Conventional gemming strat viable?

[Thraxx 0]

Hello my main is an Unholy dk 566ilvl who gems and reforges for str and crit as these are my two most important stats.

 

I have recently been seeing plate users completely overrding their sockets bonuses and str gems to stack completely for mastery or crit. I have seen this two times on toons very recently.

 

Last night I pug'd a Garrosh group and I ran into a Frost dk who was doing just that. He has almost every single socket filled with 320 mastery gems. He was pulling around 350-360dps sustained. His Ilvl was the same as mine.

 

I also encountered a Fury warrior who was doing the same thing but only for crit gems.Mind you this fury warrior was LFR/FLEX geared. He also out dps'd me. Aside from a few expertise or hit gems they are completely gemming and reforging for their secondary stats at the full expense of strength, which mind you is our most important stat.

 

Im not a scrub but I'm not a top 100dps on the game either. I like to think I know how to play my class well. When I see some one doing something like that I honestly consider doing it myself to see the results. It is quite a costly thing to replace all of my gems and then re replace them if I find the strategy non viable.

 

I would like to hear other peoples thoughts on this issue. Is the conventional gemming strategy no longer viable?

[Hybrys 199]

There's just a point now where some classes happen to scale with secondary stats at a better than 2:1 ratio.

 

Typically, most will still go for socket color though, only ignoring 'useless' stats.

[Thraxx 0]

Excuse my newbishness but what classes scale towards that? How do you calculate your stats ratios? When is it viable to do things this way? sorry for all the questions. I am about to leave for work soon so I wont know untill tomorrow but I have purchased most of the gems I need in order to try this out myself.

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/arathor/Thr%C3%A5xx/simple

http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/gear/usa/arathor/thr%C3%A5xx

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/windrunner/Pira/simple

Fury warrior I ran into on Ordos group ^^^

 

I just noticed a few things wrong with some of my gems in that strat but im leaving now.

Edited April 26, 2014 by Thraxx

[Hybrys 199]

Excuse my newbishness but what classes scale towards that? How do you calculate your stats ratios? When is it viable to do things this way? sorry for all the questions. I am about to leave for work soon so I wont know untill tomorrow but I have purchased most of the gems I need in order to try this out myself.

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/arathor/Thr%C3%A5xx/simple

http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/gear/usa/arathor/thr%C3%A5xx

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/windrunner/Pira/simple

Fury warrior I ran into on Ordos group ^^^

 

I just noticed a few things wrong with some of my gems in that strat but im leaving now.

It's pretty hard to answer all of those questions, because it depends on the class, ilvl, playstyle, and gearing strategy.  It might not be right for you, or your class.

 

Most people know when to switch over from primaries based on certain thresholds.  If you're looking for specific advice regarding your own character, why not try posting in the Death Knight sub-forums for some help with optimization?

Edited April 26, 2014 by Hybrys

[Thraxx 0]

I think Ive found out what I needed to. I had a lot of furious bouts with alot of training dummies and had a friend make a crapload of gems. I definately benefit from stacking crit. I can average well into 350k dps on training dummies without raid buffs on my own.Before I was struggling to stay at 280-290. Pretty much where ever I have a 320 crit gem in an orange slot is where I would have been stacking the str>crit gems.

 

Plus with my str tinket I am able to make up for all of the strength I have lost in the gems replaced. Thanks Siegecrafter Blackfuse!

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/arathor/Thr%C3%A5xx/advanced

[TIme987 3]

some classes such as the one you said pull more dps that way. i play a shadow priest and myself ( as well as a lot of shadow priest) will stack pure haste gems most their sockets bonuses are extremely not needed this late in the expansion.

[Storm 426]

It really depends on what the socket bonus is on the specific piece of gear, and what sacrifices you have to make to match the socket color.

 

If for example you were already over hit cap by a large amount (you aren't, but if you were) your legs have 2 blue sockets and 1 red socket, and a 120str bonus for matching the socket colors. If you were already over hit cap you would most likely put 2x Stam+Crit green gems, and 1 Str+crit orange gem, and then you would get the 120str bonus.

 

So you would get:

480 Crit

200 Str

240 Stam

 

If you ignore your socket bonus and gem pure crit in your legs you would have

960 crit

 

960 crit > 480 crit + 200 str.

 

Since you are not hit capped then your biggest dps gain is from using hit+crit green gems and keeping the socket bonus, but theoretically there is a situation where you could be best by not getting the socket bonus It's just a matter of crunching the math with stat weights to figure out which will give you the most dps.

 

AskMrRobot is a good source for figuring out your optimized gemming.