Hello guys this is my first guide with Gemcraft Chasing Shadows and the steam community.

This guide covers a seemingly small part to Gemcraft's gameplay, the hits statistics, but in the endgame area, it plays a very important part in helping build a main killgem's damage output and allowing you 1-hit KO many enraged waves in endurance and thus obtaining massive amounts of experience.

As there are already other guides that cover certain terms that I'll be using, I won't need to cover them in detail in this guide.

They are currently as follows:
Mana Farm
Kill Gem

In the beginning of early gameplay the hits statistics, which is found on the lower left of a Gem's stats screen is simply there to record how many hits a gem hits throughout an entire field run.

In later gameplay, once you come across the bloodbound gem, it earns a use in increasing a bloodbound gem's multiplier bonus

Bloodbound and Poolbound are gems that act as multipliers, boosting the raw damage and special effect of a gem you combine with.

Poolbound's multiplier grows with each mana pool level
Bloodbound's multiplier grows after a certain amount of hits is met with a gem

Key Difference:
The key difference between these 2 gems are simple,

Poolbound in the beginning has a seemingly higher multiplier bonus then Bloodbound, but has a weak multiplier growth.

Bloodbound starts out with a lower multiplier bonus than Poolbound in the beginning, but in later gameplay, its multiplier growth skyrockets and completely outclasses Poolbound.



Poolbound is a beginner's best friend. (at Wizard Lvls 1000 or less)

Bloodbound is a veteran's best friend for endgame

Here is an initial skill build of what you'll want to focus on



Starting from the first row going left to right are the skills you'll need for this:
Note: Parenthesis indicate a Skill's unlock location field

Row 1
True Colors (Found in M1)
Mana Stream (Starter Skill)
Fusion (Starter Skill)
Masonry (Starter Skill)
Resonance (Found in T5)

Row 2
Mana Leech (Found in B5)
Critical Hit (Found in R1)

Row 3
Chain Hit (Found in U8 Steam Version Only)

Row 4
Bloodbound (Found in W5)
Slow (Found in K6)

Row 5
Amplifiers (Found in J4)
Traps (Found in F4)


Note 2: Because of Bloodbound's multiplier bonus and Slow Gem's special effect limitation, you only need access to the skill and no skill points are needed in it


Once you reach higher levels you'll want to put skill points into these skills

Row 2
Freeze (Found in H4)

Row 3
Beam (Found in D4)

Row 5
Amplifiers
Fury (Found in C2)

Sample of Higher level skill build with Freeze, Beam, and Fury

Depending on your level, and your mana farm's gain rate will determine when you should stop farming mana and hits.

If its taking you between 5 to 10 minutes to upgrade your managem by just 1 level, than you should consider stop farming mana and hits, and build your main kill gem, and then see how far you can get through endurance.


Generally though, this process takes about 100-150 waves before you've accumulated enough hits for building a super kill gem.

It is highly suggested to start as early as possible just as it is when starting a mana farm, that way after about 100+ waves, you'll have earned an absurd amount of hits

The Gem used for this hitcount farm or hitfarm uses a simple combination of 1 grade 1 red and black gem. Until you build your main kill gem, never upgrade this gem to minimize the damage it can deal to enraged waves

Depending on the size of the map, you'll end up making duplicates of this gem that will earn hits throughout the waves you intend to farm before setting up for an endurance





Using This gem, I'll cover 3 general methods of farming which are all used together to farm a massive amount of hits for the main kill gem

The first method is well known for racking up alot of hits at the beginning of game play once you get it.

But to properly utilize this skill will depend on your gem's location (being near to amplifiers), the hitfarm gem's chain hit, and its SPS (Shots per second)

The second method for farming hits is by placing the hitcount gem into a trap near your mana farm.


Here is the suggested setup for a mana farm that uses hitfarm gems.








Orange Boxing Area
1.In this picture, the orange line in the box indicates the main mana farm gem.
It uses a orange,red and black gem

2. The blue lining indicates the secondary mana gem that has a slow effect to it.
It uses an orange, red, blue and black gem.

Yellow Boxing Area
This part uses a non main kill gem(U upgraded only) to kill all strays that leave the mana farm area
The kill gem uses a yellow, red, and black gem.

Place this killgem right in front of the main mana gem, or just outside the mana farm so that the main mana gem can collect a little bit more mana from the mobs coming through.

Red Boxing Area




If there is not enough room on the map that your on to place amplifiers, just fill the map before the mana farm with traps and place duplicates of the hitcount gem in there







Of all the methods, this 1 gives out the most hits. Unfortunately it can only be done with 1 farming gem

This final method uses a tower surrounded by 8 amplifiers to maximize the bonuses. The gem used in the amplifiers are simple red gems that are not gemweaved. By itself it collects a moderate amount of hits, but if you combine this method with beam and you'll be able to collect alot more than just leaving this method to its own work.

















This method works very well in big maps as you can create multiple areas. It also serves as a way to kill map annoyances such as spires, shadows, specters, apparitions, and beacons without killing a properly enraged wave. Of the 3 methods, this 1 collects the most hits as a group when you use multiple areas.

At high wizard levels, high level gems in Amplifiers can raise the stats of a level 2 gem in towers and traps into the E(Exponential) damage stats. If you don't properly enrage your waves this hitcount farming gem will kill all the monsters preventing your mana farm from collecting mana. At the same time, you don't want to over enrage the wave and end up failing the entire run.


A simple tip to knowing what to use to enrage your waves is simply found in your mana farm gem's stats.

In the several runs of doing this, I managed to observe the first 100 waves and each time I'd average over 60 million hits to help boost the main kill gem's stats. The rates though depend on the size of the map and the diligence to use beam at every opportunity. The bigger the map, the more farmable hits, but less when the map is smaller.



Using the field O1 as an example, it took me about 114 waves to reach 100 million hits using 33 hitcount farm gems.












































Using this tactic, and at my current Wizard Level of 7k+ at the time of this writing, I've managed to 1-hit KO about 350 Waves in endurance before things slowed down with Traits all maxed(including Hatred) out except for Adaptive Carapace.


Should you find yourself using these methods from this guide, I hope it'll help you clear much of endurance.