Gems of War - Puzzle Quest, but with-- Actually, no, it's just Puzzle Quest

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Gems of War - Puzzle Quest, but with-- Actually, no, it's just Puzzle Quest

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MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Grundulum posted:

Do you need an explanation of the four new game modes (Gnomes, Bounty, Raid, Invasion)?

That would be handy. I think I figured out he raid one I mean I cleared up to the boss and now I assume I just hit him over and over till the bar fills up?

# ¿ Apr 15, 2018 03:27

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 04:42

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Oh yeah and I have like 5000 common keys. Should I just open them all at once or is there any reason to hold onto them?

# ¿ Apr 15, 2018 03:29

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Oh cool I�ll check that out.

What the quickest way to get the 1500 seals for the guild?

# ¿ Apr 15, 2018 05:09

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Grundulum posted:

Two other silly fast explore teams:

Merlantis Banner
Sunbird
Fire Bomb***
Fire Bomb***
Rowanne

This is faster than Bombots and cheaper than traiting Elspeth or a hero class.

+2 Green
Elspeth***
Rowanne
Penguin***
Aurai***

Sacrifice the Aurai. This takes a lot of Arcane stones, but may actually be faster than the above team.

��

If you have the patience and a fast PVP team, PVP earns 9 seals and a good amount of gold for the guild. Explore can be done while watching Netflix, and while it only earns 5 seals per battle you also get Arcane stones at a higher rate for traiting those high-level troops. Personal preference, though I normally do about 150-200 explore battles a week to hit 1500 early.

Ok cool thanks! I�ll give these a shot. Not sure if I have some of these dudes but I�ll be sure to play with it.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2018 06:58

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Grundulum posted:

GNOMES AND THE VAULT

As of 3.3, in any explore battle, and any PVP battle outside Guild Wars, there is a small (roughly 3%) chance that a single troop will be randomly replaced with a Gnome. These random replacements will always have a little loot bag at the top right of their troop card (in case you come across some wag who filled his/her PVP defense team with the little bastards).

Gnomes have a 30% chance to run away whenever they cast their spell, so destroy them before they get a chance. When you defeat a Gnome, you earn a bonus prize at the end of the fight. This can be as little as 2 minor traitstones, or as big as multiple gem/event keys. What you really want, though, is a Vault Key.

A Vault Key allows you to play the Vault minigame. In this you face Cedric ~~Glitternuts~~ Sparklesack and three regular Gnomes. Each troop drops a sweet prize at the end, which could include a copy of Cedric, Gnomes, or the Valraven troop (more on Valravens in the next section).

Grundulum note: I DO NOT advise you to spend your Vault Keys right now. In the chaos surrounding the release of 3.3, the appearance rate of Gnomes was increased, but their reward tables were changed to avoid unbalancing the economy. Unfortunately, both Gnomes in the wild and those in the Vault use the same loot table, so this change also meant that the Vault got much shittier. My hope is that by 3.4--due soon--the devs will have rectified this mistake and made Vault Keys as powerful as they were originally intended to be.

Finally, one weekend a month will be a Vault event. During this time, Gnomes appear roughly once every 10-15 battles (I'm not quite sure what the chance is, but it's significantly higher than normal). The drop tables don't change, but this is a great way to pick up some free stuff by exploring or doing PVP. Two minor traitstones isn't that special, but pretty much all the other Gnome drops are useful for anyone who doesn't already have Dawnbringer.

RAID MODE

Every third week (for now), Zuul'Goth attempts to break through some portal or another into the world of Krystara. We must prevent this with a mind-numbing and seemingly endless grind.

At the start of the week, and at each new day, you get four sigils. Each one allows you to start one battle in this mode. In Raid mode you must build your team out of troops from a single kingdom, and any Hero weapon you want (this becomes important later). You then fight ten battles against mooks and then a series of battles against Zuul'Goth and three randomly-selected troops with a particular theme.

You earn points for the guild by doing damage to Zuul'Goth. Points are redeemed for cool prizes as the guild passes certain thresholds. Only damage to Zuul'Goth (life or armor) counts, and you earn these points regardless of whether you win or lose the battle. If you win, all enemies go up five levels (which means all of their stats increase by five). If you lose, you repeat the battle at the current level, but a new slate of troops is drawn.

