Gem slotting and "do I vendor this "upgrade" advice needed...

[Azazel]

So I got dragged back into WoW last night by a mate and we did a few runs and completed my KZ key. On the way, some loot dropped and my wife and I ended up with them for "upgrades". Unfortunately, (for me) the items are all of the "piece of shit without gems attatched" type, and I just haven't figured out which gems are worthwhile, since all the socketed items I've seen (including most purples) look to me like piles of shit that maybe have 1 nice effect on them.

So anyway, I'm asking for gem advice, since I suppose it'd be a shame to just vendor the items. 

Please don't bother with the "just go to X and get the Y" type lists - neither of us play enough and out semi-regular group lacks a healer, so shit like that just doesn't happen. Also we're both very casual, and I might play 2-4 hours total through the week (basically jumping on and doing a few dailies) and a few more on the weekend, her online time would be half that. I've had my Heroic Ramparts key for over a month now so I can get a nether for my Enginering hat and have only managed to get into a single aborted run.


My toon is a Rogue, assassination spec, using daggers.

My old chest: Darkstorm Tunic +8 sta
My current chest: Chestguard of the Dark Stalker +8 sta
What I picked up: Tunic of Assassination

Frankly, I'm underwhelmed by World of Sidegrades.


My current gloves: Dragonhawk Gloves of the Bandit - 173 armour, 22 AGI, 33 STA, +44 ATK
What I picked up: Handgrips of Assassination

Not really seeing any benefit to these gloves for everyday soloing. The only benefit when grouped would be in the set bonus if I were also wearing the tunic.

90% of my time is spent soloing daily quests and farming motes for transmutes.



On a related note, my wife (Ice Mage) is currently wearing:


Head: Elementalist Skullcap of the Sorcerer - 120 armour, 44 STA, 29 INT, +34 Dam/heal
New: Incanter's Cowl

Either item will eventually be replaced by the Engineering hat.


Gloves: Eldr'naan Gloves of the Sorcerer - 88 armour, 31 STA, 21 INT, +24 Dam/heal
New: Tempest's Touch

Not seeing a huge benefit. Nothing worth the loss of 290hp.


Legs: Imbued Netherweave Pants +8 sta (full set bonus)
New: Khadgar's Kilt of Abjuration


A good 90% of her time is spent just duoing with my mage, travelling around and working on quests. Not in groups or raids, so HP are actually still important compared to a tiny increase in DPS.


Really, I'm not impressed at all with the socketed sidegrade shit that's supposedly upgrades in TBC. Despite the massive imbalances in PVP, I preferred the way upgrades were actually, you know, better and straightforward pre-BC, even if I'd never see the really good shit. IMO the implementation of gems and sockets in the expansion is shit.

feh.

[Threash]

Slap 3 8agi gems on the tunic since that set bonus is worthless, and those gloves are actually very nice.  Hit rating is EXTREMELY important for rogues, and you should stack as much of it as possible.

[Shavnir]

Clearly old itemization was much better

[Azazel]

Is the chest worth wearing then? (Unslotted, at least), it's a big drop in both crit and AP.
Thanks on the HR. I really hate the stat-juggling meta-game, especially when it comes into trying to balance things like hit, atk, crit, spell pen, etc.

Shavnir. Thanks for your useless post with a link to ancient items that weren't relevent to the comment I was making. Nice one! 

[Chenghiz]

Use Glinting Flame Spessarite (3agi/3hit)/Glinting Noble Topaz (4agi/4hit) until you're at hit cap, and Shifting Shadow Draenite (3agi/4stam)/Shifting Nightseye (4agi/6stam) for blue gems if you want a slot bonus. Don't bother using white quality gems because green quality ones are just a bit more expensive and worth it, don't use blue qualitys unless you're going to keep that piece of gear for a long time because the cost/benefit ratio is quite a bit lower.

I don't know anything about caster gems though.

[edit] The chest is worth wearing for the set bonus, which is pretty awesome tbh. DPS-wise your choices are all pretty similar though (except Darkstorm, which is old and poo) . There's a pretty serious gap in rogue chestpiece quality between that and the next best thing, which is the Chestguard of the Conniver off Nightbane in Kharazan.

[Shavnir]

Regarding Caster Gems it really depends on application.  As for soloing I've only played a warlock so pretty much I could have geared all +spirit and still killed shit.

