Best way to use loot gems?

[droid327]

I have a cache of loot gems from MM and Daily Dice, though I'm reticent to use them because I dont know exactly what the "best" way is to optimize my benefit. What's the common wisdom on them? What exactly do they give you that's worthwhile? Should I hold them till endgame, or is it better to use them at low-mid levels where lootgen is more competitive? Are there certain quests that have a better potential for a good payoff with a lootgem, or is it just purely "open as many chests as possible in your window"? Do they affect Supply Chests from Challenges - ie, should I just fill my inventory with them, then pop a Loot Gem and open them all?

[forummuleonly]

http://ddowiki.com/page/Looting for some basic info on them.


I personally only pop one when I am AT THE CHEST in a quest that has something I want, and usually I save them for Farming GS ings/gear that drops in specific chests.

They come in handy for sure, Basically, let's presume you are after an Epic Elite Madstone Skull. You increase the +value of your loot by the + value of the gem you used (or pirate map from TBC) increasing your chance that you will get L25+ loot. So is my understanding of them.

Hopefully more experienced people can give better info, as I rarely use them for gear farming, mostly I use them hoping for more higher level GS mats in EN DA.

[dredre9987]

Don't use them in Fall of Truth. I have heard that it can cause you to get no named loot at all in there.

[droid327]

So it is best to save them for endgame, then? They wont give you anything on Heroic content that you cant just get in quests 1 level higher anyway?

[gphysalis]

The best way to use loot gems is in a way such that it will bring the chest level to 27.

If you have a +1 loot gem, this would be doing EE gianthold quests (lvl 26)
If you have a +2 loot gem, this would be doing EH gianthold quests (lvl 25)

Lvl 27 loot is the magic number for +4 unbound tomes (or +4 to +5 upgrade tomes)

[Rubbinns]

Don't use them in Fall of Truth. I have heard that it can cause you to get no named loot at all in there.

Jeezz! Makes sense now, or just my D&D dice rolling skillz ain't what they used to be. But, I have 26 completions all post u17 and have got 3 items dropped in all that time. Mostly EH, few EN. Comm drops are good though, thankfully.

[aristarchus1000]

So it is best to save them for endgame, then? They wont give you anything on Heroic content that you cant just get in quests 1 level higher anyway?

Pretty much. If leveling a heroic character is no big deal for you, there is no real point in using them while leveling.

Remember that the loot gem only affects RANDOM loot. This includes tomes, particularly+4 ones at level 27. High level random loot also provides best chance to get rare prefixes such as meteoric, and the like.

[dredre9987]

http://ddowiki.com/page/Looting for some basic info on them.


I personally only pop one when I am AT THE CHEST in a quest that has something I want, and usually I save them for Farming GS ings/gear that drops in specific chests.

They come in handy for sure, Basically, let's presume you are after an Epic Elite Madstone Skull. You increase the +value of your loot by the + value of the gem you used (or pirate map from TBC) increasing your chance that you will get L25+ loot. So is my understanding of them.

Hopefully more experienced people can give better info, as I rarely use them for gear farming, mostly I use them hoping for more higher level GS mats in EN DA.


They only work for random loot, not named items from a chest.

[Drwaz99]

Don't use them in Fall of Truth. I have heard that it can cause you to get no named loot at all in there.

It used to be that way in FoT but it is now fixed. But in Heroic Reavers Fate a loot gem will cause an empty Chest. I got one on my last life and a GM said it was a known issue and sent me a loot gem (doh!) and a timer bypass.

[DynaTheCat]

If you're popping a +2 loot gem in an EN run and expecting to get EE named gear, you're gonna have a bad time.

http://i1288.photobucket.com/albums/b495/sheepshield/Gonna_Have_A_Bad_Time_199402_zpsa3981ed5.jpg

[ForumAccess]

I personally only pop one when I am AT THE CHEST in a quest that has something I want, and usually I save them for Farming GS ings/gear that drops in specific chests.

They have absolutely no effect on anything unique. Loot boosts only effect LootGen items, so this is an absolute waste.

The best way to use them would be to boost a chest that is just under the minimum level for something nice, such as unbound +4 tomes. They can only drop in level 27 and higher chests. You can also bump up to an unbound +3 tome by getting a chest up to level 23.

[Dexraven]

I save them and use them when a + to loot level event is on and run high level quest to try and get some top end lootgen items to drop.

[RightToRemainStupid]

I take mine as suppositories.

[Kaytis]

The best way to use loot gems is in a way such that it will bring the chest level to 27.

If you have a +1 loot gem, this would be doing EE gianthold quests (lvl 26)
If you have a +2 loot gem, this would be doing EH gianthold quests (lvl 25)

Lvl 27 loot is the magic number for +4 unbound tomes (or +4 to +5 upgrade tomes)

This is the main reason to run gems. On +2 loot boost weekends, with a +2 loot gem running, you can pull +4 to +5 upgrades from level 22 quests on hard. I've done it.

You can also get some very nice items if you are level 25 and can get the chest level up to 29 (which is the cap for a lvl 25 toon). There are +6 caster sticks with +3 DCs on them and melee suffix and prefixes with crazy damage numbers on them.

Any other use of gems is pretty much a waste really.

Edit: although I have heard otherwise, I am pretty certain that end rewards are not boosted by gems. I pulled two +3 tomes as end rewards out of High Road hard quests after running the quests on hard yesterday. I had a +2 gem running -so theoretically those should have been +4s. I personally think this is a bug.