Witch Powers Guide Occult Gems Guide Headhunts and Rootholds Guide
Crafting Woes
To see how we even got here in the first place, we have to analyze what it takes to craft Occult Gems. Starting with the Magic Gems, let’s take a loot at Heart of Anima.
Like every other Magic Gem, it requires a Fugitive Head, 1000 Restless Rot, and 50k Gem Fragments. Fugitive Head and Restless Rot are best farmed from the Headhunt Zones. Ensure you’re using your Draught of Whispers for this to increase your chances of getting a Fugitive Head! If this is a bottleneck, Fugitive Heads can also be converted into Restless Rot using the Rotting Cache.
Moving onto the Rare Gems, they all share the same recipe. Two Magic Gems and 75k Skull Fragment. Here, the first sign of problems is shown. If you need to craft a Raging Enigma or a Spiral Coin, these recipes also call for the Magic Gem Phantom String. Phantom String also asks for Skull Fragment. That’s a lot of Skull Fragments! Luckily, the Jeweler allows Gem Fragment Conversions, and you can create Skull Fragments using Sapphire Fragment, Emerald Fragment, and Diamond Fragment. So you craft all your rare gems and have one more step to go – the Legendary upgrade. The highly sought-after Legendary Gems up the requirements one more level, asking for a Rare Gem, two Magic Gems, and 100k Diamond Fragment. Now, the costs are compounding quickly.
Gems Gems Gems!
Just for one example, Voice of the Stars, players will need to grind a total of:
Multiply those numbers roughly by 3 for the three gem slots on a character, plus any additional gems for second or third characters, alternate builds, or to play around with. While the Fugitive Head and Restless Rot requirements are manageable, most people will get stuck with the gem fragment requirements. The grind for Occult Gems asks players to farm millions of gem fragments to obtain the crafts needed for their builds. Not only that, but if you decided to convert all your Diamonds into Skull Fragments for the previous step, you’re now left with the ugly reality that crafting Diamond Fragments requires Skull Fragments.
Moving Forward from Overcorrection
This is an insane amount for most casual ARPG players looking to play through the content for a week or two. Most players report roughly 5-10 hours of playtime to get a finished Legendary Occult Gem, depending on how fast they are clearing Torment 4 content, which requires more playtime to get your build up to that state. Most of this time is spent grinding for the gems in Headhunts for Whisper Caches or getting materials from Infernal Hordes, which are pretty early-mid-game activities being forced for end-game best-in-slot gems.
Blizzard clearly over-corrected their course after the feedback of Season 6, where the grind was over too fast, now introducing an over-the-top grind in its place. There are a couple of solutions for how to improve on this in future Seasons:
- Simply reducing the requirements
- Loosening conversions or providing improved targetted farming
- Keeping the Grind as is for first characters, removing the barriers past that
The issue for many players focuses on the gameplay, farming all the gem fragments, and having to repeat the grind on alternate characters/builds. The first set of gems is a rewarding aspirational goal, but without targetted gem fragment farming, it does feel pretty dull. Therefore, simply reducing the requirements doesn’t seem like a good solution. It merely takes a step back and doesn’t target the pain points meaningfully. Providing improved targetted farming for gem fragments could be interesting, but with how split the end game currently is, adding another thing to split player attention doesn’t feel great either.
Reducing the barriers is the most clear way forward. The first change that could be made is simply buffing the salvage resources. Salvaging Occult gems currently gives a bit of Restless Rot, but notably not gem fragments. Allowing the Occult gems to be salvaged would immediately allow some easy flexibility. On top of that, additional changes can be made, allowing for reduced resource requirements to craft across all seasonal characters after a condition is met, such as crafting three legendary occult gems, completing the seasonal journey, or something else entirely. That would significantly boost second or third characters and alternative builds.
What do you think about the Occult Gem grind? Should additional changes be made to lessen the grind? Let us know in the comments below!
About The Author
