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• Troops
  These are what you’ll use to build teams. Each troop has four stats: armor, life, magic, and attack. Troops have 1-3 mana colors, representing the gem you need to match to fill their mana pool. They have a spell, which can do anything from direct damage, to healing, to transforming gem colors, to generating mana for other troops. Finally, they have three traits that confer bonuses in battle once unlocked.
  
  Troops come in six base rarities: common, rare, ultra-rare, epic, legendary, and mythic. Generally, troops of higher rarity are better than troops over lower rarity, but it is absolutely possible to build teams around low-rarity troops and do just fine.
  
  Your player character (the hero) can also join the battle, in which case you select a weapon rather than a troop to fill that team slot.
  
  
• Gold
  Earn gold in battles and from collecting tribute. Spend it to upgrade kingdoms, on Faction Hoards (more on that later), and on guild tasks to benefit the guild.
  
  The best way to earn gold is PVP battles. Both ranked PVP and casual PVP offer a choice of three opponents at varying difficulties and gold rewards. Casual PVP offers less gold per match, but is cheaper to refresh (a small gold fee vs. a gem) if you see that all three opponents are not to your liking.
  
  Explore battles with a fast team are another good way to earn gold, since they have enemies with uninflated stats and have a substantial baseline reward. See the Team Building Guide later for an example of a fast explore team.
  
  Arena offers a significant profit if you can clear all eight battles, but is less efficient per time invested than either PVP or Exploring. If you enjoy the mode, though, you’ll like yourself more spending half an hour in Arena than half an hour grinding Explore battles.
  
  Other modes do not offer a lot of gold per battle. There’s a small reward, but it’s a pittance compared to what you earn from PVP, Exploring, and Arena.
  
  
• Souls
  Get these from battles and tribute. Improve your troops’ stats, or start saving for one of the best hero weapons in the game. You get a base reward of 1 soul per enemy troop killed. Each troop requires thousands of souls to fully level, and that one hero weapon will need 1.3 million souls to purchase. Yikes. Fortunately, there are lots of troops whose spells award souls, and both armor and traits can improve soul gain.
  
  
• Glory
  Get a small amount of glory from PVP matches, from treasure maps, or from collecting tribute. Every week a troop is available in the shop for glory. Buy these troops. They come with gold (yay), keys (more on this shortly), and arcane traitstones (more on this next). These weekly glory troops are one of the best ways to cut out some of the mid-game grind.
  
  
• Traitstones
  Each troop has three traits that give bonuses in battle. Unlock them with traitstones of the right color for that troop. Simple enough. But getting those traitstones is a significant part of the mid-game. You earn one traitstone after each battle. PVP matches award a completely random traitstone, but PVE matches award traitstones tied to the kingdom you’re PVE-ing in.
  
  The single best way to earn traitstones is Explore mode. Not only can you target a particular color/colors by choosing the right kingdom, the chance at rare traitstones is boosted (up to triple for arcane and celestial traitstones).
  
  
• Keys
  Keys unlock chests to get troops. Hooray! There are five kinds of chests you can open in-game (six if you’re a big spender).
  
  Gold chests award common or rare troops. Even though you can spend gold to open them, don’t. You get plenty of gold keys through playing the game and being in an active guild. (You’re in an active guild, right? Have I said this enough?)
  
  Glory chest rewards are minimum rare, and go all the way up to mythic rarity. As with gold chests, you probably shouldn’t be spending glory on chests. Spend it at the shop instead to get troops and traitstones.
  
  Gem chests cut out the rare troops: every troop you receive is minimum ultra-rare. They also have a boosted chance of getting legendary and mythic troops compared to glory chests. Sweet! It’s worth spending gems on these if you can spare them (there are enough other gem sinks in-game that this isn’t a given any more), but make sure to buy the 50-packs since it’s cheaper per key.
  
  Event chests are tied to the event kingdom of the week. They will only reward troops from that kingdom, and start at ultra-rare like gem chests. They cost gems like gem chests, but are more expensive since you can target desired troops more efficiently. Like with gem chests, these are worth spending gems on if you have the currency to spare and desperately want a troop that’s available.
  
  Guild chests are paid for with guild seals (which are themselves earned for a variety of tasks in-game). Unlike all the other chests so far, the rewards are variable based on how active your guild is. They can be as crappy as gold chests or as good as gem chests. See why I keep harping on being in an active guild?
  
  Finally, if you spend a lot of money you earn the right to spend gems on VIP chests. These are guaranteed to drop epic or better troops, and have their legendary/mythic drop rates enhanced even further. If you have access to VIP chests, these are the most cost-effective way to obtain mythic troops. You’ll pay through the nose for the privilege, but then presumably you bought plenty of gems getting to VIP 5 anyway.
  
  
• Gems
  Gems are the premium currency of Gems of War. They can be purchased from the shop, received from guild tasks, awarded with tribute, or earned in small amounts from a variety of other sources in-game. There are many, many things to spend gems on, and finding the right balance is between you, your guild, and your wallet.
  
  
• Others
  Gems of War is a mature game, which means there are a bunch of things you can earn and spend. Pet food, ingots, treasure maps, Vault keys, shards and diamonds, and more. But those are concerns for once you’ve gotten your feet under you and understand the basic concepts. You won’t screw yourself over permanently by ignoring these other resources at first—but you should pay attention to them eventually.