There is a roughly 25% chance that a Valraven will appear in any given battle. Just like the Gnomes, it will have a loot bag next to the troop icon, and just like the Gnome you want to kill it before it can cast its spell and flee. If you do, you earn two additional sigils to be used in Raid mode. IMPORTANT NOTE: if you kill a Valraven but lose the battle, you do not get the sigils. This caught many people off-guard when 3.3 went live.

Raid mode (and Invasion mode, and the Bounty event below) added a new shop to the game. Buy stuff with gems to get more battles in Raid mode, or get copies of "Boss-killer" troops that do bonus damage against troops with the Boss type. There is also a weapon at Tier III in the shop, but they have all been garbage that is vastly worse than the weapon I will recommend below.

Grundulum advice: If you are an early-game player, buy until you get a single copy of the boss-killer troop. The 3x damage against bosses will help take down Zuul'Goth. Don't feel obligated to buy additional Tiers, since this mode was designed as gem sink to encourage players to buy gems for real money. Regardless of where you are in the game, use the Mang hero weapon (available at 40 red and 40 brown mastery, IIRC) on your Raid team. The ability to strip all armor from Zuul'Goth--and increase your Hero's attack by that amount--is completely unbalanced in this game mode where the stats scale almost arbitrarily high. One cast of Mang in the late stages of this mode is 200+ damage to Zuul'Goth, so even if you get trounced after that you've still done a good amount of damage toward the guild's total.

~~DEPECHE~~ INVASION MODE

Invasion mode is just like Raid mode, with a couple of wrinkles.

First, there is literally no story reason given why we're doing this. Second, the goal is to kill towers, not do damage to a target. Third, you are restricted to troops of a particular type (Beast, Divine, etc.) rather than from a single kingdom. Fourth, the shop includes "Siegebreakers" rather than Boss-killers.

Valravens can appear in the early stages of Invasion mode, just like in Raid mode. However, they can never replace a Tower or Zuul'Goth; so once you're facing four towers at once you'll just randomly be awarded two sigils if you win a fight that was flagged as "Valraven should have appeared".

As with Raid mode, Mang is extremely helpful. Unlike Raid mode, it isn't mission-loving-critical to succeed. The fact that your Siegebreaker can immediately do 3x-5x damage to towers, without having to fight through three mobs, makes them much more useful in this mode. You could even build your team with a Siegebreaker ahead of Mang, so that by the time the towers inevitably kill your first troop you've got a super-powered hero ready to rain the smack down.

Grundulum advice: as before, early-game players should buy a single copy of the Siegebreaker troop for the triple damage against Towers. And like in Raid mode, Mang is super useful.

BOUNTY EVENT

One weekend a month is designated as a Bounty event. A new minigame is selectable from the "Games" menu, which you typically have to scroll all the way to the right to see.

The goal of Bounty events is to earn points by winning battles. All battles are worth between 10 and 200 base points, with later battles including troops at higher level. If you include "bounty-hunter" troops on your team, you get bonus points depending on the upgraded rarity level of the troop (rare gives a 2x multiplier, ultra-rare a 3x, ..., with mythic worth a 6x multiplier). In addition, one troop each event is designated the Bounty Captain, whose multiplier is doubled, for up to a 12x bonus for having a single troop present.

You need to win the battle to get the points, but you get the multiplier regardless of how many/which troops survive to the end. So don't stress out over keeping that Parrot alive. You also aren't obligated to use four bounty-hunter troops, though it's recommended at the early stages for the bonus points. Unlike Raid and Invasion modes, you are not forced into a more difficult battle each time you win. You're allowed to hang out at stage 10 the entire event and never touch 11 if you think that's what will earn you the most points.

You get four sigils a day, as with Raid and Invasion modes, and Valravens will appear for a chance at two more sigils. Enemy teams are not random, unlike Raid and Invasion modes. You will always face the same four troops at any given stage, modulo a Valraven appearing.

There is yet another shop where you can spend gems. Each tier gives you sigils and random bounty-hunter troops. Each tier after the second gives you at least one copy of the current Bounty Captain.

Grundulum advice: you don't have to buy tiers to do well in this game mode. The 12 sigils (which are roughly doubled if you catch every Valraven that appears) are enough to climb reasonably high on the reward list. I personally recommend you buy at least to Tier III, though. This gives you quite a few more sigils, an upgraded Bounty Captain, and a handful of troops that you can use to score more points. You basically can't get to reward 20 unless you're some combination of end-game and/or willing to spend all the way to tier 6 (assuming nearly perfect play) or 7 (if you get unlucky and even two Valravens escape).

