Upcycling, what is it?

• The process of leveling up a gem with the intent to loot collect it

What's changed?

• Upcycling prior to the Crystal Combat [U10] Update [preserved here]
• Crystal Combat Update Patch Notes – December 18 2018
• Gems can no longer crack while leveling.
• Gems now have a higher chance to both naturally level up and double level up while leveling.

So what happened to the gem karma bar?

I couldn't get level 23 to fail on a ninth life in over 50 gems, assumed 125.

Huh, we're using less gem boosters then?

Prior to this update my experiences upcycling [to level 15] were ~4 clovers, ~8 shoes, and ~10 bugs [source.1] [source.2] and getting dust for every 0.82 Flux used when leveling them [with all potential savings bonuses active].

While on the public test server, before the update went live, another round of gems were done but this time had only used ~8 shoes, and ~2 bugs [source.3]. Dust cost 0.74 Flux but the cost saving bonuses weren't active! It might be closer to 0.55 Flux with all potential savings.

So in this scenerio it went from - 20 Clovers, 24 Shoes, and 24 Bugs for ~12K weekly dust profits to 50 Shoes, and 20 Bugs for ~36K weekly dust profits. Owning the Jade Clover Tome brings it up to ~42K.

Hold on, others claim getting more dust than they put in without gem boosters at level 15?

With better odds and the removal of cracking you can pay a premium for the dust [source.4], I would estimate with fixtures on gem day: dust would cost 1.15 Flux for radiant lesser gems, and 1.09 Flux for stellar lesser gems. For Patrons their costs might be 1.01, and 0.99 Flux respectively.

Hey! Why get all this gem dust anyway? I like how easy it is to get Hearts of Darkness from shadow towers

Suppose you're paying the average 1.12 Flux price on dust for a Precise focus

• 10,080 Flux for dust, and 2,000 Flux for crafting, so ~12K

For an apples-to-apples comparison (2) Rough foci are needed for the same effect

• 2,400 Flux for crafting, and the price of (8) HoD would have to be 1,210 flux to match
• Last I saw HoD were over x2.5 that cost

Considering the Superior focus?

• 50,000 flux for crafting
• never mind the cost of dragonite pouches?

If their costs are split based on the progression of a single rough augment

• One Rough ~13.3K
• Half of a Precise ~6K, or ~3.5K [boosted stellar emps with all potential savings active]
• Fifth of a Superior ~10K

Cool, its cheaper but clicking upgrade to 15 suuuucks

When you have a gem selected in the gem tab to upgrade, pressing spacebar ignores the little delays. If you hold down spacebar it's fairly quick so keep a sharp eye on the levels.

this is a test edit.