Introduction

Gemstones can be added to your equipment and provide extra boosts. This guide explains how they work, how to add them to equipments, and considerations how to best use them.

Do not underestimate Gemstones and see them as just a minor way to improve the stats of your gear. From all different ways to get combat boosts the Gemstones can by far provide you the highest boost increase, your actual gear boosts are small in comparison.

The Basics

Gemstones are a way to give extra boosts to your equipment. Some (not all) equipments have one or more gemstone slots, which allow you to add a gemstone. The Forge building shows an overview of your available Gemstones and allows you to add them to your equipment. In the Forge you can also increase the boosts of Gemstones by refining them to a higher level.

Different Types (and Shapes) of Gemstones

For the basic Gemstones, a Gemstone's name consists of two parts. The first part indicates which troops it applies to, and the second part which type of boost you get. The second part also influences the shape of the Gemstone, which determines to which shape (it should be identical) Gemstone slot you can add it to.

The first part of the name can be for example Air (Distance), Sentinel (Infantry), Stallion (Cavalry) and the second part for example Gem (Attack), Stone (Defense), Jewel (Health).

There are also Hope Gemstones that provide boosts for Bowmen, Infantry and Cavalry. These comes also in three types for Attack, Health and Defense and fit into the same slots as the corresponding basic gemstones.

The Justice Gemstones that were introduced in the game later have the same setup as the Hope Gemstones, but give higher boosts.

There are also Champion Gemstones, Victory Stones and Heroism Stones that have another unique shape for which only the higher level rings and necklaces have a slot. The Champion Gemstones come in the regular three variations with each a Troop Attack, Troop Health, or Troop Defense boost, and there is only one Victory Stone and Heroism Stone which has a Troop Attack, Defense and Health boost.

In Update 2.2 Nobility Gemstones were introduced, more information in a section below.

Different levels of Gemstones

Each Gemstone can be refined to higher levels, up to level 6. The boost amounts are not necessarily the same for each Gemstone at the same level, but the required refining points to upgrade to a next level are the same for each Gemstone (except for the step from level 5 to 6, this 8340 points for the standard Gemstones and the Champion Stones, but 17780 for the Hope Gemstones). Both Refining Stones and other Gemstones can be used to refine a Gemstone.

Refining Gemstones can be done in the Forge. If you ever have refined a gemstone that you no longer want to use because you have something better, you can always use it as an 'ingredient' for refining another gemstone, so you can't really make a mistake.

Restrictions

There are some restrictions, but they are not really an issue.

You cannot remove Gemstones from an equipment piece for free once added, but the cost is very low (20 gold). Better to always pay the gold, because you can always reuse it as ingredient for refining another gemstone.

Once you have refined a Gemstone you cannot unrefine it, but if you don't need it anymore, you can use it to refine another Gemstone. The points do not really get lost.

Getting Gemstones

Unfortunately up till now the good (Hope) gemstones are only available by spending real money. Once you spent some money the Shooting Gallery is available, where you can select a Gemstone field which could eventually get you a Raw Hope Gemstone (which is not even a guarantee for a Hope Gemstone, as it could result Refining Stone (V))

Spending more money will allow you to get through the Shooting Gallery faster and perhaps there are other ways to get the Raw Hope Gemstones, I haven't paid attention to packs.

As long as you don't spend just keep your eyes open for any other gemstones. You can still get some good boosts from it, but nothing like a big spender who is fully equipped with Hope and Victory Gemstones.

In Update 1.6 Raw Hope Gemstone (IV) Fragments were introduced. You need 100 of those to synthesize it to a Hope Gemstone of your choice.

So far I know of the following ways to acquire Hope Gemstone Fragments:

• Red Guard Raid (5-20 based on Alliance and Individual Point ranking, I understand additional for leaderboard rewards as well, but I don't know details)
• Underworld Gate (3-8 for Victory Rewards (amount depending on level of Underworld Villain), none for Damage Rewards)
• Creation Arena (15 for the first point target)
• The Spirit Mines (up to 15 can be purchased for your credits during each reward cycle)
• Training Stage and Kill Stage of the gold event have second tier prize targets that give Hope Gemstone Fragments (I got 38 for Training Stage, this might depend on Castle level, not sure. Also not sure yet how much kill event will give)

Getting Hope Gemstones for all your regular Gemstone slots should be top priority and quite easy to achieve with above ways.

