anger a lot more, I had to slack off so I didn’t lose any orbs, as the first time that’s how I failed). 3) I haven’t found a need to farm for anything. PS: I just beat(quite easily now!) the level I had trouble with, after exploring a bit in other fields and finding Beam(which incidentally, looks epic). 4) well, that point is moot, as I’ve beaten it now. As for farming, IDK, do premiums get more cores? I don’t think so, comparing my non-premium save and premium save(well, I first played w/o it to level 35, then with it started over, and both times I had zero problem with shadow cores). I think though, you should definitely not bother with traits in the first couple of fields(exception is the wizard tower level in the F sector, I got 76K xp there). Don’t go with any traits when just unlocking, and only use traits on maps you’ll know you can score good on(decent map path, chokepoints, level appropriate for your level, good gems, etc). PS: I highly advise getting premium. Lord knows Peter deserves it. Also, you get Red. Possibly now the most OP gem. Without premium you will be unable to ever unlock red on every field(you need to get the color skill tome in order to be able to make that color gem on every field). Edit: So, your problem is with cores, right? Well…again, I don’t really get your problem, as I have none(and I’m almost level 50), but…well um. Idk what to say. I dunno why every single map has been quite easy for me so far(except K1). Maybe this is more similar to GC0.

> I think though, you should definitely not bother with traits in the first couple of fields For people without premium this is absolutely awful advice. I’m wizard level 50, total xp is 591,124. I’ve unlocked 13 fields total. Of my 591,124 xp… **327,471** of it is from field F. The starter field. _More than half my total xp_ is from doing the thing you’re advising people to not do. There is _absolutely no way_ I could be as far as I am if I weren’t spending shadow cores on traits on easy fields. > Even without orbs What does the orblets trait even do? And does it take shadow cores? > I dunno why every single map has been quite easy for me I"m guessing it’s because you have premium. And I suspect this whole game is going to be “oh, it’s easy! Just do this!” for people with premium while everyone else has a miserable time. > I highly advise getting premium. I have kreds ready and waiting. Can’t use them on armor games.

You sure love pointless grinding, do you? I was 60 level with alot of sectors explored even before buying premium. You seem to think that you HAVE to play with all traits maxed in order to progress. And after I bought it, the only “easy” thing was unlocking red gem.

> *Originally posted by **[LordBucket](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=4#posts-7929389):*** > > I think though, you should definitely not bother with traits in the first couple of fields > > For people without premium this is absolutely awful advice. > > I’m wizard level 50, total xp is 591,124. I’ve unlocked 13 fields total. > > Of my 591,124 xp… **327,471** of it is from field F. The starter field. _More than half my total xp_ is from doing the thing you’re advising people to not do. There is _absolutely no way_ I could be as far as I am if I weren’t spending shadow cores on traits on easy fields. > > > Even without orbs > > What does the orblets trait even do? And does it take shadow cores? > > > I dunno why every single map has been quite easy for me > > I"m guessing it’s because you have premium. And I suspect this whole game is going to be “oh, it’s easy! Just do this!” for people with premium while everyone else has a miserable time. > > > I highly advise getting premium. > > I have kreds ready and waiting. Can’t use them on armor games. …Did you not read that I played to level 35 and 3/4th the way to where I am now(level 55, just finished the O sector wiztower), and it was STILL almost as easy for me, except again, for K1??? Edit- What I was meaning earlier was that don’t do max traits on every field, until you spread out a bit as higher level maps will provide more cores for you to get battle traits with. Anyway, points moot imho, I have 500 cores and don’t need them one bit(apart from like 50 for talisman every once in a while). PS- I really don’t like calling it premium lol…sounds like that should make those who buy it snotty and annoying :( The main advantage of premium is the Red mastery. Chain hit is too powerful imho…I’m whizzing through everything with only it and some purple gems for the odd random shadow(after you get vision 4 or so, you can encounter them at any time…I had a shadow on the wiztower in F sector), and okay, O6 was a near miss for me, very close, but then I can just do one field, get level 60, and beat everything again. This game imho isn’t hard enough…and I mean hard not as in monster strength but like bad paths…I wish there was more difficulty in selecting where to put towers and the like :P PSS: on the topic of mama farms…idk. They’re not that good any more. Pure O gives a little more than replenish. RO gives about the same. Idk about any others but for now, I’d say skip. Too little return. Even with permaBeam. Edit: Just remembered. Supergemming increases specials. Could be invaluable.

