ForumsGame WalkthroughsGemcraft CS: extreme end-game guide

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psorek
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psorek
447 posts
Jester

This guide is outdated for game version 1.1 - new guide can be found here

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Introduction
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First of all, this guide is beneficial only for 1000+ level players with all skill unlocked who also know how mana farms work and fully followable for 2000+ with at least +10 to all skills talisman. If you are lower level, better check out fractalman's and thunderrider's guides. They explain respectively low-level (0-100) and mid-game (levels 100-2000, basics of mana farming and endurance).
Another important thing is Magician's Pouch - if you don't have it you also won't be able to follow this guide as it heavily uses premium-only content.
If you are able to set up some macro for clicking mouse, it will help a lot. You will have to anger waves for example 500 times, so click-ten-times button is highly recommended.

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Skills
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Must be is 45 points (+ your talisman) in following skills:
True Colors, Fusion, Mana Leech, Bloodbound, Freeze, Amplifiers, Fury, and Traps

Very important and heavily needed but not essential are:
Masonry, Critical Hit, Chain Hit and Barrage

Least important (but also recommended) skills:
Mana Stream, Resonance and Poolbound

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Map to choose and difficulty settings
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Easiest places to set up a mana farm are maps with a single entrance. I prefer fields M7, Q4, U1 and X4 (not single entrance but nice too). Q4 is nice for beginners because no beacons will spawn there, and the gem resocketing ones are really annoying. I will use this map for my example in the rest of this guide.
I prefer all traits except manalock maxed and haunting. It really doesn't matter for a play and gives huge 70x XP multiplier.

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Gem combining methods
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As you probably know (or not), pressing "U" isn't the best option for gem upgrading, and not every colors proportion in gem is equally good. To squeeze every drop of power out of gems I recommend using following gem combining methods - they are carefully designed to maximize power of this particular gem combination and probably won't be so efficient for others, so for best results use them in way I recommend.

I'll introduce two kinds of methods: 32-spec and 16-combine. First one (32-spec) is one-use only, it combines 32 g1 gems of three colors to get g5-equivalent with the most specials. Second (16-combine) is repeatable, it combines 16 equal grade gems to +4g-equivalent. It's used to upgrade gems and allows faster special growth.

32-spec for mana gems
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/64607958/Gemcraft%20guide%20images/32-spec_mana.jpg

32-spec for killing gems
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/64607958/Gemcraft%20guide%20images/32-spec_killing.jpg

16-combine
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/64607958/Gemcraft%20guide%20images/16-combine.jpg

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Basic setup
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Get around 1,000,000 mana however you wish (white mana farm or something). You will now need 6 amplifiers surrounding 3 traps and one trap directly after and one directly before - just like on this picture:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/64607958/Gemcraft%20guide%20images/buildings_layout.png
You can also perform a corner setup.

First make 32-spec for mana gems to get basic g5 gem. Then set it to random targetting. Copy it and save a copy somewhere in order not to need to craft it again in case of mistake. Upgrade it twice with 16-combine.

Create 2 white, 1 red, 1 blue slowing gem, upgrade it by pressing "U" to 1/8 of mana gem value. Duplicate. Place in traps before mana gem. Set targeting to Random.

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Early gameplay
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Anger 2-4 waves of reavers by g1 gems (no swarms and no giants) to e24 armor and send them all. Using permafreeze (freeze spell with recharge time shorter than minimum freeze time), freeze them all as precisely over the managem as you can. When your mana is high enough and you have got barrage spell reloaded then pause, use 16-combine on managem (sometimes your mana grows so fast that you can do it two or three times), put in back into a trap and reload it by barrage. Upgrade your slowing gems to keep them 1/8 of managem price, (but not higher than g40) and reload if have got some spells (other than bolt!) to spare. If not, upgrade first of slowing gems, wait it to reload and upgrade second then.

When your mana gem is about grade 29, craft amplifier gems. You do it by simply getting g1 orange and applying 16-combine for amplifier gems to it. Go until it's grade 28. Always keep your amplifier gem 1g lower than mana gem!

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Late gameplay
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When all monsters are frozen, remove slowing gems. Keep monsters in this state by constantly freezing them. Then upgrade your mana and amplifiers using methods explained to g59 and g58 amps. It's enough for very good xp gain, ideally you do it by wave 65.

