Amanda Miller of Insider Trader (of the new-ish WoW.com) did a great job covering the incoming 3.2 Jewelcrafting nerf and at the end she posed a few questions that I’d like to answer as a fellow Jewelcrafter.
What do you think about this change? How are you going to have to re-work your gear? Is this actually going to affect your decision to take up, or keep, the Jewelcrafting profession?
What do I think about this change?
Honestly, I DO think the current state of JC is a bit overpowered. Having the ability to use 3 +32 Spellpower gems that adapt to any socket color to make any socket bonus work AND doubles as a colorless “prismatic” gem that will make any meta gem work without having to use a lower quality (i.e. less useful) gem is a bit much.
How am I going to have to re-work my gear?
Honestly, all this is doing is giving me 3 more red gems in to my gear, causing me to replace 2 of my Runed Scarlet Rubies with Purified Twilight Opals to make my Chaotic Skyflare Diamond meta gem work. Am I losing DPS because of it? Yes, but it’s a very small amount. I think Shadow Priests have it easier because unless our set bonus is a fair amount of spellpower or crit/haste, we only use red gems and ignore the rest. I’m still getting 3 +32 spellpower gems, they’ll just count as red gems. I can live with that.
Is this going to affect my decision to keep the Jewelcrafting profession?
I’ve honestly considered picking up Tailoring for the Lightweave enchant or Inscribing for the better shoulder enchant but I’ve put too much time and money in to maxxing Jewelcrafting that it’s a very slim chance that I’d drop it. It’s a little less enticing now, yeah, especially being RL friends with a fellow max JC on my server but the idea of redoing another profession from the ground up is a bit intimidating and not ideal at this time. I can’t say what the future brings without seeing what the new epic gems will look like.
Overall, as a Shadow Priest, my suggestion is just to suck it up, drop 2 Runed Scarlet Rubies for 2 Purified Twilight Opals and call it a night. Done and done.
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June 3, 2009 at 8:29 PM
Shadow Word: Blog Updates! « Fear.Win
[...] best possible raiding gear available that does NOT include hard mode kills, Algalon or PVP rewards. How Does the Upcoming JC Nerf Affect You? Answering a question asked on the new(ish) WoW.com about the upcoming nerf to Jewelcrafting. [...]
June 4, 2009 at 7:11 AM
Fakeuser
I think its not a minor nerf. We will lose 20 spell damage (misdesigned meta gem requirement) AND 3 socket bonuses (using red gems instead of crapgems) because of it.
June 4, 2009 at 3:55 PM
Abi
I’m not sure what class you play or what gear you have but a majority of the socket bonuses out there suck for Shadow Priests or caster gear in general. Looking over my gear, the 3 socket bonuses that I would lose are very minor (Int, hit, mp5 i think?). Honeslty, 20 spellpower isn’t the end of the word to me. It’s a nerf, yeah, but look at the other professions benefits. At its current state, Jewelcrafting provides more than anything.
Jewelcrafting:
-3 Prismatic Gems
-Prismatic Gems match any socket.
-Make meta gems work without the need to use correct gems.
Tailoring
-Same spellthread available to anyone with a reduced mat cost.
-Lightweave Embroider
Blacksmithing
-2 Additional Sockets
Enchanting
-ring enchant
Engineering
-Glove and Boot tinkers which aren’t that great.
Inscribing
-Best shoulder enchant in the game.
June 4, 2009 at 6:20 PM
Fakeuser
I’m using the t8 set ofc and Spellslinger’s Slippers. Their set bonuses for non-red socketed pieces are:
+4 hit, +6crit, +6 hit, +7 spellpower
They are not useless stats for shadow priests.
The main failure is that Blizzard waited till everyone that ever considered to move for JCing (because its ’sooo OP’) spent the 3-4000g and a week of work to level it. So Blizzard dont help to anyone to save the efford and money to get JC only slaps this 1-2million raider in the face.
June 4, 2009 at 7:01 PM
Abi
Weird, it’s not letting me reply directly to your comment.
Anyway, I agree those socket bonuses aren’t useless but outside of the spellpower (and maybe the crit) bonus, are the hit bonuses worth grabbing at your gear level with other gems as opposed to just slapping a +19 spellpower red gem in there?
Hit should be a non-existant issue for someone in T8 quality gear. It’s not a useless stat, it’s our most important, but when it comes to socket bonuses I couldn’t tell you the last time I didn’t gem for direct spellpower to pass over a minimal hit socket bonus.
Either way you look at it, you’re still only losing 20 spellpower from the JC nerf and in the T8 raid level that’s not really a huge issue. It’s a dps loss, of course, but it’s not enough to make me drop JC and pick up another profession by any means.