• PVE: story mode, challenges, and Explore
  These modes are the simplest version of the core GoW gameplay. Build a team, take it into combat, and win. The opposing troops are limited in level and stats compared to most other modes, making this the place beginning players should start.
  
  After unlocking a kingdom, you gain access to that kingdom’s story mode. Periodically while going through the questline, you’ll unlock new challenges. At the end, you’ll unlock Explore mode for that kingdom.
  
  Challenges are an okay source of souls early on, but they can only be cleared once for that bonus.
  
  Explore mode pits you against a team from one of the above two modes, but with slightly harder stats. In exchange, you get more post-match gold, and a boosted chance at runic, arcane, or celestial traitstones. If you’re like I was, you’ll be spending a lot of time exploring to farm traitstones and improve your troops. Fortunately, this can be done mindlessly while watching Netflix or sports. It should not be done while driving.
  
  
• PVP
  Build a team, and square off against a computer-controlled team assembled by another player! You get a lot more gold compared to PVE matches, as well as PVP points. These PVP points get you awesome rewards each week, ranging from plain old gold to mythic-level resources. This mode is the best way to earn gold once you can build a decent team.
  
  PVP may sometimes feel like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the mountain (especially once you start getting goblin teams as your opponents). By end-game, though, it’s no more threatening than the PVE modes. So don’t get discouraged if a squad of goblins wipes the floor with you, or if a Kraken eats your troop(s), or any of a number of other bad ends happen. It happened to all of us, too.
  
  
• Treasure Hunt
  Treasure Hunt is a relic of earlier Gems of War versions. It operates more like the minigames from the original Puzzle Quest than does anything else in GoW. You have a limited number of turns to match gems on the board and work your way towards higher rewards. Alas, those rewards are terrible these days for the time invested in the minigame. Early game players will find this mode useful, but don’t be surprised if you start feeling bored with it, and certainly don’t feel compelled to spend all the treasure maps you earn. I have nearly 7,000 maps in my inventory, and will never ever run out.
  
  
• Arena
  This is another old mode, but one that has aged much more gracefully than Treasure Hunt. Choose a common troop, a rare troop, and an ultra-rare troop, and fill out your team with your hero. The troops are scaled to level 15 (regardless of what level they are in your collection, or if you have them at all). Then fight teams selected by other players until you have eight wins or two losses, whichever comes first. The more wins you rack up, the better the rewards.
  
  Arena is a great, great way to experience the variety of low-rarity troops in the game. It’s also a terrific source of souls. The fixed level and rarity of the teams makes it much more evenly balanced than PVP, so it retains appeal even for lots of endgame players who want the kind of tension they had in the early game.
  
  Grundulum advice: the hero weapon Runic Blade is your friend. It will remove a lot of the tension I just mentioned.
  
  
• Dungeons
  Every day, you can do three battles against increasingly difficult troops to earn crafting materials (see the Soul Forge section later). If you can beat at least one of those battles you can spend real money or gems on extra resources. The packs for Monday-Saturday are nothing special (as an endgame player I buy all the gem packs, but I get thousands of gems per week from tributes). The Sunday gem pack, however, is absolutely worth purchasing; and if you want to spend real money on Gems of War, the Sunday real-money pack is possibly the single best investment in the game. The diamonds in the Sunday packs are incredibly useful for filling out your collection at the highest rarities.
  
  
• Delves
  The basics
  
  • Build a team using troops matching certain colors (plus a hero weapon of any color if you want), and fight until you lose or beat the boss room. Dead troops stay dead for the rest of a Delve, and reordered troops stay reordered for the rest of a Delve. So beware Bulettes, Dust Devils, and anything else that can move troops around!
    
  • You can start three Delves per day, spread across all underworld factions. (You can start, but not finish, a Delve and it will carry over across days. This lets you “bank” Delve attempts if you’re pressed for time.)
    
  • Every time you beat a higher level than your previous best—whether that is from the underworld or during a faction event, the level of that faction increases permanently. There is no way at present to lower the level of a Delve, and possibly there never will be.
    
  • Beating a room improves the multiplier of all rewards you get at the end of a Delve, and offers a chance (10%-100% depending on room) of increasing the number of reward draws you get.
    
  • Get chaos shards (hooray, another new currency!), open chaos portals at a faction, and get either faction troops or treasure cards.
    
  • Faction troops can be used in that faction to earn Renown, and can be put on teams in any mode like any other troop.
    
  • Treasures can be spent (along with gold) to improve the level and/or quality of the Hoard for that faction specifically. (That is, gains in one faction’s Hoard do not carry over to other factions.)
    
  • Earn Renown in a faction for beating harder levels, doing so with 4 living troops at the end, using a team of only faction troops, or upgrading your hoard.
    
  • Earn prizes including ingots and exclusive pets for reaching certain amounts of Renown in a faction. Earn more gold, free ingots daily, or stat boosts for reaching certain amounts of Renown globally.
  
  Strategies
  
  • Do not spend Coin Purses on your Hoards, ever.
    
  • When trying to upgrade a Hoard, focus on reaching quality 10 ASAP. That’s worth three additional reward draws every time you beat a Delve, in addition to the other multipliers.
    
  • You stop gaining Renown from your hoard after level 100, so only spend further if you need the stat boosts for survival. This gets expensive really fast.
    
