Hey guys, I've been playing around with the upgrading system and I have a couple of questions. I know the red gem stones upgrade your gloves (aka weapons) and the blue ones upgrade your armor, but what is the purpose of the black gems? I know that they down grade an item, but why would you want to do that? Someone told me that it down grades your item so you can safely upgrade it past its normal safe point (i.e. weapons +5 and armor +4) There is also a dark purple (almost black) gem and a green gem that I have no idea what they do. If anyone could shed some light on this I would be forever grateful =3

Black gems with a red/purple tint downgrade weapons. Black gems with a blue/green tint downgrade armor.

One correction though, the safe point for armor is +4, not +3. At +4 it begins triggers the triple card and you'll still have to deal with chances.

Dark Purple/Green Gems are upgraded versions of their counter parts - Blue/Red. Red being weapon and blue being armor.
They function the same way as th normal crystals. However, upon succeeding, you get a chance to jump 1~3 Lvs instead of gaining a single one.

But what is the point of downgrading your armor or weapons? It seems kind of backwards to me.

I do feel, and agree that it sounds kind of lame.
Though i am not a genious in the 'gem' genre, i do however, think / know that the reason is that if you got yourself a nice piece of whatever, and you upgrade to the max point (+4) -then to find a purple or green stone and wanna upgrade it further, without risking the actual item being broken, you can downgrade it down -1, using the required stone, and then use the better upgrader stones from that point and hope to get additional +3 without risking anything. Don't know if there is another reason than that :-)

Bingo.