Alright. Let's call a spade a spade. I nubbed last week's installment by putting down Agility as a stat. Agility is good -- still not a Retadin's primary strength (pun intended), but definitely part of the equation. An informative article can be found on WoWWiki comparing Strength to Agility and determining the point where investing points in Agility gives better DPS returns than investing in Strength. Unlike Rogues or Hunters, who will never reach a point where Strength gives better returns, there is a certain point for Paladins (or Shamans and Warriors, for that matter) where it becomes better to invest in Agility. It's quite a bit of math, but suffice it to say that the equilibrium point is pretty high and not achievable by a fresh 70 gearing up for Karazhan.
I also dismissed Expertise (pfft, why make one mistake when you can make two!), a new stat introduced in Patch 2.3, which reduces the chance a mob will Dodge or Parry your attacks. If you can manage it, you should always attack from behind, negating Parry to begin with, but barring that, Expertise is a good stat to pursue after you're Hit capped. In fact, as some readers pointed out, the Shard of Contempt is the best melee DPS trinket in the game right now as it prevents even yellow, or special, attacks from being Dodged or Parried. With all the technical stuff out of the way, let's move on to the last part of this series, where we'll take a look at all the permanent enchants, gems, and even consumables that you'll need to do a good job in Karazhan.
Last time we met to talk about Jewelcrafting in Wrath, I only knew the names of the various uncommon and rare gems. Now I have the names of the epic gems too, as well as values for the cuts. The epics are called:
Red: Cardinal Ruby
Yellow: King's Amber
Blue: Majestic Zircon
Purple: Dreadstone
Orange: Flawless Ametrine
Green: Eye of Zul
More cool names, in this blogger's opinion. Except Cardinal Ruby – that sounds a little "blah" to me. Which is not to say I won't socket them, of course; that +parry rating cut that looks quite tasty for a Death Knight tank.
The crafting professions may not yet be implemented in the Wrath of the Lich King beta, but we do get to see their mats. I'm not sure how much we can figure out from them. I do, however, really like some of the names, especially for the gems.
It looks like we'll have the same gem system as in BC, with six colors (three primary and three secondary) and one uncommon and one rare gem for each Epic gems have, understandably, not been unveiled yet, and common gems have made no appearance. Here are the names we have:
From: The Consortium Ltd., Outland Branch office, Stormspire, The Netherstorm
To: All employees and independent subcontractors of the Consortium on Outland
Subject: Monthly Paycheck
As it is the first day of the month, the gem payments for all fleshing subcontractors located in Outland have been organized and are available from paymaster Gezhe at Aeris Landing in Nagrand, north of the Oshu'gun digsite. We would like to remind you to pick up your gems as soon as possible, as any unclaimed pay will be declared forfeit and void at the end of the month.
We expect another quarter of strong growth based on our investments into Ogre obsidian and biodome technology, and as a result, all exalted and revered subcontractors will receive their usual bonuses in recognition for their continued support of the Consortium. Thank you for all your hard work, and we look forward to another profitable month.
Welcome to today's edition of Ask WoW Insider, in which we publish your questions for dissection by the peanut gallery -- now with extra snark and commentary by one of our writers. This week Greta writes in:
Hi! After nearly two years of fiddling around with far too many alts, I finally got a rogue to 70. I'm working on gearing to be able to do heroics and maybe some of Kara with friends before Wrath comes out. My question is this: at what point is it worth it to drop money on nice gems and enchants? I'm mostly still in quest rewards and I'm still saving for my epic flyer, so I'm somewhat loath to drop the gold just yet. At the same time, I want to be a solid addition to my group and I know that maximizing gear is part of that. Any advice on when this is a practical expense?
Season 4 of the WoW arena is upon us. In roughly 24 hours, the mad dash to a rating of 2200 will begin. My question for all of you today is... are you ready for it?
A lot of my friends who focus on PvP already have their compositions figured out, their team names ready, and a full bank of honor and arena points stored and ready to spend. Even if you aren't the arena type, Tuesday can mean good things for you. What does Season 4 do for you if you don't PvP? Gold, of course! Profit, profit, profit. With the influx of gear into peoples' hands starting Tuesday, gems and enchanting materials are going to spike in price for awhile. I imagine epic gems will feel this especially, as this is essentially the best gear available to PvPers before Wrath of the Lich King. They'll want to make the most of it.
So whether you play for PvP or you play for Profit, tomorrow means good things. Are you ready for it? Have you done anything to prepare? Do you go through any start-of-the-season rituals for good luck? Burning a Druid-shaped wickerman, perhaps?
