Category: jewelcrafting

[Wrath Classic] Gems & Enchants for Holy Paladins

Kurn / / classic, jewelcrafting, paladins, wrath classic

All right, folks, we’re coming up to the launch of Wrath Classic, so this will be an overview of Gems & Enchants for Holy Paladins.

But before we get into it, I did it. I dropped Herbalism and picked up Jewelcrafting and have gotten it to 368, which is close enough to maxed out for me. It’ll be cheaper to get to 375 with Wrath materials, but I’m pretty glad I made the decision to pick up Jewelcrafting. I think it would have super bothered me if I hadn’t. All-told, it wasn’t too bad. The worst part was the mithril. Oh god, the mithril. It was also super expensive at the AH. So I got on Kurn and spent a couple of hours doing laps around The Hinterlands. Yo, that was painful. But it saved me about 300g on the AH. So my total cost was around 800g or so, out of the ~2000g I had. Plus I was able to recoup some costs with leftover mats or things I created.

All right, so gems is probably the best place to start here.

Wrath Classic – Holy Paladin Gemming Strategy

  • Intellect
  • ???
  • Profit

That’s basically the size of it. If you get more intellect, do it. Let’s dive into the details!

Meta Gem Choices & Requirements

Surprisingly, there are a few different meta gems that are interesting.

Insightful Earthsiege Diamond – This is pretty much my top choice of a meta gem throughout Wrath, but in reviewing things, some others look neat, and I’ll get to them. Despite the tooltip, it appears as though this gem restores 600 mana when it procs, which is double the 300 mana it’s thought to give. I’m not sure if they’ve fixed this in Wrath or whatever, but if it does restore 600 mana when it procs, this is great. Bear in mind that this procs on spellcast. Basically any spellcast. Beacon of Light. Sacred Shield. Divine Favor. Divine Illumination. Flash of Light. Holy Light. Etc etc etc. The more you cast, the more mana you get back.

Requires at least 1 Red, 1 Yellow, 1 Blue gem. Now here’s the thing about meta gem requirements like this. This is all three colours. You can use a single prismatic gem to satisfy the requirements of the meta gem. An Enchanted Tear will grant +4 to all stats, for example, which is (and let’s be fair), super underwhelming. But it alone will meet the requirements of the meta gem! This means you do not need a Reckless Monarch Topaz or a Luminous Monarch Topaz (which are orange) to meet a red gem requirement. Nor do you need a Royal Twilight Opal (which is purple) or a Dazzling Forest Emerald (which is green) to meet a blue gem requirement.

And, most importantly, a prismatic gem does not need to go in a prismatic socket!!! The Eternal Belt Buckle is a prismatic socket, but you can put anything (except a meta) into that socket, and you can put a prismatic gem into any gem socket (except a meta socket).

Let’s look at an example, using the Gear Planner from Wowhead:

In this gear planner example, I have the Helm of Purified Thoughts, the Titanium Spellshock Necklace and the Ferocious Pauldrons of the Rhino and I have the Insightful Earthsiege Diamond in the helm. Let’s look at the other socket in the helm.

It’s a blue socket and the socket bonus is +8 intellect. Now, we can ignore this and drop in a Brilliant Autumn’s Glow, or we can put in a Dazzling Forest Emerald, which is 8 intellect and 4mp5, for example. If we ignore the socket colour and bonus and we put in 16 intellect, we get 16 intellect. If we put in the Dazzling Forest Emerald, we get 16 intellect and 4 mp5. So to me, the right choice for this socket is a Dazzling Forest Emerald as we get the same amount of intellect that we would with a Brilliant Autumn’s Glow plus the 4 mp5. So let’s put that in there and look at the updated planner.

Next, let’s look at the necklace. It’s a red socket with a bonus of 4 intellect. Underwhelming. Putting in a Luminous Monarch Topaz (9 spellpower and 8 intellect) is less intellect than just dropping in a Brilliant Autumn’s Glow. So, 16 int it is and here’s the updated planner.

Finally, let’s look at the shoulders. Yellow socket and the socket bonus is 6 stamina. Also underwhelming. But it’s a yellow socket, so we may as well drop in a Brilliant Autumn’s Glow for the 16 intellect and now we have an extra 6 stamina. Whee.

So here’s the updated planner.

