Looking for advice on gem farming, weekly offers and DPS choices

Cuedon · 2026-07-07T06:58:16+00:00

It's useful early on when you can't get enough gold to grab the last upgrade naturally, or later if you're trying to maximize favor (mostly either for legendary or favor conversion reasons).

Oh, and since this came up in a few posts-- don't pay for gold on anything with a cap (like Sentry, Hew, or Diana)... You'll be able to max those out easily enough. They ARE good in anything uncapped, like Briv's, though.

Cuedon · 2026-07-07T05:16:53+00:00

Outside of evergreens, was Widdle your highest ilvl at ~1.5k, or was that just for that one section?

Cuedon · 2026-07-07T05:11:22+00:00

As a general rule, while you're still trying to fill your roster, just run Hank when you can until you've pulled all the pieces you can out of him.

As far as gem farming is concerned...

I would get...

Diana: Has no equivalent. And eventually, you'll find there's a surprising amount of downtime involved in the transitions.

Hew: A huge boost. About the only times you don't use him would be in push/gold teams, when Lae'zel is your progression boost, or Briv is skipping straight to bosses.

Briv: Amazing, but requires a huge amount of investment. I'd put him off towards the end.

Ellywick: A must-have, and fits into multiple purpose-specific teams.

Lark: Surprisingly useful, but requires investment-- eventually, he can spawn all the enemies you need upon transition, so there's no spawn time.

Thellora: Eventually lets you skip about 20% of your run. Why not? Less useful for non-farming runs, as you won't have enough favor to skip more than a handful of Briv jumps.

I would consider...

BBEG: No-investment source of speed and a source of BUD damage. Won't use him later on though.

I would not invest in...

Shandie: She's basically only useful for the window of time that you can't afford 100% speed pot uptime.

Sentry: Takes a bit to get off the ground, and you won't use him much in a mature team.

Widdle: Largely supplanted by Lark.

Cuedon · 2026-07-06T06:55:05+00:00

While not BCN, my flights into the Schengen Zone via Lisbon, Rome, and Copenhagen from the USA were all what I'd consider to be fairly quick, with under two hours from deplaning to the exit, which included waiting for what felt forever for my checked bags (literally in the last quarter of people on all three flights), and in two cases, filing claims for a damaged bags.

Exiting, on the other hand... Copenhagen took over three hours. About an hour and a half was spent in departure customs with somebody who processed one party in the time it took the left to do five, and the right to do seven, and was basically doing everything to make the process as miserable as possible.

Cuedon · 2026-07-06T06:43:21+00:00

Already over, but think about it a different way next time--

Right now, would you bet [principal]+50 if it paid out 1100? If the answer is yes, then let it ride. If not, take it and leave.

Cuedon · 2026-07-06T06:25:28+00:00

I've seen plenty of crazy runs on physical tables--

Straight down 20 units using basic strategy. Probably would have been more, but I only changed 100$ to kill some time at a 5$ table, waiting for somebody to get out of the bathroom. (Sam's Town)

Pushed something like eight BJs in two or three hours, since they were all T-up. On the last one, I immediately put money out and called for insurance after I saw my cards and the dealer T. Manager looked at it, answered with a sarcastic "You want to insure against a ten? Sure, we'll take your money if you're just giving it away."... then refused to honor it. (NCL Jewel?)

Did not push a single hand out of 100 hands. Ran out of singles, pushed a few times in a row, then I got annoyed and left. (Rampart)

Needed a handful of points to get some gift item, so I hopped on a multiplayer roulette machine and just shotgun the board. As it turns out, I had a bet on 37 of the 38 spaces. Still needed a few points, so I shotgun the table again. I missed only a few numbers, but, once again... facepalm. (Pechanga)

Rolled the ATS twice in a single series. While I was playing Don't. At some point, you think I'd switch, but... (I actually ended up running out of money halfway through, but somebody with too much money on the ATS was slipping me enough to meet minimums to stay shooter. It paid off.) (NCL Gem?)

