No gem challenge

[jay clarke]

So I have been doing the no gem challenge in gold for a year now, frustrating, very frustrating! But finally got a medal. Finished around 228 . So to all the newbs who think that you need lots of gems to finish high enough to get a medal or two, you don't. Of cause to get a high position on the leaderboard then yes gem spending is the only way, but you can have good results without.
now it's back to bronze and 10k gem spend!

[Apoc]

This may be a bit extreme, but I managed to complete a Challenge level 131 -- currently ranked #20 on the Bounty Hunter Leader Board (although I know that ranking will change by tomorrow and much more before the end of the ANB) -- spending absolutely zero gems in the current ANB Silver. I still have some play time remaining, but not much, and just cooking up a few skill levels until I use up my play time... I must say, having spent zero gems whatsoever, whether for unlocking skill slots, buying materials, expanding inventory, or even unlocking ability upgrades, it's been a challenge... but fun! Garm on level 129 was tough, but I finally managed to find a way to get through it, with I think 4 deaths, which was crazy without using a survivability skill. Anyway, 131 with no gems at all. Not easy, bot can be done!

[Apoc]

Quick update: I managed to push just a little bit more into this ANB Silver with a Bounty Hunter. Still used no gems whatsoever, so I used only one attack, one ability, one passive, one follower, and one slot for upgrading abilities. Those are on the screen shots I provided before, so I'm not going to repost them. i didn't really spend much of the available time on skill upgrades except for explosive shot to level 9 and tracer ammo to 7, so those could have been even higher. I also spent no Books of Learning, so I could probably have done higher, if I'd managed my time better but this was learning for me. Even so, my final run before I was out of play time, I managed to kill Garm on a 134 in 9:56. I'd say that was a barely done, but at least I made it :-) That fought my way back into the top 100 on the leaderboard, at least for the time being. I know there's still time in the event, but I hopefully will still end up in the top 250. Definitely a challenge not using any gems at all!

[Apoc]

Also almost forgot to mention that I did not use any gems to socket any of the gear, so all I had was the jewelry sockets and like 4 armor pieces with sockets.