#Blaugust2019 Day 27 -- Pets of War

In-game pets, they're pretty amazing. It's a virtual item with personality that expresses your own personality. They vary from game to game in their power and function -- everything from cosmetic to ultimate gamechanger. At some point I may even want to write a longer blog post about this very topic, but seeing as it's Blaugust and I don't have a ton of time (since when did August get so busy?), I'd like to narrowly focus on the pets in the game I've been writing a lot about lately . . . Gems of War!

In Gems of War you collect pets typically in a couple of different ways. Typically you "rescue" them as a part of an in-game event that is limited time. Or, you gain them in Delves as a faction reward.

During the pet event you have 10 battles you fight through in succession that become increasingly more difficult. As you win battles, you also win event points that translate into prizes. Typically those prizes are the pet food you need to level your pets, but if you're lucky, you'll win the pet itself. If you make it all the way through all 10 battles, they give you the pet at a 100 percent chance.

At this point you can feed your pet and level it up to 5.  Every five levels you earn on a pet will earn you a small gem reward. This is where we start seeing the benefits to leveling pets both individually and collectively as a collection of pets because Gems of War then places you into a "Pet Mastery" cycle where every collective 25 levels of pets (or so), earns you an Orb of Chaos.



That's the real carrot on the stick here.  Orbs of Chaos are shortcuts to leveling, traits, ascension, and guild favor grinding. In other words, those orbs can provide real and permanent benefits to your troops.

The pets themselves provide minimal benefits at early levels. For example, this Snow Bunny pet (which I've affectionally named Zuzu after my Lizardfolk's raptor pet in D&D) provides a small bonus to water gem mastery. A +6 bonus is so small that it's hardly felt at all.

Even at high levels I'm not sure if my gameplay would really even feel different, but you know gamers . . . typically any slight edge is a welcome edge.

Another big component of pets in any game is . . . charm.  If a pet makes you happy and looks fun with your character, it's a big win, am I right? In Gems of War, the charm is minimal in that the pet simply goes over the shoulder of your character, but I will say they've made some of the pets look super cute . . . like this baby "Shymera." CUTE!

So, do they make the company money? Hard to tell without looking at their data closely, which I highly doubt they'd share with the common folk, but it does look like there's potential to make money . . . or at least drain your gem supply in that during the events, the same pet baskets you win for each of the 10 battles can also be purchased for gems. And since there's so many pets, if there's a pet you really really like, you're probably going to invest in those baskets so you have a chance to win multiple copies of the pet so you can level it beyond level 5.

I'm sure there is room for improvement on the pet system in Gems of War, but as it sits now, it seems to be low-hanging fruit for the company and just an additional item that can add charm to players while providing an additional avenue for obtaining Orbs of Chaos.

Happy Dueling!

#Blaugust2019 Day 15 -- Vexxed by Amanithrax

Yesterday I talked a bit about the Lore behind the new Amanithrax Delve in Gems of War. Today I'd thought I'd talk a bit about a couple of teams I made surrounding the new troops you can obtain from Amanithrax.

Essentially there are four units you can get from Amanithrax:

As you can see, it's a lot of mushroom this and mushroom that.

I leveled up 3 of the 4 troops and even slotted 3 traits on the Fungomancer. To be honest, I'm still thinking about how to craft a good team around disease- and poison-based mushroom troops, but here are a couple of builds I came up with last night that were interesting.

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1- Venbarak, Fungomancer, King Gobtruffle, and Plaguelord with Spark Rocket 2.0.16

Venbarak -- Both teams feature the stylings of Venbarak. I just really like the 75% chance to disease all units that Venbarak brings to the table, also, when fully traited, Venbarak does double skull damage against any diseased enemy troop.

Ven's ability charges relatively quickly and 75% of the time gets that disease cooking quickly, which not only sets up the rest of the characters in this build, but by the very nature of disease, cancels any traits on the opponent team.

