- PC
Tips & Tricks for Trial Mode:
This quick guide will hopefully provide some hints as to how to better approach
trial stages, as they are arguably a challenging part of the game.
As I saw nothing up yet, I threw this together to help players who are struggling with the trial modes in the game. The aim is to provide tools for the player to use,rather than just telling players what to do. If it seems necessary, I can add specific strategies for specific fields in spoilers.
What can you try differently?
Start waves early. From what I’ve seen, spawns seem to be randomized (sometimes they come in clumps, sometimes spread out). If you know when there may be a gap with few monsters, spawn the next wave for some extra mana.
Combine/move gems around. Some may want to keep a gem in the back to clean up
stragglers, but in reality this is wasted dps when there is nothing for it to shoot at. Move gems around to where they will have targets, and if towers are scarce, combine gems into a bigger gem and move that around, based on the spacing between clumps of monsters.
Look at your gems. They don’t all share the same base stats. Does heavily relying on effects help get you further? Does combining those with the most damage output give you a gem than can hold out against the waves?
Look at the monsters’ stats. Are they too much because of numbers (swarmlings),
armor, or raw health? Do your two gems take 2.5 shots on average to kill each one?
Does combining them make it take 1.25 shots on average instead(don’t forget higher grades also shoot faster).
Look at the environment. Are there better terrain features you can take advantage of, that gives your gems more coverage(and thus time) to shoot? Are there beacons that are buffing the enemy, or shrines you could use at a better time? Is there some structure that the devs might have forced you to take advantage of for this map?
Don’t be afraid to restart the level early. Sometimes 4 get through the third wave, and sometimes you get to the 8th wave with no problem. The biggest threat of monsters getting through, is actually slowing your progress and holding you back for the harder waves. Restart right away if it’s clear you’re going to be significantly set back in this try.
Finally, keep experimenting. I honestly doubt there is a strategy that works 100% of the time on every single map. Keep experimenting, and look at what approaches get you further, more often – and keep trying to refine them.
Useful Tips for Newbies:
So since there are so many "this game is hard posts" heres some useful starting
out tips to get you started into the game.
1st:
Dual Gems are more Powerful then Pure Gems when in towers. They get an inherent damage increase at the cost of the specials.
2nd:
Learn to modify the targeting priority. A few simple changes is all it takes to make a hard level into an easy level. Don't be afraid to use Random or Highest Armor or Lowest Hitpoints and having a mix of them throughout the maze. I personally use random a lot on my front line gems to soften up a bunch of the enemies. More so when you have armor or poison gems on to spread it around. Nearest to Orb is not always the best option.
3rd:
Don't spend all of your skill points. More often then not, having the extra mana at the start will outweigh the skill increase since you can have higher starting gem grades and can anger a lot more waves.
4th:
Don't be afraid to move gems around the towers when needed. A gem at the front line doing nothing when the monsters are near a back tower with no gems seems like a good place to put that gem temporarly.
5th:
Do all the nodes as much as you can. Each node had 3 XP values, Journey, Endurance and Trial and all 3 have seperate XP values. The first pass thru each node gives full xp gained while future passes give the XP difference from your prior best to your new best.
6th:
Early on, More Gems are better then higher grade gems. 4 gems do more damage then if all 4 were combined (2 grades higher).
7th:
When you having hard time with alot of swarms just use Poison trap and set priority to swarm it help alot.