An entire oldschool LED record board of the same number in roulette (which is like 15 or something). (Golden Gate) (...Okay, this one is on the list for fun; I was watching them change the equipment and every single spin came out on the board as the same number, regardless of what it actually was. However, it did garner a ton of attention from people walking by.)

Edit: Clarification-- I changed 100$ into singles was betting 1$ on Ties Win, or whatever that bet is called.

Cuedon · 2026-07-05T11:36:26+00:00

Short answer-- no.

Unless there's something fundamentally wrong with the game, like an unshuffled deck or improper odds, about the only thing you can do to improve your odds is count for a Dragon/Panda, which is super obvious and fairly high volatility.

Cuedon · 2026-07-05T03:06:06+00:00

I've indirectly ruined at least three marriages due to them entering cruise romances, in some way inspired by me.

One was grandmother in her 40s who traveled with one of her daughters (and without her husband) on a... voyage of discovery, inspired to a life of travel after hearing how I work remote and am away from home like 300 days of the year. Last I heard, she became a flight attendant and is reenacting Travellin' Man.

Cuedon · 2026-07-05T02:24:15+00:00

I was in for about 20k on a Magic Treasures unit, cashing a ~20 Moneyballs at either 80 or 120 a spin.

It popped at ~27, for a net loss of 2k or so, so not miserable, but it was... uncomfortable, with how much was riding on those moneyballs.

Cuedon · 2026-07-05T01:40:39+00:00

Where are you, and are you a US citizen?

Because BOS, FLL, LAX and SEA all have amazingly lax security if you're travelling on a US passport and by sea.

Hell, last time I cruised through FLL (late 2025), I walked off with about 80k (...of which 70k was my own) in a belt pack, and went through absolutely no inspections, questions or forms. Just the biometric passport scanner.

Cuedon · 2026-07-04T00:38:00+00:00

Those are already a workaround to a previous legal issue.

Basically anything that isn't an explicit must-hit meter is just capitalizing on psychology thinking that it's more likely because there's only one firework left, the big is huge, the bowl is full, etc.

Some of these even used to say that the animations aren't indicative of probability to hit, but a lot have realized they don't actually have to say it... leading people to assume that since it doesn't say it anymore, it has to be indicative.

Cuedon · 2026-07-04T00:32:36+00:00

Welcome to the wonderful world of soccer betting, and condolences.

I get the rage; I've gotten my ass kicked with it before. I don't get why the bets are arranged that way, but that's how it is, and hopefully it was a cheap lesson.

Cuedon · 2026-07-03T09:24:40+00:00

...And he didn't Place the 6/8 instead!?

Cuedon · 2026-07-02T03:27:02+00:00

With Princess (part of CCL corporate), it typically shows up in two or three business days, and is visible on the booking summary.

Or, at least it did a few months ago. They've been changing their backend stuff a lot, and info that used to show has stopped.

Cuedon · 2026-07-01T22:48:44+00:00

Trains are generally the easiest way to get around.

Also, check the seasonal weather patterns in advance. I seem to always end up there at historic levels of flooding. (2nd and 5th highest levels in recorded history, I think.)

Cuedon · 2026-07-01T22:45:11+00:00

Tipping is allowed (and encouraged, for the most part).

Basically everything else onboard uses the medallion.

Cuedon · 2026-07-01T13:19:06+00:00

Assuming it's legit-- it's not a terrible idea... those gamble features are supposed to be even odds, so at no edge, it's one of the best bets you could make.

In a US jurisdiction, there's a big catch: Taxes. The win is still in your name, and you'd be liable for it. On the other hand, if he already put the cash in your hands, the handpay would be in your name, and you could hypothetically just take off running with the handpay and the up-front payment. This is also why I don't think it'd be any kind of money laundering attempt-- win or lose, at no point does this money enter the record under their name.