Yup, that's it. This baby is pretty much tops if you are a healer who wants to max out Spirit and healing and all of those other good stats that help you keep others alive. This is the kind of staff that even makes Tanks go all Keanu: "whoah."
Name: Golden Staff of the Sin'dorei (WowDB, Thottbot, Wowhead) Type: Epic Two-hand Staff Damage/Speed: 146-338 / 3.20 (75.6 DPS) Abilities:
+60 Stamina, +54 Intellect, +57 Spirit. Yeah.
Red and two Blue sockets, nicely fitted with some +22 healing gems and/or +10 Spirit gems and you're talking about some real power. +4 Spirit socket bonus.
Improves spell haste rating by 32
+550 healing, +183 spell damage. Yes, you read that right -- 550 healing. Not since right before the last expansion has there been a staff this nice in comparison to other gear, and even if you could match the healing on a one-hand/offhand combo (you probably can, if you get the right gear and enchants together), the Spirit bonuses on this baby are going to give that duo a run for the money. Take a good look, because this is the kind of stuff that's going to be dropping in endgame raids at level 80.
Sin'dorei, you should know by now (we're almost to the next expansion), means Blood Elves, or "children of the Blood" in Thalassian. And yes, the staff looks just like the one in the BC art, as seen above. This is very BC staff, if not the most defining staff of this expansion. Look for a lot less gold and green and a lot more blue and black in WotLK.
How to Get It: This is a Kil'jaeden item yet again -- it drops from the last boss currently in the game. And since we've seen so few drops from Killy Jay so far, we're not sure of the drop rate at all. Not that it matters much -- so few players comparatively are going to get loot from the fight with Kayje, that odds are you'll never see it.
You can drool, though. And in ten levels, when we're all working through Naxx again, maybe you can convince your raid to go back and help you get it.
Getting Rid of It: Sells to vendors for 20g 54s 93s and disenchants into a Void Crystal. But look how shiny! Have a good weekend.
Lots of stuff is happening on the First of May today (do we really have to remind you that that video is NSFW? consider yourself reminded) -- not only did Children's Week start and the Diablo3.com countdown end, and not only is it a holiday for some Blizzard employees, but if you're Friendly or higher reputation with the Consortium, it's time once more to grab your free back of gems. Unlike last month, we don't have to refer to them as "gem stickers" -- thank God the whole HKO Insider thing only lasted a day.
If you've got the rep, just stop by Gezhe at Aeris Landing in Nagrand, and he'll hand you a bag of free gems, quality dependent on reputation level. You'll still need a Jewelcrafter to cut them up, but hey, free gems is free gems.
Among the many fine things that can be bought with Badges of Justice in this post-2.4 world of ours are epic gems, the same kind that drop in the Black Temple and the Sunwell Plateau. They are sold by Shaani, who appears once your realm reaches phase four, and the uncut, un-BoP gems sell for 15 Badges of Justice each. Or at least, that's what we thought. Sharp-eyed tipster Herid noticed that according to the Armory (screenshot above), the price of the gems is 10 Badges of Justice -- a 33% reduction in price before they even go on sale yet!
Of course, this could just be an Armory bug, so I did my level best to check it out for myself, by logging on to Proudmoore, the only server yet to have reached phase four. However, I learned that although Shaani spawns when phase four is activated, she doesn't sell gems until the Alchemy Lab is completed, much like Smith Hauthaa and the Anvil. So I can't confirm this with anything more than the Armory data at the moment. Proudmooreans, get going on Discovering your Roots, so we can uncover the truth of this gem-price-drop rumor.
If it's true, Badges of Justice might be worth more gold than we thought, depending on what the price of these epic gems stabilizes at.
Last week, Insider Trader began the journey from 300 to 375 jewelcrafting skill. While we were able to avoid using recipes that required faction reputation or that had to be farmed, the cheapest methods to 375 from about 365 may require a bit more effort to obtain.
If you are like so many other craftsmen, stuck with 375 seeming far away and expensive, then carry on through the break to examine ways to not only maximize your skills, but to attempt to make a profit while doing so, rather than running on a loss.
Featuring several distinct ways to reach 375, you will find that you have many choices to suit your own needs, your guild's needs, and your server's market. In addition, I've put together some links for further reading that you should find helpful.
Each week, Insider Trader takes you behind the scenes of the bustling sub-culture of professional craftsmen, examining the profitable, the tragically lacking, and the methods behind the madness. For more guides to maximizing your chosen profession, check out the final stretches for Leatherworkers and Alchemists alike, as well as part one of Jewelcrafting's final stretch. For a complete list of profession guides, feel free to peruse our directory.
A new PTR build hit the test realms today, and just in time for the second stress test that'll be getting underway later tonight. A few of the big highlights:
The Druid Cyclone spell has had the range reduced to 20 yards, from 30 yards.