  • Chaos shards cannot be farmed in the same way traitstones, souls, gold, and glory can. So it’s in your interest to use all three Delve attempts daily.
    
  • As Delve level increases, fights take longer. So it’s a good idea to keep a faction at level 20 to be your “farm” faction, when you just want to burn through your daily Delves quickly.
    
    • Right now, Sea of Sorrow is the best faction for this purpose. It has lots of rooms, at high rarities—and it’s impossible to encounter Dust Devils, which means that you have a much better chance of keeping your troops in the order you want.
      
    • Hall of Guardians is another good choice, since you can avoid a Dust Devil room if one spawns.
      
    • Primal Rift isn’t a horrible choice, but you can get locked out of the top path if it’s a Dust Devil room, so it’s not as good as SoS or HoG.
      
    • Crypt Keepers and All-Seeing Eye have fewer rooms and worse rarities, which means fewer chances to improve your rewards and lower rewards generally.
  • Faction events will increase the level of your faction if you push beyond your previous best, so don’t participate in the event if it’s in your farming faction.
    
  • True damage is your friend at early levels, especially true damage with multiple targets (e.g. Tesla or Arachnaean Weaver). I’ll post team lists for factions at the end.
    
  • At later levels, use effects that scale with opponent stats. Mang and Mang-like weapons, devour, Ubastet’s spell, etc.
  
  Faction events
  
  • Gain points for each room you beat, multiplied by the chest multiplier and the Delve level. This a change from how they went initially, where points did not depend on Delve level.
    
  • To reach reward 8 each week, you’ll need to hit Delve level 80-100 (depends on the faction and the rooms that spawn). This will probably require you to buy the first Tier in the shop; maybe the second if you get unlucky with Valravens.
    
  • To reach reward 20 for new factions, you’ll need to hit Delve level 210-240. I question how achievable this is supposed to be, so it may get revised down in the future. This means significant purchasing in the shop, and I’m not sure it’s worth it unless you really want the other stuff at each tier.
    
  • At least once per faction (when it’s released, or at a later faction event), mid- to late-game players should try to spend up to Tier IV to get the faction weapon. Some of them are pretty cool.
    
  • Remember, advancing in the faction event will advance the underworld version of your faction also. So don’t participate if you want to keep a particular faction at a low level.
  
  Min-maxing the hell out of things
  
  • Breakpoints for Renown are every 100. So you don’t need to beat every single level with the faction team. Further, the pets you get for reaching 2400 Renown don’t make a difference: you don’t have enough to upgrade that pet’s rarity, so there’s no mechanical reward.
    
  • With that in mind, I’m only using the faction team at four places: level 100, 200, 300, and (if I ever care to try) 500. Faction level 200 is beatable with hoard level 100, but faction level 300 will likely require additional investment.
    
  • Levels 20-100(ish) I use my “early” team and try to beat every room.
    
  • Levels 110-200 I switch to my “late” team, but still focus on clearing every room.
    
  • At some point, I’ll switch from clearing every room to just doing the shortest path from start to boss room. Despite the amount of time I spend playing Gems of War, my time is still a little valuable.
    
  • Do the faction event every week, except Sea of Sorrows, since that’s my farming faction. Until recently I bought the first six reward tiers each week for the treasure cards and the shards. But 1100 gems weekly is a bit pricey to spend indefinitely, so I’m cutting back to simply completing the event for now.
    
  • If you have the treasures and gold to spare, use Gold Rings to get your hoard to quality 7, in chunks of 5 Rings. Then use chunks of 5 Priest's Chalices to finish the last three quality upgrades. Only use Crowns/Lamps to get from quality 10 to level 100, and don't use Sacred Treasures at all before level 100. If you ever need to increase your hoard level, you'll want the big chunks of XP granted by the higher-level treasures.
    
  • For ultra-min-maxing that ignores the previous point, the following set of upgrades will get you to exactly level 100 and exactly quality 10 at exactly the same time:
    
    1. Priest's Chalice x5
       
    2. Priest's Chalice x5
       
    3. Priest's Chalice x2, King's Crown x3
       
    4. King's Crown x5
       
    5. King's Crown x5
       
    6. King's Crown x5
       
    7. King's Crown x5
       
    8. King's Crown x4, Genie's Lamp
       
    9. Genie's Lamp x4, Sacred Treasure

• Guild Wars
  Six days of the week you will have the chance to fight five battles (the 1st day of each week is a prep day). Battles are worth more points the more battles you’ve already won.
  
  You earn points in battles based off performance on six scales:
  (1) Winning (you get more than four times as many points for a win as for a loss)
  (2) Using troops of the correct color for each day’s war
  (3) Winning in fewer actions (matching gems, casting spells) — not the same as turns
  (4) Dealing more damage to your opponent than you take
  (5) Collecting more mana than your opponent does
  (6) Keeping troops alive till the end of the match
  
  In addition to the five battles, there are two more mechanics to be aware of.
  (1) You can pay gold, souls, glory, and gems to increase your troops’ stats during Guild Wars battles for the week. This is done with the Sentinels tab. If you aren’t the paragon for your guild, boosting your Sentinels also makes people above you get a larger bonus.
  (2) You can set defense teams for each day. This is vitally important, as you can earn up to 2,000 points each day in this way — more than you can earn from any single battle. You earn 500 points for each troop you use in a GW defense that you haven’t already used that week. So set six defense teams full of different troops and get those bonus points!
  
