How To Regem with Epic Gems (JCs and Non JCs)

There are two major changes to gems that will require all players, and especially Jewelcrafters to rethink their gemming.

The first change being made is that my lovely Dragonseyes, the Jewelcrafter only gems, will no longer be prismatic. They will matchup with whatever socket color they normally would. For example, Solid Dragonseyes will match Blue sockets.

The second is the addition of Epic Gems.

Right now, I've been using my Solid Dragonseye in Red slots to get a bit of stamina and still retain the socket bonus. It’s been a nice bonus, but that’s going to have to change.

Off topic, but I’m completely torqued that I’m not the first Honorshammer that pops up on the Armory anymore. I used to the ONLY one. Now some guy from the guild Conquest on Vashj shows up first. It look likes it sorts by Guild Name, so all I’ve got to do is get Ellevis to rename our guild All Suspects or something. ;-)

I examined my MainTank set.

Helm : Yellow slot, 12 stam bonus, 16 Def
Shoulders: Red Slot, 6 stam bonus, 41 stam Dragonseye
Chest: Blue Slot, Red Slot, 9 stam bonus, 24 stam, 8dodge/12stam
Shield: Blue slot, 6 stam bonus, 24stam
Gloves: Red Slot, 6 stam bonus, 8 dodge/12stam
Belt: Prismatic slot, no bonus, 24 stam
Legs: Red Slot, Yellow Slot, 12 stam bonus, 41 stam Dragonseye, 16 def
Boots: Yellow Slot, Blue Slot, 9 stam bonus, 8def/12stam, 24 stam
Trinket: Blue Slot, Yellow Slot, 9 stam bonus, 24 stam, 41 stam dragonseye

Whenever you start mucking around with gems, you have to keep the Defense minimum in mind. After all my changes I need a minimum of 689 +def rating.

I’m currently sitting on 717 rating which means I’ve got about 28 rating points to play with.

4 yellow, 4 red, 4 blue and one prismatic. That’s a fairly balanced gem slot layout.

My choice of gem will be Solid (Stamina) for Blue, Enduring (Defense and Stamina) for Green and Shifting (Agility and Stamina) for Red.

Let me explain the Red choice just a bit. We know that Dodge is being nerfed in 3.2, but so is Agility. They will work out to be about the same ratio as they are now. So why would I choose the Agility gem over the Dodge one?

The Agility gem will scale with buffs like Kings
and Mark of the Wild. It also provides additional benefits in Armor and Critical Strike. So Agility is avoidance, mitigation and threat, whereas Dodge is just avoidance.

Were I just a mere mortal and only had access to ‘normal’ epic gems, and if used a simple formula above, these gem slots would yield 40 Defense, 270 Stamina, and 40 Agility. I would be able to replace my two pure defense gems with defense/stamina hybrids and still wind up with the exact same amount of defense rating. So despite adding two gems with stamina that didn't have them before AND upgrading to epic gems, I would actually have 9 stamina LESS than my current set due to not using Dragonseyes.

I’ve looked at two approaches for my Dragonseyes. They aren’t prismatic anymore, so in order to get the socket bonuses and their yummy stamina, they need to match. Somehow, I have gear where EVERY socket bonus is Stamina. Dragonseye are only available in single colors, no hybrids.

The first approach was to cut all Solid Dragonseyes and place them in Blue sockets in the Boots, Chest and Shield. That would give me 40 defense, 333 stamina, and 40 agi from gems. That’s an increase of exactly 63 stamina over my 'no Dragonseye' load out. So my ‘JC only’ gems give more stamina than Mining (60) or Blacksmithing (60). Your milage may vary.

The other option I looked at was placing my Dragonseyes in my two Red sockets with a ‘weak’ 6 stamina bonus, and placing the third in a no bonus Prismatic socket in my Belt. The result is 40 Defense, 363 Stamina and 20 Agi. But we lose socket bonuses so we need to look at stamina from the socket bonuses in addition to stamina from gems.

Using Dragonseyes in my Reds and Prismatics, and sacrificing the socket bonuses still yeilds an increase of 18 stamina over using them in my Blue sockets. This makes sense when you consider that a Dragonseye in a Red slot is an increase of 36 stamina over the red gem that would normally be there. A Dragonseye in a Blue is an increase of only 21 stamina. However this will also cost me 20 Agility.

So would you give up 20 agility for 18 stamina. I would.


TLDR


Non JCs



  • Replace all your Rare gems with Epics

  • See if any Thick (Pure Defense) gems can be swapped for Enduring and still maintain the Defense Minimum

JCs
  • Replace all your Blue and Yellow Slots with Epics
  • Place your Dragonseyes in Red or Prismatic Slots



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Comments

Anonymous said…
There's actually no difference between putting a Dragon's Eye in a Blue slot and a normal epic Solid gem in a red, or vice versa - put your Dragon's Eyes in the red, blue, or prismatic sockets least likely to be replaced or situationally swapped (that Unique:3 can be a hassle if you aren't careful that way!), and just ignore red socket bonuses might be a better way to summarize it.
I'm running into the same situation on my shaman. Currently I have spellpower dragon eye gems in my blue slots which still allows me to get the meta bonus for my helm in addition to some tastey spell power socket bonuses.

I'm going to have to spend a lot of time calculating out what will give me the most bonus... I have a feeling I will still be using them in some blue sockets and ignoring the bonus.

Kind of stinks that with Blacksmithing in order to get the boost in stats you have to use epic gems, whereas the other professions just get them by default. I'll be upgrading my shamans gems... but my warrior and paladin may be on the backburner for awhile.
Therigwin said…
Well in anticipation of these changes, I dropped mining from character and picked up Black Smithing. So I just put my Dragon's Eye gems in the BS sockets that don't require a color and then color match accordingly in all the other slots.
Anonymous said…
Am I reading it right that I will need 689 + def now?

dang im only 545:(

Raist
Honors Code said…
689 defense RATING which would give you 540 defense SKILL.
Anonymous said…
Hey! I'm sorry that I stole your name! lol. I wanted a good name for my paladin, and I read your blog almost daily! When I made my paladin I couldnt think of a good name, so the first thing that came to my mind was Honorshammer =)
Honors Code said…
I don't mind you taking the name, I just need to get you into a guild that starts with the letter Z or something lol.
Dave said…
Just a minor correction, ain't nothin' scales with MotW. MotW is a flat buff.

Unless you meant some weird "scaling" because you'll have three extra points of armor on top of the MotW buff from agi?
Wrathy said…
I like your thinking, but for me, when it came to regemming, I gemmed the piece for its strengths, so i dropped my dragons eye's in the belt, boots and then Chest, as its in all my sets.

One thing that most people have to realize is that as you swap gear out for different sets, Avoidance, EH, threat, boss gear, you want to be able to benefit from those DEs.

P.S. I have been looking for a prot pally blog for some time and I finally glad i found another one! Keep it up!

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