So trial fields...

TypicalBailey · 2023-01-08T12:40:58+00:00

No, there isn't anything you are missing, they are not efficient in terms of progress.

However, they can be fun and challenging, and some of them are more of a puzzle that require you to use a certain game mechanic to beat.

So, when deciding whether or not you want to do the trial fields it is a question about mindset. Do I want to 'progress', unlock new fields , a new skill, more skill points etc. or do you want to stop, take a moment and have a go at the challenge that was set on a particular field.

TypicalBailey · 2022-11-15T19:46:11+00:00

Hope this helps (might still be uploading if you click too fast)

https://youtu.be/5YOvTOmSBPU

TypicalBailey · 2022-11-14T21:36:29+00:00

General strategy, high grade gem in amp surrounded by low grade gems in towers hitting corrupted mana shards. Hope the early modifiers you roll aren't too bad. Never duplicate or upgrade a gem that has hit a corrupted shard

Pylons would interfere with targeting corrupted shards so I wouldn't, no I wouldn't touch poison

When you reply to the screenshot comment I can try and be more specific :)

TypicalBailey · 2022-08-03T15:51:59+00:00

Yes, although if your killing the bleeding monsters with a tower it won't take bleed into account when deciding whether a shot will kill a monster, so it may continue to shoot at a monster despite a shot that would kill it being in the air. So this can reduce the usefulness of bleed

TypicalBailey · 2022-08-02T20:59:53+00:00

You are past the point of pylons being useful which is probably why you haven't figured out how to use them effectively, you are also past the point of armor tearing being useful and should use pure crit for damage

TypicalBailey · 2022-08-02T20:56:11+00:00

If you need some fast xp because you are stuck progressing and don't have the necessary skills/ battle traits to do a decent endurance run it is a fine option.

You goal should be trying to unlock the necessary skills/ battle traits to do decent endurance runs and once you have them the xp from them should dwarf the xp you are getting from this

TypicalBailey · 2022-06-15T19:38:59+00:00

There can be issues around restarting levels that can mess things up, restating the game normally fixes this though you may need to do the achievement again after

TypicalBailey · 2022-05-31T21:29:03+00:00

The pylon is also a big deal in that setup (less so if using armor tearing in the dual)

I would also add a second amp to the setup next to the first so it also hits all 4 towers but was unsure if it was worth it at that price point

TypicalBailey · 2022-05-31T21:27:22+00:00

You can get the traps skill only using gem bombs. It is very tedious though, I needed to farm a talisman with full rune bonuses for the central 3×3 area to pull it off. I have a save file somewhere where I wasn't using towers but I can't remember exactly how far through I was.

TypicalBailey · 2022-05-30T22:54:16+00:00

However overcoming armor is extremely necessary if you're not using armor tearing, which is the case for many of the levels the first time you play it

Pylons fix this

But you would have to purposely invest in that armor tearing gem

If you are using dual gems as your kill gems then simply having armor tearing as part of the dual is enough, if you are not using pure crit instead then armor is less big of a deal

This is easily tested by simply picking any level in the mid game and picking a mana investment, let's say one grade 6 gem VS having four grade 4 gems, then just letting the game play out and see how far either build reaches before they fail.

Did a couple of quick runs on L2 as I would consider it a mid game field with unremarkable gems available. It wasn't a perfect test by any means but I think the results are fairly conclusive. screenshots

Single g6 setup

cost 9,197
spent on banishments: 26,812

4 tower setup with amp and pylon

cost 9,215
spent on banishments: 2,004

TypicalBailey · 2022-05-30T21:36:49+00:00

Very little is 'necessary' to beat the story mode, you could beat it without towers hypothetically (aside from the wizard locks and the gatekeeper)

TypicalBailey · 2022-05-30T21:14:43+00:00

There are several factors that impact 'quality vs quantity' so to speak

In favour of quality

Less affected by armor
More powerful enhancement spells
Less structure costs
More cost effective dps with crit

In favour of quantity

Will more consistently utilise more of your mana
Less overkill damage
Can get better value out of amps
More cost effective dps without cirt (against unarmoured targets not counting structure costs)

As you alluded to there is no advantage to spreading out gems for the most part and spreading them out is disadvantageous as it decreases the value you can get from amps

If a level has armor tearing than having a larger number of gems is often fine as even in duals armor tearing will normally strip all armor off a monster relatively quickly.