  
• Raid mode
  
  • Every fourth 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.
    
    
  • Raid mode (and Invasion mode, and the Bounty event later) 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, and they range from "terrible" to "worth spending real money on".
    
    
  • 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, you can 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 few wrinkles.
    
    
  • First, there is literally no story reason given why we're doing this. Not even the barest hint. 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 (or a Mang clone) 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 every single time, 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 (or one of its clones) is super useful.
  
  
• Tower of Doom
  
  • The bastard lovechild of Guild Wars and Raid modes: endlessly scaling enemy levels, and player teams restricted by color. (As always, the hero can appear on a team, and the hero weapon ignores color restrictions.)
    
    
  • You get four sigils per day, which will be boosted by Valraven appearances. You can also buy more from the shop, which also provides you with copies of the Doom troop and (at Tier IV) a new weapon.
    
    
  • Earn rewards by defeating Dooms in the boss rooms of each floor of the tower. To get to the boss room, you need to find Unlock Scrolls, which are hidden in one of the four rooms on the floor.
    
    
  • If you do not get an Unlock Scroll, you will earn one of many other scroll types. They may contribute to a stat boost for everyone in the guild, or refund the sigil you spent on the room, or let you clear a room instantly, or even give you two free Dooms (as if you’d beaten two additional boss rooms).
    
    
  • The floor layouts and rewards are identical for everyone in your guild, so make sure to communicate with your guildmates! Eventually, you don’t want to be spending time clearing rooms just to earn 3% towards the next point of armor.
    
    
  • Grundulum advice: You don’t need to spend gems to do well here. New players can contribute by fully clearing early floors. The stat boosts will make later floors easier for the players who can push onward. The guild needs to average 24 Dooms defeated per player in order to finish all reward tiers, but Luck Scrolls mean that this can occur before floor 24.
    
    
  • Grundulum advice: Late game players should consider spending to the weapon. There is no way to know when these weapons will become available again, and FOMO is a thing.

• Team building guide
  A solid GoW team is built around three roles: a tank at the top who can absorb enemy skull damage, a mana generator, and a damage source. You also usually want to be covering all six mana colors where possible, so that you aren't "wasting" matches on the board.
  
  Tankiness normally comes from traits. Search using the troop filter for "from skulls" to see what troops you have with skull-reduction traits. Golem is a good option, since it is so cheap to trait. Treant is another choice, since it can pump itself up as needed. (If you get lucky and draw a Gorgotha early on, you’ve hit the tank jackpot.)
  
  Mana generators come in three main classes: gem converters, gem spawners, and gem exploders. Converters offer you the most control, since you can choose to use them only when the conversion makes a 4+ match and gives you an extra turn. Gem spawners and explorers are more random. Spawners may completely misfire and make no matches at all -- while setting up plenty of 4+ matches for the AI. Exploders will at least give you mana for the gems they eliminate, but you still run the risk of the replacement gems not falling your way. Personal preference reigns, though I favor converters as a general rule.
  
  Finally, damage dealers. True damage is nice because it bypasses armor, and attacks that hit more than one enemy are also great. The common Goblin is still one of the best basic troops in the game because its spell is cheap, does decent damage, and gives you an extra turn. This means you can leave matches on the board and continue filling your troops after firing off the Goblin. Handy.
  
  So what you want, ideally, in a team, is this: tank up front, and some combination of damage dealers and mana generators that feed those damage dealers. You can also look for specific bonus effects like "cleanse all", which is handy against freeze/burn/poison teams.
  
  The traditional newbie "complete team" is
  
  Adana banner
  Treant***
  Alchemist**
  Valkyrie***
  Banshee
  
  This team is nice, and easily accessible since it uses no troops above ultra-rare, but it isn’t quite as good since Valkyrie lost her Necromancy trait. My recommendation for new player teams is to have one team that you use for PVP and quests, and a second team that you use for soul farming in Explore mode.
  
  For new players in particular, I can’t recommend looping teams enough. If you have Alchemist and Hellcat, you have two troops that feed each other, and you can just cycle back and forth casting the two forever (barring bad luck that prevents you from making a 4+ match from the transformation). There are other closed loops, but most of the best troops in the game use red mana, yellow mana, or both. Once you have a looping duo, pair it with troops that get fed from the overflow. Goblins are a great choice because you can fire them off and not pass the turn.
  
  Example teams:
  
  Shentang Banner
  Hellcat
  Alchemist**
  Goblin Rocket
  Goblin Rocket
  
  Zhul’Kari banner
  Giant Spider*
  Green Seer/Spiritdancer
  Boar Rider
  Hobgoblin
  
  Adana banner
  Mercy(***)
  Alchemist**
  Hellcat
  Queen Titania(***)
  
  That last team uses a legendary troop, but it will stand toe-to-toe with literally any team in the game if you can get the third traits on Mercy and Queen Titania (which is what orbs of wisdom are for before you can build a fast Explore team). Alternately, replace Mercy and/or Titania with Kraken*** and/or Taloca*** and watch your enemies melt as you literally loop them to death.
  