If you hover over the meta gem, you can see we’re missing a red gem. We have not yet activated the meta. If you have no other sockets on your gear, it would be best to put in the Luminous Monarch Topaz into the necklace because it activates your meta. No other reason to do that. But let’s take a look at a more geared person with an updated planner link.

You can see here that there’s not a ton of sockets in this gear. Do we care about +9 stam as a socket bonus on the legs? Nope. Do we care about the +6 spirit on the chest that comes from the socket bonus? Absolutely not. But, if we have to use a Luminous Monarch Topaz anyway, why not take advantage of the socket bonus in the necklace? I get 9 spellpower and 12 int from that gem in that socket, with the bonus. Then, I can add a Brilliant Autumn’s Glow to the Eternal Belt Buckle socket. Doing it this way activates the meta and it gives us the max intellect by getting the socket bonus from the necklace.

So when to use an Enchanted Tear? Well, if you lack sockets, for one. For another, if the bonuses aren’t good enough to put in other gems. The other good thing about the Enchanted Tear is that it will always ensure this meta gem is activated. Always! Swapping gear can mean changing gems and bonuses and sometimes you’ll raid an entire raid week without your meta being activated… So be on top of things for sure and don’t forget to use a prismatic gem if all else fails to activate your meta.

Another meta gem possibility is the Ember Skyflare Diamond, which requires three red gems. You may think this is great, 2% more intellect? AMAZING!!! And you would be kind of wrong. If I had that meta in my gear planner paladin, I’d have less intellect than I have with the Insightful and I’d need to change out some Brilliant Autumn’s Glows for other gems to get the three red gems requirement. So let’s see what that looks like here in another version of the planner.

I’ve changed the meta and the gem in the helm. The gem is now a Royal Twilight Opal because it gets us the 8 intellect from the bonus and it counts as a red gem because it’s purple. I’ve still got a Luminous Monarch Topaz in the necklace. Then, I’ve swapped out the Brilliant Autumn’s Glow in one of the leg sockets with a Luminous Monarch Topaz. This gives me… 9 stam. Why didn’t I go for the socket bonus on the chest, instead? Spirit is useless. Stamina may keep you alive, one day. (I remember being ice blocked on Heroic Sindragosa with like 100 health left. Do not overlook the importance of stamina as a “nice to have” stat.)

So I have a total of 1017 intellect now. And my meta gem is active. And in my prior version, I had 1040 intellect.

Messing with the gems and gaining 2% intellect granted me a net loss of 23 intellect. 2% of like 1000 intellect is 20 intellect. This is not as huge as you think it might be, at least not at this point in the expansion. Let’s say you have roughly 30,000 mana (~1700 intellect), you’re still only getting 34 more intellect with that gem. At 15 mana points per 1 intellect… that’s 510 mana. Not ideal, not when you can get 600 mana back every time the Insightful Earthsiege Diamond procs. So definitely rule out this one.

Relatedly, the Beaming Earthsiege Diamond is also no good. 2% intellect is greater than 2% mana because Divine Intellect, which increases our intellect by up to 10%, is based on intellect and not mana. If given a choice, as a holy paladin, to pick something with intellect or mana, please pick intellect!

Tireless Skyflare Diamond, requires at least 1 Red, 1 Yellow, 1 Blue gem. 25 spellpower and a minor run speed increase? You must think me mad! But no, I’m not. Minor Run Speed Increase is a game-changer in this game. I’ll get into that a little more with enchants later on. Long story short on this one, though, it’s easy to activate (one Enchanted Tear), 25 spellpower ain’t bad, and run speed is godly. This is also likely to be cheaper. So don’t completely rule this one out, just know there are better ways to get run speed and Earthsiege is still better.

Revitalizing Skyflare Diamond, requires at least 2 Red gems. Well, 11 mp5 doesn’t wholly suck, but the Earthsiege is better for mana regen. (The procs mean about 50-75 mp5 depending on how much you cast.) But what about that 3% increased critical healing effect? That means it doesn’t “proc”, it just adds 3% healing to any critical heal. Probably best-used for a disc priest (what with their fancy shields). But what about us paladins? Let’s do some math!

In my crappy healing gear at level 70, my Flash of Light will hit for about 1579 and will crit for about 2428. Holy Light hits for about 5000 and crits for 7331 or so. Holy Shock hits for 2267 and crits for 3288. So let’s look at these numbers if there was 3% additional healing to the crits.

