Then you don’t use the forums using your game name. Lol. Your a hero of resources and clearly addicted. I hope your life is fulfilling
Thank you for the in-depth reply. You and @anon88626343 basically confirmed what I assumed: play enough and you’ll get everything. I’ve definitely noticed resources start to stack when i started saving them (I used to open a bunch of glory chests with glory every week up until the last mythic release). As I’m one of the main event point contributor in the guild, there are times when I volunteer to buy extra tiers and then gems go bye-bye. Other times, someone else spends then (which reflects your last part).
Take-away is: doesn’t seem like I’m spending on anything unnecessary so just give it time and eventually I’ll have a similar hoard of virtual currency to admire. Not in any rush since I really have been enjoying this game ducks to avoid heavy fire
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And you offend people personally, when proven wrong on a game forum? I guess your life is not that fulfilling.
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What does this even mean — it’s in the gosh-danged (anyone a TimeSuck fan?) pictures for your convenience 
Here are the others I promised so that future readers will know any post I make here offering delve advice is credible:
Anyone with basic math skills can see I’m right where you’d expect with a Tier IV purchase on a Thursday…
…but here’s this for the flat-earthers in the house (bUt da GEm ToTaLS Don’T MaTcH — yeah, because I got 24 gems last tribute, furthering my point about how 20-per is conservative, and that collecting more than 10 a day increases income a lot):
And everything I’m saying can be done for the low, low investment of the following hero (who does, admittedly, play a lot, especially now that I can’t go in-person to my job):
LOL — my VIP is even lower than I thought 
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Dang, if I cared enough to collect tribute every hour I’d be rich! o.o
Really cool to see what a largely f2p player can accomplish with enough time and effort, @Magnusimus ! This game, despite its recent(ish) lack of polish in updates and obvious pushes for more monetization, is still reasonably f2p-friendly, especially compared to games in its genre.
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I think that’s mostly true, yeah, @NerdieBirdie; from what I hear from reputable people on the forums is Gems is better than a lot of other F2P gacha-type games out there. I don’t know if “better” means a lot, though — no one said they like TimeSuck, but there’s a great joke from the comedian who creates the show (Dan Cummins) about the relative-value of a word like “best” when none of the subjects in question are particularly “good” 
Below are my further thoughts — I promise it becomes on-topic for delves eventually, though it might not seem like it for a few paragraphs. Skip ‘em if you like — an orc doesn’t mind 
I say above that “better/best” =/= good necessarily because the one main caveat I’d have for Gems being truly kind to the F2P base is that, for new players, it’s very hard at this point to catch up, I think. Not a lot has been done to make getting to-and-past the midgame actually feasible, unfortunately.
The reason I have what I have is that I’ve been here basically forever. Legacy advantage generally trumps skill, or resource management, or even time and effort from this point forward (since I already have such a lead over any hardcore-grinder who starts today), much as many players might like to claim otherwise. I’m under no illusion that I have what I have simply because I’m somehow smarter or better or have “earned” it. No — the truth is, I was nearer to the ground-floor of this IPO, and so I have benefited more from the stock’s rising in value over the years; my investments are paying off even as I continue to invest, and those dividends keep me ahead of anyone investing today at the same rate I am. And anyone who was more ground floor than me makes me richer if/when they quit the game, which happens here and there.
I started in like 2015 or 2016, I think — the game was only about a year old at the time, maybe even less on Xbox. I don’t remember exactly. But what I do remember is that I basically got a full collection before quitting for a year-ish, then came back to see pets, certain events, and enough other things had been added to the game to recapture my interest. I was able to make all those things up with time and effort, but still I only got a mythic Snow Bunny a couple weeks back. I’m still “catching up,” in a sense, since I am also missing mythics and a few other things the true-ancients have.
But let’s think about delve renown, to tie this into an on-topic discussion: how is a player that starts today ever supposed to get anywhere near the 60,510 I have, let alone the 62,500 currently possible?
A bit of a tangent
To the uninitiated, missing 2k renown right now is actually a lot — it means I have yet to full clear 6 out of the 25, and at my high school a 76% was just a C level effort, not to mention it means I am potentially going to be power-blocked at some point by not having the pet to mythic, at which point I probably will spend gems at the earliest Tuesday opportunity. This could take some time, as the rotation is now 25 weeks and counting. That’s a very long wait, potentially, so I understand people’s impulse to seize the day by clearing things upon release, or on Tuesdays, rather than doing it the hard way like I generally prefer. And if I ever choose to I still won’t regret any if the hoards I’ve decided to boost as I have boosted every one that I have boosted with intention. The stats serve at least two purposes, which are 1) Making Tuesday Faction Assaults go faster, which is a forever-investment that ensures I always have enough chaos shards and such, and 2) Making an eventual potion attempt cheaper gem-wise because, as someone else mentioned above, the hoard stats help one buy fewer tiers.