Grundulum advice for late game players: if you can average a x18 multiplier across all your battles, and can consistently win level 20, then each tier you buy after the first is one additional reward rank at the end. Tier VI gets you to Reward 20 with perfect play, Tier V gets you to Reward 19, and so forth. If you choose not to spend to Tier VI getting the Bounty Captain to mythic, though, you're looking at using Orbs of Ascension to cover the difference. I've been using the following team this week, which lets me consistently win at stage 20: Ice Wraith(mythic), Infernus***, Bard*** with Dawnbringer, Pharaoh Hound(mythic). This is a x18 multiplier exactly, but I got unlucky and had two Valravens escape, leaving me one battle short of Reward 20 once I got through all my sigils. Looks like I'm buying Tier VII!

Edit: Let�s see how long this lasts.

This is awesome thanks!

# ¿ Apr 15, 2018 17:47

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Hey so what are diamonds used for?

# ¿ Apr 16, 2018 00:32

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

godface zillah posted:

They are used for when you unlock the soulforge. Different legendary and mythic troops appear every week. They are quite expensive, 800 for a legendary, 4000 for a mythic. By the time you have that much you will probably know what is worth getting.

Ah ok perfect thanks!

# ¿ Apr 16, 2018 01:20

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Hey so I must be missing something but what�s that number at the bottom for? Maybe I�m just dense and missing it but pressing it does nothing.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2018 00:07

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Annointed posted:

Duration of whatever storm effect you have. In your case you got two more turns of increased rate of purple gems. Don't worry about them much. Apparently from what I've googled the storms don't increase the drop rate of respective gems that much to matter.

Oh cool thanks!

# ¿ Apr 17, 2018 00:36

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

waffles beyond waffles posted:

War and Peace works just as well, if not better. The Bomb Bot team ran out of steam on Stage 6, but worked really well through Stage 5.

My stupid rear end team only made it to stage 4 lol

# ¿ Apr 17, 2018 05:40

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Are any of the monthly subscriptions worth it? They all seem kinda weirdly priced.

I wouldn�t mind spending some money on one but I dunno which is the best �deal�.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2018 09:13

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Sagers posted:

Being in an active guild is the Best Way to get prosperous quickly in the game. Injecting real life money to get Deathknight armor/daily gems up to free scouting is worthwhile as well if you've got some scratch laying around. The armor really accelerates your resource acquisition. After a couple weeks in a guild your key stash and troop count should rapidly increase. I wouldn't bother with the other purchases for now.

Ah ok yeah I bought that armor way back so I should be good. I just wanted to make sure I wasn�t missing something.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2018 13:35

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

So uh another stupid rear end question but I think I need a faster team for clearing stuff.

Right now I�m running Druid x3 / Valk and while it seems to do good it makes me wonder if there is a faster better team out there. I�m clearing all the missions I�ve missed so far and doing some easy PVP. None of these are a challenge but I absolutely can�t to max level explore with this same team.

Is there something better I should be working toward here?

# ¿ Apr 19, 2018 22:54

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Grundulum posted:

ufarn, can�t help you. I�ve never tried to link my account to a second device. And what you�re describing doesn�t sound like the screen I would get on iOS. Try sending a screenshot and message to support?

When you say �max level�, do you mean Warlord IV? Or do you just mean the normal Explores, which happen to use troops at high levels? The former isn�t really worth your time � just do more explores on Normal difficulty. For the latter, try

Sunbird
Fire Bomb***
Fire Bomb***
Rowanne

Mechanist***/3x Bombot took me through to the eighth stage handily. Since then I�ve been running TED***/Mechanist Mang***/Shocktopus/Clockwork Sphinx. It has also been awesome. The Shocktopus and Sphinx are surprisingly good at filling troops since they destroy (not remove) gems with their spells.

Well I was saying max level explores because that�s what the guild seals require. Or am I absolutely not reading that right lol

Also I�ve had no issues linking my account to my iPad and iPhone and it works perfectly across both devices so I�m not sure what the issue could be there.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2018 23:59

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Grundulum posted:

Oh, you�re reading it correctly, but it�s not a terribly efficient way to collect guild seals. You can easily do two (or more) normal explores in the time it would take to do one max-difficulty explore. This also gets you more traitstones, which are useful throughout the life of the game.