If you wait very long for 16x mana to upgrade mana gem, I advice to duplicate it and hide somewhere a copy and then perform the formula step by step - wait for enough mana to perform next step of 16-combine, duplicate your hidden copy enough times and combine into mana gem according to current step of formula. After that don't forget upgrading amplifiers.

In order to farm hits slightly faster, create some duplicates of managem, put them into towers and combine in during next iteration of 16-combine.

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Killing gem building
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You are now ready to build killing gem. Similar to the managem, build g56 one (using 32-spec for killing gem and 16-combine). Also build 8 g58 yellow amps, using 16-combine for amps. Don't farm hits yet. Combine 1 red and 7 black. Upgrade by pressing "U" to grade 50. Place in tower and farm some hits on this gem.

Build "fortress" - 8 amplifiers around the tower. Put yellow amp gems in. Perform 16-combine, but combine your g50 gem with hits into one of 16 copies of basic gem before combining it with anything. Now your killing gem is ready to kill the mass-enraged monsters, but still don't place it on tower.

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XP gaining
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You should be now around wave 90 if you did everything right. Fill at least 1/10 of your mana pool. Finally, you can put your killing gem into its tower

Create a gem with value about million times lower than your mana pool. Take your killing gem's damage (round it down to two digits) and multiply by critical hit multiplier, rounded down the same way. It's HP of monsters you want to reach. Anger by gem you've created untill you reach it. Try not exceed it more than 10 times or you probably won't be able to kill the monsters.

Anger in this way every wave and send angered early. Remaining 40-50 waves should boost your XP by roughly 300,000,000,000 points before endurance. You can then proceed in endurance with exactly the same bombing technique, further boosting XP. Go into endurance as deep as you can and then finish it - I recommend around wave 500

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Final conclusions and other stuff like that
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- You don't have to follow this guide exactly, it's just an example.
- I can play it through in about 3 hours, but it surely can be done faster.
- Feel free to leave comments, as I can use them to improve this guide.
- If you want to know some even more complex gem combining techniques (in order to perform g100 run for example) also ask, I can post them for you.
- All gem combining techniques I use are computed by my PC, I will probably share software I used for it somewhere.
- The guide is published over CC-BY-ND license. If you want to copy it, please also post link to original one (there will be the newest version).

Good luck in hardcore GC:CS gaming!

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Informations for true addicts
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http://i58.tinypic.com/vo23ao.jpg
64-combine, use it instead of 16-combine if you wish to beat g100 or something. Doable, but lots of patience. About 2x better at g78-e than 16-combine.

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Credits
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Main author and math dude - psorek

Man who wrote everything I've forgotten and inspirator of every manafarm-crazed person, including me [psorek] - thunderrider (Armor Games) aka Takiza (On IRC and Kongregate)

Our fantastic graphics author - cronos51

The people who helped us in creating this guide and developing showed methods - Astroshak, borthelcash, dsizov and many others.

  • 88 Replies
Stregobor
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Stregobor
1 posts
Nomad

You are now ready to build killing gem. Similar to the managem, build g56 one (using 32-spec for killing gem and 16-combine). Also build 8 g58 yellow amps, using 16-combine for amps. Don't farm hits yet. Combine 1 red and 7 black. Upgrade by pressing "U" to grade 50. Place in tower and farm some hits on this gem.

Build "fortress" - 8 amplifiers around the tower. Put yellow amp gems in. Perform 16-combine, but combine your g50 gem with hits into one of 16 copies of basic gem before combining it with anything. Now your killing gem is ready to kill the mass-enraged monsters, but still don't place it on tower.

1. make killing gem lv 56 using 32 comb, and then 16 upgr.
2. make 8x lv 58 pure yellow gems using 16 upgr.
3. combine red/7black and upgr. to lv 50
4. lv50 RB gem into tower + 8x lv58 amp
5. "Build "fortress" - 8 amplifiers around the tower" the second one or this is the one i mentioned in point 4??
6. combine lv 50 RB gem into one of 16 copies of lv56 killing gem
7. make comb. 16 upgrade on lv 56 gem?

did i understand it correct?