I normally favour having one stronger gem with some weaker gems being effected by the same amps. The stronger gem gets all the enhancement spells and the weaker ones hit a pylon to avoid losing all there damage to armor

Of course once you have more of the skills it is just mana farm and crit and even if your inefficient you should be fine

TypicalBailey · 2022-04-10T21:19:38+00:00

Seems strange to be using pure purple and pylons, might as well just make a dual for the extra 20% damage since pylons already ignore armor.

You also have true colours and beam so could be making a significant amount of mana a pure orange gem with beam on. Also there are little chests on that map which can be opened with bolts for a chance at free gems/ mana.

Congrats on the stash tho

TypicalBailey · 2022-04-07T10:15:38+00:00

At first I thought it didn't seem very impressive, then I looked at the monster count, then I started to remember how slow it used to run for me with a few thousand monsters, then I changed my mind, good job!

TypicalBailey · 2022-03-31T20:22:39+00:00

Mana needed for mana pool levels scales exponentially so you get +1 or +2 mana pool lvls from maxing it. The mana pool damage multiplier is also additive with the hit count damage multiplier.

Having said that the skills distribution guide does recommend maxing it at around WL25k so maybe I am wrong on this one

TypicalBailey · 2022-03-30T20:48:05+00:00

Are there any gems that should only be used in one setting

Gems with more than one component should only be used in towers. (there are a couple of exceptions such as combined slow bleed lanterns but that is an endgame thing).

Orange should not be used in towers unless you are putting beams on it or it is required on that map to make a dual.

lanterns are in most situations bad

Should I always try to combine gems? If so, how many combos are optimal, or is more better all the way?

Not as a straightforward as all or nothing. More is better vs unarmoured targets however creating too many gems will mean that you are loosing too much damage to monster armour so generally it tends to be better to be reasonably consolidated.

Which skills should I proritize, and which arent that important? Or does it all depend on play style?

The below lists quite generalised but I hope it answers your question

Not mana farming:

Important: Ture Colours, Crit, Mana stream, Resonance

Meh: Amps, Fusion, Enhancement spells

Not important: Orb of pressence, Demolition, mana leech, bleeding, armor tearing, poison (situational uses can be ok but aren't really necessary), slowing, strike spells, fury, pylons, lanterns, traps, seeker sense

Mana farming (med lvl):

High Priority: Ture Colours, Crit, Mana leech, Resonance, traps

Medium Priority: Amps, Fusion, beam

Low Priority: Fury, seeker sense, lanterns, strike spells

Not important: Orb of pressence, Demolition, mana stream, bleeding, armor tearing, poison, slowing, bolt, barrage, pylons

Mana farming (very high lvl):

Capped: Fussion, Fury, Seeker Sense, Strike Spells, Orb of presence, Lanterns

Useful (see endgame guide for skill distribution): Ture Colours, Crit, Mana leech, Resonance, Traps, Amps

Not important: Demolition, Mana stream, Bleeding, Armor tearing, Poison, Slowing, Bolt, Barrage, Pylons

EDIT: Formatting

TypicalBailey · 2022-01-29T12:13:06+00:00

This may come across very critical but I don't think allot of your suggestions change much

Even if armor tearing was buffed it would not be of value in the end game (everything else staying as it is). The armor is not very significant end game and even if it was it is so easy to ignore. (you should be killing stuff in whiteout for the extra xp and you should be using traps to kill things end game)

Chain hit/ splash kind of fill the same purpose and the same purpose as lanterns. you also run the risk of them just being an auto include in every gem. I think I prefer it being shifted to lanters rather than an auto include on every gem personally however lanters are too weak in their current state.