Ah ok I probably misunderstood the advice someone gave about doing explores as the quickest way to earn guild seals. I just assumed it would have to be max level for it to work out.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2018 00:36

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Gonna be a little out of pocket this week. I�ll get in some play time when I can.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2018 17:10

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Russad posted:

Doing PVP, and the AI just made two matches at the same time. Literally two different matches. Circles in two different places, on two separate colors, on opposite sides of the board.

Lol I just had this happen to me in explore mode. Like wtf.

# ¿ May 23, 2018 01:17

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

When doing explores does the difficulty change the stones rewarded? Like getting better ones?

# ¿ May 23, 2018 03:16

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Grundulum posted:

Nope! The only reason to bump the difficulty is for increased souls rewards. It�s a negligible increase in gold, since (IIRC) the explore bonus is a flat 400 gold no matter what difficulty you�re on. Considering gold and traitstones, you�re better off doing two explores at normal than a single explore at Warlord II or whatever. Souls are a different matter. If you�re exploring to farm souls, run at a higher difficulty so you can fill up your souls bar and get a larger eventual multiplier.

Ok perfect thanks! Although it seems like it takes just as much time at normal vs warlord II but I�ll play with it and see! Thanks for all the help.

The sunbird firebomb team is legit lol.

# ¿ May 23, 2018 13:51

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Hey so I read something about their being daily quests on the official forums but for the life of me I can�t find anything like that in the iOS client.

Am I just missing it?

# ¿ May 25, 2018 13:26

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Grundulum posted:

Consoles have daily quests. PC/mobile will get them in version 3.5, supposedly.

Oh ok I guess that makes sense. The post I saw them in mentioned Android so I figured I was just missing it.

Really this UI is a bit of a mess....

# ¿ May 25, 2018 14:16

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

This was a fun bug. Was doing a kingdom quest....

Game gave me a raid lol

Lol I had to reboot the game

MarcusSA fucked around with this message at 20:42 on May 27, 2018

# ¿ May 27, 2018 20:39

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Grundulum posted:

Speaking of mythics, we have a new one out this week. So get ready to spend Orbs of Clans (you have been holding on to them, right?). Between now and Friday, you can earn event stones in Explore mode, so it should be pretty quick to get yourselves to 1000+ seals. If you can get to 1500 seals before the Friday reset, so much the better. That means fewer orbs we will all need to spend getting to 40,000 seals in total.

Which kingdom is the best for the explore this week? I�ve been doing Khetar as it seems to give the most event stones.

# ¿ May 28, 2018 18:30

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Thejaff posted:

Wulfgarok is only really useful early on since he can't devour towers. I assume I'll replace it with Mang eventually making my team:

Sir Wulfric
Totem Guardian
Spiritdancer
Wulgarok/Mang
Trident banner that will probably switch to Slayer banner when I switch to Mang

Wargare are seriously lacking utility troops, thank god they introduced Spiritdancer this week

Ok who is Mang? Lol

Still trying to figure some of these abbreviations out.

# ¿ May 29, 2018 16:09

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Bandire posted:

Mang is a red/brown hero weapon that you get eventually. It strips all armor from an enemy and gives that amount to you in the form of +Attack, as well as doing some direct damage. It's pretty useful in Raid/Invasion because the stat scaling on enemies gets enormous.

Oooh ok I figured it was some troop. Thanks!

# ¿ May 29, 2018 17:37

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

waffles beyond waffles posted:

I have been using the new weapon with the Orb Weaver class, which is a mystic so it gets the weekly bonus. 35 base damage tripled will one shot a tower with up to 105 health. And it uses green so it catches the overflow from the Spirit-whatever. I still find the team lacks enough poke damage, which makes the barriers annoying.

Once the towers have more health I might use Fenrir to pump up the attack of Wulfric. And extra 20 attack multiplied by Wulfric's final trait is pretty substantial. But that would leave red and yellow unused.

The flesh ripper seems like it�s a beefed up Mang that uses red/yellow.

# ¿ May 29, 2018 19:40

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

waffles beyond waffles posted:

Yeah but I only have 4 slots. Wulfric/Totem/Fox Summoner/Fenrir? 80+ extra skull damage is tempting.

Ah ok that makes sense.

So what do people think about the different classes. I guess I've seriously neglected all of them except for the necro and the warlord soooo are there any should focus on first?

