Forums → Game Walkthroughs → The No-MP guide to WL 300 for GC-CS

Disclaimer: This guide is not meant as a step-by-step-I-tell-you-everything-walkthrough but it should help you see, what is possible at which level and teach you some general game-mechanics. You have to figure out by yourself where to put towers, how to build pathes for the monster. At best, you have played GC for a while and now you just want more. The gem recipies in this guide are not the best but they are easy to use and sufficient enough to do what we want.

Let's start...
OK, we start from the beginning, f-hextile. Right here you start with enraging - enrage every wave, get as many achievements as you can get. I tell you, when to spend skillpoints and how to spend them. I tell you, how many achievements you should have after every hextile, I will not tell you, wich ones, just look in the list of the achievements and look what you can get. No rule without any exception: on f1 ie, combine a triple gem, destroy a tower, enrage the three waves and you have the first achievements...
After every hextile I tell you some landmarks: Achievements and Wizard level you should have reached after that hex! If you have more - great! If you have less, I'd recommend to replay map(s) in the last hextile. I swear, that it is possible!
OK, play on! Every talisman fragment you get, put in your talisman, DO NOT spend shadowcores on fragments unless I tell you, you need the shadow cores later for playing with traits.
Rules of Thumb for enraging: Enrage wave 1-5 with 1g1 gem, 6-10 with 2g1, 11+ 3g1 - feel free to enrage more if you think you can handle it.
What gems to use? I'd suggest using two color combines, triple color has advantages in damage but lack the power of specials.
Landmark after f-hex: WL 12, 20 Achievements

Move to i-hextile
Use some skillpoints, 3 mana stream, 3 fusion, 3 masonry.
Use the haste trait 1 on all maps, it's not too expensive but gives 30% more xp!
I6 is a pretty good map to look for some achievements - with the formerly described enrage pattern, you can get a g8 gem and 10k+ mana, enough for a lot of walls, traps, some towers and an inventory full of gems. If you think, that map is too hard: Use pure poison in traps, first g2 gems, later up to g4. And, of course, one (later maybe two) killtower with a mana/poison gem.
Now you have the bolt skill and you're able to open dropholders - some of them contain gems. If you harvest such a gem you should have a look at the gem cost - mostly these gems are not worth playing with them, they are often a kind of "supergemmed gems", i.e. a grade 3 gem by the cost of a grade 3 and a grade 2 gem... I'd recommend to sell them and get a gem you need.
Landmark after i-hextile: WL 29, 65 Achievements

Move to h-hextile
Raise the skillpoints on mana stream and fusion to 9, make sure to have enough starting mana for a g4 gem, a tower and some enraging gems.
Landmark after h-hextile: WL 41, 83 Achievements

Move to e-hextile
Time to distribute some more skillpoints: 12 mana stream, 12 fusion, 3 to freeze and bolt
New standard trait you should always use: haste 1 and giant domination 1
Landmark after e-hextile: WL 53, 101 Achievements

Move to d-hextile
Time to distribute some more skillpoints: 15 mana stream, 15 fusion
Rules of Thumb for enraging: Enrage wave 1-5 with 1g1 gem, 6-10 with 2g1, wave 11-19 3g1, wave 20+ 2g2 gems - feel free to enrage more if you think you can handle it.
Landmark after d-hextile: WL 61, 111 Achievements

As beam is made for managems: Move to b-hextile
Skilltime: 18 mana stream, 18 fusion and 3 to beam
For B3, you might want to rearrange your skills, but I found no need to do so - I just did not enrage any wave at B3, poison traps only are fine.
At B5, if you are not sure if you should break the tomb open or it is better to ignore - With a g10 r/o it is a piece of cake! A g9 can handle it, but it is a little tricky. So, as you probably do have a g10 in the end, just open it
Landmark after b-hextile: WL 66 (it seems to get slower... let's wait 2 more hexes to speed that up) and 123 Achievements.

