Forums → Games → GC:CS End game tactics after v1.1
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Hi everyone,
I'd like to collect here some opinions of more experienced players than me on how to tackle some of the changes of v1.1, as the master source of endgame knowledge (psorek's guide) is now slightly obsolete.
Then we can link the two topics together and have an updated end game guide.
EDIT 29/12/14: scattered all over the topic there are a lot of useful info, I may recollect them all in the future.
DISCLAIMER: I'm an high level MP player, what I write here is from my perspective, may not apply so well to low level/not MP.
1) Hatred, is it worth it?
My observations would say not, but I'm still not sure, I seem to get ~20% less exp from lv 7 hatred than without it, but maybe there is a better balance in between, on the other hand it makes the round shorter, so I could actually do more if I was continually grinding exp.
Of course without MP I guess it's a blessing, because it shortens the number of waves you have to play to reach unkillable monsters and lets non-MP players achieve similar exp levels as MP players.
2) Enraging, theory and practice
Now that exp bonus from enraging is a one time factor (one g1 and thousands of g100 give the same result) it makes no sense enraging to killgem's kill power (displayed_crit*displayed_damage).
What I'm doing now is enraging with tons of g2 to make the armor grow during my mana gathering phase (I use over 500 g2 at the later waves) and killing them all with a throwaway killgem with bolt.
Then I start the exp gathering phase and just bomb them up to 999 monsters using as little bombs as possible to keep their HP low: I seem to recall throwing 9 g62 and 8 g68 per wave are two sweet spots, going for 7 bombs was too costly.
Do someone has a better tactic?
3) Goodbye sharding (and permafreezing)
Peter fixed the two bigger exploits we had to get to astronomical mana values
I found (some confirmation would be great) that if you bomb a shard and don't make it spawn you still get the 5% bonus mana, but it's waaay too low to make sharding a viable mana gathering method.
I don't think there is anything we can do about this, other than discover another exploit.
4) Farming high level talisman fragments
Luckily I had already did this time ago, but hatred has made a full traits speed run of Y6 much more difficult, to the point that U upgrading barely gets me to the end, but I cannot get the 3 endurance fragments.
I've always used a method similar to this, are there better ones?
5) Gem recipes
The only gem changed from 1.0.x to 1.1 were slowing and suppressing, both were improved, so the previous recipes for killgems and managems are still valid.
We (psorek and I) actually built better ones than the ones on the guide, but the lack of easy and understandable diagrams for them precludes their use to anyone who isn't willing/don't have time to parse unfriendly parenthetical/tree formulas.
Is there someone that could help with this?
Recipes can be found there: gemforce results
6) Uncapped skill balancing
Component skills, true colors and resonance were uncapped, great news, but finding a balance between them can be quite tricky.
I may do the math one of these days but at moment, does someone have a thumb rule that gives good results?
EDIT: as usual, thanks to AG forum for messing with all my formatting.
Yay for walls of text
12345ieee
EDIT: I forgot to mention the #gemcraft IRC channel, where a lot of top players reside stably (access from https://kiwiirc.com/client if you don't have a favourite irc program).
- 108 Replies
I don't remember who asked about talisman farming, but here:
Talisman farming video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2JxniLyxVw
EDIT: Yes, I know my talisman is not very good, but I don't like farming.
EDIT2: I also know my level is quite low compared to the pros, see previous point.
EDIT3: You should be much faster than me in doing this, I've had video driver issues and I have terrible lag in the game
ieee: Nowhere near that good/high enough level yet, but was just wandering if you knew you can fit a full 6 amps for a trap on y6. It's a bit tricky, but I figured out how.
Not that you really need them though.
Edit: Also, did they change the drop rate on talismans? I'd never gotten more than 3 on y6 before, and even with everything maxed getting a 100 was fairly rare.
My goal is usually not to have the strongest setup possible, but is to minimize lag while still getting my goal.
It's easy to put 6 amps here, but you need to put them after the turn, near to where I keep the killgem, making monsters walk more and lagging more.
You also interfere with the killing tower.
The drop rate was improved a bit back then (I know the entire probability function, if you are interested), then Hatred came along and improved it a bit more with the extra trait levels.
Makes sense. I guess I just noticed the amps because I -need- them to finish.
Though as it stands now, I don't think I can finish it. With hatred maxed first wave starts with 3mil+hp. I can't get a gem with that much killing power early in the game yet. Not enough mana. So I guess I'll have to do a few endurance runs and level up before farming for my full 100 talisman set.
Anybody else feel as though this is wrong? I really like this game, but it's a little annoying to think that I'll have to use some crazy combining method to make real progress in late game.
