Haunting Difficulty Any Map HASTE trait is MANDATORY, other traits are optional (if you use Orblets, you must also use at least two of the following: Adaptive Carapace, Mana Lock, Chasing Shadows, Giant Domination, Swarmling Domination; reason behind this is Orblets is just free mana if monsters never reach your orb. Beacon Storm is not on this list because people with bajillions of starting mana can cover the map in towers before wave 1 and nullify the trait entirely, and Corrupted Banishment doesn't matter if monsters aren't reaching your orb to begin with.)
You may do anything you want, pre-wave 1, EXCEPT anger waves. Build whatever, create whatever gems. Set up however you want. Just don't anger waves until AFTER you've started.
Once you're ready to start, IMMEDIATELY set the speed to 9x and leave it there for the entire game. NO PAUSING ALLOWED.
Bragging rights go primarily to highest XP yield and secondarily to highest wave cleared. Both categories require video verification (hence the "Youtube-capable Gemcrafters" in the title). Endurance IS allowed. GOOD LUCK.
No one in their right mind would ever use 9x speed. Seriously. It's devastating to your gems. 100% inefficient and wrong. I can do it, I even got vids already, but no, I will not do anything that involves 9x speed, tyvm.