Astroshak
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Astroshak
268 posts
Peasant

Trommler, are you asking about the XP Gaining section? If so, then it is max damage.

To use the killgem (grade 50, cost equivalency is grade 60) in my current game as an example, it says :
Damage: 1,513,122,736,256,447-31,909,194,569,754,690
80% chance to deal x8,109,396,695,172.15 damage

Rounding the max damage down to 2 or 3 significant digits, and the critical multiplier down to the same, you get 31,900,000,000,000,000 and 8,100,000,000,000. Multiply those two numbers together to get 258,390,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, AKA 2.58e29. That is the HP target for the current waves in my game.

psorek
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psorek
447 posts
Jester

Stregobor: yes, you are correct. About point 5, you've got only one set of amplifiers and only one "fortress".

borthelcash
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borthelcash
104 posts
Peasant

Sorry guys, had a video driver crash that nuked my previous run. But, after all that, I finally completed it.

http://s15.postimg.org/71gt8u8bf/g86e_full.png

Grade 86e, with grade 85e amps.

Trommler
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Trommler
8 posts
Shepherd

beating R2 on haunting unlocks R6, which is also a single entrance map and pretty awesome for manafarm.

cronos51
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cronos51
108 posts
Nomad

Thanks borthel.... I was sooo curious to see a highgrade gem like this with considerable hitcount after 1.0.15, to be able to compare. And if everything is correct here, I'd be shocked: What Peter did to us by the Bloodboundnerf would have much bigger effect than I thought:

http://i58.tinypic.com/wumbtl.jpg

That was G86e amped by G84,5e on v 1.0.15 (32-combine didn't exist yet, so I couldn't use it). I would never have thought that the difference could be so big? I thought the improved combining methods should take one close to the results of 1.0.15? @psorek, do I miss something or is there a breathtaking difference? It would be quite impossible then to get to G90+ now.

psorek
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psorek
447 posts
Jester

It feels like it's display bug, saying 100 times more mana when it hits e leech. Bug report in progress.

cronos51
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cronos51
108 posts
Nomad

Ah, that sounds reasonable. So its like 1,3 times better values, ok. I didn't realize this jump at the time and felt like I was gonna conquer the world now. lol

thunderrider
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thunderrider
641 posts
Peasant

@borthel please make your images larger, god, I can't see it, even if I zoom in, because then it gets blurry. God cmon man make the images large enough so people without superhuman vision can see it xD

oLaudix
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oLaudix
48 posts
Nomad

Can someone link a video how to freeze mobs on the target? When I freeze 2 - 3 batches i run out of freeze spell and then next mobs rush a little further and i end up with a line of them frozen :/

thunderrider
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thunderrider
641 posts
Peasant

Simple, make freeze duration > cooldown. Slow traps help

oLaudix
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oLaudix
48 posts
Nomad

I also noticed, that with method of 32-specc from this topic you get black-orange-red gem but when i tried to make orange-red-black it was giving more mana, at least on low levels. Will the black component outshine it when it stacks enough hits because im a little confused about this ._.

Astroshak
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Astroshak
268 posts
Peasant

While R6 does look pretty good for farming, it only takes a Glaring victory in R2 to unlock, not a Haunting.

I think that all stages unlocked by a higher difficulty are unlocked with Glaring, not Haunting. At least, all of the stage unlocks I've read about for Haunting, I've gotten on Glaring ...

marqee
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marqee
7 posts
Shepherd

Build "fortress" - 8 amplifiers around the tower. Put yellow amp gems in. Perform 16-combine, but combine your g50 gem with hits into one of 16 copies of basic gem before combining it with anything. Now your killing gem is ready to kill the mass-enraged monsters, but still don't place it on tower.


Can you explain it further.
i don't understand the "combine your g50 hit gem into one of 16 copies of basic gem before combining it with anything"
I mean what i have to do with my lvl 50 hit gem ?
Astroshak
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Astroshak
268 posts
Peasant

He's basically saying, make your 32-spec kill gem. Then, when doing the 16 gem upgrade on it, combine the gem that you farmed the hits with into one of those gems, on order to transfer the hits over to it, and thus the killgem.

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