Frost gemming

[JaredMcGilbery 0]

Few questions since I can't seem to find a topic on this.

Why is crit prioritized over strength when gemming? It goes against what is shown in the frost stat priorities.

If crit is indeed ideal for gemming, wouldn't that make Skinning our 2nd best profession?

I just hit 90 on my death knight yesterday. Currently running a 2H. At a 504 item level I'm sustaining about 135k on the Iron Juggernaut encounter without any profession bonuses. Would the change to crit gemming be highly noticeable? Or should I just wait until I have upgrades to bother with it?

[Razielz 0]

You gem Pure Crit because in MoP Secondary Stat gems get 2x the number of strength.

 

Bold Primordial Ruby

 

VS

 

Smooth Sun's Radiance

 

so if 1 Point of your Secondary Stat Crit is atleast worth 0,5 Strength, pure Crit Gemming is worth it and for all DK speccs YES its worth it (most for DW Frost because Mastery is sooo strong^^).

 

for your Second question no Skinning sucks Skinning give you only 480 Krit raiting and the other Professions give you 320 Strength.

In this case you have not the doubled value of Secondary Stat over Primary Stats. If you wanna make max DPS take Engeneering and Blacksmithing, but if you only play just for fun and a little bit NHC raiding it dosn't matter much if you have them or not, in WoD all Profession Bonuses go away anyway.

 

mfg Raz

[JaredMcGilbery 0]

Okay, thanks! I suppose that's a reasonable answer, though it sucks I can't find any stat weight evaluation to show that 1 crit > 0.5 strength.

This is my first melee dps since wotlk when feral just stacked armor pen gems. Lol, forgive my ignorance. The other MoP classes I've played have breakpoints/soft caps for their secondary stats so I typically end up gemming pure intellect or balancing dodge/parry, etc.

Thanks again, I'll check back later if anyone else wants to weigh in.

[Storm 426]

Exact stat weights will vary some depending on your gear, but it's roughly:

 

2H Frost:

Strength: 1

Crit: 0.54

Mastery: 0.49

Haste: 0.35

 

At lower ilvl's haste is slightly better than this, but at some point you'll start getting into the 80-90% haste range even when you're reforging out of it everywhere you can. Since crit is worth more than .5 that means a pure crit gem would be a small dps gain over a pure strength gem. it's a relatively small gain, but min/max is min/max. All of your enchants should still be strength enchants though since the strength enchants usually offer a similar amount to any other stat ie: 170 strength on gloves vs. 170 mastery, or 170 haste.

 

DW Frost:

Strength: 1

Mastery: 0.77 !

Crit: 0.52

Haste: 0.44

 

Mastery is worth .77! That makes a pure mastery gem 50% stronger than a pure strength gem for DW. Mastery is actually so powerful for DW that in quite a few cases it's a dps gain to complete ignore socket colors and just gem pure mastery and lose most of your socket bonuses (unless the socket bonus is mastery). Mastery is almost stronger than hit/exp capping (it's so close that if you were running 0% hit and replaced all of it with mastery, you'd only lose around 2-3% dps. The only thing that has significantly more effect on DW dps than mastery is Main Hand weapon damage.

 

However, you should still enchant for str because all of the echants are pretty much 1:1. 170 strength on gloves is still better than 170 mastery, and same for bracers.

[Kontagion 0]

It's all dependent on the socket bonus. If the bonus is worth going for (normally 120 str), then it is best to use orange (str/crit) gems in red sockets, and crit gems in yellow sockets. Blue sockets can be tricky, if you can get away with reforging out of the extra hit rating, pick up the green (crit/hit/) gems in blue. If a bonus is less than ~60-80 str (don't remember the exact number, but I can get it for you later if you'd like), then gem all yellow gems.

 

A bigger concern, is that at 504, you should not be prioritizing crit rating yet. Haste is a much more valuable stat until a higher gear level. When looking at stat weights, remember that they are calculated for raiders with BiS gear, which will have a lot of haste passively on gear. If you find yourself with a lot of downtime, even while effectively using AMS soaking, plague leach, and blood tap, then add some haste. If you are finding yourself with not enough GCD's for your resources, drop some haste.