Fungomancer -- Straight outta Amanithrax, the Fungomancer has the ability (50%  of the time) to change an enemy opponent into one of those gimpy little Mushroom Men. Let me tell you, I'd rather face down a Mushroom Man over a mythic troop any day.

I also found that most people haven't really leveled up their Mushroom Men troop yet, so it's a big whammy when that ability works from my mans Fungomancer.

King Gobtruffle -- Unfortunately because he's mana blocked on Blue mana from Venbarak, he charges a little slowly in this build. What I found myself doing eventually was holding on to Venbarak's ability to unblock mana for King Gobtruffle and then doing a big 1-2-punch of abilities once BOTH Venbarak and Gobtruffle were all charged up.

If you can do that, there's a really good chance that the board will become a sea of Brown and Green gems and another really good chance that King Gobtruffle will get into a charge cycle where his ability pops again and again, which is absolutely devastating.

I WISH I had the traitstones to fully trait him out. If I did, he'd also disease enemies on 4+ gem matches.

Plaugelord with Spark Rocket 2.0.16 -- I had never leveled the Plaugelord class before last night, but seeing as the class is all about spreading the disease condition, I gave it a go and managed to unlock the 10th level talent tree feature to disease enemies on 4+ gem matches (just imagine the power if you had both this and Gobtruffle's 4+ gem match trait)

As for the Spark Rocket, well, it's not optimal, but it does fill the void of Red and Yellow gems. If it exploded a few more gems, it'd be about perfect. As it is now, it just does a bit of extra damage and helps get the board moving . . . slightly.

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2- Venbarak, Exploadstool, King Gobtruffle, and Plaguelord with Anvil of Might

Venbarak -- Again, the ability to disease all enemies is super attractive when paired with disease troops like those from Amanithrax. The final trait in Venbarak's line of traits is really what it's all about in this build. What makes this build disappointing to me is that it's more about Venbarak than about King Gobtruffle . . . c'est le vie

Exploadstool -- This troop does everything the Spark Rocket wasn't doing for me in the previous build. It takes out 3 gems, poisons enemies if they're diseased, and gets mana rolling in. It's definitely not as fun as turning enemies into Mushroom men, but it works well to get the board moving.

King Gobtruffle -- Because Exploadstool is helping generate mana, even though Gobtruffle is COMPLETELY mana blocked by Venbarak and Exploadstool, it feels easier to charge Gobtruffle up, which seems counter intuitive. I'm still not sold on having him in the third position though . . . or even in this line up, which is sad.

Plaguelord with Anvil of Might -- The Anvil of Might in this build is used to give Venbarak more armor and attack. The fact that Venbarak is doing double damage against diseased opponents makes the attack buff from the Anvil of Might super sexy. Plus the extra armor making him more survivable in the top spot is nice.

The Anvil of Might fills in the red and brown gem void in the build, so . . . it all kinda works.

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Out of the two builds I came up with, I think I like the second one better. It just works more cohesively as a whole. Although, yes, in both builds, it feels like King Gobtruffle isn't the star of the show. There's gotta be a build out there that puts him front and center, you know?

I'll keep working on my builds, but if you have any additional insights or comments, please feel free to leave them!

Happy Dueling!

#Blaugust2019 Day 14 -- King Gobtruffle, the Gems of War Fun Guy!

Gems of War added a brand new Delve into the game about 3 weeks ago called Amanithrax. This delve centers around all things mushroom and disease . . . and it makes me crave a pepperoni and mushroom pizza when I play there.

It's kind of cool when Gems of War adds Delves to the game because you get a little quest line along with it. in Amanithrax's quest line you join one of Gems of Wars most notable-weird-drunk-old-guy NPCs on a romp through a giant mushroom forest. Brian the Lucky is under the belief he will find a special periwinkle-colored mushroom here that will bestow upon him magical powers that will make him no longer the forgotten about troop in your selection of troops and instead be the greatest warrior in all of Krystara.

