A Pokémon Shuffle Jewel Guide for Starters (or how to spend jewels wisely)
Jewels... the element of trade for whales, and a powerful tool at your disposal. However! Don't think that, even because it's a powerful asset, that all the usages for this are the correct ones. Let's do a summary on what you can do with jewels, now classified on how much worth is a deal:
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1. The Solid Deals
These are the best uses you can give to your jewels in most cases, so keep always those in mind.
| Usage | Cost | Mobile Exclusive? |
|---|---|---|
| Purchase No Hearts Needed (NHN) for 30 minutes | 1 jewel, weekly stock of 10 | No |
| Purchase Drop Increase Rate (DRI) for 8 hours | 1 jewel,weekly stock of 10 | Yes |
| Purchase No Hearts Needed & Drop Increase Rate (NHNDRI) for 45 minutes | 2 jewels, weekly stock of 10 | Yes |
| Purchase 3 additional attempts on Weekend Meowth | 1 jewel | No |
- Purchase No Hearts Needed (NHN) for 30 minutes: A better option than purchasing extra hearts with a single jewel, because instead of 6 extra hearts, you get an unlimited number of hearts for half a hour. It can come in handy for some situations, especially the Holiday Snover that comes at the end of the year, but otherwise, there's better options for this in most places. This is Tier 1 on the merit that 3DS players don't have available DRI or NHNDRI. Don't use this boost on Stage 37 Meowth or any farming stage that you cannot finish in less than 30 seconds. The former, because it requires to think in order to get at least 320 coins (optimal amount per Meowth, sometimes it's 520 coins, sometimes it's 120 coins), which takes time out of the boost, and the latter, because not all the stages to farm coins from dailies are optimal, like Holiday Snover, Pachirisu, etc.
- Purchase Drop Increase Rate (DRI) for 8 hours: A nice offer and really useful on stages that doesn't spend hearts, but coins. If you haven't done the Eevee attempt and you activated this in-between Tuesday and Thursday, that would be your chance.
- Purchase No Hearts Needed & Drop Increase Rate (NHNDRI) for 45 minutes: This is a really good offer for increased rate stages, like the Great Challenges that offer a 50% / 25% / 12.5% drop rate, but you can only get your worth if you can do the target stages for this boost in a timely manner, so use with caution.
- Purchase 3 additional attempts on Weekend Meowth: Solid deal, and way better than the rip-off of purchasing coins for a single jewel. It can net you a sizeable amount of coins (around 12k-20k, depending on your luck). Arguably the best way for 3DS players to get coins. Spend one jewel on this every weekend if you want and you need extra coins.
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2. The conditional good deals
These deals aren't as good as the previous ones, but sometimes they're good to consider in certain situations.
| Usage | Cost | Mobile Exclusive? |
|---|---|---|
| Purchase No Hearts Needed for 24 hours (NHN24) | 10 jewels, weekly stock of 3 | No |
| Purchase 1 additional attempt at Victini | 1 jewel, 15 attempts maximum | No |
| Purchase 1 additional attempt at Eevee | 1 jewel, 15 attempts maximum | No |
| Purchase all items to use in a stage without spending coins | 1 jewel | No |
| Add 5 moves / 15 seconds if you failed a stage | 1 jewel each time this happens | No |
| Purchase 1 additional attempt at the Start of the Month (SotM) Challenge and the Mid-Month (MotM) Challenge | 1 jewel in SotM, 2 jewels in MotM, 4 attempts maximum | No |
- Purchase No Hearts Needed for 24 hours (NHN24): If you're a whale of whales, and you need all the time for the world to farm without having to spend a single heart, this could be a solid deal, because 10 jewels equals, either 5 hours of NHN or 3 hours and 45 minutes of NHNDRI, which equals 7 hours of NHN with if the drop rate was the default one. But why this is Tier 2? Because it's only worth it in really busy weeks, if your luck wasn't up to snuff and you need more time to farm valuable stuff, and even then, you shouldn't be needing this if you manage your resources properly. There's also the downside that, using this, makes you commit to the game more than usual, so if you use this, be prepared to spend more time than you should be, as it can leave you pretty drained mentally, so use with utmost caution.
- Purchase 1 additional attempt at Victini: This is a good option, but in reality, this is more for whales than anything, if you're in such a rush of leveling up characters, besides, there's other options to improve on leveling up characters, like Survival Mode or certain stages. If you're a normal player, don't bother.