The newly purchasable epic gem crafting patterns have had their prices dramatically increased. For example, the epic gem patterns used to cost 1.5g each to buy, now they're 50g each. This will make them harder for casual players to acquire.
All in all, it looks like Blizzard is winding down the changes. They seem to be targeting some very specific areas right now, and the list of changes each week is getting shorter and shorter. This might mean the patch will be going live soon. And remember, as soon as it goes live, we'll select a winner from the Patch 2.4 release date contest we held.
What do you get when you mix up a whole bunch of useless green gems?On the Public Test Realm you get Brilliant Glass.The most recent patch 2.4 notes state "A new jewelcrafting recipe has been added to transform many green quality gems into a single random blue quality gem. This recipe is available from grandmaster jewelcrafting trainers."Good news for those of us with stacks of semi-useless uncut green gems.
Mats for the new Alchemist Stones have been reduced. Old mats were Alchemist Stone, 2 Nether Vortices, and 16 primals; new mats are reduced by 10 primals, i.e. Alchemist Stone, 2 Nether Vortices, and 6 primals. Which primal is required varies based on the stone in question: Assassin's = Shadow, Guardian's = Air, Sorcerer's = Fire, Redeemer's = Life.
The Philosopher's Stone is now a trinket requiring level 35, and gives +5 to all stats.
Jewelcrafters can get patterns for four new epic gem cuts (Reckless Pyrestone, Steady Seaspray Emerald, Quick Lionseye, Forceful Seaspray Emerald) both from the Shattered Sun Offensive at Revered and from the Scale of Sands (the Mount Hyjal faction) at Honored.
The models have been changed for Vanir's Right Fist of Brutality, Crossbow of Relentless Strikes (pictured), Vanir's Left Fist of Brutality, Vanir's Left Fist of Savagery, Gavel of Naaru Blessings, Grand Magister's Staff of Torrents, Vengeful Gladiator's Pummeler, and Vengeful Gladiator's Bonecracker; see MMO-Champion for screenshots.
It looks like the new Philosopher's Stone is a cool little trinket; I don't remember there being much competition for that slot that early in the game. It's an interesting move to make those cuts available from two factions, and should appease the hardcore types who, presumably, are at least Honored with Scale of Sands by now. Looking at the Primal requirements for the Alchemist Stones, most of those are easy primals, but Air is significantly more expensive. Rogues get it easy. And all those new models look groovy; a good set of changes overall.
It's that time of the month again, ladies and gents. It's the first of March, so the Consortium has a fresh round of gems to hand out! If you're new to level 70(or Outland in general), each month you can travel to Aeris Landing in Nagrand and receive a packet of gems. How many gems is dependent on your reputation with the Consortium.
Personally, I've never had very good luck with these guys. I'm Exalted on two characters and all they'll ever give me is a handful of junk and some slightly better junk. I actually think the game is working against me when it comes to gems. I have the same luck with Prospecting. I know everyone says Prospecting is an amazing source of money, but I'm confident it only works for them because all of the awful gems are used up on me.
But enough QQ. Go! Get your gems! Make sure to leave comments lying about those Stars of Elune you got. It'll make me feel better if you just say you got a few Talasites.
A minor(but interesting) change was included in the last PTR push: The Shifting Tanzanite has had its stats changed up a bit. Previously a Strength/Agility gem, it is now Agility/Stamina, as you can see above.
Previously, this was arguably the best blue gem in the game for melee DPS classes. With the introduction of the Heroic gems no longer being Unique in patch 2.4, it was a little exciting to be able to slot more than one of these at a time, even if blues aren't the most desirable color for physical damage dealers. Now, the Shifting Tanzanite is still desired, but not necessarily to fill that same role or by the same people. One of the few highly sought after Heroic gems has been gutted.
Why? Nobody knows but Blizzard. One of my theories is these Heroic gems are not meant to be a "best in slot" but an alternative option, even now that you can socket multiples in your armor. It probably won't bother too many melee DPS because as good as that gem was, it was only the best blue for melee. Most melee do not stack blues at all. Tanks do stack blues, however. While this gem has become a little better for the tanks, it most likely does not outweigh Solid Stars of Elune and most certainly is not better than Solid Empyrean Sapphires for the raiders among us.
From: The Consortium Ltd., Outland Branch office, Stormspire, The Netherstorm
Lots of stuff is happening on the 
Each week, 
What do you get when you mix up a whole bunch of useless green gems?
It's that time of the month again, ladies and gents. It's the first of March, so the 
A minor(but interesting) change was included in the last PTR push: The 
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