  For soul farming, you want a troop that gives souls (obviously). Avina, Dark Troll, Banshee, Valkyrie, Wight, Pharos-Ra*, Sol’Zara*, The Dragon Soul, and Warg are options. Pharos-Ra and Sol’Zara are awesome because they have Necromancy traits to boost the souls you collect, but they are harder to get due to their rarity. Once you choose your soul engine, you can start to build a team.
  
  Example:
  Adana banner
  Druid(***)
  Valkyrie(***)
  Druid(***)
  Druid(***)
  
  The traits on this team work so well together. Valkyrie creates and boosts blue. Druid deals very respectable damage, and also boosts blue, and can start half full with its third trait.
  
  Another example:
  Merlantis Banner
  Golem**
  Warg
  Giant Spider(*)
  Warg
  
  Golem’s second trait is important here, because it’s cheap and lets you ignore skulls on the board in favor of filling Giant Spider. Giant Spider then casts to fill the Wargs, who give souls and do more damage with each cast.
  
  Late game, you’ll want The Dragon Soul or Pharos-Ra. They do tremendous damage (hitting the entire enemy side in the case of TDS), give souls, and refill themselves as a third effect of their spell. Hot drat. Pharos-Ra’s third trait makes it the gold standard for soul farming, but acquiring any specific mythic is a long-term goal.
  
  As a final note, you’ll probably spend a lot of time in Explore mode to earn traitstones for your troops. Having a fast Explore team (or two, to mix things up) is essential. Scatter damage is your friend, in this case, since it never over-kills: if you have two opponents left with 1 and 99 life, doing 100 scatter damage will kill both. The two easiest troops to acquire that deal good scatter damage are Rowanne (rewarded for completing Forest of Thorns) and Sunbird (an ultra-rare). Here are a few teams that use those troops.
  
  Maugrim Woods banner
  Golem**
  Valkyrie***
  Rowanne
  Fire Bomb***
  
  Blighted Lands banner (though Crypt Keepers banner works better)
  Golem**
  Sunbird(***)
  Fire Bomb***
  Fire Bomb***
  Sunbird’s third trait is really, really useful here. When Fire Bomb offs itself, Sunbird can generate a Firestorm and make red gems more likely to fall. Which will help to fill it. As a bonus, Fire Bomb will soften up the enemy troops with its spell to help with Sunbird’s scatter damage.
  
  Merlantis banner
  Sunbird***
  Fire Bomb***
  Rowanne
  Imperial Jewel (hero weapon)
  You can’t field this team before Level 151 at the earliest, since Imperial Jewel requires 25 base mastery in each of the six colors. But this is the late-game Explore team I used for a long time. Take any 4+ matches at the start of the match. Fire Bomb fills both Sunbird and Rowanne, with overflow going to the hero. All three of those troops do scatter damage, which is great for Explore. As an additional accelerator, use a Hero class like Archer or Titan, which can start at 50% mana thanks to traits.
  
  
• Buying stuff with real money
  This is a F2P game, and of course this means a shop full of things to spend real money on. Some things are worth the investment, and most aren’t. Here’s a list of ways to support the game and get something useful in return.
  
  
  • If you’re a new player with $50 to burn, the Deathknight armor pack is great. Hands-down the best armor in the game, which will accelerate resource gains for the entire time you play. Also comes with a bunch of keys to find new troops and make the early game a little bit easier.
    
    
  • Sunday diamond packs in the Dungeon: for $5, you can buy crafting materials in the Dungeon every day of the week. The Sunday pack is far and away the best value. It may be the best way to spend real money in the entire game. It comes with boatloads of diamonds, which can be used to craft a mythic of your choosing. Don’t bother spending real money on the other days, though the 50-gem packs aren’t a horrible buy.
    
    
  • Daily gem packs: also for $5, you can get 15 gems a day for 15 days. This isn’t as good a deal as it used to be in the early days of Gems of War, but it’s still the most cost-effective way to acquire gems. (The next most cost-effective is The Motherlode, which gives 1500+ gems but costs $100. Your call.)
    
    
  • Select old weapons, available from the Weekly Event tab. These include the various Mang clones (any weapon that has the phrase "Destroy an enemy’s Armor", but especially Earth’s Fury), and Divine Protector. Most weapons don’t merit spending $5 to pick up, but ask in the thread if you’re curious about a given week’s offering.
    
    
  • Also for rich early-game players only: Growth Pack II, Path to Glory II, or Path to Power II. Really, you’re dropping $50 on that mythic troop, but the extra stuff you get along the way is pretty sweet. By the time you’ve been playing for a couple of months, assuming you’re in an active guild, that random mythic troop isn’t special enough to warrant $50.
    
    
  • Grundulum note: take notice of all the things not mentioned above—the various troop packs, traitstone packs, and virtually everything else the game suggests you buy. These are terrible value, despite the questionable accounting practices that lead the dev studio to suggest that you’re getting a great discount.
  
  
• Legendary and mythic troop tiers
  

  quote:

  Here is Grundulum’s unofficial and highly opinionated list of mythic tiers, as of January 2019. I only used four tiers: (1) mythic troops that should be crafting priorities and are strong enough to anchor teams by themselves; (2) mythic troops that are really useful but not quite in the top tier; (3) troops that are okay/good in the right teams, but not worth spending diamonds on unless you need them for kingdom power; and (4) the cream of the crap, useful only for completing your collection.
  
