This is something that’s been gnawing at my mind since ICBT2, when monster gems were more plentiful and tradable, making high level gems a common sight.
At the moment, it’s perfectly reasonable for everyone to get 5 star gems, relatively easy for a full set of 6 stars, and there are people walking around with legit 7 and even 8 star gems. 9 and 10 star gems are an enormous investment compared to 8-star, but I believe at R8+ we’ll start seeing them, and then probably have some new system added that lets you upgrade gems even further. More and more people are going to have 7-8 star gems in their gear as well. The bonuses on gems are going to get larger on average, but the stat distribution on them still sucks and eliminates any real choice from the equation.
Most gems are terrible. For example, crit attack is generally a subpar stat, and a level 10 yellow gem in a primary weapon will give you a meager +87. Even worse, in a secondary weapon it provides only +93, while a red gem in that same slot would provide +70 attack - which adds 105 damage to a crit. In what world is +70 damage on non-crits, +105 on crits equal to +93 on crits only? Even if you factor in the Highlander +50% crit attack attribute, the difference is onl- oh, wait, that only applies to 2-handed weapons so there is literally NO world where this makes sense.
Of course, both red and yellow gems in weapons are rendered moot because of the astonishing amount of critrate green gems can provide. 92 crit rate in a primary weapon, 120 in a secondary - what could possibly compete with that?
Non-weapon gems are generally even worse. Defense and magic defense don’t even scale, at level 10 they’ll give you a flat +10 defense/mdef. That’s a shitload of investment for virtually nothing. Many armor gems give nothing-stats like SP and regeneration, with gloves being a relatively notable exception for providing one of the secondary offensive stats - accuracy, block pen, or crit attack.
And finally the last glaring issue - there are numerous stats aimed at physical damage, but the sole magic damage stat is on blue primary weapon gems, and it’s not exactly impressive, either. 59 magic attack on a level 10 blue gem - by the time we’re walking around with these, 59 magic attack will be absolutely nothing, maybe the difference between a +5 and +6 weapon. It’s still better than red gems in primary weapons that only provides 58 maximum physical attack, but physical attackers have huge crit rate bonus gems and can slot offensive stats in secondary weapons and even gloves, so it’s a pretty moot point.
So, what to do about this? Well, first of all, leave crit rate gems alone. They provide a healthy amount of crit rate as it is; they’re extremely strong compared to other gems, but they seem to be a good baseline for how strong a gem should be. They allow crit thresholds to be met, without them most builds would have no chance of a decent critrate. So, I think that’s the power level to generally balance around.
Secondly, there are too damn many physical attack stats compared to magic attack stats. This isn’t even directly related to gems, it’s just a fact of the game. Magic just does damage, physical attacks do damage and that damage can miss, be blocked, crit, get another bonus stat relating to crits. It’s all very messy. However, one thing is pretty clear: blue gems in gloves should give magic amplification, at the very least. Physical attackers can get their secondary offensive stats in gloves, but magic attackers get… SP recovery? C’mon IMC. It’s like they thought to themselves, “Well, just in case the physical attackers don’t need any more block pen, accuracy, or crit attack, we’ll let them take SP recovery in gloves; it would be unfair to physical attackers if blue gems in gloves gave magic amp!”
Thirdly, secondary weapons. Same deal. All physical stats for red/green/yellow, while blue gives block instead of magic attack. I’d go one step further here and say divide all gems into yet another category differentiating secondary weapons from shields. Add magic attack to blue gems in secondary weapons. For shields, green = crit rate (it’s only fair at this point), blue = magic amplification, red = block, yellow = health. Shields and secondary weapons are well differentiated in most other areas of the game, but not in gems - that needs to change.
Fourth, armor. Pretty simple, eliminate the garbage stats. Instead of bonus HP recovery on boots and bonus SP recovery on gloves, red boots reduce HP recovery tick while blue boots reduce SP recovery tick, increasing your overall recovery by a lot more than a small flat bonus and providing a scaling stat. Move magic defense from blue boots to blue top/bottom, eliminating the flat SP bonus, and increase the gains on defense/magic defense appropriately.
Fifth, simple math. Crit attack should always be more than 1.5x the equivalent bonus to physical attack, because crits increase physical attack by 1.5x and the value is diminished even more for anyone without 100% critrate (which is almost everyone). In fact, I think a reasonable figure would be closer to 1.75x. Similarly, +max attack and +magic amp should be double the bonus of +attack/magic attack because +1 max damage is only +.5 damage on average.
Sixth, the harder math. I couldn’t tell you off the top of my head what the ideal value for +attack should be vs. +crit rate, or how much defense from gems is too much (but I can definitely say +1 per star is too little), or if +HP gems are in an okay place and would still be usable at higher ranks or with rebalanced gems. How much validity is there in +block pen gloves vs. +accuracy, should they be equal or should one be higher/lower? As long as the numbers are all at least reasonably close, it isn’t too much of a problem, so long as weaker stats give more and total junk stats are eliminated.
With the above implemented, there would still be some sketchy, questionable gem choices, but at least you could always envision a situation where you might want to use X gem in Y slot and min/max your build more precisely. I dream of a world where gem choices in armor are impactful and not just an afterthought. I dream of a world where stacking up a bunch of crit attack gems on a full DEX build could be a justifiable choice over just shifting points to STR and using crit rate gems to make up the difference. I dream of a world where wizards and magic clerics give half a ■■■■ about gems at all.
With your help, we can achieve these dreams. Or probably not, because IMC likely doesn’t give a ■■■■.
TL;DR rebalance gems, that is all. You’re welcome.