It is harder to get good Gemstones for the special Gemstone slots available on higher level rings and necklaces. Once you have spent some money on the game one way is to select a field with a Champion Gem in the Shooting Gallery, but I am not really sure whether that is worth it. Ideally you get a Victore or Heroism stone here which are a lot better, but I have not seen them in the Shooting Gallery yet and I don't know of any other way (besides purchasing for real money). If anyone else knows, please share.

Nobility Gemstones

In update 2.2.0 Nobility Gemstones were introduced. There are three different levels Basic, Precious and Flawless. Each of them have 6 different enhancement levels. These Gemstones are connected to each other, meaning if you have a lvl 6 Basic Nobility Gemstone you can further enhance it to a lvl 6 Precious, and from there to lvl 6 Flawless. However the required refining point amounts are huge.

You can purchase 10 Raw Nobility Gemstone (IV) Fragments a day in the Spirit Mines (these replaced the possibility to purchase Hope Gemstone fragments).

In the table below we list information required to enhance these gemstones. To make a better comparison we also listed the Hope and Justice Gemstone info in this table.

The Refining Value is the total number of refining points used for the gemstone and the amount you can increase another gemstone with when using the gem to refine another.

The Refining Cost per Boost Point is an indication how much it costs to get extra combat boosts via the various gemstones. If you know the cost for gemstones in packs, or in stores in the game, you can use this information to determine whether this is the best way to get your combat boosts, or whether you can better spend your money and/or credits on another category. We multiply the boost in this calculation by 3, because you get the respective boost for 3 different troop types. For example Flawless Nobility Gem (VI) gives you 270% (3x90) boost points and the cost is 657,030. If you divide 657,030 by 270 you get 2433.4.

From this overview you can conclude that from Justice Gem (VI), Basic, Precious and Flawless Nobility Gem (VI) the cost per boost points gets very high.

The comparison above is for the gemstones providing the troop type specific boosts, for the troop attack/defense/health gemstones the boosts you get are 50% of the corresponding troop type specific boosts (e.g. Basic Royaly Stone VI gives 34.5% Troop Attack/Defense Health) and the required refining points are the same.

Squared Stones

It is still difficult to get good gemstones for the squared slots (3rd slot in Ring and Necklace). There are some special gemstones for these that provide Troop Attack, Defense and Health boosts, but these are not easy to get (for free). If you ever spent some money and the Shooting Gallery is available, you might consider focusing your efforts on a Gemstone field with a Heroism Stone, but this will likely be the last Shot, so requires a large amount of Coins. Having said that, I expect in one of the next updates a Basic Royalty Stone to be added to the Shooting Gallery, which is better, so better wait one or two months if you are in it for the long run. That is basically the only way I know off you can work towards these, for the rest it is waiting until the game offers other ways or gives it away for free (they might do during a Christmas or Anniversary celebration).

Scholar and Savant Gemstones

There are Scholar and Savant Gemstones that reduce the amount of resources required for research. They are a huge help, especially with the relatively small research projects. If you already have the Scholar Gemstones, before purchasing the Savant Gemstones do consider that Savant Gemstones (unlike Scholar Gemstones) cannot be refined. Also consider that the percentage reduction is the same for both, so only the absolute reduction differs, which basically means as requirements for research get higher the benefit of having Savant Gemstones over Scholar Gemstones becomes relatively smaller.

Considerations

Now that the Nobility Gemstones are introduced it should be the focus of all players to get at least lvl 4/5 Nobility Gemstones for all slots. Focus on first getting them all to level 5, afterwards try for level 6 one by one, but this requires a huge amount of refining points.

Conclusion

Gemstones are cause of a great imbalance between large spenders and low/non spenders, although the availability of Raw Hope Gemstone fragments lessens the gap. In case you have any questions or tips, please share in the comment section.