Last Updated on April 29, 2024 by Samuel Franklin
This Idleon gem shop tier list details the best priority purchases by game world to help your account progression and efficiently spend gems. With numerous gem purchases available it can be difficult to find the best use of gems, particularly for a free to play player that wants to maximise the benefits of this limited premium currency.
This guide offers a user friendly visual tier list of all gem shop purchases and priority purchases for each respective world to follow that will give you a notable boost in progression along with tips for efficient gem farming. These recommendations are based on my own Idleon experience from playing since 2021 and community insights with detailed explanations to help you tailor what to spend gems on for your account and budget. In addition to these gem shop purchases if you plan to actively play Idleon regularly I also strongly recommend the auto-loot add on for $5 which must be purchased directly and cannot be bought with gems.
Table of Contents:
– Gem Shop Tier List
– World 1 Priority
– World 2 Priority
– World 3 Priority
– World 4 Priority
– World 5 Priority
– World 6 Priority
– How To Get Gems
Gem Shop Tier List – Best Gem Purchases
The Idleon tier list is shown in gem shop priority order and includes only the best gem purchases in world order. If an item is not shown on this gem shop priority list below I consider it a low priority and should only be purchased if you have a significant gem budget or a particular personal preference.
Gem purchases are rated in S > A > B > C order and players should consider the notes carefully as some gem upgrades are only highly rated for the first purchase with subsequent purchases being a lower priority. Players can follow this tier list from top to bottom based on their current world progression with detailed explanations of these purchases included in the respective game world sections of this gem shop guide.
| Item | Effect (Gem Shop Location) | Gem Cost | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Infinity Hammer | Produce two anvil items (World 1) | 300 | S | |
 Bleach Liquid Cauldrons | Improve liquid cap and regeneration rate (World 2) | 500 Total: 2,000 (4) | S | First purchase is most important, only purchase other cauldrons if you are bottlenecked in those liquids |
 Crystal 3D Printer | Unlocks a second printer chamber (World 3) | 875 | S | |
 Richelin Kitchen | Upgrades a kitchen with faster meal cooking speed, new recipe speed and cheaper upgrade costs (World 4) | 250 – 610 Total: 4,300 (10) | S | 1 kitchen initially to unlock new meals then up to 2 or 3 depending on preferences |
 Extra Card Slot | Unlocks an additional card slot (Cards) | 150 – 270 Total: 840 (4) | S | Purchase all 4 |
 Brimstone Forge Slot | Smelt Bars faster and increased multi-bar chance (World 1) | 100 – 325 Total: 3,400 (16) | A | Purchase 2 initially then more as required for bar production |
 Royal Egg Cap | Increases the max number of eggs in breeding and adds new pet breeding chance (World 4) | 350 – 550 Total: 2,250 (5) | A | |
 Shroom Familiar | Bonus to all essence gain (World 6) | 800 – 940 Total: 2,610 (3) | A | Purchase 1 initially and add based on your preferences |
 Instagrow Generator | Gives daily instagrows each day and additional crop chance (World 6) | 610 – 960 Total: 6,280 (8) | A | Purchase 1 initially and add based on your preferences |
 Food Slot | Unlocks extra food slot on all characters (Inventory & Storage) | 450 – 750 Total: 1,200 (2) | A | |
 Item Backpack Space | Gives extra item slots in character backpacks (Inventory & Storage) | 200 – 325 Total: 1,575 (6) | A | |
 Storage Chest Space | Gives extra Storage Chest slots (Inventory & Storage) | 175 – 450 Total: 3,750 (12) | A | Purchase as you need additional storage chest space |
 Mainframe Jewel | Gives a random lab jewel (World 4) | 450 | B | Only after you have acquired the easy mainframe jewels. Use this to unlock jewels that are difficult to acquire |
 Plot of Land | Gives an additional land plot for crops (World 6) | 420 – 860 Total: 7,680 (12) | B | Purchase 2 initially and add based on your preferences |
 More Storage Space | Gives extra Storage Chest slots (Inventory & Storage) | 450 – 558 Total: 5,040 (10) | B | Purchase as you need additional storage chest space |
 Ivory Bubble Cauldrons | Faster brewing and higher new bubble chance for ivory (coloured) cauldrons (World 2) | 300 – 450 Total: 1,500 (4) | C | |
 More Sample Spaces | Unlocks extra space for samples in the 3D Printer (World 3) | 275 – 775 Total: 1,450 (6) | C | I recommend 1 – 2 for the convenience although you can purchase more or less based on your preferences |
 Tower Building Slots | Unlocks extra building slots in construction (World 3) | 350 – 650 Total: 2,000 (4) | C | |
 Souped Up Tube | Increased lab experience and line width for two characters (World 4) | 480 – 740 Total: 3,050 (5) | C | Don’t purchase more than 3 |
 Chest Sluggo | Increases the maximum number of sailing loot pile chests (World 5) | 250 – 690 Total: 5,640 (12) | C | 3 or 4 is a good cost to benefit level to speed up sailing progression |
 Golden Sprinkler | Chance to not use sprinkler charge (World 5) | 400 – 625 Total: 2,050 (4) | C | 1 purchase only for the chance to not use charge |
 Pristine Charm | Gives a random Pristine Charm in your sneaking inventory (World 6) | 920 | C | Provide significant account boosts but can eventually be found without gem shop purchases |
Idleon Gem Priority – World 1
Infinity Hammer
One of the best use of gems in the early game stages this item also known in the community as the golden hammer or golden anvil will double your anvil production as you can craft two items at the same time. Given these anvil materials are needed throughout the game for equipment, stamps, vials and other mechanics it consistently provides smithing account benefits.
