gems and equipment recommendation

[rarestMeow]

hello,

I know that the theme of proper equipment/gemming is too hard to grasp, because of lots of factors to concern - but still maybe someone can help me with better setup for my dungeon teams (and the whole theory-crafting)?

currently I have the following teams:

TEAM #1 - Water Temple & Volcano
https://i.postimg.cc/FFM1dBXZ/20210917-165214-Idling-to-Rule-the-Gods-84074.png
can survive:
1) Water Temple - up to D2-5 with no issues, need few Phoenix Down to beat D2-6 (Cat and underleveled Goat die easily)
2) Volcano - up to D2-6 with no issues

TEAM #2 - Mountain & Forest
https://i.postimg.cc/MpxTtfTf/20210917-165236-Idling-to-Rule-the-Gods-07775.png
1) Mountain - up to D2-6 with no issues (Boss still tend to kill Dragon a lot)
3) Forest - up to D2-7 with no issues (minus few Phoenixes)

all my dungeon pets are in 23,000 - 22,000 Growth range, with an exception of Undine and Chicken (52,000 and 25,000)
as you can see I am hastily turning all my equipment to T3 (want to have at least T3 +10 A for all pets)
all equipment is gemmed with at least +12 gems. some equipment is +13, and Undine's stuff is +14
I know about enchaining, but currently I am using all my x3 Alchemists (Golden Dragon, Bee, Snake) to produce T2-T3 crafting materials for my x5 Blacksmiths (Bee, Anteater, Octopus, Crab, Mouse) who work nonstop

my questions are:
1) do I really need that many green gems? I know that their effects is quite situational and read about how the turns work. but still decided to give my Assassins, Rogues and Supporters some to boost overall damage and survalability - it is been ~8months ago and after that I just followed the flow, but now I am more concerned about that and think that having more fire gems will net the better results
2) does Bursting Knives need fire gems? or overall speed of pet is more important here and hence green gems are more valuable?
3) still, what is better options for accessories? my idea was - to give pet a weapon (fire sword), then armor of either his element or whatever gives better defense in current dungeon and then accessories depending on issues pet have (for example my Rabbit tend to die in Water Temple, so now he carries water accessory)
4) any other valuable weapons? from the current in-game balance it seems that fire sword >>> anything else (beside some specific cases like Undine's bonus). I thought about giving my Supporters Hurricane Bows gemmed with fire gem to enhance their speed, but I don't think their overall usefulness will improve a lot
5) I know that Dragon's overall damage is exceptional and he is like the best mage in the game (minus Balrog whom I won't get in a long-long while), but in my case he is not that better than Rabbit. I have tried to trade one water gem to fire gem, but then Dragon started to die a lot more often and sometimes even from regular enemies. what do I do wrong?
6) I thought about creating Ego Sword to boost my Supporters' class level higher (to decrease input damage), but wanted to wait until I get further in dungeons to get more EXP per run. is it right?
7) any other recommendation on gears and gems? I have plenty of spare gears and crafting items - so it is not an issue to change anything in my current setup

it is more like I have experimented a lot by myself, get a bit stuck and run out of ideas (probably missing something obvious) and now what to ask advice from other players. I read some posts about other players' setups (and saw pics of Ryu82's team) - but it is hard to apply their advice on my case since they have Santa, BlackHole, Penguin, Elephant, Ghost, Wizard and other superb options

I have the following non-dungeon pets that might be useful further:
1) Slime, evolved Mage (she is very green, like level 1, can't use her properly in any team without using FreeExp or boosting her up with Ego Sword)
2) Dog, evolved Defender (very green too. level 28. used him for a while before my current team was set up. I know that eventually I should get rid of Mole and replace him with a proper Defender, but don't want do it yet until I get a proper Team #3)
3) Flying Cloud (unevolved, waiting for Growth)
4) Whale (unevolved, waiting for Growth)
5) Chameleon (unevolved, waiting for Growth)
I am at Baal59 right now, very close to Hydra. want to push until I get Pandora (Baal66). doing AACs right now

I plan to get HourGlass with my next-after-next Pet Token, since I read of how useful he is, and want to use him (with above pets) in Team #3 and shuffle teams whenever Undine will become Rogue (so each team had at least one), but still it will not be very soon

sorry for a very long rant, didn't plan it to be that huge =/

[luizpedronovak]

1 - I don't use many green gems. Assassin and Supporters may use them well, but I try to balance attack and speed for those. I see no reason to give rogues too much speed; their role in my team is to improve drop rate and use Knives, and not much to deal damage.

2 - It does not matter what equip get what gem, what is important is the sum of the parts. I still give fire gems to knives just to improve the damage dealt as a side effect; A green gem would improve the amount of attacks dealt each turn. Not sure if the difference between the target attack/speed is important for the def reduction, but I believe not;

3 - I like to use the acessories to reduce any weaknesses the pet has; So Supporters get something focused on health or defense, Blacksmiths get speed, etc. Still, as I'm preparing to fight Mimics for real with multiple teams, and I read somewhere that having no negative elements help with it, I'm focusing on countering element weaknesses for each pet.

4 - Magic Pots are very useful to Defenders. They don't need speed anyway;

5 - It's important to look at element strenghts for Dragon, too. It is excelent on Mountain, as fire is wind monsters weakness, and not very good on Water Dungeon, as it is weak to water and may die faster. Rabbit will be awesome on water, etc.

6 - The XP you get from depth 3 alone, ignoring Ego Swords, will be enough to critically increase the overall levels. No reason to wait until you get ther, though. I would focus in making a single team strong enough to beat depth 3 before anything, though, as the materials and XP it gives will step up your entire dungeon game;

7 - Mages need high elemental stats. It is good to look at elemental stats for all pets, anyway.

For reference, those are my teams. All of them are clearing depth 3 without a single death every day. Water and Fire teams are clearing depth 3 dificulty 10/10/10, the others are still lower. They are not optimal teams yet, though, as I'm working on five or so pets (Balrog, Mist Egg, Box, Hourglass etc), and whn I finish them everything will be better rearranged. Still, it may give some insight.

Scrappyard https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2604255794
Water Dungeon https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2604235923
Volcano https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2604236117
Mountain https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2604255948
Forest https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2604256102

[Storm]

Originally posted by luizpedronovak:

I see no reason to give rogues too much speed; their role in my team is to improve drop rate and use Knives, and not much to deal damage.

Well the more speed a rogue has the more attacks they will get which results in more lost defense from Knives.