I'm wondering whether I can still progress farther in the game or not without buying the magician's pouch. I remember some early hardcore players here saying they did manage to finish the game without, and re-playing after buying the MP (which is what I intended to do actually, I don't have any problem with going premium, but I didn't want to make the game artificially easier in the beginning).
I'm currently level 59. I'm stuck at levels R2 and Q6 - two levels I feel I cannot win without either the chain hit or poolbound skills (both of them actually reserved for premium players, right ?) or bloodbound, which I understand can only be unlocked in the latest levels of the game.
The gem skills I currently have are all the other gem types : Mana leech (orange), critical hit (yellow), poison (green), suppressing (cyan), slow (blue), armor tearing (purple). I also have unlocked the 3 enhancement spells plus freeze and curse, amplifiers, and quite a few achievements. My talisman is far from great though (thought it would eventually get better in the last levels with higher rarity fragments dropping), my best fragment so far is only lv20. I also have 1260 Shadow Cores.
I'm completely failing to build a gem capable of defeating either of these levels with what I have now. I wonder if it is at all possible with my current setup and given the recent game updates.
I do read the other threads carefully, but I still may have missed a few insights about advanced kill/mana gem combining, any advice would be more than welcome.
Don't get me wrong, I will eventually buy the magician's pouch (that was my plan all along), but as a personal challenge I intend to go as far as I can without. Please tell me it's still possible, and how. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
replay earlier levels...try different strategies...you say got problem with swarmlings? Pure poison bolt enhanced traps target- swarms help loads, leaving enough enhancements and gems to deal with high level giants and shadows, etc
since trapgems take care of swarms, you have less need to multiple low grade gems to deal with those, allowing you to make high grade to punch through giants and shadows. Try it and tell me how it goes.
Also what skills do you have, #skillpoints, and what exactly are you doing in the level every 5 waves or so.
I finished X5 after 1.0.16 without the pouch. Got up to about Level 200, but others finished it earlier. I really wasn't pushing to end fast, so took my time, and I was clearly overpowered. I was also running out of maps with Chain and a bound gem, so I was closing in on the level wall, anyway.
@Erile : Maybe we can help each other out here. Iirc I managed to beat R1 on my second attempt, starting with the red/orange gem provided in that level in a tower at the right of the tome chamber. I remember I also used a second kill gem closer to the orb later in that game. I can say now that has been my most valuable tome chamber so far, especially without magician's pouch as @thunderrider highlights.
I completely understand what you mean with the 3 major threats, same situation killed me more than once (the last time being just before starting this thread ! spire + shadow + specter on R2 in the worst possible configuration). It certainly seems quite unfair when that happens. I found that this can be managed in several ways :
- sometimes you will have all flying ones in one level, and the next time you attempt it you won't get any. This is a random problem as long as you don't use battle traits to turn them on. Don't give up hope, keep trying.
- You can make use of spells on some flying ones (spires can be cursed, specters/apparitions/shadows (when materialized for the latter) can be frozen. Save a few shots for that purpose, best you can.
- each type of flying one implies its own strategy, but basically when that happens you may have either to build a second dedicated kill gem (so you need mana), and/or use the spells above (you need to make sure you have at least one shot of the needed spell available for the task at that moment), and/or be ready to ignore the monsters running into your orb for a few seconds cause you'll need that gem, optionally with its amps, to take down the flying one (hence you need primarily mana, and/or skills and/or enhanced orb through 6x grade1 gem bombs and/or amps - all of these help). I find shadows are the most annoying ones, but not always (If my kill gem is doing well with the monsters, it's just a matter of good wave/anger + mana + spell management).
- Since you may need to set aside a number of monsters when taking down the flying ones, you probably do not want to anger the waves and/or start the waves early to give you a better chance. You can still invest your mana in your kill gem to prepare for fighting specters or a spire though (but I don't advise to do so for a shadow, since it can fight back pretty hard, in that case you may need your mana to survive for a while - see above).
All of this works well provided you're doing a fine job with the monsters, that's why I've been stuck so far before this thread began.
In the same way, for swarmlings waves I generally use either a poison (green) gem trap in the monsters path in lower waves (with bolt enhancement) which may take down/weaken a lot of them, and, preferably, I use the beam enhancement spell (kept for this very purpose) on my kill gem with 'swarmling' (northeast) targeting. Seems to work very well so far.
