Upgrading Jewels - Part 2/3 of Jewels & Equipment

This is the second in a planned set of three posts about jewels and equipment.

Part 1: Dig site - collecting jewels and monster missions
Part 2: Upgrading Jewels - increasing the bonus of jewels
Part 3: Using Jewels on Equipment - ready for your monsters to wear!

Do I have any Jewels?

If you've used any of your daily digs at the Dig Site, you're likely to have a collection of level 1 and/or level 2 jewels within your inventory. You can look at your jewels by opening up your inventory and clicking on the backpack tab.  

Jewels come in each of the different elements (fire, leaf, rock, water and wind) and each of the base stats (ATK - Attack, HP - Health, and RCV - Recovery) to create a collection of 15 different types of jewels.  Three identical jewels can be combined and leveled up at the Jewel Upgrade station.  For an example of understanding the descriptions in the screenshot above: the top left jewel in the above screenshot "Leaf RCV L4" is a level 4 leaf recovery jewels, this is next to a level 6 fire attack jewel.

Jewels cannot be traded with other players.  Jewels can only be used by your monster when they are socketed on equipment that your monster is wearing (see post 3), and they only affect monsters of the same element as the jewel. For example, socketed water jewels only increase the statistics of water monsters, and will have no affect if worn by a rock monster.

How can I get more Jewels?

Every day you are given a limited number of digs at the dig site, which can uncover level 1 or 2 jewels.  This is the most common method of gaining jewels as it's a completely free process.  (See Post 1 in this series for more information about the dig site)

You can purchase extra level 1 or 2 jewels from the troop shop in exchange for loyalty points (earned by sending monsters on missions at the dig site). To access the troop store, open up your troop screen and select the "Shop" tab as shown in the below screenshot. The type of jewels available change daily and the quantity can also be refreshed. To refresh the troop store click the "refresh" button at the bottom of your screen.  You will then need to wait a further 24 hours before you can refresh again (or speed up the process with 10 gold).  Everyone in your troop will have their own troop shop screen and your purchases/refresh will not affect your troopmates.

Screenshot of my Troop Shop.

The final way of gaining more jewels is to try your luck on the Jewel Grab, within the "Store" button on your main screen.  Most players do not purchase these for 50 gold (there are better things in the game to spend gold on!), however some events will give you free jewel spins as prizes.  When you spin, you'll see the spin land on a particular level "white" jewel.  The game will then announce which level jewel you have won and which stat it will affect. Jewels from level 3-7 can be won in this manner.

Using a free spin in the Jewel Grab to win a level 4 leaf recovery jewel

Jewel Upgrade Station

The jewel upgrade station can be found in your troop hall (near the roasting pig). It has a jewel icon above it with the words "Upgrade".

Clicking on the Jewel Upgrade station will open a screen titled "Jewels" with three tabs: Attack, Health and Recovery.  Each of these tabs is further subdivided into levels from 2 through to the maximum level 8.  If you're new to Jewels, most of the jewels displayed will be faded and unavailable.  It takes three identical level 1 jewels to be able to try making a level 2 jewel.  Once you have these lower level jewels available, the jewel they'll create will brighten and enable you to click on it. 

 In the Level 3 section of the screenshot above, I don't have the three level 2 fire attack jewels to make a level 3 "Fire ATK L3" jewel, so this jewel option is faded and unavailable.  I have the required number of rock and water jewels to create the "Rock ATK L3" and "Water ATK L3" and they display with (1) in blue font after the description to indicate that I have enough to create one of these each.  For the Level 2 section, I have an abundance of level 1 jewels, enough to make 5 fire attacks, 3 rock attacks, 2 water attacks, 10 leaf attacks and 3 wind attacks.  (This means that I have in level 1's: 15 fire attacks, 9 rock attacks, 6 water attacks, 30 leaf attacks and 9 wind attacks).

Why should I Upgrade Jewels?

Jewels can be socketed within equipment that your monsters can wear (the topic of part 3 of this series of posts).  Each jewel will provide a bonus to the monsters stat, as described by the jewel name.  A fire attack jewel, for example, will provide a bonus to a fire monster's attack stat when it's wearing that equipment.  The higher the level of jewel, the higher the stat bonus becomes, as shown in the list below. (Note that equipment can be broken halving the damage shown below. Post 3 will contain more information about this).

Jewel Stat Increases:

Level 1 - 1.0%

Level 2 - 1.75%

Level 3 - 3.0% 

Level 4 - 4.5% 

Level 5 - 6.5% 

Level 6 - 10.0% 

Level 7 - 14.0% 

Level 8 - 20.0% 

There are two ways within the game to find out the above jewel stat increases.  The first method involves opening the Jewel Upgrade station, click on the image of the jewel you are interested in (even if faded out on the screen) and then click on the jewel displayed in the top half of the screen - the pop-up will tell you the stat increase as per the screenshot on the left below.  Alternatively, if you already own the jewel that you're interested in, you can find it in your backpack and click on it to immediately bring up the screen below on the right.