The short answer is: They can’t. It just isn’t possible. At least, not for free, and certainly not quickly enough to matter (and, to me, mattering matters, as that’s what constitutes whether or not it is reasonable). I will always be one step ahead, unless an entire cycle is gotten-through and a lot of money trades hands.
This is because these players face an artificially-imposed time-gate in the form of 3 daily sigils, limited further by a scarcity of chaos shard and treasure revenues, and new players lack the gem income to clear 25 factions even on 25 subsequent Tuesdays (assuming, for a second, they had the necessary cards and stats, which they wouldn’t). This has been the design from the start, and the FOMO the design is meant to foment really stinks.
I think someday there might be some sort of catch-up mechanic, but who knows? 
We haven’t seen much evidence for that sort of thing in the past year or two, and I think the game is in sore need to help new players.
It could be that when we get an Over-World, the Under-World will topple its time-gates —but I’m not holding my breath.
Nor am I holding my breath that other “legacy advantages” will ever be able to be surmounted by a new player, or one who takes a significant break, again. I don’t see a lot of other Magnusimuses rising from the mud, like I did (though of course I will watch my back, as Idle suggests — as an ORC is always PREPARED HAR-HAR-HAR!)
Ahem
Deeds. Forge scrolls. META weapons and mythics (to at least a degree simply by virtue of cycle-lengths in the soul forge). All of these things ensure the rich stay rich, and that the rich can get richer, and that the newbs will always be noobs by comparison.
Is that criticism enough to call Gems of War “pay-to-win?” I don’t think so — I’m in the 1%, or at the very least 10% of “the rich,” and clearly I didn’t buy my way with anything but time and effort.
BUT can a player even pay to catch up at this point? I don’t think I can honestly say “Yes” right now. The mountain is too tall, and too steep, for any amount of reasonable time or effort investment to conquer it.
So if you’re new and just starting to delve: good luck. I truly mean it. You’ll need to be much more excellent than I was, and never waste a sigil, and even if you are and you don’t I will (probably) still be one step ahead of you because it will take you 1225 sigils and counting to catch me — and that’s 408 days, without faction assaults (if you only use free sigils there, you only cut 1225 to 1k, which is still 333 days, so. Get to spendin’ if that’s not fast enough for ya).
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I usually do few first levels as full clears → to get one or two extra raven at start.
Than i switch to fastest-path.
90% of time i end up with 6x T7 on weekends (so 2310 based on your calculations)
10% of time at least one raven gets away and i’m 1 sigil short which transfers to extra 200 gems = 7x T7 (so 2510)
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It was made 2-3 months ago.
Im going to update Boss Raid, Invasion and Council of Chiefs (World Event) someday. Ignore Class (New) aswell, all class are old nowadays.
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I’m at 12k gems, vip 0, contribute in all events to tier 3 or 4(2 or 3 when its a easy scaling event and we finish on wed.), tier 4 bounty to finish, weekend events, sentinels V on GW and complete new factions fully but efficiently doing around 3x7 to gem conserve. Not to mention I max all new and old cosmetic pets. With all of that im still in a comfortable spot.
Took me awhile to get that hoard up a bit but its not impossible. Daily login bonuses, playing in a high end guild, and playing regularly each week will get you a large amount. Playing on mobile is the main advantage since i dont play a ton but its easy enough to login for the bonuses throughout the day.
It’s worth mentioning that I started in dec 2018 on mobile and got zuul in less than a year and have had enough for enraged kurandara since Oct(waiting for my brother to get heart of rage so we can craft lol). So not only can you be successful with good resource management you can also gain power orbs at a reasonable rate.
It’s becoming more evident the more you post that you aren’t playing optimally. Although an important note is that @Magnusimus and I are not special. Many In my network are like myself. Sure some are very high vip, but most don’t spend anything now outside of campaign or the occasional flash offer. Also, I never, ever spend on gem offers. Saves a lot of gems.
For the Topic:
Been using shield of urskaya with various troops to great success with almost any color restrictions.
Shield with:
Mana generators:
Thrall
Leprechaun
Marilith
Divinia
Hitters
Rowanne
Tesla
Zuul
Guards Avatar
Ketras
Supporters
Megavore
Apothecary
Faunessa
A small list of what I’ve used to great success.