Sometimes you don't have enough beam spell charges/time to take care of it all (especially if you anger the swarmling waves a lot and start them early in batches, like I do now), regular gem shots can usually handle the difference (particularly with a gem which has a red component and decent fire rate, since each shot can then hit several targets at once).
@fractalman : I'll try what you suggest as soon as I reach lv 60. I certainly do see what you mean with "erfect layout for epic farming" - basically one long semi-straight path, good gem color choices and plenty of room either side to build structures. I've also noticed I don't have the H3 field on the map for some reason, I probably need to unlock it somehow.
I don't have problems with swarmlings, I was saying that posted strategies don't really work, because they don't hit fast enough. The pure poison trap strategyworks for earlier waves of swarmlings, but later waves barely get hurt by it unless the poison gem is high grade with a high level slow trap in front of it. Getting the trap gems high enough to be this effective means I sacrifice my ability to level my towers enough for giants and reavers.
I've currently replayed every earlier level at least 50 times (not always winning at higher difficulties ). I'm running out of earlier levels that I can beat without them getting too difficult. I've even done half of the earlier levels at glaring with 3 to 5 added battle traits (I have full records).
I currently have Masonry/Bolt/Freeze/Curse 9, Mana Stream/Fusion/Beam 12, Slow/Armor Tearing 6 (max skill 12). I have 315 unspent skill points, which right now gives me 2200 mana that allows me to get one grade 5 gem at the start of a level. I've done most of the achievements that are physically possible for my level, and I've tried all the rest multiple times.
I try to set up 2 strong tower gems in the level in the best place(s) on the map to have the monsters spend the most time in the tower's range. My gems are typically 2 gem combos, unless the field has white, yellow, or black in which case I do a 3 gem combo with one of those. I use walls effectively to extend the monster time in the tower's range. I set up the initial gem in one of the efficient methods but typically only get to upgrade them normally later. By the end of a typical level, I can get my two tower gems to grade 8 or grade 9 (rarely grade 10). At the levels I have difficulty with right now, the last 1 to 3 waves take almost no damage from any of my gems because either their armor or HP are incredibly high and they are very fast. For that reason, I have been focused on blue and purple, to bring down armor in later levels and to slow all the monsters with high damage. I sometimes have used orange and green as well (the only other two skills I have), but I found them far less effective in the end because of the lower damage. Sometimes I still use blue, purple, and green. I only use spells when they are needed, and always try to let them charge up and have them ready. I basically get overwhelmed in the last 1 to 3 waves, unless I get overrun by shadows and spires (it really sucks when 2 shadows and 1 spire appear in the same wave, which has happened to me 5 times on R1 alone).
At this point, I never have a level without shadows or spires. Based on my numbers, the odds of me not getting one are less than 0.2% The odds of me getting two are >50% right now. I think you get more and more of them as you level.
i think the spires are no big problem. the shadows and the grey beast can cause real trouble. bad luck when you have two of both in one level = restart.
but even now, after reaching level 180 and the X/Y fields the beasts don't appear every time. at least not on the earlier cleared fields.
There's an easy way and a hard way. The easy way is to do a big run on a field which gives you natural red and to massively over level. There are plenty of guides covering that sort of run. The more difficult way is to remain at a fairly natural level, where you really have to essentially live on the brink. Use mana/poolbound/slow to do a nerfed mana farm on the harder levels. Live on the edge.
I don't agree, glaring with banishment, faster waves and beacon trade to 7 (sometimes you have to reduce the faster wave trait a bit if you get overwhelmed at later waves) is an good and easy way to farm the early maps, as it gives more XP than looming with full traits by a factor of about 2,25, and costs as much in shadow cores, and you don't need to enrage anything unless you see that you start lacking some mana
you can just x9 most maps most of the time with some breaks to upgrade or cast spells, you can spare the enrage till later wizard levels when you want to get higher scores and replay earlier maps
I did this since about lvl 40-60 (I have 32*7 achievements thought, giving me a few extra "levels"
I was going with looming and max traits and enraging earlier but just going with 9x speed through a level without having to deal with super giants and even getting more xp is much easier
you can always go achievement hunting for some easier ones, on older maps if you need some extra skill points (remember that 7 achievements are already as good as 1 wizard level)
"banishment...trade to 7...farming lower levels"
whut?
