The most efficient way to get a gem to rank 25 and unlock its special effect is to start by farming 9x Keystones of Trials, which drop off normal rift guardians. Then, proceed to complete Greater Rifts at Levels 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31, 34, and 37. If you do the runs in this order, you will always have a 100% chance to upgrade your gem.
i am a bit confused with the above info, i am only getting a 2% chance each time i upgrade, i don’t understand the option of getting keystones, i don’t see that option after i kill the rift guardian, please help.
If you’re getting only a few percent upgrade chance, you’re clearing too low tier GRs. Crank the GR difficulty up.
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The chance is related to the difference between the gem level and GR level.
Only if GR level is 10+ higher than the gem level, the chance will be 100%.
e.g. your gem is 18, need GR 28 to be 100%.
If gem becomes 19, GR 28 only has 90% success rate, and … so on.
Note that, if you don’t die in the GR, you’ll gain one more upgrade chance.
If you empower GR when you open the portal, you’ll get one more upgrade at the end.
So, max 5 upgrades per run.
Back to the example, if you want 5x 100% for the 18 level gem, you need to complete GR 32.
There are some gem calculators you can use. e.g. this one:
http://www.diablo3gemcalculator.com/
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The Realm of Trials / Keystones of Trials were removed in Patch 2.3.0 way back in August 2015…
https://eu.diablo3.com/en/blog/19859662/patch-230-now-live-8-25-2015
Since those were removed Guardians in Nephalem Rifts drop Greater Rift Keystones.
As for the most efficiency, you don’t increase the GR levels 3 at a time. Clearing a GR in time gets 3 upgrade rolls, empowering gets 1 more roll, not dying gets 1 more roll. So, it’s possible to get 5 upgrade rolls per GR. Assuming you’re starting with a rank 0 gem, start with running a GR14 (as this ensures all five upgrades are done with 100% chance), then a GR19, then GR24, then GR29, and so on.
unless i am missing something here, it seems as though i can only go to level 24 in greater rifts??..and thank you all for your help…
If you complete a GR level within time limit, it will unlock the next level (or more levels depends on how fast you complete it).
There are two ways to unlock access to higher GR levels.
First way, up to GR75…
When you complete a Nephalem Rift, it unlocks the equivalent GR level. For instance, completing a Nephalem Rift whilst the game is set to Torment 13 difficulty, that’s the equivalent to a GR60, so it allows you access to anything up to GR61. The highest you can do this for is Torment 16, which is the equivalent of a GR75, so unlocks access to GR76.
Second way, up to GR150…
When you complete a GR successfully, the speed at which you complete it determines how many more GR levels you unlock access to. It’s determined by this…
Complete the GR with at least 10 minutes left on timer
This unlocks access to 3 more GR levels
Complete the GR with at least 5 minutes left on timer
This unlocks access to 2 more GR levels
Complete the GR with less than 5 minutes left on timer
This unlocks access to 1 more GR level
So, let’s say you do a GR24 with 8 minutes left on the timer (i.e. you do it in 7 minutes), that means you unlock 2 GR levels, so you can now select anything up to GR26 at the obelisk.
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aahhhh…okay…thanks guys, well appreciated, i am pretty new as you probably know…