For Raids, first order of business is cap that spell hit asap.  Sacrifice all stamina (except for mage tanks on High King Maulgar) as needed.  After you're not missing it depends on your crit and +dmg levels, so you'd probably want to work on those stats primarily.

Personally my gear is literally 90% Veiled Noble Topaz just because I'm trying to hit the PvE spell hit cap (16%) without relying on talents (it dosen't affect my deaggro).  Mages have it a lot easier from what I remember.

If you haven't already get a set manager addon like ItemRack or ClosetGnome.  This makes it so you don't just pick one item, you can pick one for PvE, one for PvP, one for standing around the bank, etc etc.

My point with Valor is while Blizz still makes some odd decisions they've finally figured out that Spirit is pretty useless for most of the classes.

[Zetor]

Yeah, as a warlock I basically have two gems: Veiled Noble Topaz [+4 spellhit and +5 spelldamage] and Runed Living Ruby [+9 spelldamage]. I typically just load up with living rubies on most of my gear, and have a separate "hit set" I put on for bosses (which is mostly unsocketable stuff, bleh), though... too much +hit is wasted on trash and normal/heroic instance mobs.


-- Z.

[Morfiend]

Slap 3 8agi gems on the tunic since that set bonus is worthless, and those gloves are actually very nice.  Hit rating is EXTREMELY important for rogues, and you should stack as much of it as possible.

No offense but your high. That set bonus is awesome. Yeah, 6 seconds is pretty short, but haste rating is very very good for rogues. Thats the reason that Dragonspine Trophy is the best trinket for rogues and fury warriors.

Also, you can get 14 ap gems pretty easily from Thrallmar PVP. Since you mostly solo and dont instance, I would think that a mix of hit and AP is good. If you plan on raiding or doing heroics you want to stack much more hit. Being muti spec, you really only need about 200 to 220 hit, and not the 309 hit that most sword roguse go for.

[Morfiend]

One more thing.

You can buy green quality gems from the AH for like 1g 50s each, so defenietly worth socketing them.

[Azazel]

No offense but your high. That set bonus is awesome. Yeah, 6 seconds is pretty short, but haste rating is very very good for rogues. Thats the reason that Dragonspine Trophy is the best trinket for rogues and fury warriors.

..unless he meant socket bonus instead of set bonus?

[Threash]

No offense but your high. That set bonus is awesome. Yeah, 6 seconds is pretty short, but haste rating is very very good for rogues. Thats the reason that Dragonspine Trophy is the best trinket for rogues and fury warriors.

..unless he meant socket bonus instead of set bonus?

Yeah sorry meant socket bonus, thats why i sugested 8agi gems instead of trying to match the colors.

[Fraeg]

Slap 3 8agi gems on the tunic since that set bonus is worthless, and those gloves are actually very nice.  Hit rating is EXTREMELY important for rogues, and you should stack as much of it as possible.

pvp you need 5% hit rating, but if you are pve then pile that to hit on

[Chenghiz]

Slap 3 8agi gems on the tunic since that set bonus is worthless, and those gloves are actually very nice.  Hit rating is EXTREMELY important for rogues, and you should stack as much of it as possible.

pvp you need 5% hit rating, but if you are pve then pile that to hit on

You need 5% +hit to not miss with your special attacks, but you need ~25% (before talents) to not miss with white attacks. Hit rating is just as valuable in pvp as it is in pve.

[Azazel]

And which of these should I get?:

Veteran's Leather Bracers
Shard-bound Bracers

I'm currently wearing
Blade Dancer's Wristguards +24atk enchant.

The other two both seem like upgrades, but also like a big-ass drop in ATK.


I consider myself primarily PVE, and usually solo/duo, though I find I have to PVP to get gear because I find it difficult to get into instance groups since I'm picky about both people and start times (too late in the evening, and I'm not interested). Arena points are slow because my wife and I suck as an arena team, so I'll be going for the offhand weapon and the shoulders probably in that order.. essentially "get the Arena bracers" isn't going to happen with so many other slots to upgrade from it first.

[Chimpy]

The Shard Bound ones are the best PvE ones you listed by far. They have more AP than your existing ones (62 vs 50 AP) and the stam is nice. Though the crit on the veteran's ones make them pretty close.

If you PvP the veteran's ones are probably better just on stam, armor, and resiliance.

[Azazel]

Cool Banannas. Those are the easier of the two for me to get at this point in time. Just need to kill the 4 Dragons on the Plateau once more, so hopefully possibly maybe this weekend then.