1st: You had banishment at level 60? i'm pretty sure I was level 100 by the time I got corrupted banishment, due to my tendancy to level jump on good levels.
second: trade to 7? um...you mean set to 7? and better relative to what, my angering strategy? if you are refering to my analysis of "faster waves vs. carapace", I was refering to "first mana farm" set up.
Third: I do NOT farm low levels for exp. I farm unplayed maps for exp, and then level jump on the nice levels.
Last of all, my advice about glaring?
I level jumped from 171 to 248 WITHOUT glaring, OR premium. faster waves is a no-no when mana farmin
now that i'm 200+, i can grow a mana farm faster than even glaring's hp curve, and so NOW I can take advantathe extra waves and x2 exp multiplier can be
p.s. if you're saying that your strategy is better in terms of exp per hour spent playing at those levels, you might well be right. I did, after all, optimize my in-game strategy in terms of exp per play, and then spent shadow cores based on THAT.
Slow and Armor Tearing skills are only useful if you have a stage that forces you to use those gems. If not, then drop them entirely.
Quite honestly, unless you need Curse, Freeze, Bolt, etc. to open a Wizard Lock or a Tome Location, drop those skills to zero. Rely on your towers, traps, and when you get them, amps. I'm not saying to not use those spells, only that your skill points are better spent, or saved, elsewhere.
I only have 4 gems. Slow, Armor Tearing, Poison, and Mana Gathering.
Slow does far more damage than poison's direct and over time damage put together, and armor piercing allows every hit to increasingly do more damage (especially since there is no way to kill middle wave monsters at the levels under discussion unless you decrease their armor). I've found that mana gathering doesn't give me enough mana in any level to help when you get to higher waves and it does incredibly low damage. I've done every combination of those 4 gems I can think of and to date, relying on those two the most has allowed far more success in many levels. Is there something I'm missing?
I don't see how only removing skill points helps the situation? I have no problems with early waves at all. Its only the last 1 to 3 that I lose on. Having 200 more mana at the start isn't going to make any difference at all in the scheme of things.
@XasdZbaa
True colors is not yet available at the point being discussed.
@Erile - if you have any decent combination of the good gems (orange, red, white/black, yellow) then purple and green are really useless.
At lower levels you pretty much want to adjust your skills to every map, every time. If you natively "have" purple but you're about to play a map that has other colors you don't have, and you won't be using purple, then take the points out of it.
Slow is definitely helpful at lower levels and higher levels, but not always useful. If you can put points into one of the first tier skills at the cost of your points in slow, you probably should. I'm very high level and I only have a few points in slow - more is just wasted, really.
Also, removing skill points (and not spending them) boosts your initial mana, which can be a huge help on a lot of maps. Starting with a grade 4-7 gem vs 1-3 can be a big difference. At low levels that's not really possible, but experimenting might be in order. That 200 mana you mentioned plus what you can initially earn at the beginning might let you put a trap or tower near the end of the path before the monsters from wave 1 reach your orb, but after you started the wave. It can also help you reach mana milestones that much faster if you don't spend it.
It won't be too long before you don't have to be so "fine tune-y" with playing, but I remember the low levels (still on my first play-through/character) and I had to juggle skill points.
Unfortunately, none of those gems or skills for those gems are available in the context of the question. There are some very specific questions at play in this thread, and the information given above was in relation to those questions and previous posts. I'm still really hoping for answers to those questions. The whole point of the thread was to circumvent the standard advice in every other thread, which is always reliant on the magician's pouch or on higher level situations.
There are only 4 gems available, and the point is what to do at levels 60 to 80. Red will never be available, orange is not useful because mana traps can't be done yet (and because it reduces mana in the long term because of the occasional monster that slips through due to its extremely low damage), and green does far less damage than blue (even considering the armor avoidance) because blue gets more hits at higher total damage. Purple increases damage with every hit and enhances all other gem hits. I do adjust constantly of course, as I have done every level available at least 30 times.
All of my first tier skills are maxed out as posted above, (except masonry, which is almost maxed). I am not maxing slow, I just have a few points in it at a low mana cost.
Since I only lose in the last 1 to 3 waves, 200 mana at the start on top of ~2600 really isn't ever important in terms of structures or mana milestones. I have literally attempted the levels in question 100 times in many different scenarios. The problem is solely killing the last monster waves, which have a huge increase in armor and HP (well that and the fact that I get 2 to 3 shadows/spires in most games now).
@XasdZbaa
I have opened that chamber more than 20 times, but I don't have that skill.
