I thought as much, but I’ve been on the phone with Blizz during the last 2 weeks, so I wasn’t sure.
Thanks, Mogle and Jas09!
Okay, I see where you’re going with this, and it does make more sense in those terms. Unfortunately though, most socket bonuses aren’t really worth pursuing… most class/spec combos have a dominant stat they pursue, and socket for it to the exclusion of bonuses. In the case of a Ret Pally, with strength being the dominant stat, and socket bonuses being so minimal, there aren’t any cases where you could use a purple strength/stamina gem and come out equal to a pure strength gem.
Most gear has 2 or more sockets of varying colours; the problem with pursuing socket bonuses is if the stat is one you want, by the time you get the bonus, you’ve lost more than you’ve gained by not socketing the pure stat. Also, all gems are not created equal - for a Ret Pally, a pure strength gem will add more to DPS than a pure crit gem. So even though you “could” get a bonus by socketing useful stats, the overall effect isn’t going to be as good as if you’d socketed your primary stat. The only scenario in which I could see a Ret Pally pursuing socket bonuses is in rare situations where a small +hit bonus is needed; for example, the Death-Inured Sabatons, which require a red and blue gem for a +hit bonus. In that case, since you would still need to socket a prismatic for the yellow gem requirement on the Relentless, you could switch to the Chaotic.
I’ll second the suggestion of Elitist Jerks for Priest needs; I only really know gems for the classes I play, and my Priest has been level 64 for about 2 years now, heh.
Gemming is a new world for me, apparently. So basically, ignore the color of the slots themselves unless they happen to coincide with your needed stats, and focus on your needed stats while leaning toward the useful meta gems. That about right?
FWIW, the reason I am hitcapped in my current Ret gear is because I threw down two +16 Hit yellow gems, so I figure that’s fine to leave alone instead of swapping out for Strength. The Claymore of the Prophet has 27 more hit rating than the Whale-Stick Harpoon I’m currently carrying, so once I get that I should be able to swap out the gems without harm. (Right now I’m at 234, the Claymore will boost me to 261, losing the gems will drop me to 229. Hitcap for a Draenei is 229.53, so we’ll call it good enough for now.)
ETA: Speaking of gemming, I really need to get Jewelcrafting back up to speed. Haven’t touched it since before getting into Outland in the interests of making some damn money. 
Oops! I’ve been using X-Perl so long (which moves the icons to where I said they were) that I’ve forgotten it’s an add-on and not the default. Sorry about that!
Not with epic gems anyway, but when we were stuck with the rare gems the socket bonus on Helm of the Unsubmissive was large enough for the str/sta-gem to give you as much str as the pure str-gem 
Really, you don’t need to lecture me about gemming, I’m well aware that we’re usually better off ignoring the socket colours but I still like to consider all the options, and in the case of other classes those options can be good. But like you said, in the case of paladins str so much better than anything else that you’re unlikely to end up with anything other than a Bold Cardinal Ruby.
Yep. Unless you need a specific socket bonus (as in the case of +hit, particularly), you can generally ignore the colour of the sockets. The primary exception is if gemming to activate a meta, if you can activate a socket bonus with the non-primary stat gems, you should do so.
Getting to hit cap is a good reason to gem other than strength, unless meeting a meta requirement. We did get off on a tangent about “ideal situation” gemming, in terms of metas and primary stats, which ignored non-ideal situations, such as early epic gear with its dearth of +hit, or some of the early epic tank gear which is lacking in +defense.
Not meaning to “lecture” you, but I see so many people with such screwy stat combos*, I want to make sure the information here at least is clear, particularly for those who are new. Your first couple posts weren’t parsing right to me, with not understanding where you were coming from with the meta statement… so that triggered a “let’s get into details and get this sorted” mode. Which I think we did, and I agree analysing all options is always a smart thing to do.
*can we talk about the “tank” wearing mostly DPS gear with no meta gem in his DPS helm, +6 stamina gems in the rest of his gear, no enchants, boasting ~415 defense (of the 535 needed) and ~20k hitpoints (my warrior has more in DPS gear, without a shield), who seemed to think having a shield and a (bad) Prot spec qualified him to tank ToC-5? He thought pursuing stamina was all he needed to do to be a tank. :smack:
There I am in Goldshire with my draenei mage, in the middle of fighting the fires, and some knucklehead challenges me to a duel.
