Forums → Games → GemCraft CS: Let's talk about nerfs... (Peter, read this)

thunderrider, I just got Bloodbound, so I've stayed out of this until now. I ran Bloodbound in my Mana farm (where it gets max hits), and Poolbound in my Kill Trap. Poolbound and Bloodbound Skill were both 21. Gems were made in exactly the same way.

Basic weaving.
Kill trap = Combine(Weave(R,W)+Weave(W,Y)
Mana Farm = Combine(Weave(R,B)+Weave(B,O)
Amps were Weave(R,Y) and Weave(R,O)
(Don't want to go into detail. They're made the same way, so it doesn't really matter what method I used. I'll clarify if that makes inadequate sense.)

Since the hit count on my kill trap was going to be much lower, it was the obvious place for Poolbound: its Hit Level would be fundamentally smaller than the Mana farm's Hit Level. The result?

The Bloodbound modifier never, ever caught the Poolbound modifier. It wasn't even close. Your assumption is that Hit Level can equal or exceed the Pool level. When the Mana Farm gem is generating Hits, it is also generating Mana, and Mana increases Pool Level.

Just because that one number is higher, it doesn't mean the final result is higher. There are other numbers that are involved and need to be analyzed. the number of Hits to raise Bloodbound modifier could be 3x the number of hits needed to generate the mana to raise Pool Level, for instance.

The situation for me might change. I don't deny that. I just reached L1600, so there's lots of game left. Maybe further into Endurance the exponential effect I'm noticing on Pool Level will let the Bloodbound modifier catch up over a much longer haul. Maybe. But that leads to the question: is it better to take the higher early Poolbound modifier, or suffer and wait for the long term higher Bloodbound modifier? Regardless, I'm of a mind to think that Poolbound is the best for the initial Farm, and the small Hit count loss accelerating the early game won't affect the long haul Bloodbound modifier significantly.

I think I'm capped on Hits: 999 per wave, extremely high Chain in that Dual build, and monsters released (top right) is less than Chain could hit, so every pulse is hitting everything on the Trap. And that's where Slow or Freeze would have to come in to aid the situation. To get more Hits, you have to build up far more monsters on the trap. For the Freeze trick, I need lots more levels. But, that heads straight into the previous argument. More Hits -> more Mana -> more Pool, and so far, Pool Level is rising faster.

But there's another consideration. In order to save time, I have a tendency to just Upgrade the gems for a number of grades, then re-weave and replace, since that slowly degrades effectiveness. (Ie. Make a weaved gem to G31, upgrade through to 39, then reweave a new one when I have mana for G41. The G41 reweave will be far more effective than the G39 upgraded to G41. Hope that makes sense.) That hurts Bloodbound, since a new gem resets the Hit count, setting your Modifier back temporarily. I don't see a way to overcome that: the old gem can't benefit from weaving after the final combine of Weaved Duals to a Triple. Poolbound can be remade without concern. Its modifier immediately increases when replaced, and doesn't need to wait at all for Hits to catch up: it is instantly more effective. Given the effectiveness of reweaving is significant, Poolbound's long term gem quality may also overcome any potential Bloodbound Level advantage with a higher multiplier that Bloodbound can never duplicate.

Sigh. See, poolbound multiplier/manapool level goes up per gem grade LINEARLY I believe. It looks that way to me.

Bloodbound goes up/grade EXPONENTIALLY. That's why blood starts slow, and catches up, and immediately kicks poolbound's butt the moment it does.

Proof - In V1.016 I have x13,018 to specials & damage. Try getting that on poolbound.

With the uncap firing speed in tower + chainhit, its easy to get 1 billion hits or more....which means, at 1.5 billion hits, this is how huge blood is. Contrastly, I am at level 59 manapool and poolbound has just topped 400.

"Observations" based on "impressions" are proof of nothing. You need to build both, the same way, with the same skills. You're only building Bloodbound, and making assumptions about Poolbound. It is vital to experiment and test: our minds see patterns in randomness, creating meaning where there is none. Look how you are doing your weaving maximizations. Are you letting impressions judge the effect of gem combination methods? Or are you doing the vital step of demonstrating the effectiveness? Yes, I should have screenshotted my gems, but I didn't think I'd need to. Everyone can actually test this themselves, after all.

And, again, you are ignoring that Hits = Mana. Those 1 Billion hits? That's 1 Billion additions to the Mana Pool, raising it simultaneously. You're trying to prove Bloodbounds effectiveness by removing Hits from the full context of Hit effects, and treating Hits as isolated only to affecting Bloodbound, when it simply never can be stopped from affecting Poolbound. Basically, you're citing a big number hoping people remember only the obvious direct impact on one effect, and hoping everyone forgets that it indirectly affects the competing effect.

So, next time you play Endurance and are well into it, instead of upgrading that Bloodbound again, build a match but with Poolbound replacing Bloodbound. Poolbound's modifier is immediately evident, so can be compared directly to the already matured Bloodbound. Really, it's a trivial exercise. Stop speculating. I'll post mine up tomorrow. Sleep now.