# ¿ May 30, 2018 00:51

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Grundulum posted:

None of the class weapons are that interesting, so I don�t think you need to worry about classes until/unless you have the traitstones ready to get the third traits. That said, Bard (+stats to yellow troops), Archer (fast start and possibility of instakill), and Titan/Mechanist (fast start for an entire team) are good classes to have traited.

Ok cool this helps a lot.

# ¿ May 30, 2018 01:11

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

gently caress these barriers are so annoying and really make the fights drag if RNG fucks you.

# ¿ May 30, 2018 19:30

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Trait stone farming is sooooo boring. I just need 4 more of these stealth fuckers.

# ¿ May 31, 2018 01:14

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Bandire posted:

Don't burn yourself out farming them. A few to finish off an important troop is fine, but endless explore farming sucks. Make sure you do your pvp tiers and collect bounty as much as you can so that you have plenty of glory to spend in the shop every week.

Here's a good source of info for upcoming troops/traitstones so you can plan your glory spending.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hvL6AijrIk4B2HHAh0A9yh3J7jVHlN2DV54fINvRkV8/edit?usp=drivesdk

Ah this helps quite a bit!

I'm just farming for the class though. I'm so drat close!

# ¿ May 31, 2018 01:42

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Hey I�m confused on something. I thought you wouldn�t get commons from the guild chest if you were at 40k?

I mean I got the new mythic but still a little confused.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2018 19:32

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

U.T. Raptor posted:

Those are guild guardians, special troops that only come in guild chests . You'll keep getting them until you've ascended them all to mythic (and have four copies of each), then they stop dropping.

oh ok thanks!

# ¿ Jun 1, 2018 23:44

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Does anyone have a good standard dungeon team?

Or is it one of those depends on the day things?

# ¿ Jun 3, 2018 05:27

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Disillusionist posted:

I basically use whatever good PVP team I'm using at the moment, never change it depending on the day and rarely have to fight a battle more than once.

Dragon Soul
Black Manacles (Dragon Knight class)
Sylvanimora
Glitterclaw

or

Standard Goblin team (I even use this during the ice dungeon but feel free to swap):

Nobend
Fizzbang
Queen Grapplepot
another goblin goes here

Perfect thanks!

# ¿ Jun 3, 2018 23:16

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Kevos Setzer posted:

If you have Hellcackle, you can use him. Yes, the raid troop. Marcus made me test it, and the dungeon bosses count for the raid troops. I didn't know that.

Lol I wasn�t sure what counted as a �boss� but yeah it seems to work.

Thanks for double checking though I only got a chance to do it once so I wasn�t 100% sure it worked.

I feel like since he works that goblin team is probably the best IMO.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2018 02:36

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Grundulum posted:

So, uh, Guild Wars battles turn out to be a lot easier when you buy ranks in the sentinels.

Any advice which ones to buy? The goblin team works like 50% of the time lol

# ¿ Jun 6, 2018 15:42

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Grundulum posted:

Depends what your weekly income from tributes and stuff is. Two points in attack and two in magic are really nice, but run 300 glory and 2000 souls each. If you�re still trying to build a tribute base, then that 300 glory is most/all of a weekly troop pack, which are super helpful in building your kingdom power levels. And 2000 souls is a fair number of levels at 10 points of kingdom power a pop.

If you�re secure in your tributes, you can buy up to level 3 across the board. 40 gems, 60,000 gold, 300 glory, and 2000 souls. That gets you 3 points of attack and magic, and 6 of life and armor. If you would prefer not to spend gems on this, the first two levels don�t cost gems and are still helpful. I don�t personally buy levels 4 and 5, but it seems like more than a few people in Gem Boiz think it�s worth the gem expenditure.

Ok cool thanks! I�ll take a look at this. I can see buying the first levels easy enough. Not sure about the second ones quite yet

# ¿ Jun 6, 2018 16:54

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Grundulum posted:

Remember those diamonds and shards that appear in the guild task rewards?

Head over to the �Soulforge� panel of the �Games� menu. You�ll be able to upgrade it from level 1 to level 10 as you do battles. Each level lets you craft new stuff. Level 10, as you can see from the list of recipes, will let you exchange diamonds for mythic troops.

Don�t they rotate too?

Also there are a few you should save up for aren�t there?

# ¿ Jul 7, 2018 06:47

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 04:42

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Once you get a troop to mythic do you,

A. keep getting more of the troop and
B. if so do you just dust them?

# ¿ Jul 9, 2018 07:13

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Gems of War - Puzzle Quest, but with-- Actually, no, it's just Puzzle Quest

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