Gem Faqts. Part One

Think fast.What's the first thing you do when you get new gear?

If you said "masturbate" then go to the penalty box and feel shame.

If you said BLING BLING, then allow me to help. You are on your own with the first answer, Perv!

Gemming and enchanting your gear for maximum stats can vastly improve your gameplay. Here's the basics to maximize your gem set.

With one exception, any colored gem can go in any slot.

The exception is Meta gems, which can only go in a Meta slot. Meta gems will have a requirement to be activated. For instance, if your meta gem says it requires 2 blue gems, then that means within all of the rest of the gear you are wearing, you must have 2 blue gems equipped to activate the meta.

Secondary colored gems count as 2 different colors. A purple counts as a red and a blue. An orange counts as a yellow and a red. A green counts as a yellow and a blue.

So if you had a Meta gem that required you to have a red and a blue gem, you could equip just one single purple gem and the Meta requirements will be fulfilled.

The first thing to consider when gemming is the meta requirement. If you are a jewelcrafter you are in luck because the dragon's eye gems count as every color all at once, and since you can (and will!) wear 3 of them, any Meta requirement is trivialized.

The second thing to consider is maxing out your important stats. This comes before going for slot bonuses, but the slot bonuses need to be considered if they are going to give your 'most important stats'. I'll use a dps class as an example. For the majority of DPS classes, maxing the hit rating is pound for pound the highest dps increase. If you have a red socket bonus that adds +8attack power, but your hit is not capped, you better put a yellow hit gem in there and forego the attack power.

Learning about EP ratings (Equivalency Points) is very helpful when deciding which socket bonuses to give up. (I'll explain EP ratings more in depth soon, but basically it is assigning a value to your stats, i.e. lets say Hit is twice as important as Crit so every 1 Hit would be worth 4 points and every 1 Crit would be worth 2 points. EP values are very helpful when trying to decide between pieces of gear, or gems!)

The 3rd thing to consider when max gemming is which gem in which slot. Once you know which stats you need to max out (Hit, Defense, whatever) This was sort of mentioned in step 2, but really does deserve it's own spot in the "things to consider" list. In my case I am capped out on Expertise and Hit, but nearly every gear upgrade has me shuffling around gems to keep at the cap yet expand into other stats whenever possible.

Stay tuned for a list of best in slot gems for every class/build, and I may have time for MSPaint.