Two methods of finding out the stat bonus of a jewel
(As detailed above)

How to upgrade jewels

Let's return back to the Jewel Upgrade station and click on a jewel for which I can upgrade (displayed in full colour instead of whited out).  In the example I'll work through, I've opened up my level 2 fire attack crystals from the screenshot earlier in this post.  The upgrade screen shows that I can create 5 of these level 2 jewels (as I have 15 level 1 jewels in my backpack).  By default, the game will assume that you only want to upgrade one jewel at a time, however you can process them as a batch by clicking on the "+" button.  Note that this multiplies the stone cost by 5 as well as the number of scrolls needed for a successful batch. (For more information on scrolls and how to get them, please see below).

Clicking the "+" button multiple times to set five jewels to be created at once.

Below the top jewel picture is some information about the success rate of your upgrade.  The success rate is always 75%, unless you choose to use scrolls to increase the success rate to 100%.  If you choose not to use scrolls, the warning message shown below will pop up to remind you that you are choosing the 75% success rate.  (For more information about scrolls, please see the section below).  

The warning message can seem a bit misleading, especially if you are creating multiple jewels at once.  What it's trying to say is that for each jewel that you're creating, there is a 25% chance that the upgrade will fail and you will lose all three jewels that were used in the attempted creation.  If you are creating multiple jewels at once, you can choose to either use scrolls on all jewels or on none of the jewels - there is no option to use it on only some of the created jewels.  However, the success rate is applied individually to each created jewel, so that some may fail and others may be successful.  If you intentionally chose not to use scrolls, click the upgrade button and the process will begin.

You will now be returned to the Jewels screen and the time remaining until you can claim your results will show up on the relevant crystals.  As the levels increase, the time to create the jewels will also increase (2 hours for creating level 2 jewels, 4 hours for level 3 jewels, etc).  If you choose to process multiple jewels, the time required for the batch to process is multiple times longer.

All of my attack jewels set to process. Note the difference in times within the
same level is due to multiple jewels being created at once

When your upgraded jewels are ready, the word "Ready" appears instead of the timer.  Clicking on one of your ready jewels will bring up further information about those jewels. 

The initial screen will remind you of how many jewels you were attempting to create.  In the right screenshot below, I've opened up my level 2 leaf attack jewels that were processed in a batch of 10 jewels to be created.

Clicking on the Result button will first show you how many jewels were successful, and then the Next button will show you how many were unsuccessful.  Luck was on my side and 9 jewels were created and 1 jewel was destroyed.  If I'd chosen to use scrolls, I would have had 100% success and 10 upgraded jewels, instead each jewel had a 75% chance and luck was on my side that more jewels made it through than average.  (This is not always the case!!)  The nine level 2 leaf attack jewels that I have created can now be used to create up to three level 3 leaf attack jewels.

Repeat this process for all of the other jewels you have on the attack, health and recovery tabs.

You may be starting to gather, and correctly so, that if it takes three lower level jewels to create a higher level jewel, then the jewel making process is a slow process of farming enough low level jewels to one day be able to create a jewel that will make a big stat boost for one of your monsters.  Start early in the game and by the time you're wanting to use jewels and equipment to increase your power rating, some of these may be ready and waiting for you.

All About Scrolls

When you send monsters on missions in the dig site, you're able to earn Loyalty Points.  These points can be spent within the troop shop as detailed earlier in the post.  If you scroll down to the end of the Troop Shop, you'll find that you can buy a small number of scrolls each day. The quantity can be refreshed every 24 hours, or earlier for 10 gold.  As your troop level increases (by troopmates donating stone or sending monsters on missions) you'll be able to buy slightly more scrolls each day.

The only purpose of scrolls in the game is to use them to guarantee successful upgrades of your jewels.  Each level jewel requires more scrolls to guarantee success - by the time you've spent months to be able to upgrade to your first level 5+ jewel, you're probably going to want to make sure it's successful by using scrolls!  I tend to use scrolls for levels 5+, however depending on your comfort with risk, you may choose to use scrolls all of the time or none of the time.

Still to come: Post 3 - Using Jewels on Equipment

Dig Site - Part 1/3 of Jewels & Equipment

This is the first in a planned set of three posts about jewels and equipment.

Part 1: Dig site - collecting jewels and monster missions
Part 2: Upgrading Jewels - increasing the bonus of jewels
Part 3: Equipment and Socketing jewels - adding jewels to equipment for use.


Dig Site

The dig site becomes available to players when they finish Teepee Hollow and can access Turtle Falls.  There are two purposes to the Dig Site: to use daily digs to collect jewels; and to send monsters on missions to earn loyalty points and troop experience points.