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TLDR: I do believe that a F2P starting today can catch up on a lot, especially delves due to existing and predicted level cap.
For the record/comparison: I started playing in March of this year, so 8 months this weekend. While I know I probably dedicate more hours than I should, wanted to add my progress as a F2P VIP 0 player:
Sitting at 45.5k renown right now, with 8 factions maxed and 4 more sitting at 500, waiting for the end of campaign boost, or appropriate week boost to start/end.
So while I agree with @Magnusimus that there is a time-gate, I believe you can confidently say that it is possible to catch up with everything other than kingdom level and weapons. There is a “level cap”, so to speak. Right now it’s at 62500, as has been pointed out. On Jan 8th, when the Labyrinth comes out, it’ll be at 65000. So, assuming the 6-week rotation continues, that gives you 6x7x3 = 126 sigils between new factions. Assuming you win all those sigils, that allows you to clear 2.5 factions from level 20 between each new faction release. So, while old-timers, or ancient ones, have a head-start, the level cap moves slower than the (possible) catch-up rate.
At 2.5 factions every 6 weeks, it would take you 60 weeks (over a year) to clear factions all existing factions, during which 9 more factions will show have shown up. Again, this assumes you’re starting from 20, don’t do any Tuesday or weekend faction events, and don’t lose.
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Yeah, that’s also assuming the pure factions for all of the kingdoms are easily doable… Some of them are a headache without potions.
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You will eventually catch up with faction 500 by a none event method, but be prepared for several factions needing over 200 hoard and some needing weeks to clear. Some are really tough, Fang Moor for me was 292 hoard, and the best is 249. Be prepared for spending 1 month plus on Fang Moor, 1 month on Warrens, 1 month on Lyra’s Lair, 1 month plus on Frostifre Keep. Maybe if you a shard flush, those can be done quicker, all really need 200 hoard or at least between them an average of 200 hoard.
It’s not just that, be prepared for insufficient treasure and shards to raise hoards, and it being uneconomically viable.
I have done them all without potions, so went the daily route, with some partially completed in events, where time allowed.
It wasn’t the completing of some of them that was the issue, or failing and raising hoard on the harder ones, it was running out of treasures. Many times I had 0 Chaos Shards, 0 Mythic or Legendary treasure and had to raise hoards with Priest’s Chalices - they only give 50 Xp. Not only that, at 200 Hoard, it’s 200K for the raise, which Priest Chalice will give you 1.25 point of hoard…for 200k gold. 6 for 1 million gold.
You have to use the events somewhat to gain shards, so I ended up having to spend gems on Tuesdays to get some shards up to 250 etc. Now I have done the hard graft, I don’t need to spend on Tuesday’s more than time allows.
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Oh yeah, didn’t want to dive into that wormhole just yet. Getting to 500 without any pure faction is doable. Getting to 500 with a pure faction at 300 is doable, but annoying/“impossible” on a bunch of them. Finishing 500 pure faction is it’s own demon, as @xolid99 pointed out.
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My advice to newer players would be just be happy with 2100 renown. Give each delve a boost headstart to level 120 by buying Tier 2 in Tuesday events and do the faction run at level 100 at the same time.
Maybe take a few of the easier delves to 2500 if you feel like it but just leave the bulk of them at 2100.
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Just finished Emperinazar on the second try. Kingdom lvl14 so +50% stats, hoard lvl100, no potions obviously.
Kobold Knight
Kobold Magi
Emperinazara
Emperinazara
// Kobold Banner
Its a pain but its not difficult, merely slow. Nothing really stands a chance outside the boss room. First try I went the long way and it was all easy (until the boss room of course), second try I went through the middle … this included Worm Tunnels, which I would normally never ever touch, but it was fine since I could just heal the back troop constantly and the extra gems invited more 4/5-matches for me to buff up with.
Boss room took 20-21mins. Try to deny green and brown, cast Emperinazar frequently. Don’t get skulled, 250~ is a lot; you can eat some skulls later when everything has 1000 life.
If you do happen to lose a troop along the way, I highly recommend attempting to get the initial lineup as above, before continuing. So get to a stable point where you can win on a whim then let your first troop/s die and spawn more until its “right”.
If you end up with the brown/yellow Kobold, try not to cast it unless absolutely necessary. Very bad idea.
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And my would be to try to do Pure 300 while doing factions with your daily sigils. At 2300 you have your faction pet @ legend, which provides maximum boost.
