Gem Embedding enables players to make their gear perform even better in war, enhancing attack, defense, and/or march sizes. But the higher level runes are difficult to acquire, as it takes to 1 year and 8 months to just farm one level 6 Gem from scratch with the picks regenerating for free. Although we are helped by Gem Shards and Gems in chests and tournaments, it’s still inefficient to just start combining them to level 6 Gems, so choices have to be made.

In this article, I will look at what the Gems do in each gear piece type, what gear should be Embedded first, and how to most efficiently upgrade Gems along the way.

• 1. Buff types and Gem effects
• 2. Diminishing returns
• 3. Best Gem Embed gears
  • 3.1 Offensive
  • 3.2 Defensive
  • 3.3 Campaign
  • 3.4 All-round set-up
• 4. Efficiently upgrading Gems

So before going on to discuss where to put in Gems, it is important to go over what they do and what other factors come into play when deciding how to Embed Gems.

1. Buff types and Gem effects

To make the best choices in Embedding Gems, we need to go back to the different buff types and compare them with what Gems do in different pieces of gear. So far, we have 2 offensive buffs:

• Increase attack
• Debuff enemy life

And 2 defensive buff types:

• Increase life
• Debuff enemy attack

Now let’s compare them with what buffs are given by Gems in gear. So far, we only have one type of Gem, the Artamir Gem, which has the same type of effect on gear no matter what level:

• Sword: Increase attack
• Shield: Increase life
• Amulet: Debuff enemy life
• Ring: Debuff enemy attack
• Cloak: Increase march size

For now, I’ll leave the Cloak out of the discussion, as it is far less useful. For now, we know that the Ring and Shield are good to Embed for defensive purposes, while the Sword and Amulet are good to embed for offensive purposes. Now it seems easy to conclude to just Embed your Ring and Shield on your defensive hero, but it get’s a bit more complicated, as high level Gems take some time to gather/mine.

2. Diminishing Returns

Given that you probably do not have Gems of lvl 6 to Embed all your gear, choices have to be made. You probably want to Gem one offensive gear set and one defensive  gear set at the very least. But even then, you might not have Gems to fill all four slots of the gear pieces in question. So what do you do?

Let’s take a defensive gear set. We know from 1. that the Ring and Shield should be Embedded for best defense. But do you go for the Shield first or Ring, or divide between them your best Gems? The answer lays once more in diminishing returns. Having a lot of one type of defensive buff, makes it more attractive to increase the other one.

When speaking about defensive gear, most people now use Replenishing. Replenishing buffs life, a lot. Runes and super runes, perm buffs, and guardian statue also buff life. So much, that it indeed became better to equip some Void pieces along with Replenish, as the attack debuff from Void became more effective compared to another life buff.

Give that, we can now make a choice between Embedding Gems in Ring or Shield with a defensive Replenish/Void gear: It’s the Ring! The diminishing returns of the Replenish life buff make it more worthwhile to invest in an attack debuff increase, which the ring offers.

3. Best Gem Embed gears

For best Gem Embed gears, I am going by the Best sets to use article, using the top set-up for each category. For other set-ups, especially when diminishing returns play smaller roles, trial and error is the best way to find out what piece to upgrade first. For defense, Embed a Ring completely and test on campaign, then do the same for Shield and compare.

Now the lists below simply state priorities. The first priority should have your best Gems. Fill remaining spots with the next best gems if you have them.

3.1 Offensive

For offensive Gem embedding we use the Necro+Orcrist set-up. Large life debuffs from necro coupled with life buffs defensively speaking.

1. Sword (attack buff)
2. Amulet (life debuff)

3.2 Defensive

For defense, we go with the Replenish+Void set-up. Mostly life buffs, but also some attack debuff from the Void pieces.

1. Ring (attack debuff)
2. Shield (life buff)

3.3 Campaign

For campaign, the main focus is still reducing losses as best as possible. But, reducing march sizes and thereby increasing efficiency also matters and can in fact greatly increase scores. As with diminishing returns, it is sometimes even better to focus on a bit more attack instead of defense, hence why some maps score better when equipping a offensive weapon, such as Necro sword.

But still, the main focus is defense, which makes for the following order of Gem Embedding, going with the Replenish+Void set-up:

1. Ring (attack debuff)
2. Shield (life buff)
3. Amulet (life debuff)
4. Sword (attack buff)

The Ring and Shield are of course identical to the Defensive set-up, but the offensive buffs (Amulet and Sword) are switched, as runes and also Replenish have attack buffs, making the life debuff slightly more interesting.

3.4 All-round set-up

Of course there are situations besides campaign, when you want to focus on both offensive as well as defensive buffs. For example when attacking players of roughyl the same size as your march, in which there is a chance of winning, and buffing defense can help as well. The key is to look at your gear (offensive or defensive) and decide what you want to focus on more (offense or defense). Going with Best gear set-ups currently available, it would look something like this:

Offensive gear, offensive Embedding:

1. Sword (attack buff)
2. Amulet (life debuff)
3. Ring (attack debuff)
4. Shield (life buff)

(3 and 4 are reasonably close, and could be swapped)

Offensive gear, defensive Embedding:

1. Ring (attack debuff)
2. Shield (life buff)
3. Sword (attack buff)
4. Amulet (life debuff)

(1 and 2 reasonably close, and could be swapped)

Defensive gear, offensive Embedding:

1. Amulet (life debuff)
2. Sword (attack buff)
3. Ring (attack debuff)
4. Shield (life buff)

Defensive gear, defensive Embedding:

1. Ring (attack debuff)
2. Shield (life buff)
3. Amulet (life debuff)
4. Sword (attack buff)

(same as 3.3)

4. Efficiently upgrading Gems

Although it might seem natural to upgrade your Gem shards to the highest possible level, this is in fact far from the most efficient way of upgrading Gems. Say you want to Embed a defensive gear set. A Ring and a Shield, both 4 slots, makes for 8 Gems needed. You have 5120 Gem shards. We can make with that:

1. 512 level 1 Gems (0.2%)
2. 128 level 2 Gems (0.8%)
3. 32 level 3 Gems (1.6%)
4. 8 level 4 Gems (3.2%)
5. 2 level 5 Gems (6.4%)

If we upgrade all to level 5, we have 2 Gems, with a combined effect of 12.8%. But because Gems double in effect, while 4 lower gems are sacrificed, it is better to stay at level 4 for now. With 8 level 4 Gems we can fill all equipment slots, for a combined bonus effect of 25.6%, twice the previous bonus.

So the key rule here is: Keep upgrading Gems only as long as you can fill the slots you want to fill! After that, keep upgrading these Gems one at a time as materials become available.

For me, I embed one offensive and one defensive/campaign set. That means 24 slots to fill. Right now I have enough level 6 Gems to fill out all slots, so I do not have to worry about this anymore, but once we will be able to combine to higher Gem levels, this will come into play again.

That’s it for now, any suggestions or comments are welcome below!