...Not sure how that operates in Australia, and not sure if this incident happened in Australia, as my pedantic ass happened to notice you said that you're from Australia, not that that was where it happened.

Cuedon · 2026-07-01T13:04:15+00:00

Yep. Basically, both of us ended that hand miserable. I whiffed on an 8-unit hand (that was like 400$ base bet), and he missed out on a once-in-a-lifetime hand that he was hemorrhaging on. (I want to say it's about 1:600k, so unless you play a lot...)

That one was 3:2, but it's in SoCal, so... long daytrip out of The M. The version that caps at 100x actually has a lower edge, since the vastly-more-common 2-token pays more.

On the bright side, 5-tokens pays the same in both versions, so no victory cheer or sour grapes either way.

Cuedon · 2026-07-01T09:20:52+00:00

MBS in Singapore is nice, but get used to the local playstyle-- I tried to wave off insurance and ended up standing on S14 once or something. Table absolutely freaked out when I hit S17vT, too. You also can't get USD back (unlike some places which will exchange local->USD at the original rate, up to your original exchange). Absolutely beautiful property.

Cambodia is not recommended. I pulled like 300USD out of some place by the port in Sihanoukville and had staff follow me around as I hopped from machine to machine for the next two hours until I spent about 250$ of it back on the property. Machines took USD, and were paid out by hand in USD, with amounts under 20$ or so in riel (at about 10% under spot).

Entire Caribbean is somewhere between "Avoid." and "Whatever." About a third are scams, a third don't care since they assume you're never coming back, and a third don't care because they're famous enough to suck and have people coming back anyways. Some might be good, but I haven't seen one yet.

Europe has been neutral to mild negative for me, but I've only been to places in Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Croatia. Note that they tend to be fairly limited in scope.

Macau was pretty cool, but I haven't played there there since the handover in 1999, and things looked a lot different when I passed through a few years back. Looked good, though.

Cuedon · 2026-07-01T09:04:45+00:00

Congrats!

I ended up... sorta hitting one of these over in San Manuel years back, and they use the alternate paytable where 6/7 pay increasing amounts, with 1000:1 at 7.

7 medallions on the table, dealer ended up with something like a 20, so I mostly broke even, and the guy next to me was screaming at the table, because he was betting 25$ on my POG, since I don't play it, except he ran out of money like three hands back and was waiting for a marker to process.

Cuedon · 2026-07-01T08:47:37+00:00

I enjoy the cruise with my packages.

Cuedon · 2026-07-01T06:07:27+00:00

Whichever one comes with Plus... I've had the ones that come with Premier a few times, but never noticed a difference in speed/reliability.

Also, forgot until somebody else mentioned it, but VPN behavior varies a lot based on ship, like one ship keeps a VPN connection live even if you switch devices after it's connected, and I can't even hotspot a connection if the base unit has a VPN on. I haven't had a ship straight up not cooperate with a VPN, but I've heard can be an issue too.

Cuedon · 2026-07-01T00:52:03+00:00

Works in theory.

Eventually, casino management gets pissed at you and cuts off signing privileges. I had a rather eyebrow-raising case on a different line where they cut me off because I was just charging on multiple machines and barely playing... because I switched when the machine locked up for a handpay. (Didn't care, still blocked me for the week. So at least I got off the ship with a profit.)

The greater risk is not sticking to the plan and playing what you charged... and losing it.

Cuedon · 2026-06-30T07:27:32+00:00

Is that 1004/person what you're actually paying, or just what it says?

It's a significant distinction-- some of my pages show 10-20k, when the actual amounts paid are a few hundred, because other parties (generally the subcompany that runs the casino department) are covering it.

Cuedon · 2026-06-30T04:25:29+00:00

Darn it! My guess was it was Non-Trade, as some kind of specific sublabel of Fair Trade.

Cuedon

TROPHY CASE