I think that it's now advisable to leave "Enhanced Pool" skill strictly at base, in order for manapool skill to hit the top earlier, thus having less mana pool costs further beyond 5.5x, which will lead to less mana wasted for manapooling and more mana spent to defences.
I still don't get it how you guys manage those scores though ... I see you often mention over angering giant monster waves, but if I do that I typically die quick (I anger almost each wave with about 3 lvl 1 gems or so, and later on when I'm stronger I anger waves until their armor level starts to look too high). What's the trick with giants then?
angering giant levels with a few high grade gems is much better than with a lot of low grade gems. I have gained about 1272 million score on lvl id 45. I probably could have gone higher, but I lost my pure red gem.
I would like to thank Vesperbot and Lankhr for your many informative postings and banter (Lankr enjoy your holiday).
With your help I got a new high of 18m xp on a 50 wave level (3*xp).
Now then... all those levels that I went to make a sandwich while the last 800 monsters were killed and mana was maxed will haunt me until I replay them (95% mana pool cost cap). Ah well no complaints here.
I love the the v1.2 improvements. Faster games is good and now I can track where my score multiplier is after using the mana shrine and all the waves are called. A close second to the mana cap is the button sizing on the pause screen (bleery eyed late nights... it hasn't happened yet but it was only a matter of time before I accidently hit restart battle).
Good idea on downing the mana pool skills upgrade!!!! I would never have thought of that on my own I'm at wiz lvl 1100 and haven't even thought about skill levels for months.
Two quick questions:
What is the quickest way to maximize rate of fire on R/Y towers? and does any body know how the increase in banishment cost per lap is calculated?
well, R/Y towers are best maximized through "supergemming", that is combining a R/Y gem of high grade with a R or Y grade gem of level 1 (preferrably, you can do with as high as "main gem grade minus 2" R, Y or R/Y gem, but this method is the cheapest and most effective in terms of mana-to-firing-speed). Banishment cost (total) is increased by 50% of current value (rounded up IIRC) each time this particular monster gets banished, while the "armor" value remains intact.
YAYFORME/VESPERBOT: thanks for the info it will help. I tried super gemming once and it seemed too tedious. Maybe I'm doing it wrong or I just laZ. I just played my first game with the mana cap and got 20m on 42 wave 3*XP. The end my max mana pool was 348K (by 1000s because no mana pool skill) or about (max score)*1.4*...17.3! It could have been higher but I got so excited at the cheap mana pool I didn't jack up my mana farm soon enough. And I have to take the pfx off of none because I can't keep up with building defenses and hitting mana pool (remember mana at the end is increasing at 17 times the original). constantly. It's a little bit more frantic but alot of fun!!!
The banishment info is useful because the last 4 or 5 waves, my bad guys are doing 6 or 8 laps. Which at 800+ monsters after 8 laps their banishment cost is 25 times their original b-cost and at 9 laps 38 times their original b-cost. I don't mind over angering in the first 10 laps but on lap 40 after 2 hrs is agony
I have anger management issues but my therapist says I'll get better with time ;-)
Usually I can get everybody's armor to 0 after 2 laps even if they are at amr 243 or 309(accident) unless there is more than 1000 monsters in the field and then it takes a little longer but then only original HPs matter. (5 or 6 P/R traps firing at 670 max 6 hit shreds armor like a hot knife through butter)
My next quest is figure out how to get the highest point value per monster. I know that their initial point value before angering is the biggest factor but that's out of my control. Is it only bigger gems to anger? and how much is the benefit between angering with an 11 or a 12 gem. It's alot more work and I'm not sure it's worth it... maybe just use 10s now and put the extra mana into the mana pool because the end results would be higher (it takes 48 more lvl 6 gems to go from lvl 10 to 12 at 4K each is 192K which could be an extra 5% per remaining monster if your mana pool max is around 192 ... a higher return on investment). Any thoughts anyone?
munch, yes, the score values added to monsters each time you anger are calculated as 15%*grade*score/(1+number of times already angered). This formula means that if you anger using grade 7 or higher gems you will get more score addition each subsequent anger, which is the primary way of boosting score gain per monster. Also, each anger adds 3+2*grade monsters to the wave, which, if using grade 8 gems as I mostly do is translated to 19 monsters per anger. So the very first angering boosts an average wave's score worth four times (2.2 times score per monster, ~2 times more monsters) and a 2-monster giant wave is boosted 20 times! Note though that HPs of the monsters really skyrocket with each angering, with a bonus of 5+5*grade percent current HPs, which means if you use grade 9 gem to anger, all the monsters will have 50% HP increase, you use two, it will be 2.25 times initial HP, and so on.
LANKHR: thanks for the help. I hope you enjoy BOTH holidays. Hopefully by the time you get back I'll have figured out how you get your mana farm up so quickly. I think that is one of my biggest faults is it takes me until level 28-30 to get it where I can really start hammering the monsters. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. I usually have 16-18 traps that I keep upgrading until they are all lvl 7 (10.1 mana per hit 6 max hit and 220 approx firing speed) but alas, it takes me way longer than u describe. sigh :-\\ Especially if you plan on having 20*multiplier by level 30. At mana pool skills at nil thats 20 upgrades per 1*multiplier at a cost of .95*current mana pool max. By the time you were up to 20 the cost to up grade would be 400K per pop (actually not bad) at a total cost to get there of approx. 73million mana. Thats alot of dough. I must be doing something wrong.
VESPERBOT: You are a stud!!! Thank you for the formulas. What I'm getting from them is an inverse relationship between score and the number of times anger (division by 1+number of times angered)... a diminishing return. And a cumulative increase in HP (1.5*1.5*1.5... for example on lvl 9 gems). Maybe the best approach is to hit them with 2 lvl 12 gems and then convert to something more economical like the lvl 9s.
Thanks for the help and anyone that can describe how to accelerate getting my mana farm up I'll give you my first born child :0
munch, well, that score adding formula is based on the already-altered (which is, higher than starting) value of "score" as basis, so each time you anger with grade 7+ gem you are receiving more plain bonus score to wave than before and originally. So it's possible to turn diminishing return into accelerating, but with the skyrocketing HPs it will be hard to earn the most rewarding parts of it.
I am actually wondering, what's better, first anger with grade 12+ gems (say "big" then with grade 7-9 (say "small", or first anger with small gems, then with big, in terms of score/HP. I can't bring me to write a macro for calculating this kind of dependency, and I'm not running my brains at fast enough rate to envision it whole.
well, just ran it through, and it seems that Lankhr and you are right, it's better to anger with big gems first, then add smaller gems, although constant angering with big gems is still better. And while you have a big enough mana farm I don't see any reasons not to use big gems only.
ok you guys are way further than me, so I'm just gonna say I don't know why I don't play this game more, because it's the best game on AG. Yes it beats out Last Stand 2, because that's just too overpowering...
Midiclorian, yes, there is one, you need to beat the storyline to play it. There are also hidden levels to find
Lankhr, I wonder did you experience such troubles at early levels if going normal only, like I did? What level were you when you defeated first arcane guardian?