Spell   Normal  Crit      3%
FoL     1579     2428     2501
HL      5000     7331     7550
HS      2267     3288     3387

So the difference on FoL is roughly 73, HL is 219 and HS is 99. Note that this is a very small sample size and results may vary, etc, etc. What I’m saying is that 3% additional healing to crits is not presently a lot. Again, this may change later in the expansion, but at the start? Nope. Not this one.

And that’s it for gems and metas and such. Basically, do whatever you can to activate your meta gem, ignore any socket bonuses that don’t give you at least 16 intellect after you put in a matching gem (unless it’s to activate your meta gem) and go forth and enjoy your intellect.

Oh, and if you’re a blacksmith and have extra bracer and glove sockets, MOAR INTELLECT!!! (You also have more flexibility to activate your meta.)

Wrath Classic – Holy Paladin Enchanting Strategy

Shockingly, this is largely the same as gemming! Intellect! All the intellect! Is there more intellect? Please, give me more intellect!

Okay, here’s the gear planner link for the enchants.

Helm: Blissful Mending because 20 crit rating is not quite even 1% crit and 10 mp5 is just more reliable and useful.
Shoulders: Master’s Inscription of the Crag for the same reason as above.
Cloak: Ugh, these are awful choices. If you’re not a tailor or engineer, gotta go with Speed (15 haste)
Chest: Powerful Stats (+10 to all)
Wrist: Exceptional Intellect (+16 int)
Gloves: Exceptional Spellpower (28sp)
Belt: Eternal Belt Buckle
Legs: Sapphire Spellthread (50sp/30 stam) because spirit is useless
Boots: Tuskarr’s Vitality (15 stamina and minor run speed increase) because run speed increase > all other stats. It is SO much easier to dodge the lava wave on Sarth, or do the Heigan dance, or dodge the crash in TOC, or any number of other things. GET RUN SPEED. Engineers have Nitro Boosts, but it’s on a 3m cooldown which may not be enough for some of these scenarios. Personally, I would rather a persistent run speed increase than one on a cooldown.
Rings: If you’re an enchanter, greater spellpower is the way to go. If you’re not an enchanter, you cannot enchant rings.
Weapon: Greater Intellect (30 int)
Shield: Greater Intellect (25 int)

Whew. And that’s it, folks. Next post about holy paladins in Wrath will cover T7 gear that you want.

In the meantime, I wish you a pleasant time in Northrend. See you out there in Howling Fjord or Borean Tundra!

Cataclysm Meta Gems (and the Holy Paladin)

Kurn / / cataclysm, jewelcrafting, paladins

(Edit: 12/14/10, math is hard!)

One of my very first posts here at Kurn’s Corner was about jewelcrafting. It’s woefully outdated, obviously, but demystifying the jewelcrafting profession has always been something I like to do.

I was on the beta the other day, before it shut down, and I had copied over a fresh character copy in 359 epic level gear. As I was trying to gem her up, I realized two things:

a) … what the hell do I stack?

b) Oh my God, the Insightful meta cut doesn’t have a level 85 version!!

I’ll worry about how to gem as a holy paladin later on, but let’s talk a bit about the meta gems.

My Insightful Earthstorm/Earthsiege Diamond cut has been my go-to cut for Madrana since Burning Crusade. That’s, you know, four years. And now there is no Insightful Shadowspirit Diamond cut. This freaks me out.

Here’s a list of all the meta gems at 85.

Right off the bat, we can eliminate a lot of them. Austere (tank), Chaotic (caster), Destructive (PVP), Enigmatic (PVP), Eternal (tank), Forlorn (PVP), Impassive (PVP) and Powerful (PVP) are not on-par with the remaining options for a PVE-based holy paladin.

So here are the gems that I think could be useful to a holy paladin.

Bracing Shadowspirit Diamond – 54 intellect and 2% reduced threat. Typically, one would scoff at this, but were you aware that holy paladins no longer have an innate 50% less threat on their heals? Yeah, that changed at 4.0. So we’re causing a lot more threat than we did. Of course, in a raid situation, this should never be an issue, so this isn’t amazing, but if you’re honestly pugging all of the time and don’t have a solid tank with you, you may want to investigate this as a possibility.

