Gem Balance

[HeatAndRun]

This update includes roughly 30 kinds of new gems with it. Most of those are good, but some gems have questionable stat bonus. Here's my opinions about those underrated kinds of gems.

Sustain Gems

Spoiler

Before discussing about protection gems, I think I need to mention the Scrambler Shellcap.

The description says You'll take half amount of damage taken, but actually what it does is just simply giving the wearer +50% more damage reduction while not broken. The 50% damage reduction is what really matters, because combined with other damage reduction armors and gems below it will make you literally impossible to die in certain situations.

The Bullrog Laced Boots gives 20% dmg resistance while attacking.

2 Counter Protection Gems can be socketted in Proto-Weapons, give total 30% dmg reduction while attacking.

So, with Scramble Shellcap + Bullrog Laced Boots + Proto-Weapon with 2 Counter Protection Gem you're invincible while attacking. (100% dmg reduction while attacking)

Spoiler below is the footage of myself, frenzy 8, The Great Rotwood Forest with Extreme Night anomally.

Spoiler

You can use Spiker Ball instead of Proto-Weapons, since the striker gives 40% dmg reduction while seeking.

With Scrambler Shellcap + Bullrog Laced Boots + Spiker Ball you're invincible while seeking. (110% dmg reduction while seeking)

Also, with Yammo Elasti-Shorts and one dmg reduction gems of certain types, you can become immune to that certain type of damage while not attacking.

In conclusion the Scrambler Shellcap is the main protagonist of this (literally) broken synerges, thus before looking into the numbers of protection gems, the effect of Scrambler Shellcap should be adjusted first. The hat should halve the damage player receives "after' applying the damage reduction from any sources, not just giving +50% more upon the damage reduction the player already have.

Alright, let's get back to the protection gems. For now almost every protection gems are the inferior version of this gem.

 

Counter Protection Gem

The precious Counter Protection Gem. Gives 15% damage resistance while attacking. In Rotwood, basically you might be attacking or dodging all the time. And because dodge offers i-frame to players, if you get attacked, it's very likely to be when you're attacking. In other words this gem gives almost universal 15% damage reduction to players. Every other damage protection gems will not look that great to players unless the numbers are quite higher than the 15% protection this gem offers - such as the Backstab Protection Gem.

The numbers can be more than 25% at level 3.

 

Trap & Projectile Protection Gems

I specifically think each damage resistance this gems gives should be 25% per gems. It's because there're already some armors that can do the same trade - The Rillo Cattlehat and Rillo Trunks.

Each armors give corresponding 50% damage reduction from Projectiles / Traps. If those gems can give 25% protection each, the player can be free from traps / projectiles with 2 gems and Rillo armor piece.

 

The Miniboss/Boss Protection Gems

You can become invincible against Rot minibosses with this combo : 

2 Miniboss Protection Gems (20%) + Rillo Chestplate (40%) + Yammo Elasti-Shorts (40%) = 100% (While not attacking)

Spamming dodge with Bulbin Buddy, you can pass the miniboss with ease. You can do the same thing with non-frenzy boss Rots by wearing Yammo Singlet, but it doesn't work in Super Frenzies.

However, the real problem is that other than skipping miniboss fight, I couldn't find a motivation to specifically pick these gems to use. Even if the numbers were much higher, I think I'm going to pick other gems than these, pretty much like how I don't use the Rillo Chestplate and Yammo Singlet. If the resistance was 15%, and as the Miniboss/Boss gems were merged (as @MrMyther suggested before), this gem could be more competitve than now it is.

 

Pick-Me-Up Gem

I can directly compare this gem with Regen Gem. The Regen Gem heals 90 HP every rooms including rooms without enemies. If the Pick-Me-Up Gem tries to catch up that amount, the player should aquire 600 teffra each rooms.

Speaking of Pick-Me-Up Gem, I personally think the original Hunter's Pick-Me-Up power is seriously underpowered, too. It is by far the worst healing power you can find in a hunt. The percentage of heals both the gem and power give should be a waaaay higher than now, at least more than double. Even with all kinds of teffra farming armors and powers this power can barely give meaningful amount of healing.

 

Damage Gems

Spoiler

Backstab Gem

Now this is one interesting concept of gem. But the stats are not so high to compensate the player to change their play style as a  "backstabber". If the numbers were 25% It could make the player consider and try some new combat stratedgy with it.

 

Critical Chance Gem

I've been looking forward to see this gem the most when I heard about the gem update, but merely 3% of critical chance is too insufficient to make difference to anything. It needs to be more than 5% at least.

 

Critical Damage Gem

Now this is where things get a little bit complicated. The 15% damage bonus looks not bad on paper, but it's worse than it seems. What the "Critical Hit Damage" bonus does is actually increasing the ratio of the critical damage. For example, with 15% additional critical damage bonus your critical attack multiplier will become *2.15 from *2.0. If your non critical attack damage increases, the critical damage bonus will become more efficient. But the sole critical damage bonus itself is worse than simple damage bonus other gems give.

Assume that your critical chance is 100%, and your attack damage is 100. If you have 15% non-critical damage bonus, the outcome will be 230. ( = 115 * 2.0 ) On the other hand, if you have 15% critical damage bonus instead, the outcome will be 215. ( = 100 * 2.15 ). If the non-critical damage bonus is 100%, the outcome will be 400. ( = 200 * 2.0 ) and 300 in the case of critical damage bonus. ( = 100 * 3.0 ) The percentages are same, but the difference in final number is quite meaningful. And, obviously most of the player won't have 100% critical chance in a real game, so the critical damage bonus is less impactful than non-critical damage bonus if the numbers are similar.

In summary, the Critical Damage Gem should have at least 25% critical damage bonus.

 

Support Gems

Spoiler

Reroll / Choosey Gems

Most of the support gems are fine to me including these two gem types. The gems themselves have no problem, what I wanna adress here is the Aspect of Rook / Shell Drake.

After the Aspect of Shell Drake released in Splintershard Cavern update, I never used the Aspect of Rook. Not only because the numbers are higher, ( 8 > 4 ) but also more choice for powers are better than rerolls. If you reroll a power, you cannot pick the power before it rerolled.

And the more choice perk gets even more powerful in the rarer power rooms, (the cross shaped powers) since every teammates can have the benefit of the "more choices" powers of each other. The tedious communication and mind reading is not necessary because the effect will be applied right at the moment the power drops. But rerolls? Not many want to spend their rerolls first in shared power rooms.

So instead of changing the gems, I suggest to directly buff the Aspect of Rook - to have 8 rerolls instead of 4. Because the rerolls the Rook Aspect offers are not enough, it makes the Reroll Gem seems relatively better than the Choosey Gem. The player can already have 10 rerolls with the gems and Rook Aspect, so give 4 more rerolls won't break the game, I'm quite sure.

 

Forager / Scavenger's Gems

As mentioned in @MrMyther's post, it does not seem necessary to divide these gems into two pieces. As of now it would be better to merge these gems into one. One gem slot is so valueable that it's kinda hard to allocate these splited gems with minor advantage into those precious gem slots. However, since I don't have clear vision or foresight of upcoming materials & ingredients system in the future, so I'm not strongly sure about the hidden values of these gems... Just yet. Only time will know the answer.

Aye, that's the end for my thoughts about balance of gems. After all, the numbers are what really matters!