OK, just to keep the map clean, let's go to the A-hextile.
Let's spend some skillpoints on mana leech - 9 should be enough by now! Here is still enough starting mana for a g4, a tower and some enraging gems... same procedure as before.
Now, as we have mana let me tell you to use mana on every map! Either as a (strong) component of your main gem or seperately in a trap. When you have that managem in a tower, use beam on it as often as possible - managem and beam give a fast reward!
You probably have a g10 by the end of such a "managem map" - when you have it, don't be afraid to enrage even a little more than before (i.e. 3 g2 or 2-3 g3)
Some words to A4 - you see a sealed gem... Start as usual with a g4 1green3orange - when the gem is freed, put your old gem in a trap at the start of the maze, forget that gem and use the chain hit gem in combination with orange (so you get a g6) as your new gem. Upgrade that gem till it has g8, then put a pure g8 orange in that gem. From now on use 'U' again. When you have a g10, you should enrage with 3g2 (or more... if you dare) but keep an eye on monsters armor - it should not exceed min damage and it must not exceed max damage! When you have a g11, enrage with 4g2 - giants with 3g2 to stay on the safe side. With a little luck, you get your first g12 gem!
A5 is pretty hard with my "standard method" but it is beatable... So I won't loose any more word on it.
Landmark after a-hextile: WL 74, Achievements 137 (btw: the're giving 147 skillpoints)

What is one of the most important no-mp skills? Right, True color! Let's get it at the m-hextile!
I think, it is time to look after the talisman - meanwhile it should be fully equiped, if yours is not full, go to f1 and do some runs without any traits to farm fragments. I have gathered by now 10 frags <10 and 5 frags 10-19. Now is a nice time to upgrade them all.
My talisman bonus by now looks like:
33% swarmlings, 21% reavers, 12% giants, +4% xp, +22% of WL goes to initial mana and xp, +54 initial mana and some unimportant stuff... So this should not give me any special advantages against any of you.
By now we have enough starting mana for a g5 gem - we do not want to go below that anymore! This gives us the opportunity to start enraging with 2g1 from the beginning: Wave 1-5 2g1, 6-10 3g1, 11-19 2g2 (swarmlings 3g1, g2 are often too expensive), 20+ 3g2
Don't forget: To do so and to get higher gem grades use pretty much orange and beam as often as possible.
Landmark after m-hextile: WL 82, Achievements 144

Next thing we need is the amplifier skill, to get it we have to go to j-hextile
Some Skillpoints should be distributed now: True colors gets 9 skillpoints and as beam takes really long to charge, 3 more points to beam. The whole list reads now:
TC: 9 MS:18 Fu:18 Ma:3
Bo: 3 ML: 9 Fr: 3
Be: 6
unspent: 297, manabonus: 2079

We enrage as we are used to, and we use our traits - on j3, the wizard tower location, I recommend not to use any traits - bad experiences... So, I don't use any - you are certainly free to do what you like! And I guess, I don't have to tell you, that you have to have an eye on the hp/armor of the monsters after, say, wave 40-50 and you might want to reduce enraging.
By the way: I haven't told you to do all Vision Fields you encounter - As you are highly motivated, I guess I don't have to, so I assume you have done them all by now. If you need some help with the vision fields, V1-V4 can be found on youtube, V5-V18 are described here: http://armorgames.com/community/thread/12407538/gccs-the-vision-field-walkthrough-thread
We can not finish the j-hextile due to the lack of curse, so we make a detour to the g-hextile.
On G2, we find poolbound and now is a pretty good moment to tell you some basics about gem combining. Pool (and blood-)bound gems strengthen the specials of your gems. I recommend at our current WL, to just take one part managem and one part Poolbound (bloodbound works fine after grade 35 - so as our gems do not reach such grades by now, we prefer Poolbound). As before, use beam on it as often as possible, and you see your mana raising. So we could dare to enrage a little more. My standardenraging by now: Wave 1-5: 2g1 Wave 6-10 3g1 Wave 11-20 2g2, Wave 21-30 3g2, but be a little careful with giants, Wave 31+: 2-3g3, after wave 40 you have to look if you can enrage more or less...
Use freeze (and curse, as soon as you have it) spell as often as possible, every time you cast a spell, you get xp. Not much but little plus little gets more...
When you have a lot of swarmlings on your map, I encountered 6 waves of swarmlings on g3, it is helpful not to upgrade your gem but to use a second killgem. I talk about waves 6-11 and the second killgem (g6) came by wave 8. When the swarmlings are gone, merge the killgems to one. Now, as you have curse a new strategy is helpful from time to time: Curse strengthens poison damage, beam gives a lot of poison in short time - together it is really powerful: Curse the monsters around your gem, use beam and target:random when it seems to be helpful.
And as I have heard, that V14 might be hard, I don't do it by now - for V16 excuses are not allowed .
G5 is too hard with the standard enraging, use g1 gembombs against the discharging beacon and get rid of the shield beacon as soon as possible, don't bother to take i.e. a g2 armor tearing gem for the beacons.
G6 is a pretty nice map - We shall remember it for a later come back - for now I just tell you, that 33.000 xp at this moment is no problem and you should try to get that, too. Free the sealed gems, care for them as prototypes and combine the white one once with an orange gem and once with the yellow. So you have one mana gem and one killgem. Destroy the nasty beacons and the nests.
And now we go back to j-hextile for the amplifiers
Landmark after j-hextile: WL 97, Achievements: 170 (185 Skillpoints)