Ember Shadowspirit Diamond – 54 intellect and 2% maximum mana. This is the big brother of the current Ember cut and it definitely looks beefy! In lieu of Insightful (proccing mana returns), Ember certainly looks like a useful meta gem. Remember that Replenishment is still based off of maximum mana, as is Divine Plea, so this is not a bad balanced meta, since it affects our regen and also increases our output (54 int is equal to 54 spellpower).

Fleet Shadowspirit Diamond – 54 mastery rating and minor run speed. The instant I moved to my RL friend’s guild, I was instructed to enchant Tuskarr’s Vitality for the speed boost. I have been a convert ever since. I am going to be asking every member of my guild to have some kind of run speed bonus, whether in their spec or their meta or their boots. Normally, the run speed metas are very PVP-related, but Fleet gives us mastery rating. While we’ll have mastery rating gems (Fractured. They’re yellow.) and mastery rating enchants, meaning mastery rating won’t only be available via reforging the way it is right now, this is still a potentially useful meta gem. Not only do you get the run speed and the mastery rating, but it frees up your boots for a potentially better enchant. More on this in a bit.

Revitalizing Shadowspirit Diamond – 54 spirit and 3% critical healing effect. Another balanced meta for us, since the spirit is pure regen and the 3% increased effect on crits is pure throughput. Given the new world of “no one is ever fully topped off” style healing in Cataclysm, this will almost certainly not translate into more overhealing. Further, for a holy paladin, our mastery rating will benefit from the larger crit heals, creating a larger Illuminated Healing shield.

So which one to pick?

Bracing and Revitalizing can both be activated with a single green gem, as they require 1 blue and 1 yellow. The Zen Dream Emerald, which is +20 mastery and +20 spirit, would probably be the best cut for a holy paladin out of the various green gems available. This would leave the rest of our sockets open to stacking intellect or whatever it is we will try to be stacking. Ember and Fleet require two yellow gems, which needs to be done in two separate slots. Granted, we’d probably use an orange gem to get 20 intellect and 20 of another stat. My favourite orange gem is the Reckless Ember Topaz for the haste, but we could also use Artful Ember Topaz or Potent Ember Topaz as an orange gem of choice.

So with the Ember or Fleet choice, we have to use two gem sockets for our meta versus the one with Bracing or Revitalizing.

Ember/Fleet = 2 orange = 40 intellect + 40 haste rating/40 mastery rating/40 crit rating

Bracing/Revitalizing = 1 green = 20 spirit + 20 mastery rating + 1 socket to do with as we please (probably 40 intellect from a Brilliant Inferno Ruby) = 40 intellect + 20 spirit + 20 mastery rating

Kind of on par with Ember and Fleet, no?

But then we look at Ember’s effect – 54 intellect + 2% maximum mana.

So Ember really looks like this: 2 orange + 54 intellect + 2% max mana = 94 intellect + 40 haste rating/40 mastery rating/40 crit rating + 2% max mana

Fleet’s stats need to be combined with whatever boot enchant you’d like that doesn’t increase run speed. So: 2 orange + 54 mastery rating + 50 mastery rating/50 haste = 40 intellect + 40 haste rating/40 mastery rating/40 crit rating + 50 mastery rating/50 haste

So Fleet is pretty much out of the running, if you’ll excuse the pun. ;) It does offer the most versatility, though. If you want 90 mastery or 90 haste, it would be easy to acquire those with a Fleet.

Bracing’s equation, with stats, looks like this: 1 green +54 intellect = 20 spirit + 20 mastery rating + 1 socket to do with as we please (probably 40 intellect from a Brilliant Inferno Ruby) + 54 intellect = 94 intellect + 20 spirit + 20 mastery rating

And Revitalizing looks like this: 1 green + 54 spirit + 3% increased critical heal effect = 20 spirit + 20 mastery rating + 1 socket to do with as we please (probably 40 intellect from a Brilliant Inferno Ruby) + 54 spirit + 3% increased critical heal effect = 40 intellect + 20 mastery rating + 74 spirit + 3% increased critical heal effect

It looks to me that Bracing and Ember are both sitting pretty in terms of intellect, with Revitalizing being more of an option if you need the extra regen. However, it should be noted that you aren’t getting intellect from Ember’s effect of +2% mana. You’re just gaining mana. So your mana pool grows (which is great) but you don’t gain spellpower or spell crit from its effect. So its effect isn’t really equal to the extra mana 20 intellect gives you.

Since I plan to heal primarily with tanks that I know and trust, I’m throwing Bracing out the window. Fleet has been eliminated. That leaves me with Ember and Revitalizing as choices.

