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.
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.
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.
Player Faldomar of the Cenarius server has very unhappy to see that much of the tanking gear dropping in Zul'Aman is lacking in Defense. How is a tank supposed to do their job if they can't get the uncrittable benefit of 490 Defense as well as the boost to Block, Parry, Dodge and chance to be Missed?
While it would be nice to have a full set of armor catering to our exact needs, the reality is that there are different styles of tanking (as well as healing, dps, etc.) Blizzard has chosen to service all those styles with their current system of modular mixing and matching. And if equipped armor doesn't put your stats where you want them to be, there is also the gem socket system to customize your toon even further.
Moral of the story? Don't expect a custom suit off the rack. An outfit that is going to fit you like a second skin is going to come from attention to detail on your part.
Insider Trader is your weekly inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.
Got empty slots sitting wide open on your gear, simply because researching gem possibilities is so infuriatingly time-consuming and confusing? Get ready to get socketing! Our handy consumer's guide to gems will steer you to savvy selections in no time. While jewelcrafting can sound confusing as all get-out, we've rounded up some convenient tools and handy reference lists that simplify the process of figuring how to slot your gear with gems that work for you.
In The Burning Crusade, Blizzard introduced jewelcrafting and the ability to augment items with gems. Many higher-end items feature sockets designed to be slotted with player-cut gems. A jewelcrafter can cut these gems, which grant your gear additional stat and effect bonuses. What color? What cut? What stats? What about meta gems? You need to figure out what's available, what works best for your gear and how to get your hands on what you need. Let's get to work ...
Blizzard is looking at the value of sockets on items (currently, the value per socket is slightly higher on higher quality items) and standardizing it throughout the game in an upcoming (but unspecified) content patch. In addition to this, they're also going to reviewing the expansion armor sets -- Drysc says it's not the intent for higher tier sets to be poorer quality or side-grades to previous sets, and that some sets may see changes in the future.
While Drysc seems to be talking about future changes, some re-evaluation of item values seems to have already happened in patch 2.0.10, however. This list of undocumented patch changes, compiled by Ramiel, contains numerous item tweaks -- some good and some not so good.
One of the new puzzles I've had in the Outlands is figuring out just how good that socketed item is. For instance, Chemise of Rebirth without any gems in it is obviously worse than Goldweave Tunic. But what gems are available, and how much might they bump up the Chemise? Enter Vacaloco's complete jewel guide. It purports to be a list of every gem currently in the game, showing in easy-to-read format their color and what stats they give, as well as whether they're crafted, bought, dropped, or PvP rewards. I've had this list open in a browser window constantly for the past few days.
Personally, what I'd like to see is an AddOn or web tool that would do the thinking for me. I want to be able to mouse over an item, or input the number and color of sockets on a web page somewhere, and get back the maximum stat boost, for my chosen type of stats, that I could get out of the item with gems socketed. That would make a lot of comparisons much easier. Unfortunately, I don't know any Lua, nor am I very familiar with WoW's API, so writing that AddOn is probably beyond me.
In any case, Vacaloco's page is a great resource. Have you found any ridiculously useful references for this brave new world?
Blizzard has released some new information about the jewelcrafting profession that we'll be seeing in the Burning Crusade expansion. Jewelcrafters will be able to make jewelry, trinkets, and insert gems into socketed items - imbuing them with additional powers. Raw gems may be used by the jewelcrafter to create jewelry and trinkets, or they may be cut into gems suitable for use in socketed items (cut gems may be inserted into socketed items by any player). Interesting, to me, is the article's mention of how jewels are found:
By processing the raw ore mined from the various deposits and mineral veins, jewelcrafters can extract gems from the ore which they can then use for their craft. Although miners sometimes find gems while gathering ore, jewelcrafters mostly rely on their prospecting skills to get more of the precious stones.
Does this imply that jewelcrafting will be a natural match with mining for a supply of gems? Or that there will be a new "prospecting" profession for gathering gems? While we have a lot of new details, much is still unclear.
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:
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.
Player Faldomar of the Cenarius server has very unhappy to see that much of the tanking gear dropping in Zul'Aman is lacking in Defense. How is a tank supposed to do their job if they can't get the uncrittable benefit of 490 Defense as well as the boost to Block, Parry, Dodge and chance to be Missed?
Blizzard is looking at the value of sockets on items (currently, the value per socket is slightly higher on higher quality items) and standardizing it throughout the game in an upcoming (but unspecified) content patch. In addition to this, they're also going to reviewing the expansion armor sets -- Drysc says it's not the intent for higher tier sets to be poorer quality or side-grades to previous sets, and that some sets may see changes in the future.
Blizzard has released some new information about the jewelcrafting profession that we'll be seeing in the Burning Crusade expansion. Jewelcrafters will be able to make jewelry, trinkets, and insert gems into socketed items - imbuing them with additional powers. Raw gems may be used by the jewelcrafter to create jewelry and trinkets, or they may be cut into gems suitable for use in socketed items (cut gems may be inserted into socketed items by any player). Interesting, to me, is the article's mention of how jewels are found:
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