Dual synth gems advice

As usual, I did not want to make an article which just copies and repeats information from other sources about the new Wartune feature, duel synth gems. Rather, I wanted to make an article which gives practical information about how to use this feature to your best advantage.

The word "advice" is maybe too strong here: rather, let's say, I just explain how I do this. If you like, you can do the same, or come to a different conclusion following the same logic. Or just disagree with me and do something completely different :)

I already wrote multiple articles about how combat works in Wartune, and what is the effect of different stats. To know what duel gems to make, you have to know which are the priority stats for you.

ATK. Atk is the most important stat in Wartune. In PVP (player-vs-player), attack increases by 50%, 100% etc. as time passes, while defense not. Also in the most glorious PVP event, Class Wars, total damage dealt is the tiebreaker. In PVE (player-vs-environment), most bosses go berserk after a while, so it is usually a damage-race: ATK is the most important in PVE as well.

DEFENSE. Defense is the second most important stat in PVP. This is due to the nature of Wartune's combat mechanism. Damage is calculated: (ATK-DEF)/2 * multipliers. So even if your opponent has many multipliers (crit, determination, pvp medal etc), if you reduce the basic damage a lot with your defense, the result will be still low. However, in PVE, defense is not so great. Because most PVE bosses have a very huge ATK value, and no multipliers. 

There is one exception where DEF is as important as ATK, in team PVP situations. When 4 players (and maybe some eudaemons too) throw aoes at you, then 1 DEF point will counter 3-6 points of ATK per round. But in the current team PVP situations (arena, GB, XGB) the rewards are not very good, so you should still focus on ATK. Maybe this will change with future events.

HP. HP is the second most important stat in PVE. While defense wont help you that much there, big HP can help you survive a big attack, and suntoria and heal rune will heal you for more if you have high HP. 

CRIT. I made many tests on this, and I strongly believe that crit is a capped effect. It reaches its maximum somewhere at 12-18k crit (depending on the opponent's crit reducer effects like guardian angel). Many people disagree with this, it's up to you if you prefer having a 40k crit because it looks nice.

BLOCK. Block is a capped stat as well, you can get maximum proc rate with about 8k block in pve, approx. 13k in pvp (because you have to counter penetration).

So, you have 38 gem slots (8 legendary items, plus artifact and halidom), the question is, what gems to use?

I recommend still using 10 pure ATK gems. A duel synth gem gives 20% more bonus than a non-duel gem, but 100 ATK worth more than 60 PDEF and 60 MDEF.

You should also use a bunch of ATK+CRIT gems. I'm sure a lot of players will use 10 of those as well. Problem is, that way I will have way too much crit. And if I suppose I don't need half of the bonus, well, 60 ATK is not better than 60 PDEF + 60 MDEF. Personally, I will make 7 ATK+CRIT gems only, that will give me more than enough crit.

I curently have 3 block gems, I will make 4 HP+block to get the same block value as before.

The remaining gems should be HP+PDEF, HP+MDEF and PDEF+MDEF gems. The question is, what is your priority, DEF or HP? I would say, if you are a top player, then PVP is a priority for you, beating the best of the best is your ultimate goal, so you will focus more and more on DEF. If you still not in the top tiers, you should focus more on getting as far as possible in PVE content to get maximum rewards daily, so you should weight a bit more on HP.

Right now, I will keep my balance between HP and DEF, I will make 9 HP+PDEF, 2 HP+MDEF and 6 PDEF+MDEF. This way, I will have the same HP, block, pdef, mdef and a bit higher crit than before, and about 20K more MATK. Please note I prefer to have roughly the same PDEF and MDEF, I can balance this out with having less MDEF gems than PDEF. If a knight/archer wants to do the same, obviously they have to make it the other way (2 HP+PDEF and 9 HP+MDEF).

There is one last question, should you make level 12 gems (if you didn't do it yet) before the synth, or wait for a possible future lvl 12 gem event?

Currently, I have lvl 12 ATK gems, because ATK is a top priority, but the rest of my gems are lvl 11 only. Before the dual synth, I will make a few lvl 12 defense gems too, but I keep the majority lvl 11. I think there is a good chance that there will be lvl 12 gem synth events in the future, and I'm patient. But if you have so many gems that you can make all dual 12 and still have a good stock of lvl 11 for any future events, then you are safe to make them.