Forums → Games → Gemcraft CS: important links

Its possible that part of the problem could be that you say not to use it for swarmlings or reavers. No one ever posted that before and people have encouraged using it for them.

However, I observed the same problem in many reaver waves. Its possible that reavers with specials also violate the rules. Remember that the instructions for angering always given out say to continue using gems until you reach a certain HP level of the monsters. Its quite possible that any creature deviating from a generic reaver would violate this sort of table, which would be fine if not for the fact that this constitutes most of the waves at later levels.

I suspect there are a more variables that need accounting for in order for such a table to work correctly.

Also, it doesn't make any sense why your table's numbers for no skill are the same as those given for high skills. They should be different, which is still an issue.

*correction, I said HP above, but meant armor level.

hm, yes, maybe I should have just manned up and posted the tables for swarmlings and giants from the start, and perhaps that would have clarified things...

wait, "most monsters aren't normal reavers?" Are you going into ENDURANCE with that rule of thumb?

...I suppose that endurance could have a bug which incorrectly displays the actual mana gain per monster. If so, it *could* throw off the net mana gain per wave, and as I have no pouch, I would be unable to detect it on my own.

*epic headscratch of confusion*

I don't have access to endurance since I don't have access to the pouch, just referring to the "special" reavers with HP bonuses, armor bonuses, shields, etc.

http://armorgames.com/community/thread/12319048/gemcraft-cs-1024-hardcore-upgrading

I'm thinking that, so we don't lose that method, this thread should be part of the Important Links.

Thank you to each of you who has shared your knowledge via the hard work of writing a guide. Now, who wants to volunteer to write a guide to angering? I've read all of the guides and this entire thread and I still don't have a plan that effectively deals with angering all of the different types of critters in relation to the strengths of my mana farm and killgem traps. If I've missed something I'd be grateful to anyone who can point me to the correct information.

This is what I do, but I'm a high level ... and my killgem starts out with an 80% chance of a crit.

Damage Rating : The result of multiplying the killing gem's maximum Damage by its Critical Damage Multiplier. Using White to start off with, instead of Black, in psorek's 32 spec killing gem, with 6 pure yellow amps, this usually starts off around 240,000 or so. It grows considerably over the course of a farm.

Wave 1 through 3 : Since I'm using G1 gems to bomb waves, monster armor is skyrocketing compared to monster HP. Since Bolt has not charged yet, I bomb these three monster waves so that monster HP + monster armor is as close to the Damage Rating of my killgem, without going over.

Wave 4 through 6, and beyond : Still using G1 gems to bomb, which I use until I've enough mana left over from upgrading gems to comfortably bomb with a G5, or G15, gem. Bolt usually charges around this time, though, so I put it on the killing gem. Since Bolt means the gem ignores armor, I stop counting the monster armor, and I bomb so that monster HP is close to, without going over, the Damage Rating.

When I am using G15 gems to bomb, I start paying attention to the monsters at the killing trap. When the last of the really high armor monsters is killed, I switch from Bolt to Barrage. Depending upon the waves and the map, that has happened as early as Wave 12 and as late as Wave 20. Be careful! A decently developed killing gem still won't be able to penetrate e22 level of armor all that well if its Damage Rating is in what would be the e17 levels (if e levels started that low).

As for when to move from one angering gem to the next, that's simple. Grade 1, 5, 15, 25, 35, 45, 55 .. it all depends on how much mana you are sitting on in your mana pool after your gem upgrading. However much mana you have left, you want your angering gem to cost two "illions" less. Trust me, its easier to do than to explain ... if you have 20,000 mana left after upgrading gems, then you still want to use G1 gems. If you have 500,000,000,000 mana left after upgrading your gems, then you want your bombs to cost around, but a little under, 1,000,000 mana (two "illions" less than trillion is million). If you are sitting on 2,456,754,234,000,000,000 mana (two quintillion) then two "illions" less would be a trillion, or 1,000,000,000,000. Regular gems, at max levels, cost just a little under those amounts at Grade 5, (1000), Grade 15 (1,000,000), Grade 25 (1,000,000,000), Grade 35 (1,000,000,000,000), 45 (1,000,000,000,000,000), and so on, all odd multiples of 5.

Make the transition as soon as you can, in order to both maximize your exp per wave, as well as to get out of the early phase where monster armor is humongous compared to monster HP.

One reason I've not put that into guide format is it is based on high level experience, and I'm not sure of its applicability at low levels. I developed that multiplication method out of a simple desire to know how much I should be bombing in my own games, if anyone else has any better ideas, I'm all ears.

Thank you, Astroshak. I didn't figure that it was simple. Your kind reply gives me something that I can work with. Though I'm only at lvl 1093 the angering regimes that I used in early days are no longer sufficient.

Thank you, too, for verifying my conclusion that using White to begin with is the better option. I started doing that a few rounds ago and I find that at my level White yields enough XP for satisfactory advancement. I'm experimenting with putting G1 Blacks in traps and towers to build up their hit count until I'm ready, and have sufficient mana, to either squeeze out White or start the 32-spec.

Starting out with white instead of black in psorek's 32 spec gems, both mana and kill, works real well.

Just don't try to squeeze the white out. It is NOT worth it. Straight up replace the kill gem and the mana gem, Grade 30 for the kill gem and Grade 40 for the mana gem if using psorek's 64 gem upgrade plan.

I've found that for farming hits, using dupes (or Black versions of a White) of the mana gem in towers works well. For the killing gem, I prefer traps without amps, because otherwise the dupes start to kill monsters off. Just be sure not to mix the Black and White versions of the gems, and be sure to collect all the Black copies when doing the 64 gem upgrade.

Again, thank you. I'm going to give that a try next round.

I wanted to stop by and add a thank you note to all the guide writers, math nuts and empirical experimenters (sometimes the same person) that put together these guides. It's been a good read.

I've made it up to ~2860 and a decent 90+ talisman using only the basic tips (standard mana farm, basic gem weaving, enraging), and I'm getting ready to try my hand at some of the more exotic techniques.

The only question I have that hasn't been answered is: Should I spend time to farm up some more "+X% wake of eternity health loss" fragments? Direct WoE damage doesn't seem to figure into any of the strategies you guys have hammered out, so I'm leaning towards "no".

On the other hand, I kinda want to see what %HP it caps out at...

70% from what I've heard. That means that it leaves monsters at 30% after one cast, 9% after two ... or it removes one "e" level of monster HP with every two casts. If you over bombed a wave, meaning to hit e36 but got e37, two maxed out WoE casts will bring the monsters hit back down to e36 - and bring everything else down to a tenth of its pre-WoE cast HP as well.

Of course, if you are aiming for e35 and accidently hit e42 .. it would take a few more casts to bring the wave down to a level your gems can handle.

Thanks for the information! I think I'll just do some opportunistic fragment farming when I need a break from the care required for XP farming.

So I did some research on angering, and finally found specifically where the standard angering table mathematically fails.

I posted the information in the low-level guide as part of the continued conversation there, as I cannot seem to find the specific thread on angering.

In a nutshell, just as standard table does not work for swarmlings and giants, it also does not work consistently for special reavers (twisted, possessed, etc). I hope that this finally allows the concept of angering strategies to evolve to something better.

It won't becouse in endgame you simply anger with the highest grade you can afford. You don't stay long enough in low levels to make this angering research reasonable.

Create a subject about angering, it can be interesting competition though