Thunderrider, just post him g60 1:1 bloodbound/red upgraded normaly with 100 000 hits and g60 pure poolbound, OK?

callmeishmael
"It's a great game, a masterpiece of the TD genre, no doubt about it."
I would have agree that it was the best part of the series and a masterpiece at release, but until some of the outpatched content is reworked and reinplemented, I barely see differences between this game and GC:Labyrinth, besides the reworked skillsystem and talismans, but I'm not a progammer so

@kreistor - i'm following the discussion of the last few posts with interest, but wanted to address something I saw you say: effectively you said that your bloodbound in a trap is where it will get the most hits, and that's just not true. Try angering 4 waves in a row to quadrillions of health, and then build a tower/amp combo so you can have a 1:8 red:bloodbound gem with a fire rate of 300-400 and whatever you can amplify the chain to. With thousands of high health monsters on the screen, that gem's hit count will skyrocket. I suspect that thunder and others must be running several such hit farm constructions to hit billions of bits. The best I've done since I got back into town is a hundred million.

I will occasionally replace the gems with new duplicates and then use those farmed-up-hit gems to augment a mana trap or two.

@InThrees, that sounds like you're not building symmetrical gems for comparison. Since the Manafarm does not kill, it always gets in the max hits. The Kill Trap may kill on the second, fourth, or twentieth hit, but since the monster dies, it is likely to die before the max hits on the gem.

I do not disbelieve your suggestion on its face, but I think you're doing something to turn it into an apples and oranges situation. Your Kill trap should not have more Hits, so you must be doing something different between the two that is making the comparison asymetrical.

Oh, and in my last XP run (didn't take it to endurance, only 152 waves), I was Enraging to 999 monsters on every wave and sextillions in health (7 commas in the HP number) for the final 30 waves.

@Kreistor

I'm saying a red-anything in a tower that doesn't kill will always get a higher hit count than a red-anything in a trap that doesn't kill.

If you have a red-black in a tower that can't kill the waves you've angered, a mana farm that also doesn't kill, and then a kill gem or no kill gem (because banishment costs early on are laughable compared to income) then that red-black in the tower will gain hits at a massively higher rate than any or even ALL of your trap gems, combined.

Try it. Build a mana farm, get to 35+ pool level, and then put a red-black in a tower surrounded by reds. Upgrade all 9 of those gems to 32+. Anger 3-4 waves to ridiculous levels compared to that red-black (so it can't possibly kill them in several banish circuits) and let it run for 1 entire wave, and see how many hits it builds compared to any or all of your trap gems.

Or are you saying something else? Maybe I'm not understanding, but I've never seen a trap gem increment hits as fast as a gem in a tower, with chaining, with very high fire rate and very high chain effect, and lots of monsters on the screen.

Kreistor, you will NEVER have an equal comparison.

Just understand that though Poolbound starts off significantly stronger (in my current game, a Poolbound mana farm gem started off 2-3 times as powerful as an equivalent Bloodbound gem) but the Bloodbound DOES close the gap and pull ahead later on.

I was merely doing that 16 gem combination of Psorek's (1 Red, 8 Orange, 7 Black/White). At first, depending upon hit level vs pool level, the pool gem was about 3 times the mana/hit, and some 50-100 percent more chain. At G28 (whatever that is the equivalent of, mana-cost wise) the pool gem was only 12.2% better at leeching mana. (For what its worth, the last two Mana Lock timers had brought me from MP 20 to MP 30, and from there to MP 36).

The next Mana Lock timer got me to MP 41 ... and two iterations of that "dupe 15 times, combine all 16 gems" together (bringing my gem levels to 34, whatever they are equivalent to) had the poolbound gem weaker than the bloodbound gem. The bloodbound gem was 42% better at leeching mana than the poolbound.

If you're still unsure, my Bloodbound and Poolbound, as well as Mana Leech and Critical Hit skills were all at 57 (45 + 12 from amulet pieces).

Wait. so poolbound's maybe better blow g30?
...
I'll do X5 for my next mana farm. I'll use blood to get to g18 since I know it works well enough, and then build a poolbound mana gem to run a ballpark comparison.

I'll look into supergemming next time, I guess.

My gems were supergemmed, using Psorek's 16 gem method. At the end, G43 gems were equivalent, mana-wise, to G57 gems. I am not sure just what the G28 and G34 gems were equivalent to, straight up 'U'-wise.

But yea, it should be quite obvious to everyone, Poolbound starts off better than Bloodbound. The only potential variable would be when Bloodbound takes off relative to Poolbound.

Thank you, Astrosnak. Obviously other people were trusting without testing. I tried to make it clear that I am open to that idea. I hope your words will inspire others to test instead of trust, since my words were bouncing off built up walls.

And I can`t post my images. I screwed up (doh!), but caught my mistake before embarrassing myself totally. It`s a good thing I trust no one... not even myself. Check, recheck, and triple check...

For me, I always use bloodbound. It's simply the best one, except for casual players. Pool is good for casuals.

mere mortals you mean

Yeah.