G…g…g…g-g-GAAAAH!!!
:smack:
grumble
Protip: Putting up a guild recruitment chant in General and then logging off less than 5 minutes after makes me less than enthusiastic to check out your guild. :dubious:
Grats to all.
So my Pally is now 10% or so away from 66 and we’re planning on moving from Nagrand to Blade’s Edge as the quests have dried up a bit, back to Nagrand sometime after dinging to pick up a very nice tanking sword. I really enjoyed the Ring of Blood quests though I recommend if you’re watching another group take down the last kill don’t get too close because if they wipe he’ll come after you. We were all dead in 10 seconds he hits hard when enraged, we needed the help of a guildy 80 to take him down in the end.
On gems did anyone bother doing it while still levelling? My gear is being replaced so often at the moment I don’t really see the point.
Today’s top tip – do not remove a costume buff while flying. It hurts.
Get some common quality wrath gems at least, they’re cheap and better than even the epic tbc gems, making the socketed Outland gear very good.
At last! The Squashling dropped twice on the Horseman today, and I actually won one!
I can finally stop caring about this horrible event.
I finished the Avatar of Freya quest line last night. It was a lot of fun until the last mission, which I found very hard with the boss that uses shadowbolts.
I loved unlocking the activation gates and fighting those elementals. I was a bit disappointed that the gates unlocked a portal to Kalimdor. I was hoping for somewhere more interesting, but it was cool anyway, seeing that I was up above where I had hunted before.
I wonder if the titan guys health is tied to your own, because some people seemed to have a lot less trouble with the Reclamation quest, going by Light Headed.
I also flew to Icecrown and got my flight location there and picked up a new quest, and then flew to Dalaran for the first time on my mount. I’ve heard Icecrown has some good quests so that will be fun. Plus, if I can find a group I plan to go back and do the Oracle/Frenzyheart group quest that I have. From reading up, it seems that you choose your faction during that quest.
Icecrown is very cool looking, especially on the west side.
My current plan is to try out some Pvp once I get 80. I’m trying to decide whether to spec for Shadow dps in Battlegrounds, or use something like the PVP healing spec I used at 70 for AV.
That gate turned out to be very helpful later on when I was trying to get my Ravasaur mount. Essentially now from Northrend you have a direct portal to Un’Goro (from Sholazzar Basin) and a direct portal to Tanaris (to the Cavern of Time, from the Kirin Tor temple in Dalaran). Saves a whole lot of time compared to flying from Org or Thunder Bluff.
I actually didn’t enjoy Icecrown that much. I need about 10 more quests there to get the Northrend Loremaster achievement; but all I have left right now are group quests that I haven’t bothered trying to get help with yet.
OK thanks I’ll check the AH.
Oh hey, I forgot to mention that Wednesday, we got our TotGC Jaraxxus kill with 360 Pain Spike, if that gives you any idea of how damn close we came to wiping on that attempt. :smack: (Hint: two Succubi out on Heroic generally means you’re fucked.)
Anyway, yesterday! Another night, another server-first: Twin Val’kyr on Heroic-25!
The group spent a while wiping on Twins Wednesday before calling it. (I volunteered to sit that group out, because we had DPS waiting outside and I wasn’t going to be tanking.) However, we had quite a few people unable to make it online last night, so there I was, in my (relatively) crappy Arms gear and offspec. We tried a new strategy for a while that involved specific positioning and a 50/50 split of DPS and healers by color, but we just kept taking too much damage. We had less-than-optimal healing composition for the strat–to many AOE healers without enough people in range to do any good.
And then! The door strategy! Apparently, no orbs path into the doorway that you enter through (across the arena from the boss entrance). So, if you cram everybody in there, you don’t have to worry about dodging orbs–you can just focus on hammering buttons and switching targets for the occasional shield. You have most of your players on one color, with a few with defensive cooldowns (we used Hunters and Mages, SPriests should also work) on the other color. Everybody stays on their respective opposite-color boss unless there’s a shield, in which case everyone hops on that target for the duration of the shield, then switches back when it’s been broken and the cast interrupted. Nobody switches colors for the vortex: when it’s the opposite color from the one most of your raiders have, you pop Aura Mastery and any other ohshit buttons for healing or damage reduction–including personal ones (e.g., I’d throw on a shield, switch to Defensive Stance, and pop Shield Wall). When it’s the color opposite the one your defensive CD folks have, they pop those and keep going.
