Forums → Games → Gemcraft CS: Help request for mid-level enraging formula

A couple of suggestions.

1 ) If you can, start using psorek's 32 spec killgem. If you cannot, for whatever reason, then try this very simple gem made from all Grade 1 gems : 1 Red, 7 Yellow, 8 White.
2 ) Use Yellow, not Yellow/Red, in your Amplifiers.

White is actually stronger (a LOT stronger initially) than Black as a gem booster, up until Grade 30 or so. If you are going to be getting to higher than that Grade, then it may be worthwhile to start off with White, then farm hits with a lower Grade Black version, with the intent to replace the White with it when it is more powerful. Additionally, a little bit of Red goes a LONG way - enough so that there was a bit of experimentation about squeezing the Red out of a gem in order to make the other elements stronger - and you should be able to get by without boosting the Red in the gem at all. Pure Yellow Amplifier gems will increase the Tower gem's killing power against the targets it does hit.

As for what to bomb to... there is an unstated statistic that I refer to as a gem's Killing Power. That is found by taking the gem's maximum damage, and multiplying it by the gem's critical hit multiplier. You have a similar idea with your formula, but I go by max damage, not min damage, and I figure that enough hits are going to be fired that the 80% critical hit chance is almost guaranteed (if this hit doesn't crit, the next two or three should). Just bomb monster waves until the next bomb would exceed that Killing Power.

That said ... you need to be VERY careful. Bombing with lower Grade gems (Grades 1, 2, and 3 - not sure how much higher this applies to) boosts monster Armor tremendously compared to their HP. Armor is a straight reduction of damage (do 1100 damage hit to a monster with 950 Armor, and you only actually land 150 of that damage) and if you bomb a monster wave too much with very low Grade gems, you can easily have Armor you cannot scratch when the monster HP reaches your target level.

With that in mind, if the gem you are bombing with boosts Armor more than Hit Points, then you want to bring the wave's Hit Points + Armor up to without exceeding the gem's Killing Power. If you are bombing with higher Grade gems that boost monster Hit Points a lot more than the Armor, then just go by Hit Points.

Just remember, the higher the Grade gem you bomb a wave with, the more experience you'll get killing each monster. If you have the Mana, and have yet to bomb the wave to your gem's Killing Power, it is usually better to bomb with the higher Grade gem.

Now, you say you are not comfortable setting up a Mana Farm. That's fine. Here's some advice on getting that set up.

Set up your Killing Trap area first. Six amps (use Walls as placeholders if you need to) around a central Trap, so that they all boost the trap. Then place two more traps right next to the first one. This gives you a 3x3 area with three traps and 6 amps. It can be straight or curved :
[A][A][A] . . . . . [A][T][A]
[T][T][T] . . . . . .[A][T][T]
[A][A][A] . . . . . [A][A][A]

Then set up the manafarm area. Set your central trap, then its Amplifiers (again, if you cannot afford all the Amplifiers, use Walls as placeholders for them). The mana farm area should follow the same setup consideration as the killing area; you'll want to be able to prepare 6 amps all boosting a single trap, and you'll want a second trap on the inlet side (unlike the killing area, you do not need a trap on the outlet side). (The manafarm area should be an area that all the monsters have to pass through BEFORE they reach the killing area.)

Take your remaining mana and start making gems. Make your killing gem. 1 Red, some Black (or White), and some Yellow. Make your mana gem (1 Red, some Black or White, and some Orange). Place those gems into their traps. Make some pure yellow gems for whatever amplifiers you have at the killing area. I'd suggest you learn psorek's 32 spec gem recipes, and his 64 gem upgrade plan, but those can honestly wait until you are higher Wizard Level and have more starting mana (and higher skill caps). These simple gems will work for low level farming.

Find your killing gem's Killing Power. G1 Bomb the first wave so that its Hit Points + Armor come close to, without exceeding, that Killing Power. After the gems have all set up, find the killing gem's amplified Killing Power. Bomb the next few waves (again, Armor + Hit Points) to that Killing Power. When the spell refreshes, hit the killing gem with Bolt. At that point, you can ignore the monsters' Armor and bomb so their Hit Points come close to without exceeding the gem's Killing Power.

As you gain Mana, complete the two areas. As you finish the killing area, figure out the Killing Power and bomb to it. After you've got the two areas set up, it is time to use the other three traps I told you to build. Take a Grade 2 White gem, a Grade 1 Red gem, and a Grade 1 Dark Blue gem. Have the G2 eat the other two gems, and then duplicate the result twice. Put those into the traps, and (if necessary) use U to bring them up to 90% slow.

Every so often, upgrade your managem, killgem, and their amps. I personally find the Mana Lock Battle Trait useful as a timer.

If you have trouble getting this to work, it may be your Skills. You want your Skills (those that you've put any points into) at a multiple of 3. If you need more mana to get started, try reducing a few skills by 3 levels. If you can create both areas, fill them with gems, and still have a ton of mana, try increasing skills by 3 levels.

Alright. Sounds simple enough. I'll give it a try. Thanks a bunch.

OK, tried it, and it doesn't work. The monsters keep getting through the kill gem right from the start.

After the initial super-weave I get a gem that does 63-194 damage with a 43% chance to deal 10.24 times normal damage.

According to your killing power formula, with taking the chance into account, that brings us to 964.8 killing power. Monsters enraged to that level breeze through the trap.

