What's the best way to use non native gems ?

[Boron]

Nagot Gick Fel said:

I'll never understand your logic. If you forge clams like mad when you're allowed to do so, it's obviously because astral gems are _very_ important to you, and water much less so.

But since clams are forged from water gems to start the hoarding water is more valuable then astral .
Astral itself is not so valuable for me cause i normally convert my huge clam astral income in water for further gems and either wish for blood or convert it to death mostly .

So water is more valuable then astral cause it is the input while astral is only the output .

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Boron said:
But since clams are forged from water gems to start the hoarding water is more valuable then astral .

No. That's equivalent to say "when I alchemize X to Y, X is more valuable to me than Y". Or "when I convert raw materials to cars, the materials are more valuable than the cars". You NEED materials to make cars, but it's the cars that are IMPORTANT to you.

So water is more valuable then astral cause it is the input while astral is only the output .

When input is more important than output, it's a sure sign the conVersion is inneficient. Err, never mind, just send me ten dollars and I'll teach how to earn five!

[Boron]

I see it this way :

For forging a clam you either need 10 water or 20 astral gems converted to 10 water .

So when starting to clamhoard 1 water gem is as valuable as 2 astral gems .

So earlygame 1 water gem has twice the value of a pearl .

Lategame the pearls are more valuable because you can convert them to every kind of gem . But since your main income will be astral pearls from clams it is not as scarce as the other gems .
And if you have 20 natural water income this is better then having 20 natural astral income because you can forge twice as many clams from the water income then from the astral income .

So water is earlygame damn important because it helps you a lot starting to hoard earlier + benefit earlier from it .

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Boron said:
But since your main income will be astral pearls from clams it is not as scarce as the other gems .

I think that's the important bit: you say a resource is 'important' when it's 'scarce' (which I find odd), while I define its importance after its final use (ie, if I use water gems to make clams to make pearls to make something, for me it's the 'something' that's important).