As of right now, and bear in mind that this is before Cataclysm has even launched, I’m thinking of going with Revitalizing to try out the 3% increased critical heal effect and the fact that it’s easily activated with a single green gem. I’ll be sure to write another post if I decide to go with Ember or another choice!

Holy How-To #4 – Frequently Asked Questions

Kurn / / guide, holy how-to (wrath), jewelcrafting, paladins, raiding

Welcome to my Holy How-To for PVE Paladins. This is the fourth of what I hope to be a great many posts aimed at helping holy paladins succeed at PVE content. I will focus primarily on max-level talent specs, glyphs, enchants, gems and the like, including tools, tips and tricks that I use, but I hope to touch on levelling content and advice as well.

Today, we’ll talk a bit about some of the most frequently asked questions pertaining to healing in current PVE content. This is NOT what I actually wanted to go over for my fourth Holy How-To. I actually have a half-written post sitting in Notepad at the moment about healing meters and why they suck. However, I’ve been looking for a new holy paladin for my guild (to replace the one who ninja-transferred) and I just kind of /facepalm when I see some of their armories. So inside, quick questions and answers for holy PVE paladins!

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JC Vendor on PM, Rage Winterchill, Vashj.

Kurn / / apotheosis, jewelcrafting, raiding, ramblings

So, my 70 priest is on Proudmoore, which is the first of all servers to finish Phase 4 and open up the JC vendor.

First of all, I respect the majority of players on Proudmoore as smart, good players. But dude, what pricks most of them seem to be. Alliance ninjaing nodes of everything from other Alliance, the vile Trade chat… It makes me miss Eldre’Thalas, even with its noobs. But the opening of the JC vendor on Proudmoore was… I can’t even express how loathesome it was. There was the usual flagged, mounted Horde, of course, but it was the behaviour of the Alliance that boggled me. People in General were complaining and they’d get told to shut up, to hit Ctrl-V and click on the quest giver’s bar to turn in the quest, told that it’s not a big deal, that they’re noobs… How is this any way to treat the people of your own faction? World PVP, isn’t that supposed to rally people of the same faction together against the opposing?

Instead, Proudmoore’s Alliance was rude, obnoxious and, frankly, it was embarassing.

I hope other servers will show a little more respect in the insanity that is the inn when their JC vendors open up.

And speaking of the vendor… 15 badges a gem. Seems like the official armory is wrong. And yep, at neutral, each pattern is 50g a pop. That’s 47.50 at friendly, 45 at honored, 42.50 at revered and 40g a pop at exalted.

Which is a lot of money. It’s over 1500g for all the patterns at exalted.

Which is why I’m really glad my guild went to play with Hyjal trash last night. I wasn’t able to be there on time, due to RL stuff, and wasn’t even supposed to be there, but they were short people, so they went to Hyjal instead of TK. Which is fine. ’cause I logged on, got a ninja-invite, a ninja-summon (in between Rage waves) and an hour and a half later, Rage Winterchill is dead and everyone in the raid is friendly, even me.

Woot, woot, 74g spent for all the friendly recipes (5g70s apiece instead of 40g!) and some unexpected progression. It was a good night for the guild. :)

Tonight: Vashj. must. die. We got her to 1% last week. 40,000 health. We put 2 DPS on east and west, 1 DPS on north and south, 5 DPS on the striders and melee on naga/leaked elementals. It worked out really damn well, to be honest.

Gems and You: A Guide

Kurn / / guide, jewelcrafting, professions

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to one of what will be many guides written by yours truly, Kurn. Today’s exciting topic, gems.

I’ve been a jewelcrafter on my paladin for almost a year, and to this day, it still astounds me how many people are missing the very basics of the jewelcrafting profession. This is not a guide about how to level up jewelcrafting (the three days I spent in Exodar, running from the AH to the JC trainer to get to 300, were not the most efficient or cheap days of my WoW career), but rather, to inform you about types of gems and cuts. Note that this guide will not be addressing any BOP gems and will only focus on green, rare and epic quality gems and cuts that are available from your friendly neighbourhood jewelcrafter. Further, it will really center on cuts for gems that are mined or come from prospected Fel Iron or Adamantite Ore or are epic-quality. (Pearls and meta gems will be addressed briefly.)

So, let’s get started.

Continue reading “Gems and You: A Guide”