Level 70, 81 fields explored. Used traits… twice, I believe. Talisman mostly with + starting mana. First wave – 4 grade gem Duplicate it asap. Put trap + bolt enchantment in chokepoint, set swarm priority. Bolt enchantment ignores armor, blazing fast attack speed – kills swarm straight away, reavers up until wave 50. Prioritize upgrading trap gem over tower gem. Trick – upgrade gem, cast enchantment on it – no recuperation time. About cores – later on you will see shadows, spoiler, spoiler and apparitions in abundance. they drop plenty of cores, I had a field with 2 spoiler, 2 apparitions, spoiler and shadow, +147 cores total.

Alright, someone in the comments said they have level in the 6 figures. If that is true, this game is way more exponentially absurd than labyrinth was. Still debating if I want to get premium, cause if I do, I am not buying it a second time when it comes to kong.

> *Originally posted by **[bobby71983](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=4#posts-7931297):*** > > Alright, someone in the comments said they have level in the 6 figures. If that is true, this game is way more exponentially absurd than labyrinth was. > > Still debating if I want to get premium, cause if I do, I am not buying it a second time when it comes to kong. Unintended – Poolbound gem became absurdly overpowered, Peter going to fix it. Personally, I think that premium on AG better than on kong due to server side save. You can move sol.file to kong at any time.

> *Originally posted by **[Gremlion](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=4#posts-7931573):*** > > *Originally posted by **[bobby71983](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=4#posts-7931297):*** > > > > Alright, someone in the comments said they have level in the 6 figures. If that is true, this game is way more exponentially absurd than labyrinth was. > > > > Still debating if I want to get premium, cause if I do, I am not buying it a second time when it comes to kong. > > Unintended – Poolbound gem became absurdly overpowered, Peter going to fix it. > Personally, I think that premium on AG better than on kong due to server side save. You can move sol.file to kong at any time. Poolbound does not seem to be available on too many maps. I have seen it twice, and I found it virtually useless both times. Yeah, I am probably going to get premium there, but I am not going to do it right away. Seems the game becomes easy mode once you do that, so I will at least beat the “main” game first.

When you get gem skill – color becomes available on every field, even without skillpoint investment. Poolbound multiplies Specials and damage. Mix it with orange, put it into trap – orange would give tons of mana. Amount increases with every manapool. Upgrade gem, mana increases even faster… By the end of level you look at 40+ grade gems, with corresponding “manapool exp multiplier”

> *Originally posted by **[Gremlion](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=4#posts-7932037):*** > > When you get gem skill – color becomes available on every field, even without skillpoint investment. > Poolbound multiplies Specials and damage. Mix it with orange, put it into trap – orange would give tons of mana. > Amount increases with every manapool. Upgrade gem, mana increases even faster… By the end of level you look at 40+ grade gems, with corresponding “manapool exp multiplier” Rly? Gonna try before nerf, I gotta see it. And hey I predicted it right, ROW….or just OW? lol.

when in kong?

> *Originally posted by **[TheGil](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=4#posts-7932806):*** > > when in kong? minimum 3 months.

I tried R-O-W AND R-O-B(with beam and high hits) and every possible combination and it fell flat, it sucked. I didn’t reload, so the patch wasn’t there…level 60, what? I’m stumped…this coming from a 1 trillion scorer in GC0…..idk just how??? :( I want to know, if only to experiment, for fun.