- Purchase 1 additional attempt at Eevee: Again, another good option, but also for whales, and only a decent idea during any DRI, as it can a 3 cookie drop if you're lucky, or 1 or 2, and even 0 if you're unlucky. If you're a normal player, save your jewels for other things, not this.
- Purchase all items to use in a stage without spending coins: Only worth it on difficult stages that involves Complexity -1, because that's the item that costs the most. Otherwise, a rip-off.
- Add 5 moves / 15 seconds if you failed a stage: It's usually a rip-off, but it has a purpose, as there's a handful of stages where it merits the usage of a jewel to add time or moves, but the usages are few and far between, and it really only applies for very, VERY difficult stages and missions.
- Purchase 1 additional attempt at the Start of the Month Challenge and the Mid-Month Challenge: A borderline rip-off, but it can also be considered a decent investment for starters. This can be a rip-off because it costs jewels for each additional attempt, and there's a handful of worthy prizes, like SBL x2 or Skill Swapper, or in the SotM, 3 MSUs. Most of these prizes can be gotten from competitions and mission cards. On the other hand, some of those prizes have a good use for people who're just starting playing the game. Your call if you want to spend on this or not, but think on the cost first.
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3. The rip-offs
These are the worst usages for jewels you can give them, and most of the time, not a good return of investment. Usually not a good idea, but here they are:
| Usage | Cost | Mobile Exclusive? |
|---|---|---|
| Purchase extra hearts | Varying jewel costs | No |
| Purchase extra coin | Varying jewel costs | No |
| Purchase 1 Heart Recovered / 15 min. & Heart +6 for 8 hours, and increases the maximum number of hearts at 10 | 1 jewel,weekly stock of 10 | No |
| Superior Super Catch Time for 8 hours | 1 jewel,weekly stock of 10 | Yes |
| If you're lacking coins, purchase extra 3000 (3DS) / 4000 (Mobile) coins to purchase a Great Ball for 2500 (3DS) / 3500 (Mobile) coins | 1 jewel | No |
| Unlock main stages | Every unlock from Sandy Bazaar to Albens Town cost 2 jewels, and all other areas cost 3 jewels | No |
- Purchase extra hearts: This is a rip-off, as hearts are a constant resource that's rechargable. There's better ways to get extra hearts with jewels, as explained above in the solid deals.
- Purchase extra coins: This is also a rip-off, as coins can be farmed in various ways, like Stage 37 (Meowth), certain daily stages, and clearing stages, and for a single jewel, you get more coins with Weekend Meowth. Don't bother with this.
- Purchase 1 Heart Recovered / 15 min. & Heart +6 for 8 hours, and increases the maximum number of hearts at 10: See "purchase extra hearts" above. Same deal.
- Superior Super Catch Time for 8 hours: Another rip-off. Why are you wasting your jewels on a better chance of this happening? And it's still RNG if it happens or not. Don't bother with this one. Period.
- If you're lacking coins, purchase extra 3000 (3DS) / 4000 (Mobile) coins to purchase a Great Ball for 2500 (3DS) / 3500 (Mobile) coins: A rip-off. Why do you need to spend a jewel on coins to get a Great Ball if you're out of them? You should be farming coins instead. Don't bother with this.
- Unlock main stages: A rip-off of the highest caliber. You may be thinking "but I'm going towards the best stages!" or "if I use jewels, I can get X mons early", now let me stop you there and ask you: How are you going to win coins and get experience for your mons? And latter stages get way more complicated for your basic mons to handle. Just be patient and don't rush unlocking stages, in other words, don't bother.
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Thanks to Shon160, Ytreza, Dante, ShinigamiKenji, Meowstic, Lacchini and cubekwing for their valuable feedback while writing this guide. This was the sum of my own experiences and from what I was told about spending jewels wisely, so I hope this is useful for any new players.
EDIT: Marked the worthy deals in Bold, and conditional worthy deals in Italic at the beginning. Thanks to u/ShinigamiKenji for the suggestion.
EDIT 2: Added a table format, with a field that denotes if the usage is Mobile exclusive or not.
EDIT 3: Added a tier list for the jewel guide and better formatting overall.
EDIT 4 (07/03/2019): Demoted NHN24 to Tier 2.
Posted Feb 14, 2019, 7:21 PM UTC · edited