As for me - i’ve joined game somewhere near the week when factions were released. Currently have all @500, lowest are 2100. Most are 2500. Avereage of non-maxed out ones is near 2150-2200 reown. My hoard level is result of simple algorithm: go to hoard level 100 and hoard quality 10, end up when both are met.
So few of older ones factions are at hoard 100, with newly released factions arround hoard 123.
Gameplan: try to do pure 500 on faction release week. Try to do pure 500 on some faction that are doable with ~100 hoard (already did: Crypt Keepers, Amanithrax that way, few more are possible).
But i’m not doing delves daily. I check them out every now and then, when I’m in a mood. (like i haven’t been doing pure 500 attempts with daily delves for over a month now - just having fun with other game modes currently)
Wait with burning loads of money and shards into raising hoard levels of other faction, until all faction are released. (my stats should increase by then, my kingdom should all be KL15/PL 16 or higher at that point etc.)
That’s my game plan. Longterm one.
When doing factions on event weekend i basicaly do 3 runs with pure faction team:
1st arround lvl 150, to see how faction performs (this is usually where i run out of sigils after buying weapon with tierIV)
2nd at 350-360, to have 2300 reown before 3rd attempt
3rd at 500, to max out pure faction (sometimes it needs 1 more extra run for “perfect run”)
Your advice is more for mid to end gamers. Remember newer players have maybe only half the stats you do. Pure 300 for them is probably tougher than pure 500 is for you. I wouldn’t advise newer players to be banging their head against a wall for weeks on end trying for pure 300.
Thing is: Try. If you can’t do pure 300 - skip it.
Brakepoint for faction pets are at: 2000, 2100, 2300, 2500 reown.
Another thing: new players when using daily delves attempts should try to level factions all arround.
1st few attempts- with hoard 0. Than put some tresures and gold into 1 faction and go as far as possible with that hoard. Than switch to next one.
My alt (lvl ~200) atm, has unlocked underworld some time ago, but all I’ve done with factions with it, was unlock all of them (for banners), do quests in Deep Hive. Open portals to get Beetrix. Do all camapaign runs in The Dep Hive with non-faction team. All other i’m skipping. Might use them for another campaigns tasks. [Correction: i’ve also did quests in Emperinazar and opened enough portals to get Emperinazara, she and Beetrix do a nice team].
Also might use lvl 10 artifact bonuses to push Deep Hive as much as possible and even try some pure faction runs (with Deep Hive i should be able to do same level with non-faction as with pure faction team - it just requires some luck).
So it all depends how you define “new gamer”. Most new gamers will be at least lvl 70-80 or 100+ before they unlock underworld. And most of new players should focus on getting all underworlds troops(at least one copy each). Starting from:
- Beetrix (Deep Hive)
- Gobtruffle (Amanithrax)
- Emperinazara (Emperinazar)
- Maraji Queen + Drowned Sailor (Sunken Fleet)
- Grave Seer + Lady Morana (Crypt Keepers)
- Alterfather (Primal Rift)
- Tink (Tinker Town)
- Any other empowered converters from underworld or legendaries with insta-kill chance/summoning spells?
These troops will be beneficial to their overall gameplay. (some will require burning some wisdom orb to get their full potential, others will be good even without their traits). Thing is, easiest way to get an early access on a decent legendary troop is by unlocking underworld and opening portals…
Not by farming reown…
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Emperinazar complete! No potions, Kingdom level 11 (no Delve bonus), Hoard level 100.
I tried with one Emperinazara (as I didn’t pull a second copy after ascending to Mythic for quite some time), and that was a disaster. Highly recommend using the team which has been suggested multiple times above: KK, KM, Em, Em. I used 2x Orpheus & 1x Anu and the faction’s banner.
I usually kept one Em full in case I needed a quick summon, and casted the other whenever it was full for heals. The boss room is definitely the hardest, but be careful of devours and other quick-killers in the regular rooms. If you lose an Em, I’d suggest giving up.
For the boss room, you’re basically relying on your quicker Magic increase (2 Em giving +2 Magic each on 4+ gems matches for a total of 4 Magic each 4+ gem match, whereas the AI has only one Em, giving +2 Magic every 4+ gem match). I used my first KK as a meat shield in the boss room, keeping him full on mana until I absolutely needed to cast him. The other KK had higher Magic (because the first troop sometimes died and had to be re-summoned), so I used him to blast through enemies. Took ages, but eventually my second KK got enough Magic to overpower the AI’s healing from Em. Block the AI’s green/brown gems to avoid them filling Em, but due to KM and RNG, they will undoubtedly fill her over and over. Be prepared for a long fight.
My last moment of the never-ending brawl:
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How long did the final fight take?