Now we move to k-hextile
Skillpoint time... TC is raised to 15, Mana Stream and Fusion up to 21 - you should still have enough starting mana for our g5 gem, a tower and some g1 for enraging! If not, make sure you have met the landmarks and done all vision fields (but V14...). For my sake we can now stop doing the Vision Fields.
When you meet k5, make sure to make use of your opportunities - managem with poolbound, beam it as often as possible, when g10 or so, start to farm the manashards with a yellow/white gem, upgrade this gem till g11, amp it with 8 g5(and maybe more) gems, and enrage till you have 200 monsters, up to 100-150.000 hp. Don't be happy when you leave this map with less than 50k+ xp.
And here is also a good place for some more achievements.

I considered doing some "Wizard Level farming" right now, but I decided to do the N-hextile first.
Skills keep untouched for a while, sorry.
Nothing special to say here, so here are some landmarks after n-hextile: WL 109, Achievements 186 (203 Skillpoints).

So, now we will gather skillpoints and Wizard Level
Let's look for the talisman. You should optimize it a little. At this point I raise my talisman to the following settings:
33% swarmlings, 36% reavers, 30% giants, +4% xp, +14% of WL goes to initial mana and xp, no initial mana... So I lack a little starting mana, but it is still enough for the standard start sequenze.

Now I tell you what I have done - you could do anything else what you want to do as long as you reach the landmarks you read later! If you don't get them, you just have to do some more fields on Glaring.

OK, let's first go back to the f-hextile!

F1: Select Glaring difficulty, raise Giant Domination, Haste and Adaptive Carapace to 7 for a pretty nice multiplier.
First enrage as we are used to - you realize pretty fast, that AC7 is not so nice in combination with giant domination... So after a few waves we enrage giants only with one gem End XP: 86k... Pretty expensive in shadow cores per xp, hard to play due to AC - So not my best idea

F4, Looming: AC 3, Haste 7, GD 3 - Set the Amplifiers and Trap Skills to 9, Pure yellow g5 as killgem in tower and a g2 pure orange in trap at the entrance. For now, we will restrict ourself to one trap, later we might get several traps with managems... Enhance the manatrap with beam and the killtower with bolt. When you have a g7 killgem, start upgrading your managem to g7, too. Enraging could be done as we are used to but soon, by wave 9 or so we enrage with up to 4 or 5 g1 gems. Be careful with the giants, better use a grade higher and a gem or two less to enrage - In general, have a look at monsters armor and hp and compare it to your killgem damage.
After having 2 g7 gems and wizard locks shot down, merge the armorgems and set it to highest armor/shielded. Set a slow trap in front of your manatrap.
By wave 14 or so you can enrage the (reaver) waves with i.e. 7 g2 gems, look at the mana gain per kill, the amount of monsters you get per gem and figure out, how many monsters you can kill.
Use amps on kill&managem. I enraged the last waves with 14 g3 - they overrun my orb but thanks to the g7 manatrap, I survived...
xp-gain: 105.360.

