[Squirrelloid]

Lamia Queens are nice, but there are other options for breaking into D in a serious way.

Streams from Hades gives you W3D3 mages, and you can cast it UW. Cost is a mere W4D1 and 30 water gems. Now, while its certainly more expensive than Lamia Queens, it has a number of advantages: (1) No hoping for good randoms, (2) castable UW, (3) guaranteed D3, (4) less required investment on the pretender to summon (W2D1 is sufficient), (5) costs w instead of n.

And while you will be using your w gems for brands, you'll be using your n gems for shields, possibly armor, and various other things. In the post-clam environment, w is worth a lot less than it was, and thus 30w might be 'cheaper' in real terms than 15n.