Extra Card Slot
Giving you an extra card slot with each purchase (up to 4 for a total of 8) this is a must have that provides value for the entire time you play Idleon. While early on the buffs seems small as you grow your card collection towards the end of World 1 and beyond the ability to use 4 extra cards is incredibly powerful across all game activities.
Brimstone Forge Slot
The need to smelt bars is a long road in Idleon with them being used to craft equipment, unlock vials in World 2 and produce salts in World 3 that make them a staple of progression. While you will eventually want all 16 of these upgrades starting with 2 is cost effective and enough to sustain the necessary bar production and can slowly be upgraded as you see necessary.
Idleon Gem Priority – World 2
Bleach Liquid Cauldrons
Liquid is important to progressing through World 2 and remains important for many worlds to come given the strength of the alchemy skill. With this gem upgrade you get the ability to assign more players, boost your maximum liquid cap and generate it faster that all translate into faster alchemy progression. There is an upgrade for each of the four liquid cauldrons although only the first one (water droplets) is critical to obtain as this liquid is used the most throughout the game. Later in your progression if you are bottlenecked by the other liquids (liquid nitrogen, trench seawater and toxic mercury) you can consider purchasing them at that stage but they are a lower priority.
Item Backpack Space
As players progress through Idleon worlds the ability to hold more items after an AFK session becomes increasingly valuable as it helps accumulate resources that are needed for many game mechanics. Benefiting both fighting and skilling the extra item backpack space is another early game gem shop purchase that is useful from early to late game.
Storage Chest Space / More Storage Chest Space
While there are many free storage chest space expansions available purchasing gem shop storage is essentially a requirement in Idleon due to the number of core resources and other items you will need to store even if you are using characters as extra storage and not excessively hoarding. I would purchase this gem shop upgrade slowly over time whenever it becomes too inconvenient to store items with your current space and then progress to the more storage chest space option as required.
Food Slot
While food slots are initially only used for healing during World 2 and beyond you’ll begin to unlock useful boost food for fighting and skilling that with extra food slots players will be able to optimise their gains. While you will unlock some for free during World 3 progression players will still want the value provided from this gem shop purchase although depending on your available gems this can wait until World 3.
Idleon Gem Priority – World 3
Crystal 3D Printer
The biggest boost to your account progression the printer mechanic from World 3 allows you to passively produce a selected mob or skilling resource. With this gem shop upgrade players will now be able to print double the resources that makes it one of the best gem purchases available in the game and I recommend that players start saving gems during World 2 to acquire this given it is so impactful.
More Sample Spaces
With the 3D printer being a pivotal element of the Idleon meta this is one of the best convenience focused upgrades available in the gem shop as you’ll be able to store a larger array of different samples for your needs. Given the time it takes to setup your characters to sample and the bonuses unlocked in later worlds that multiple your samples the longer you go without resampling having an extra few slots is a great time saver.
Tower Building Slots
World 3 construction offers a number of useful account benefits such as storage space, trapping drone, deathnote, library, automation arm and an abundance of towers used in the worship tower defence mini game. With extra build slots you’ll be able to build all of these faster although this is the lowest priority of all World 3 upgrades given once everything is built to a high level the value of additional build slots starts to diminish.
Idleon Gem Priority – World 4
Richelin Kitchen
The gem shop kitchen upgrade provides a notable 3 times increase to cooking speed, 2 times new recipe speed and provides 40% cheaper kitchen upgrades. This makes at least one Richelin kitchen critical to unlocking and upgrading meals which grow increasingly difficult as you progress through the different spices. Meals are a fundamental progression system similar to alchemy that makes an eventual goal of 2 or 3 Richelin kitchens after obtaining some of the other World 4 gem purchases an ideal goal.
Royal Egg Cap
Extra eggs provide a number of benefits including additional experience, dead DNA and importantly new pet chance which is required to build a suitable pet team to acquire spices that feeds into meal cooking. Upgrade this to a point that you feel comfortable with the balance between your egg generation and egg claiming given this fluctuates over time through the likes of alchemy bubble upgrades and stamps.
Mainframe Jewel
A powerful upgrade that allows you to unlock some of the stronger jewels for your lab mainframe that might be out of reach otherwise. Given this upgrade selects from the jewels you haven’t unlocked it’s best used after you have acquired the easy jewels already through the weekly in game shop for resources. This makes it a perfect last option from W4 for your leftover gems to help you push your account to another level by acquiring the jewels that you may not be able to acquire otherwise.