It was so much easier, it felt like cheating.
We moved on to Anub with 28 attempts remaining, and gave it a few shots. (I was tanking the big guy. Nothing says “fun” like tanking a boss for the first time on a high-stakes run–I’d always been an add tank on regular.) None of our tanks currently has an unhittable Block set, though, so it was clear that we weren’t going to make it.
Guess where we went next? Naxx–oh yes, Naxx. For Block gear. We had a very nice Immortal run going until a certain Hunter who shall remain nameless got a bad latency spike, didn’t see his polarity change, and didn’t move, resulting in his swift death and massive groans from everyone.
So, my homework for this weekend is to come up with a wishlist of Block gear, because apparently my lucky self has been pegged to be the add tank. finger whirling in the air
Staying hitcapped will do more for your DPS than any other stat. So, yeah, don’t drop any gems or chants you need to stay above that 8%.
Oh hells yes you do. The JC-only jewels make this profession one of **the **best for min-maxers.
Had a guildie like that for a while. Guy couldn’t hold aggro to save his life, because all of his gemming and chanting was straight-up Stam (and this wasn’t for, say, TotGC where EH is king). All he could talk about was how high his HP was, and when he was going to hit the next 5k mark. :rolleyes:
If it makes you feel any better, many guild recruitment folks will have macros to automatically advertise at reasonable intervals when they’re in capital cities–it’s probable that they didn’t manually type the thing out and then log immediately.
Absolutely yes. An empty gem slot is a big blow to your stats. I wouldn’t put epics gems in leveling gear, certainly, but you could at least put some green ones in, if you can’t afford the blues (which you probably don’t want to dump money into if you’re really replacing gear as frequently as that).
See also: do not attempt to change talent specs mid-air. Also, do not accidentally click your macro for Archmage Vargoth’s Staff while mid-air.
Awesome!
It wouldn’t be tied to your actual HP, but it’s entirely possible that it scales with gear. (Many vehicles do now–anything involved in a boss fight, e.g.)
Ah, that quest. There was a very good strategy for that boss on wowhead: just keep backing up constantly; in the time it takes him to cast his shadow thing you’ll have backed out of range.
Grats on the server first, SFG!
Our guild is going to be running scheduled heroics 2x a week and working on Naxx10 on Mondays to get geared/practice raiding, so this should be fun. I also have my shopping list of Naxx gear set up if Marrowstrike and the Rifle keep on refusing to drop in HTOC. It’s that or badge gear, and my group of regulars is morally certain that if I buy the gun, the rifle WILL drop.
Regarding duel idiots: protip to the 80 rogue – challenging a 41 holy priest who was MHOB to a duel only makes you look like an even bigger idiot.
**Lots **of fun! I’m getting all excited for ya just thinking about it!
It. Never. Fails. Until very recently, the **only **upgrade to the BOE Engineering-made ilvl200 gun for Prot Warriors was Veranus’ Bane, which drops off of Razor in Uld25. The. Only. (That’s right, there were **zero **upgrades in Naxx, in OS, in EoE, or from vendors. Now, imagine trying to get your Epic achievement…) Of course, even after downing Razorscale several times, the gun never dropped for me. Apparently Blizz realized this was moronic, and when they brought out ToC and the new level of badges, they added a Thrown weapon that was a direct upgrade from the Razorscale gun and could be bought with Triumph emblems. Guess what was the first thing I bought? And guess what I saw drop the very next time I was in Uld25? And at least once or twice since then? :smack:
I usually /chicken at them. Sometimes, this will get everyone else laughing at them, too.
Options > Interface > Controls > uncheck “Auto Dismount in Flight” > stop accidentally killing yourself 
It does make it a little more effort to start mining or fighting when in flight - you’ll either need to land, or use a mount macro with a /dismount switch, but it really really helps the deaths from accidentally hitting an ability while flying.
Oh, I’m entirely aware–but the number of times I’ve killed myself are vaaaaaaaastly fewer than the number of times I’ve been able to auto-dismount when I’ve landed to harvest an herb or pick up a quest item. The unintentional suicides are all just hilarious and embarassing, so I share them.
Plus, as a tank, I use Outfitter, so 99% of the time I’m able to quickly mash my “Naked” outfit button and avoid taking a durability hit, and then all I’ve lost is time.