This is a lot of discussion for a game on another site still clearly barely escaped from beta status. I have my Kreds ready, and I’m just going to munch popcorn for the next 90 days while GIAB gets the bugs and kinks worked out. Then is should be all good to go when it lands here.

> *Originally posted by **[Tulrog](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=4#posts-7935016):*** > > Any theories on what compasses are for? Maybe if you point them all towards a certain spot on the map, they’ll unlock a secret level. I don’t know, just a shot in the dark. May I ask the non-premium players how far they have gotten? Wizard level 42, ~60 fields unlocked. At this point, I don’t see how I can complete these fields without grinding for achievements and shadow cores for my talismans.

> *Originally posted by **[MrLaw98](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=4#posts-7935714):*** > > *Originally posted by **[Tulrog](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=4#posts-7935016):*** > > > > Any theories on what compasses are for? > > Maybe if you point them all towards a certain spot on the map, they’ll unlock a secret level. I don’t know, just a shot in the dark. > > May I ask the non-premium players how far they have gotten? Wizard level 42, ~60 fields unlocked. At this point, I don’t see how I can complete these fields without grinding for achievements and shadow cores for my talismans. level 51, non-premium. It is getting difficult to beat stages by brute force. I am having to use actual strategy like moving gems around, and juggling. I am not using traits(except a few times for achieves), because I want to see how far I can get before I hit a wall. I’m not at the point where it is impossible, its just a challenge.

> *Originally posted by **[Tulrog](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=4#posts-7935016):*** > > Any theories on what compasses are for? (Besides that one achievement for spinning it) > > Also chasing shadows makes so much more sense once you are deep enough into the game. Nothing as fun as having to defeat one of them during an early stage of a map. When map with compass loads(C2 – E3 – J2 – K2 – O3 – U4 – X7), there are shadowy images of different grade gems. By spinning compasses each grade should become grade 5 gem. Then it gives reward – unlocks at least 3 – 4 hidden fields and gives fragments with rarity 40 -70

Man, boss fight at V4, no benifits from anything, so it makes it hard to figure out, what I could change to stop the lost, lol

> When map with compass loads(C3 – E3 ~~J2~~ K2 -O3 -U4 -X7), there are shadowy images of different grade gems. > By spinning compasses each grade should become grade 5 gem. > Then it gives reward – unlocks at least 304 hidden fields and gives fragments with rarity 40-70 I’m on C3 now but I don’t see either a shadowy gem or a compass, could you perhaps provide a picture for reference? I’m also premium if that helps [It must be a sign!](http://i.imgur.com/s5OkNjl.png)

Ok, I see how poolbound + chain is totally OP. On H2, got almost 1M xp(and would’ve gotten way more if 2 shadows(!) together hadn’t disrupted my early game and made me not anger a few waves). 180K pool, G12 was lucky to get a gem enhance, 26K damage, lasted on endurance till wave 88. Fail compared to you guys but I got a life outside CS. Also did 2 jumps today, one was from 72 to 81, another from 81 to 90. :D

U guys r hardcore serious. I could barely pass the first missions of gemcraft 0.

> *Originally posted by **[Tulrog](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=5#posts-7937770):*** > > Btw does poison damage ignore armor? Yes it does (: > You could try to fool it with a lower gem but that would mean you lose shadow cores. I thought Specters went for your most powerful gem, and would change direction if you resocketed them. I’ll check. Edit: Yep. Specter appears, goes after my Grade 6 Gem:  Resocket the Grade 6 gem, Specter changes direction:  > *Originally posted by **[MrLaw98](/forums/1/topics/383683?page=4#posts-7935016):*** > > Wizard level 42, ~60 fields unlocked. At this point, I don’t see how I can complete these fields without grinding for achievements and shadow cores for my talismans. I wish I could change this post, haha. I beat the fields after reevaluating my strategy. I haven’t grinded for anything since then.