E3, Glaring, AC 3, Haste 7, GD 3: Once again: Pure yellow killgem, later amped, pure orange managem in trap, kill nest when possible, enrage a lot, up to 5 or 6 gems with ascending grades (g5 in the end) and be rewarded with 472.000 xp.
You see a pattern: Look for maps with crit gems, build a mana trap at the entrance, amp the killtower (for range and firerate), enrage to the limit - You might get overhelmed from time to time. If you don't, you don't try enraging hard enough! Remember, this is an enraging game!

That was fun, let's do something else! Let's go to A4 and do it on glaring, I use AC1, Haste 5 and GD 1, save some Shadow cores for later use! Here I use the old strategy with a dual color managem as a killgem as I do not have crit by now. As we have seen, managems in traps can be very helpful, so this should be done again. I used the old enraging-sheme.
By wave 40 or so we have to pay more attention, the hp grows pretty high and I take a pure green gem instead of a killgem. You remember that stuff with curse and poison and beam? Great! By wave 55-60 I stopped enraging, having a g11 poison gem and a g10 red/orange gem. By the end, it gets really hard - Having both gems at grade 11, you have to fight the giants with millions of hp with everything you have and you probably have to disappoint the giants: Shortly before they reach your orb, open the other path and block the actual one so they have to return and go again through your maze... I had to do that 5 times before I won. XP gained: 261.000.

And a new field! A6 - let's move there and start it at glaring and let's say haste at 3 )
Important: Before you start that map with these settings, read the last sentence of this paragraph!!!
Let's spend some of our new skillpoints: Raise TC to 21 and Mana Leech to 12
We start with the good old 3o1g gem (three parts orange, one part green). Later we set up two traps at the entrance, one with slow, one with pure mana. Next is a pure yellow tower behind all the mana collecting stuff. Even if amps are expensive, try to amp them all with 8 amps. In the beginning, do not try to use our old enraging-sheme... These monsters start to strong for 2g1 gems, just enrage carefully. Try to get rid of the nests as soon as possible, a small armor tearing tower next to them is pretty helpful. Later, when you have enough mana to do so, make some more manatraps with g7 gems behind the first. Raise your Killgem up to a g12 and... UhOh - that was a bad idea... I got killed by wave 65.

Restart with Glaring, no traits!
Same as before, but this time with success and 89k xp.

K5 was a nice map, it provided us with all we need: Yellow crit gems and white poolbound gems. Let's do it again with some more traits (haste 7, AC and GD 3) on glaring.
We start with a g5ow gem in a tower and enrage. After having a g7 managem and a g7 yellow/white we start something new:
We build a proper manatrap with a 1red7orange8white gem and put it in a place where many (later all) monsters walk over. Manatraps should be enhanced with barrage to improve the specials (managain!) but as we do not have that spell, beem is the second best (more hits/second). We put a slow trap in front of this manatrap. After getting the mana out of the shards you should have a powerful managem, you could also do some experiments with killtraps, same recipe as above, but instead of orange use yellow - these should be enhanced with bolt to ignore armor. When they are grade 12 or higher you see them burn the beasts away! Keep your managem upgraded, your killgem(s), too!
In the end I had a g17 managem and a g18 killgem - Whoooosh! Enrage the waves with high (10) grade gems till they have 10-30 millions of hp, 500 monsters per wave: no problem! That's GemCraft at it's best.
This is our first million xp run - 1.2million xp

Now we have Wizard Level 150 and we should play on and discover new fields.
We move to the o-hextile
We now have a lot of skillpoints but I'd recommend not to spend more at the moment.
I guess, there is not too much I could tell you at the moment, orange/black is a nice gem combo - combined with beam the gems get real powerful
O5 is another beautiful map for great xp - all necessary gems available!
Oh - O6 should have introduced Spires - I didn't met one... Hmm.
Time for some landmarks: WL 155 - Achievements 218 (245 Skillpoints)
I guess you are able to handle that game alone by now...