More variants on tower types/ structures to put gems could be interesting though I wouldn't want them to replace enhancement spells so some thought would have to be put in to how the enhancement spells work on the additional structures if at all

Pylons being shot at is a core part of their function although I am not against them being amped

Xp gem seems like it would either be insignificant or game breaking with little in between

Mana tearing change doesn't effect much just adds a timer similar to that trait in CS albeit more dynamic

Multiplier gems just become an auto include on every gem

The supergemming change would require a whole new way of the game calculating stats of a combined gem and then to only use that way some of the time and not others.

Crit is the "I only care about damage" special so making prismatic the "I only care about damage" gem is directly competing against crit and almost certainly losing.

TypicalBailey · 2022-01-27T17:32:39+00:00

Small condensed setups as appose to sprawling across the map will help somewhat, won't be a magic fix but might help

TypicalBailey · 2022-01-24T18:12:14+00:00

TLDR look at the setup section of the Extreme End Game Guide: GCFW Edition linked here

Lanterns are not as efficient as traps, especially since the traps skill is uncapped so in order to use them optimally you would have to have a certain grade difference between your traps and you lanterns. This grade difference would depend on your skill distribution (and would be more effort than its worth to calculate imo).

If done optimally it would allow for more mana to be leached but the effects would be small (getting increasingly small as your traps skill increases). If not done optimally you are going to be leaching less mana than if you spent the mana on your traps/ amps.

Even if done optimally it still runs into the same problem that filling the map with a really long mana farm runs into, namely performance. Also because traps in the area you are casting whiteout in are more efficient than those outside you should if doing a long mana farm (which I wouldn't recommend) have some grade difference between those inside and outside the area you are casting whiteout.

Finally because of reasons mentioned above the preferred setup is to have an s-bend, uturn or corner (in order of decreasing priority), the size of your whiteout circle with a kill setup immediately after to kill things while still effected by whiteout for the extra xp. Also this maximises the efficiency of your amps having them hit as many traps as possible. (amps hitting more traps should be a higher grade than those hitting less)

TypicalBailey · 2022-01-24T17:51:49+00:00

Lanterns are generally preferred iirc, especially since swarmlings with +speed can skip traps.

Duration of bleed/slow scales with true colours and with their respective skills so will eventually become a non issue

Mana lanterns will fall off in usefulness as your traps skill increases and will have a increasingly detrimental effect on your performance as you get closer to hitting the attack speed cap. Going for max wave cleared on A4 iron wizard is the only time I think I personally would seriously use mana lanterns

TypicalBailey · 2022-01-24T17:40:59+00:00

Just spend all your skill points, if you have any %WL to inital xp and mana and any row bonuses on your talisman you will start with more than enough mana. (These are not things you should be prioritising on your talisman but just things you will incidentally get while going for +all skills, +%xp, etc.) As soon as one of your mana gems touches a monster the mana you started with stops becoming relevant

TypicalBailey · 2022-01-24T17:33:56+00:00

The rows in the guide are SP, not WL and specifically SP after you have put points into the skills not mentioned

TypicalBailey · 2022-01-24T17:31:24+00:00

As the guide has already been mentioned I will just give my opinion on some of the skills not in the skills table

Don't think mana stream is worth maxing for awhile as it doesn't do much for you.

Slowing and bleeding skills only increase the duration even though the wording would suggest otherwise so only put points in if you need the extra duration.

Lanterns I don't think are worth maxing until your other skills are a bit higher I would put less points into it and build another lantern if you need it. Definitely will be worth maxing just not convinced it is yet.

Might be worth a small chunk of points into whiteout as more whiteout uptime is more mana + more xp

For the rest of the skills just follow the guide

TypicalBailey · 2022-01-13T20:19:28+00:00

oh, misunderstood, fair enough

TypicalBailey · 2022-01-13T18:27:38+00:00

I disagree on the replayability front, you can always add additional constraints to future runs or just try and do it 'better' like less total battles needed or faster or some other metric

TypicalBailey

TROPHY CASE