Of course, he got the information from a very back-stabby source, so it's obviously not going to end well. As you stomp through the mushroom forest you discover that the boss of the Delve is a goopy-looking goblin named King Gobtruffle, and Brian is absolutely certain that Gobtruffle's lair is where he'll find his periwinkle mushroom.

Brian makes several toasts to oddly named made up Gods along the way like Jaylanstore, God of Regicide and Fungolfin, God of Mushrooms.

He also overshares about the reason he knows so much about fungus . . . eww.

Eventually you reach the final stopping point and face the mighty King Gobtruffle, who also appears to be the king of "F" alliteration: "Face my fungal fury, fools!"

Unfortunately Brian doesn't find his Periwinkle Mushroom here, but he's not one to lose hope.

Ahh, Brian. I like the quixotic cut of your jib, sir. Here's a toast to Astaea, goddess of innocence!

The theme of this new delve reminds me of a certain adventure I had in D&D. If you've ever played through Out of the Abyss, you'll know what I'm talking about. Your group of adventurers will most likely at one point take a romp through a town made of living mushrooms only to eventually see the summoning of Zuggtmoy herself, the demon queen of Fungi.  It was a pretty epic adventure in the underdark where you get terribly lost and run madly away from horrible gods as they are summoned up from the different factions that live underground.

I wonder if one of the Gems of War Devs played through that D&D campaign as well!

Anyway, I'm out of time today, but perhaps tomorrow I'll talk a bit more about the enemies encountered here and the troops you can win by playing through Amanithrax. I keep wondering how I can put one of these Delve troops to good use. Perhaps I could explore that a bit as well.

Happy Dueling!

#Blaugust2019 Day 2 -- Gems of War Necromancer Build

The Necromancer class in Gems of War seems to be a one trick pony for me, and that pony gallops to the hoof beat of farming souls. For those that don't know, spending souls on your troops is the main way you level them up, and it isn't cheap. You can pony up anywhere from ~4,300 to ~6,900 souls to level up one troop based on their rarity.

I've horsed around with the Necromancer class enough that I have the class's Mythic weapon, which is a pretty mean-looking Scythe.

I hear that weapon actually pairs better with the Sorcerer class, but what I use when playing the Necromancer is the Soul Blade, which is arguably a little easier to get as it's a free weapon from getting 28 gem mastery in both blue and yellow. You get gem mastery naturally as you level up vs. having to win 250 battles as a Necromancer to get Creeping Death.

The whole key to farming souls in Gems of War is jockeying characters that have the Necromancy trait.

Yes, in fact, there's a great old video by a really talented Gems of War player, and he simply used three Warlocks and a Valkyrie in his set up, but that video is old and Valkyrie has been nerfed since then.

(I'm sorry, I can't stop with the "lame" horse puns.)

The best team I've seen so far comes from Sinnycool Games (Side note: wouldn't the name Whinnycool games be better?), but I can't use it . . . because getting the Pharos-Ra elite troop is a "bit" out of reach for me at the moment. (You need to "rein in" 4,000 diamonds by hitting the dungeon boss game every day for about three months)

If you're looking for the ultimate soul farming set up, that video above is probably what you're looking for . . . he even goes over how you should find the pet named "moon moon" and level him up for bonus souls.

But, again, I don't have Moon Moon . . . and you, kind reader, probably don't either.

So what do I use?

I use three troops with the Necromancy trait that also have the widest color variety. For me that's Soul Blade with Necromancer wearing Celestial Armor, Warlock, Keeper of Souls, and Flesh Golem.

With this team I can consistently hit the max cap on souls and survive moderately well. Basically you want to charge soul blade 3 times, and with all the other bonuses from being a necromancer and wearing Celestial armor, it does pretty well.

I'm sure your mileage may vary and there are a lot of builds with more horse power than this, but this seems to work pretty well for me.