  Crafting priorities:
  

  • Famine
    
  • Infernus
    
  • Pharos-Ra (you’ll need lots of souls, and Pharos-Ra will give them to you)
    
  • The Possessed King (the ultimate support troop for this third trait; you may never need to cast his spell)
    
  • Ubastet
    

  
  Good, just not as good:
  

  • Abynissia
    
  • Arachnaean Weaver
    
  • Champion of Anu
    
  • Draakulis
    
  • Elemaugrim
    
  • Gard’s Avatar
    
  • Jotnar Stormshield
    
  • Ketras the Bull (possibly the best one-target sniper in the game)
    
  • Queen Aurora
    
  • Scorpius
    
  • Skadi
    
  • Suna
    
  • The Worldbreaker
    

  
  Situationally useful:
  

  • Death
    
  • Doomclaw
    
  • Euryali
    
  • High King Irongut
    
  • Megavore
    
  • Plague
    
  • Stonehammer (80% skull reduction is great, blocking three mana colors is not)
    
  • The Wild Queen
    
  • Undine
    
  • Voice of Orpheus
    
  • War
    
  • Wulfgarok
    
  • Yasmine’s Chosen
    

  
  Cream of the crap:
  

  • Fallen Valdis
    
  • Gargantaur
    
  • Phoenicia
    
  • Xathenos
    
  • Zuul’Goth (the spell is pretty awesome, but the cost is so extreme you’ll never own one)
    

  quote:

  Here is Grundulum’s unofficial and highly opinionated list of legendary tiers, as of November 2018. I only used four tiers: (1) legendary troops that are good enough you should be spending diamonds to craft exhausting your event key supply to find them; (2) legendary troops that are really useful but not quite in the top tier; (3) troops that are okay/good in the right teams, but not usually worth seeking out; and (4) troops that are pretty much only useful for getting stars of kingdom power. (I see excuses for more tiers, but I wanted to keep things fairly simple right now.)
  
  As mentioned above, this is my own personal opinions. I am happy to discuss anything people feel is out of place or have questions about.
  
  Cream of the crop:
  

  • Divine Ishbaala
    
  • Emperor Khorvash
    
  • Glaycion
    
  • Gorgotha
    
  • Krystenax
    
  • Queen Mab
    
  • Queen Titania
    
  • Sylvanimora
    
  • The Dragon Soul

  
  Generally strong:
  

  • Borealis
    
  • Crimson Bat
    
  • Dark Monolith
    
  • Divinia
    
  • Emperor Liang
    
  • Forest Guardian
    
  • Infernal King
    
  • King Bloodhammer
    
  • King Highforge
    
  • Kraken
    
  • Moloch
    
  • Nimue
    
  • Queen Grapplepot
    
  • Queen Ysabelle
    
  • Sekhma
    
  • Taloca
    
  • Tesla (awesome in Delves!)
    
  • Wrath
    
  • Yao Guai

  
  Situationally useful:
  

  • Artema
    
  • Bone Dragon (slightly better in early game)
    
  • Carnex
    
  • Dracos 1337
    
  • Gar’Nok
    
  • Garuda
    
  • Glitterclaw
    
  • Hyndla Frostcrown
    
  • Jarl Firemantle
    
  • Keeper of Souls
    
  • Kerberos (situation: on defense. I don’t like relying on random chance when I am in the driver’s seat)
    
  • King Mikhail
    
  • King Silenus
    
  • Leviathan
    
  • Lust
    
  • Magnus
    
  • Medea
    
  • Orion
    
  • Psion
    
  • Scylla
    
  • Sheggra
    
  • The Great Maw
    
  • Umberwolf
    
  • Urskula
    
  • Webspinner
    
  • Winter Imp

  
  Crap:
  

  • Abhorath
    
  • Autumnal Imp
    
  • Behemoth
    
  • Bunni’Nog
    
  • Celestasia
    
  • Chief Stronghorn
    
  • Gloom Leaf (if Thorns reduces skull damage, he becomes Generally Strong; don’t know and haven’t tested)
    
  • Goblin King
    
  • Gog and Gud
    
  • Hydra
    
  • Imp of Love
    
  • Kruarg the Dread
    
  • Saguaro
    
  • Shadow Dragon
    
  • Sol’Zara
    
  • Spooky Imp
    
  • Spring Imp
    
  • Summer Imp
    
  • The Silent One
    
  • The Widow Queen
    
  • Venoxia
    
  • Viper
    
  • Willow

  
  Can’t get from chests:
  

  • Cedric Sparklesack
    
  • Genie’s Lamp
    
  • Lady Morana
    
  • Luna
    
  • Silent Sentinel
    
  • The Deep King
    
  • Xerodar

  
  
• Pet rescues
  Pets are a fairly recent addition to Gems of War. Owning a pet gives a small bonus, and they can be leveled to increase that bonus. You can also choose one to wear on your hero’s shoulder, though that’s strictly cosmetic; you gain the effects of all owned pets no matter which one you’ve equipped.
  
  [Screenshot_pet.jpg here]
  
  Unfortunately, the pets of Krystara are in peril. They have (all of them, somehow), been kidnapped, and you acquire them by rescuing them from their captors. This involves eight fights against increasingly difficult opponents. Importantly, these are time-limited events: you have one hour to finish the battles, or you lose the chance to open later reward tiers.
  