You do not have to read on. Really! If you need Wizard Level, do the same trick like on k5 on any map with *bound gems. It does not matter if you use bloodbound or poolbound. If you have the choice, I'd recommend Poolbound, Bloodbound gets stronger after Grade35. If you want to do that on any map, then you should consider getting mp... But no advertisement is needed for this game. To find out which maps offer *bound gems, look at the list of fields: http://gemcraft.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Fields_in_Gemcraft_Chapter_2

Oh - you still read on? Great - so come with me to r-hextile and keep your fingers from the skills!
Corrupted Banishment is one of my favourite skills, but at our low WL, we should not use it at the higher maps - unless there comes such a great map like r4! All we need: Single entrance, room for beacons, bound gems - Party time!
Glaring, AC3, Corrupted Banishment(CB) 7, haste 7, GD 3.
We start directly with a modified gem, 1r7o8w, and one armor gem for the nests and the beacons. By reaching grade 7 start with a killgem 1r7y8w behind and put the managem in a trap (beam enhanced as we do not have barrage by now). When the nest(s) get down move your manafarm more to the entrance, keep it updated and do not forget to enrage. When all nests are gone place the killtower somewhere in the middle of the map, place some amps but make sure you do not disturb your one or two managems. These managems (I have two) are meanwhile behind a slowing gem at the single entrance, amped with pure orange. Keep the managem upgraded - I can't tell enough! After upgrading managem, do the same to the killgem, then upgrade the amps... In the end, you could have a g20+ gem, you could and should enrage the last 10 waves or so till 999 monsters with high (g12-15) grade gems and still add a lot of g1 gems for beacons! Have a look at the max damage x crit hit on the one side and the hp on the other side - at these values, armor can be ignored totally. It's pretty nice when all the beacons disappear immediately, huh?
This run got me 21 millions of xp, whooshing my WL from 155 to 292.
It is seductive to throw all of the new skillpoints to skills and yes, a few could be spent but not too many - Starting mana is in fact very valuable for the stuff we want to do! You remember that r4 run? It was pretty hard in the beginning, only one gem, farming mana, later a small killgem to a time, mana is rare. How much faster is the start, when we can start with two g6 gems? Short answer: Much faster. So place some skillpoints i.e. at crit but keep enough starting mana.
Before you do another xp-run by yourself, you should get another skill: You need barrage to enhance the manatraps.

So move to p-hextile.
On maps we don't have bound gems but red as on p1 we setup a manatrap with g6 1r3o and and a killgem behind with 1r3y.
Enrage with some gems, keep the trap and the tower upgraded when you have enough mana and you see: No problem at all!
Now as you have barrage spell: Keep in mind that all manatraps (and from now on you play always with a manatrap) will be enhanced with barrage!

Some Rules of Thumb for gem-choosing
Managem:
If you have red and *bound, use 1 red, 7 orange and 8 *bound, If you have the choice, choose poolbound as long as your gem probably does not exceed grade 35.
If you have red or bound: use 3 parts orange and one red or *bound part.
If you have neither red nor bound, stay pure.

Killgem:
If you have red and *bound, use 1 red, 7 yellow and 8 *bound, If you have the choice, choose poolbound as long as your gem probably does not exceed grade 35.
If you have red or bound: use 3 parts yellow and one red or *bound part.
If you have neither red nor bound, stay pure.

Skills setting: TC is the most important skill, it should be higher than mana leech, that should be higher than critical hit and that should be higher than resonance.
Mana Stream and Fusion should be slowly maxed. Traps and Amps, too. Keep the skills balanced, Masonry is not so important unless you want to build a lot of buildings early.

If you want higher talisman fragments, wait till Y6 and do it with as many traits as possible over and over again.

You have seen some maps were you can get pretty much xp, look at the r-hextile. You have everything you need to play even highest traits.
Just do it and give hell to the forgotten!