I brought it down to average damage (128.5 damage for 639.06 killing power), and even minimal damage (63 damage for 313.31 killing power), and they still got through en-masse.

The problem, I think, is the lack of consideration for rate of fire. It's not as important for a tower, but with a trap, it has to be able to attack every monster that steps on it.

For reference, I used the following skills:
True Colors (21)
Masonry (12)
Fusion (21)
Mana Leeching (24)
Critical Hit (24)
Poolbound (24)
Chain Hit (18)
Slow (12)
Amplifiers (21)
Fury (21)
Traps (21)
+5,670 mana

As an aside, the numbers in all these guides just appear way off. Take thunderrider's rapid leveling guide for example. I couldn't come close to doing the initial setup he described as doable for level 80, when I was around twice that.

Kill the Slow skill. Its not needed.

Put those points (assuming you have these skills!) into Mana Stream and (more importantly) Resonance. I'd also suggest dropping (paradoxically as this may sound) Mana Leech and Poolbound both by 3 levels, in order to max out on Fusion and Traps. 24 is your max level, right?

When you bombed a wave to roughly 1000, you were adding the monster Armor to its Hit Points, and bombing so the total was roughly 1000, right (well, 964, but close enough), and not just monster hp or monster armor? If you bomb a wave and the monsters hit 100 HP 300 Armor, that's 400 of your 964 ... it is not until after you are able to Bolt the killtrap gem that you want to start to ignore Armor. Not only that, but any hit for less than 301 would only do 1 damage (because they all get 300 knocked right off at 300 armor).

If that does not work, then you may want to return to the old method of bombing you were using, at least until the critical chance reaches 80%. At that point, your killing gem should be advanced enough.

I don't have resonance yet, and my cap is 45, not 24 (I didn't upgrade beyond that to have more initial mana).

And yes, I enraged until HP plus armor equals killing power (965), but, like I said, it didn't work even when HP plus armor equaled 313, which is only a third of that.

The issue with using one method up to a certain point, and another one past that point (and maybe even another one further down the line), is that it's not what I'm after.

What I want is an infinitely-scaling enraging formula that goes like this:
"When your gem has A minimal damage, B maximal damage, C rate of fire, D critical hit coefficient, and E chain length, enrage the next wave until the monsters have a combination of X armor, Y HP, and Z amount, to kill all the monsters in that wave before they reach your orb, as long as they aren't shielded or have special powers, while maintaining good XP gain margins."

It sound like a lot, but it should come down to a fairly simple equation (I think).

The formula I've been using came pretty close to that, but it didn't scale past a certain point.

To clarify, I would be OK with a formula that only works in the mid game, but I would still prefer something more consistent.

My formula (max damage multiplied by critical hit multiplier) does scale through all waves I've tested it for. It only runs into problems when monsters start coming out more powerful than my gem can handle, without bombing, in the higher Endurance waves.

I simply developed it after I'd reached a higher WL than you are at (I went from just over WL 200 to just under WL 1200 in one fell swoop). That is why I think the critical hit chance is the issue here. I was already hitting that 80% chance cap. When most of your hits are going to be crits, you are really able to deal a lot of damage compared to non-crits.

I don't believe that Rate of Fire is the issue here - and that's actually what the Red portion of your gem is there to handle. Without a smidge of Red, you cannot hit all the targets fast enough; but with just a tiny hint of Red, you're able to hit all targets as they come along.

I'm sorry though, that my formula is not working for you.

Thanks for the help anyway. Maybe I'll come back to it once I'm over WL 1K.

OK, I finally got it to work, kind of. After the kill gem got powerful enough, I used MaxDmg x 0.8 x CritMulti, and it worked seamlessly.

Ran endurance on F1 and cashed out at 20,000,000 XP.

Lesson learned from the endurance: Don't use corrupted banishment.

Thanks for the help.

Corrupted Banishment is not a real drawback IF you are able to keep monsters from reaching your Orb.

I don't think I can recommend it if you are trying to BEAT Endurance, but for a simple exp run, it adds its part to the final multiplier.

By the way ... once you get your Slow gems up and running (IE - in place, 90% slow), and the 80% crit chance, you should be able to multiply the Killing Power by 10 and bomb to that.

When you try to beat endurance you should make sure, that NO monster reaches your orb, getting them all in one place and permafreeze makes things muche easier so Corrupted Banishment doesn't matter any more... But I don't think that you (the OP) should spend any thoughts on beating endurance till WL 3k+

Beat endurance? No way, dude. It gets boring and repetitive real quick.

Right now, I'm just looking to see how well I can do until wave 100, at which point I stop enraging, and let the game play out until my orb dies.

When I go over 1K in a few runs, I'll give psorek's technique a try; see how that goes.

Some call it boring, some call it meditative
I know what I talk about, I've beaten endurance haunting, all traits maxed... Took threee weeks or so.
And Psoreks technique: It's real good, once you've learned to do 64c without lurking at pics, it guarantees quick grow of mana, a G80e managem (cost 2.1e30) is done within a day or two. G85 (1.3e32) takes a few more days...
It helps a lot when you can permafreeze the monsters on a manatrap,

Permafreeze is pretty much required to beat Endurance.

If you attempt it without using Permafreeze, you can still achieve an incredibly high score ... but you won't be able to beat it. Still, getting as far as you can is how you are going to get a high enough WL that beating it becomes worthy of the attempt, and psorek's gems are one very good way of getting as far as you can in Endurance.