  New players will find these battles absurdly hard, but a good team (see the team-building section) will make things manageable. If possible, try to beat all eight battles. This guarantees you a copy of the pet; prior rewards only give you a chance at drawing one.
  
  
• The Vault
  
  • 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 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.
    
    
  • 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.
  
  
• The Soul Forge
  Once you beat the Blighted Lands story line, you can access the Soul Forge. This is one of the best resources in the game, since it lets you obtain troops and resources with little or no relying on RNG bullshit.
  
  The Soul Forge can be leveled up several times, but does not do so automatically—so check back periodically to make sure you’re not spinning your wheels. The tenth level lets you craft mythic troops, which is an astonishingly useful thing for a gacha-based F2P game to offer.
  
  Obtain crafting materials, like shards and diamonds, from numerous places in-game: the Dungeon, reward tiers for events, or from Gnomes that will show up randomly in your battles.
  
  
• Bounty Events
  
  • 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 first 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 near-perfect play, Tier V gets you to Reward 19, and so forth. But you pretty much need the bounty captain at mythic to hit these marks; if you stop gems spending early, you’re looking at using an Orb of Ascension to make up the difference.
  
  
• Delve team suggestions
  
  • This is based on the troops I have, which is an admittedly end-game collection. If you’re still building your troop list, feel free to suggest/discuss/request replacements.
    
  • Pretty much all teams use a Titan hero, because it gains barrier when matching brown gems and enrage when making a 4+ match. That’s too good to forego at high Delve levels, even though it means all the other classes don’t get leveled as much as they used to.
    
  • All-Seeing Eye
    
    • Early: Merlantis banner, Mountain Crusher (hero), Giant Spider, Tesla, Arachnaean Weaver
      
    • Late: Blackhawk banner, Dragon’s Eye (hero), Apothecary, Arachnaean Weaver, Sylvanimora (Note: Dragon’s Eye received a significant nerf since this team was designed. The team will still do fine at high levels, but it’ll take longer than it used to. I will test out the team below to see how it feels.)
      
    • Late (alt): Merlantis banner, Mang (hero), Apothecary, Nimue, The Possessed King
      
    • Faction: ASE banner, Ocularen Leech, Ocularen, Xerodar, Watch Mother
  • Crypt Keepers
    
    • Early: Leonis Empire banner, Mountain Crusher (hero), Valkyrie, Tesla, The Possessed King/Divine Ishbaala (The former takes advantage of all the 4+ matches you’re likely to make; the latter makes Valkyrie start rolling a bit faster.)
      
    • Late: Mist of Scales banner, Mountain Crusher (hero), Tesla, Queen Aurora, Queen Mab (This team is a bit fragile due to relying on barriers to keep your hero alive, and having all damage come through Tesla. It’ll work, but there’s likely to be a sturdier team out there.)
      
    • Faction: Mist of Scales banner, Lady Morana x3, Grave Seer (the other troops are pretty much worthless in a mirror match, so you’re reduced to using Lady Morana and trying to get lucky 16 times over the course of the Delve)
  • Hall of Guardians
    
    • Early: Suncrest banner, Mountain Crusher (hero), Alchemist, Arachnaean Weaver, Queen Aurora
      
    • Late: HoG banner, Great Maw, Alchemist, Dawnbringer (hero), Wrath (This is another fragile team, especially in the boss room where Silent Sentinel can silence the Maw before it casts.)
      
    • Faction: HoG banner, Silent Sentinel, Etheral Sentry, Arcane Golem, Gargoyle (Try to avoid casting Sentinel. Just use Ethereal Sentry to pump up troops’ attack, and Gargoyle for damage.)
  • Primal Rift
    
    • Early: Suncrest banner, Mountain Crusher (hero), Hellcat, Suna, The Possessed King
      
    • Late: Merlantis banner, Mang (hero), Apothecary, Keeper of Souls, The Possessed King (with a Titan hero gaining enrage on 4+ matches, this team chews through whatever is in front of it)
      
    • Faction: PR banner, Green Golem, Dark Dryad, Redthorn, Alderfather (don’t ever cast Golem unless it guarantees an extra turn or you’re desperate. Instead use Dark Dryad to steal armor from everything, Redthorn to deal with pesky rear troops, and Alderfather whenever it lines up for a free turn. If Golem dies, hope Alderfather gives you a Treant instead; the board manipulation is a lot better.)
  • Sea of Sorrows
    
    • Early: Sin of Maraj banner, Mountain Crusher (Titan hero), Tesla, Abynissia, Sylvanimora
      
    • Early (alt): SoS banner, Mountain Crusher (Titan hero), Tesla, Sylvanimora, The Possessed King
      
    • I’m keeping this low-level, so I haven’t bothered coming up with late-level or faction teams. The faction troops in particular are just dismal, and virtually impossible to build a high-level strategy around.
  • The Warrens
    
    • Early: Primal Rift banner, Mountain Crusher (Titan hero), Green Seer, Arachnaean Weaver, The Possessed King
      
    • Late: Blackhawk banner, Mang (Titan hero), Apothecary, Wrath, The Possessed King
      
    • Late (alt): Hall of Guardians banner, Earth’s Fury (Titan hero), Divine Ishbaala, Ubastet, Queen Aurora
      
    • Faction: The Warrens banner, Luna, Lapina Knight, Bunnicorn, Luna
      
    • This faction is pretty miserable to use the faction team in. There is basically no path to victory above level 150 or so that is not "get really, really lucky".
  