Souped Up Tube
With a large boost to lab experience gain and line width this makes it significantly easier to activate those first few lab nodes as you are building your lab foundation of levels. While you can acquire this progress eventually without the gem purchase it is a notable boost to this core W4 mechanic that makes between 1 and 3 upgrades a reasonable investment. Never purchase more than 3 of this gem purchase though as 6 characters in the lab is the current meta.
Idleon Gem Priority – World 5
Chest Sluggo
With Sailing being the primary boost of World 5 upgrading your ships and acquiring all available artifacts will quickly strengthen your account. The Chest Sluggo achieves both of these by increasing the number of chests you’ll be able to hold during those longer AFK sessions and is effective throughout your sailing journey rather than the once off ancient artifact direct purchase. The first few upgrades of this gem shop purchase are relatively cheap and I would target around 3 to 4 purchases of this.
Golden Sprinkler
A single golden sprinkler purchase has a notable improvement to your gaming progression with a 30% chance to not use the charge it generates. While further purchases do increase this chance I think this base 30% chance is sufficient and it can even be used to unlock the sprinkler earlier than you would otherwise.
Idleon Gem Priority – World 6
Shroom Familiar
Boosting all essence generation from a single purchase a single Shroom Familiar has a notable impact on the speed you can progress through the Summoning skill and unlock the broad account benefits that this provides. I recommend starting with 1 and then adding additional familiars as you feel necessary as there are several other sources of essence generation available.
Instagrow Generator
Importantly this upgrade gives you two instagrows per day that do stack if not used which can help players quickly grow new crops or evolve a crop into their target crop without waiting. The convenience of this alone justifies the gem purchase as you’ll be able to min-max the Farming skill but the extra crop chance when fully grown is a nice benefit. Like the Shroom Familiar above I recommend 1 or 2 purchases at most to acquire this flexibility.
Plot of Land
Plots of Land are expensive and time consuming to unlock without gem purchases and have a notable impact on your overall farming progression that makes them a priority gem purchase in World 6. Purchasing all of them is a significant gem expense though so I would purchase between 1 and 4 depending on your gem budget.
Pristine Charm
The huge bonuses of World 6 are within the Sneaking skill although acquiring a Pristine Charm naturally is no easy endeavour due to their rarity. Players can skip this process entirely though by purchasing Pristine Charms directly and I recommend doing so if you have the budget. For most players though I would only purchase these when down to the last few Pristine Charms and you are missing a notable upgrade as the lack of duplicates will guarantee you can acquire something you want.
Idleon How To Get Gems
Idleon is fairly generous in providing free gems through gameplay and allows free to play gamers acquire enough gems for the core priority items. Note that blue gems can be acquired for free while a separate green gem currency can only be purchased. The primary methods to acquire gems in Idleon are:
- Purchase – Players can also purchase the premium currency gem from the gem shop itself directly or through a bundle which generally offers better value.
- Events – Like other games events are a common occurrence in Idleon and often come with ways to earn gems and other useful items to progress your account for participating. Watching the update patch notes on the wiki, reddit community, Discord or the in game menu can give you information on the current or upcoming events.
- Monsters – Killing giant monsters can drop gems (unlocked in World 3) and bosses will start dropping gems after purchasing a W2 merit shop upgrade. Players can also fight giant crystal mobs on Crystal Island in World 2 that have a drop pool similar to giant monsters. This is where the potential for Idleon gem farming exists as players can farm bosses directly or through the colosseum given you receive keys/tickets daily. Dedicated players can also farm World 4 or World 5 boss keys from mobs and farm tickets from the Cosmic Carrier Post Office order.
- Quests – A number of quests during your progression provide small amounts of gems with completing all available quests across your character slots adding up to a notable number of gems.
- Skills/Talents – There are some skills (it’s your birthday) and talents (alchemy level up gift) in the game that have a chance to drop gems when triggered.
- Guild Giftbox – Joining a guild early on provides a large number of account benefits and buffs to make your progression easier. In particular is the weekly Guild Giftbox that has a chance at rewarding gems and is delivered weekly directly into your storage chest.
- Secrets – Players can play the spike mini game daily that provides a regular source of free gems.
- Steam Achievements – Each Steam achievement has a small amount of gems attached to completion.
Written by
Samuel Franklin
Samuel Franklin is the founder and lead editor of the Games Finder team and enjoys video games across all genres and platforms.
Idleon has secured its place as one of Sam’s favourite games due to its nostalgic MapleStory vibes and the ability to play while working on Games Finder reviews, articles and guides. He also enjoys the optimisation challenge of the various game mechanics introduced in each new world that provide new opportunities to maximise his damage and printer output. With thousands of hours played Sam is regularly pushing the highest levels of Idleon content as he looks to make small percentage account gains while sharing his experience with other players.
