What color should I put in amps?

[Collins]

Let's say I have yellow+red+blue black+white gem in tower. What color should I amplify; in other words, what color gems should I put in amplifiers to get most of it?

[majamulli]

Endgame would be yellow only. Else you could do a mix of red/yellow depending on the map and how many swarmlings are roaming around.
I wouldn't put blue into a main gem, better make two gems, one for killing and one for slowing.
And white/black specials cannot be amplified, so it would be useless to put those gems into the amplifiers.

[Collins]

Originally posted by majamulli:

Endgame would be yellow only. Else you could do a mix of red/yellow depending on the map and how many swarmlings are roaming around.
I wouldn't put blue into a main gem, better make two gems, one for killing and one for slowing.
And white/black specials cannot be amplified, so it would be useless to put those gems into the amplifiers.

I meant black, not blue. My bad! Thanks for the information!

[BilboCGL]

Use either black OR white (but none of them in amps).

[darthmohawk1]

If the gem you want to amplify has two non-bound colors, you can either amp with alternating pure gems for better specials, or with duals for better damage. (The difference between eight Y/Os vs four Y and four O, however, is not very much either way.)

[Knight9910]

Amplifier gems only amplify the specials of what they themselves are. So, a blue gem in an amp will buff the damage, range, etc. of a yellow gem, but will only buff blue specials.

In late game your "killgems" will be yellow/white and/or yellow/black with just a touch of red. That red won't need amping, and white and black specials can't be amped, so your amplifiers will want yellow only.

You might also use purple and cyan in traps... they're usually good enough on their own to not need amping.

If you run a mana farm you MIGHT want to augment it with orange amps.... but I wouldn't recommend it.

[12345ieee]

Originally posted by lospeceslocos:

If you run a mana farm you MIGHT want to augment it with orange amps.... but I wouldn't recommend it.

Care to elaborate on this?

[Knight9910]

Originally posted by 12345ieee:

Originally posted by lospeceslocos:

If you run a mana farm you MIGHT want to augment it with orange amps.... but I wouldn't recommend it.

Care to elaborate on this?

Sure.

One tactic players use is a "mana farm" - a large collection of traps or towers slotted with orange mana leech gems. The purpose is not to stack up damage, but to leech up large quantities of mana quickly to pay for upgrades for your other gems.

Adding an amplifier with an orange gem in it would increase the leeching effect of any nearby gems, but I'm pretty sure just adding another orange-gem-trap would be cheaper and give better returns.

[12345ieee]

Originally posted by lospeceslocos:

Adding an amplifier with an orange gem in it would increase the leeching effect of any nearby gems, but I'm pretty sure just adding another orange-gem-trap would be cheaper and give better returns.

An extra gem makes lag worse though, while the amplifier(s) don't.

Also, according to my math, adding amplifiers to a managem always makes it more cost-efficient than leaving it amp-less, provided you use a reasonable amp-gem cost proportion.