  
• Guild Wars team suggestions
  

  quote:

  Grundulum’s GW teams
  

  • Blue, attack: Stormheim banner, Emperor Khorvash, Apothecary, Jotnar Stormshield, Queen Mab
    
  • Brown, attack: Urskaya banner, Glaycion, Alchemist, Diviner, Famine
    
  • Green, attack: Blackhawk banner, Krystenax, Dark Maiden, Famine, Queen Aurora
    
  • Purple, attack: Dhrak-Zum banner, Glaycion, Sekhma, Abynissia, Umberwolf
    
  • Red, attack: Urskaya banner, Rock Troll, Alchemist, Moloch, Gard’s Avatar
    
  • Yellow, attack: Silverglade banner, Gorgotha, Green Seer, Famine, Jotnar Stormshield

  • Anti-blue, defense: Khetar banner, Nobend Brothers, Queen Grapplepot, Princess Fizzbang, Voice of Orpheus
    
  • Anti-brown, defense: Zhul’Kari banner, Psion, Spirit Fox, Famine, Jotnar Stormshield
    
  • Anti-green, defense: Shentang banner, Greed, Alchemist, Moneylender, The Worldbreaker
    
  • Anti-purple, defense: Dragon’s Claw banner, Crimson Bat, Hellcat, Forest Guardian, Yao Guai
    
  • Anti-red, defense: Blackhawk banner, Lord Ironbeard, Lady Ironbeard, Penguin, King Highforge
    
  • Anti-yellow, defense: Mercy, Infernus, Ubastet, Divine Ishbaala

  
  
• Orbs
  There are four kinds of orbs, which are awarded for clearing various thresholds in game modes with sigils (Raid, Invasion, Bounty events, Faction events, and a few others). The first three below can be used in the troop menu (look for the Orbs tab). The fourth is used in the Guild menu.
  
  
  • Green orbs are Orbs of Growth. A small one will level up a single troop once, saving you some souls. A large one will take a single troop to its highest allowed level (as high as 20 if the troop is mythic), saving you a bunch of souls. They can also be used on hero classes, for the same purpose.
    
  • Orange orbs are Orbs of Wisdom. A small one purchases a single trait for the troop in question. A large one buy all three troops. This saves potentially a whooooole lot of traitstones, especially if you use these on second/third traits for base legendary or mythic troops. As with Orbs of Growth, they can be used on hero classes for the same purpose.
    
  • Blue orbs, Orbs of Ascension, are the rarest and most precious. A minor orb will increase the rarity of a troop one tier, just as if you had sacrificed enough troops the normal way. Obviously only do this to go from legendary to mythic, since that’s the most expensive tier to reach. Major Orbs of Ascension will take any troop all the way to mythic, equivalent to collecting and sacrificing 15-190 copies of that troop. For hero classes, these orbs will give you class wins toward the class weapon that unlocks at 250 wins as that class. I am a hoarder in most games I play, and have yet to spend a single Orb of Ascension. I can’t even imagine a troop that would make me want to spend a major one.
    
  • Purple orbs are Orbs of Clans. They are spent in the Seals tab of the Guild menu to earn additional guild seals towards your total that week. This can take you beyond 1500 for the week, so don’t spend orbs until you hit the normal cap for the week. In Gem Boiz, we recommend that players save their Orbs of Clans until the week where new mythic troops are released; this bumps our guild chests up to a higher tier than normal, making for better results. No idea what Gem Blossums suggests.
  
  Technically, there is a fifth kind of orb: Orb of Power. It takes three major Orbs of Growth, Wisdom, and Ascension to craft a single Orb of Power. If used, such an orb maxes the rarity of a troop, buys all traits, and levels it to 20. There is also the mythic troop Zuul’Goth, who can be crafted in the Soul Forge for eight Orbs of Power .
  
  
• Outside resources
  This OP is long, but hardly exhaustive. In the (likely) event you have questions that aren’t answered here, you can ask in the thread. We’re mostly not assholes. You can also check any of the resources listed below:
  
  
  • The Gems of War Database is one of the most complete sources of in-game information on the web. You can even register your account there and get a handy link of your troop collection, which you can share and ask for help building teams with the troops you’ve got. (Note: it’s a fan site, but a just-the-facts-ma’am fan site.)
    
  • The official Gems of War forums are, unsurprisingly, full of people who want to chat about GoW. Look for a new guild, bitch about goblins, or get links to watch devs stream on Twitch and drink coffee.
    
  • The official help pages were written by people who care get paid to write these things. There’s a ton more information available there than there is in this OP. The catch is that the devs are not end-game players (this makes sense; they spend 8-14 hours a day working on the game, and probably don’t want to spend 2-6 hours of leisure time playing it). So while they can offer information about how mechanics work, they are not the best at providing analysis from a player standpoint.
    
  • Taran’s World, like GoWDB, is a fan-created site that scrapes data files for information. The primary focus at Taran’s World is spoilers about upcoming weeks—what troops that will appear when, the release date of kingdoms, or when the next bounty event is. There’s also a list of chest odds so you can see exactly how terrible your odds are of getting Infernus with that next glory key, and several other tools.

Grundulum fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Jan 5, 2019

Maugrim fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Jan 6, 2019

Arbetor fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Jan 6, 2019