Do you guys feel as though the game is designed with this stuff in mind?
No way.
We are clearly playing it wrong (I'm not being sarcastic).
I played it a lot, both premium and non premium, and the way the engine and the math are balanced makes me think Peter balanced the game roughly up to g50 and a couple thousand monster on screen.
The way we strain the game probably borders on exploit abusing (as many, many other that have been removed), but since the combining coefficients are the core of the game he can't change them anymore without throwing all the balance out of the window.
Hopefully he'll find math formulas easier to control in the next games.
Words from GiaB himself: http://armorgames.com/user/gameinabottle#comment-1760694377
I feel like the original intent, as with any game, was to have users come up with creative solutions to the game in order to win. The gem combining schemes rely on math based on the game mechanics. Honestly it is the epitome of min/maxxing seen in other games all over. Min/maxxing is never really intended by developers, but is something seen as an inevitability.
I always assumed "endurance" wasn't supposed to be beatable in most cases, and if it was, it would be done with tons of gems of all colors covering the field. But honestly, that has about as much strategy as relying on two really powerful gems when you think about it.
My biggest gripe in design would have to be the worthlessness of other gems in late game. I want a reason to use poison, suppression, armor tearing, and so on. Unfortunately crit/mana/blood are the only ones that really matter. Red and blue get mild token usage for utility but aren't entirely critical in and of themselves.
I read a bit about min/maxing, never thought it was a common situation for video games.
What I have to say, min/maxing this game was pretty funny and mildly instructive, at least for me (can't speak about the other people involved, but I guess they had fun, too).
I hope it does not take the fun away for others.
Min/maxxing never really takes fun away. Those who want to do it, do it. Those who don't want to do it, don't.
Min/Maxxing is more common in mmos or games with manipulative stats. Eve Online? WoW? Min/maxxing rules those games. Pokemon? Min/Maxxing is at the higher levels of competition. DnD? Tons of people Min/Max. MtG? Min/Max.
It's really really common.
Back on topic with gemcraft. I don't think I'm high enough level to play with manalock/hatred or enrage waves crazily. With 30k starting mana I can't afford to make a killgem strong enough to kill enemy mobs, as well as amps for all of them.
Then again I'm fairly certain I'm doing something wrong since when I played my test run last night on F1 by the final wave before endurance I was only around g35-40. I know people manage that often in less than half the time. I just gotta figure out what I'm screwing up.
I need 3 waves to get to g40 without manalock.
In 5 waves I'm at g60.
I've used 4o/y3b1r gems, upgraded with simple 'U' and I'm far from being the strongest player here (WL 13k).
I don't know which WL you are or which tactics do you use, but you can definitely do better.
Curious how you are getting that high so early using only "u". how much and what level of enraging are you doing? what wl are you? etc etc......i am far from the strongest player, but have managed to get over wl 10000..........using the 32 spec 16 combine......and what you have stated is so far superior to my best efforts i am a little in shock
There's only a few cheerleaders that try to defend Peter's game design. He does lots of stuff well, but the mechanics just don't work as it seems he intended (then he made slow high end only in 1.1). I wouldn't call it min-maxing, maybe in skill selection but you can always change those whenever you want, this is just poor game design as the best way to play is something that is easily automated and ridiculously tedious to do by hand...it'd be forgivable if there were real choices to make, but the gems outlined will always be the best in all the ways that matter.
Lenore, sounds like you're lower wizard level than the advanced tricks are for. If you know the game well they're level 2k+, if not maybe level 5k+. 1M starting hp is still a joke, especially when you have g100 by wave 15ish (of course that's where the mana gain curve gets really steep). I start with 1k g1 angering out of the gate, a g50 or g60 with bolt is enough to kill those. I also start with a throw-away mana trap on the first tile(s) they hit to start gaining mana for real gems, and go optimized mana gems/amps from the start.
So if you're below those levels, refer to bilbo's recent get to level 2k or 3k fast posts in the guide forum.
Currently Wizard level 2049. I'm working on it.
I'm about to do a run without manalock to see if that helps a bit.
So far I'm into wave 33 of my second test run. This time on D2. Doing much better. Switched out u upgrade managem for a 32spec-16combine one a while back, now it is at g47. Gonna be doing the killgem soon.
Hitting a bit of a wall now though. Mana doesn't seem to want to move at all. Then again each wave feels like 10 minutes with 21k monsters on the field. Maybe I should lay off the WoE for a while and take out the slow gems to trim down the numbers a bit.
Question: After enraging, when it says it will spawn some insane number of beacons, like 100+, since it is impossible to spawn that many, what happens? Like, do the spawned beacons get more HP/ect? Or nothing? Just curious.
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