Now the real question is . . . is there a necromancer build that *isn't* about soul farming, and how does that work? That's a mustang to ride on a different day!

Happy Dueling!

Gems of War: Diamond in the Match-3 Rough

While on my quest for a dungeon-based Match 3 game, I found a little treasure of a game that's actually been around since 2014. Gems of War is BY FAR one of the best Match 3 fantasy games I've ever played. I'm totally in love with it right now.

Does it have dungeons? Yes, but they aren't at the core of the game.

"Delves" are dungeon runs for treasure where you move along a map to a boss room.

 Does it have Match-3. Yup, at it's core, it's a match-3 battler game.

Does it have Necromancers? Yes it has to that too! In fact, just this weekend I unlocked the Necromancer class.

The Necromancer is just one of 20+ classes you can level up. Each with their own perks.

Is it available on PC and mobile? YES! This is a huge selling point for me. It's on Steam and it's on mobile, and even better I can connect my account to play the game on both platforms. (It's also on other platforms like the Nintendo Switch, but you can't connect Mobile and PC to the Switch version if I remember correctly.)

So let's back up a step and talk about what Gems of War is . . .

Gems of War takes place in a world called Krystara where you engage in battle for various kingdoms scattered throughout the map.

Krystara is huge, the shown image is only about 1/4 of the entire map

Those kingdoms eventually give you tribute daily based on your interactions with them.  You choose one of these kingdoms as your home base and gain extra benefits for doing so.

After you've conquered the main world, don't forget to plunge into the depths of the underworld, where dungeon delves and more questing await you.

Yes! Bring on the dungeons!

The real name of the game in Gems of War, however, is collecting troops, ascending those troops, leveling up, gearing up, and participating in weekly Guild Events. After spending about 3-4 months playing, let's see how I'm doing with that:

• Troops: I've collected 466 of the 685 troops available in game. I have a nice team of Undead creatures that I run with, all ascended to "mythic" levels.
• Level and gear: I'm currently level 208 (it appears to go on infinitely as I see level 1000+ people talking in the global chat).  I've also collected a huge array of weapons and pets to choose from, which give you bonuses and benefits in battle as well.
• Guild: My guild is a casual guild called Den of Wolves that does ok for our size. I think our highest level player is in the 700 range and I consistently place in the top 5 for our guild during guild events, like taking on other guilds or downing giant raid bosses.

So I'd say I'm . . . the fast one of the slow bunch, which is where I like to be anyway. ;)

My team is on the left . . . and we're about to completely destroy the team on the right. sorry. gg.

As for PvP in Gems of War, I actually like it a lot! In Gems of War PvP you pit 4 troops of your choosing (1 of which is most likely your player character, but it doesn't have to be) against another player's 4 troops. The computer controls the other player's 4 troops, so really you're just seeing how you fare against your competitor's team composition, which is pretty standard fare in the mobile space. Each week you can work your way up through 15 tiers of PvP ranks earning rewards along the way for doing so, but it's totally optional.

It's just such a huge and beautifully put together game. THIS is what a mobile game can become if it's successful across multiple years. It feels more like an MMO than a mobile game, and I love that about it.

I'm just happy to have stumbled upon it while on my quest to find THE ONE TRUE DUNGEON BASED MATCH 3 GAME TO RULE THEM ALL!  This is close and probably the game Puzzle Quest 2, which I haven't tried yet but is made by the same company, is really the game I'm looking for, but . . . now that I think about it . . . perhaps what I've been looking for all along isn't that game, but this one.

Gems of War has it all.

Ok, there are a few downsides . . . being that it's from 2014 some of the graphics seem a bit dated, but from what I can tell, they've already been working hard to update the look over the past 5 years. If you don't like Match 3's, this won't be your cup of tea. If you don't like grinding levels and building power slowly like you do in an MMO, you won't like this. I mean . . . It is what it is. I can't help that.

But did I mention that Gems of War has it all?

Happy Dueling!