How to dig?

Within the Dig Site there are eight places to "dig" for jewels. The amount of daily digs allocated to you depends on your troop level, and they renew each day at the Battle Camp daily reset (5pm PDT).  The number of digs available to you can be seen above the Dig Site on the main game map, or above your avatar's head while you're within the Dig Site.

To use your daily digs, click on one of the either locations within the Dig Site that are indicated with the "Search" markers. There is no known advantage to which place you choose to dig as the prizes for the digs are random. Many people choose to use all of their digs in the one place so that the random nature balances out with their digs.

Winning a jewel and bone from a dig at the Dig Site

The prizes from the digs include level 1 and level 2 jewels, along with items used to send monsters on missions: bones, pebbles, metal ore, wood, leather, teeth, roots and seashells.  These latter items have no other purpose in the game.  Jewels will be discussed in more detail in part 2 of this series of posts.

Non-jewel items collected from the Dig Site (not runes or plans)

Understanding the Mission Board

The other part of the Dig Site is the ability to send a monster on a mission. Only one mission can be underway at a time. To send a monster on a mission, click on the Mission board at the center of the Dig Site screen.

Click on the Mission board to send a monster on a mission

After clicking on the Mission board, you'll see a number of available missions for you to select. (The higher your troop level, the more missions you may be able to choose from).  The missions are categorized by the rarity of the monster required to go on that mission - a monster of the same rarity (super on a super mission) will have a 50% chance of success, a monster of higher rarity (ultra on a super mission) will have a 100% chance of success.  Neither the percentage chance of success or the duration of the mission is effected by the feeding level of the monster - a level 1 rare will have the same 100% chance of success on a common monster mission as a maxed rare.

Each mission will provide you with a different level of loyalty points (coins with yellow stars) and troop experience (blue flag with XP written on it).  Loyalty points can be spent in the troop shop (see part 2 of this post series).  Troop experience is combined with experience gained by troop members donating stones to help level up your troop.  The amounts of loyalty points and troop experience are shown at the top of the mission screen - here I have 58 loyalty points accumulated and my troop is at level 6, with 42.3k of 50k experience required to level us up to level 7.

Each mission requires a different combination of components found during your daily digs.  Missions that appear in blue indicate that you have all the required components to send a monster on that mission, other missions will be in grey until you collect the components needed.  A blue flag indicates that your monster has competed its mission and is available for collection along with your reward.  The "N/A" timer icon shows if you've chosen to delete a mission. This is a process that takes 6 hours and will give you a new mission to choose from after that - it's a way to remove missions for which you don't have the required components for, or have no monsters that qualify. (For example, if I didn't have a spare epic monster to send on the epic mission, I may delete this mission on this screen by selecting that mission and clicking "delete mission").

Mission board showing a newly deleted mission with countdown (Left),
 and its appearance when a new mission is ready (Right).

How to Send a Monster on a Mission

Once you've chosen a mission that suits you, click on the mission to make sure that you have all the components needed. In the example screen below, I'm choosing the bottom left super mission that will earn me 19 loyalty points and 16 troop experience.

Selecting the bottom left Super mission

Press the "Choose Monster" button on the bottom of the screen to select a monster to send on a mission.  All of the monsters in your inventory (not including storage) that have the same or higher rarity as the mission will be available for you to select from.

The above screens show me selecting a super or an ultra for the mission.  Each time the mission duration, shown at the bottom of the screen, remains unchanged.  The chance of success is 100% for the ultra selections as its rarity is above a super, whereas the super only has a 50% chance of success.  Once you've chosen the monster, click "Go" and your monster will be sent on the mission.  The mission screen will begin the countdown (hours:minutes:seconds) until your monster returns for you to collect, along with the reward prizes.  The chosen monster will appear in your inventory but will be unavailable for use until after the mission is over and you've reclaimed your monster from the Dig Site. To reclaim your monster, click on the blue flag indicating the mission has finished, and then click the "Claim Rewards" button. Your monster will then be available in your inventory once more, and you'll be able to initiate another mission.

Mission screen showing the mission completion countdown (Left),

and a different completed mission (Right).

Why should Beginners visit the Dig Site?

Jewels, loyalty points and even troop experience are generally not things that beginner players are all that concerned with - they're features that impact higher level players more significantly.  However, everyone only receives a limited number of digs each day and sending monsters on missions to earn loyalty points (for making purchases in the troop store) is a very slow process.  There are no inventory limitations preventing you from starting the collection process early and building up a supply of jewels, mission components and loyalty points for later in the game when you'll really appreciate this head start that you've created for yourself.

Sending monsters on missions also helps build your troop's experience level, helping it to level up so that you receive a slight attack bonus and more items in the troop store.  It's an alternative to donating stones to your troop that costs you nothing but the unavailability of one monster for a while.