Where do I find gems?

[HRose]

Keep in mind that I'm not crafting myself and that I'm still level 63 and currently outside a guild.

From instances I'm starting to get loot with gem slots, but without the gems the loot isn't that great. The point is that while I get money and loot from quests, I still haven't seen any gem landing naturally in my backpack.

So, the more I go on, the more I get equipment with those empty slots, what are my choices? I surely don't want to spend too much gold to get gems, nor I'm going to waste time asking for a jewelcrafter. Nothing useful I could find in the Auction House. The only possibility I can figure out is a NPC vendor in the starting zone who sold some gems I think.

So, is there a simple way to get some gems? Is there a guide somewhere that explains the various types and how they can be taken?

[Oban]

http://www.wowwiki.com/Jewel

[Teleku]

Yeah, just look at the gems on that guide linked, find which one has the best stats you want for the color you want, then just buy them off the AH.  Cut gems go for pretty cheep.  About 1-2g it seems usually (for Green/uncommon gems, that is).  Rare and Epic gems obviously go for a fuck ton more.

[Chenghiz]

Yeah, the auction house is your best friend for finding gems, and green-quality ones are indeed quite inexpensive.

[Koyasha]

There's also a gem vendor in Thrallmar/Honor Hold, and in Shattrath City, that sells some baseline relatively crappy but still useful gems.  I use the +6 stamina gems a lot, cause for 1g 80s, I can get a gem that's half as good as what sells on the auction house for about 80 gold, the Solid Star of Elune.  Once I get good gear that I don't think I'll change in a long while, then I'll consider using the more expensive gems on it, but for lower-level gear, I don't find it worthwhile to spend more than a couple gold on each gem slot.

[SurfD]

never did find out, but can a level 1 jewlcrafter prospect ANY grade of ore, or is it scaled like Disenchanting is now?

And yes, the gem market TOTALLY blows for Blue gems.

Why would i pay 50g for a 6stam / 8 hit gem, when i can pay 3g for a 4stam /  6 hit gem (or 12 stam vs 9 stam, etc).

It WOULD help if the stupid monthly reward packed from Consortium rep wasnt broken (origionally, after completing a specific turnin quest in Nagrand for the consortium, you were supposed to recieve a package in the mail at the start of every month with gems in it, grade of gem related to your current Consortium rep, but that feature has been broken since day one.

Other then that, Mining or Prospecting raw ores is the only way to reliably get good gems.  You can find blue ones in instance chests, and i have seen green ones drop off of mobs, but drop rate is very low.

[Calantus]

And yes, the gem market TOTALLY blows for Blue gems.

Why would i pay 50g for a 6stam / 8 hit gem, when i can pay 3g for a 4stam /  6 hit gem (or 12 stam vs 9 stam, etc).

I would totally buy the better gem for 16x the price if it was for a piece I intended to keep for a while. Who wants an inferior gem in their sockets?

So yeah... people like me are why the blue gem market is crazy.

[HRose]

Wait, I'm a miner. It is needed for something? What's this prospecting?

I guess my problem was to find out what to type in the AH. I expected gems to scale much more and be much stronger, instead it's a quite simple system and you don't miss all that much if you cannot get the top gems.

[Fordel]

Jewel Crafters 'disenchant' raw ore into gemstones, the same gems you can get from mining normally. The quality of gems is tied to the type of ore.



Most of the leveling up socket items are just kinda crappy really, so don't be afraid to just bail on the item. I find the key to getting the most use out of the sockets is to just flat out ignore the color scheme matching and put in the gems with the stats you want. You can browse through http://www.thottbot.com/?gem=All thottbot or just look at the gem vendors in honorhold/thrallmar and put in the base 'effect' you want into the AH search.


IE: The +spell crit gems are all 'Gleaming', it is just the quality of the gem that effects the size of the bonus.

Gleaming Amber is +4 spellcrit (You can buy this off the NPC vendor)
Gleaming Golden Draenite is +6 (Usually 1-5gp off AH)
Gleaming Dawnstone is +8 etc... (25-50gp :( off AH)

Either buy the gem off the AH, get the base gem and find a JC to craft it for you or buy a crappy NPC vendor gem.

You won't find gems from quests or random drops, not until 70 when your deep into some heroic dungeon or raid. Also a few PvP reward Gems, but those are going down in cost *Drastically* come 2.1 patch, so hold off on getting those.

[Koyasha]

Color matching does seem to generally be a waste of time.  Especially if you're a tank (or a PvPer) and generally just want LOTS OF HP, in which case you want to fill every socket with +stamina.

Yes, Jewelcrafters are limited in what ore they can prospect by their skill just like enchanters now are.

[Fordel]

The only thing worse then the color matching is the Meta gem prerequisites.

[SurfD]

you DO get gems as drops.  I got a green gem off of a boglord in Zangarmarsh the other day while farming primal life.

Cant say about blues.

[Zetor]

If you run instances a lot, chests are a very reliable source for gems. They almost always have an uncommon gem, and sometimes have a rare one.


-- Z.

[SurfD]

The only thing worse then the color matching is the Meta gem prerequisites.

Metagem's arent so harsh, once you realise that a multi slot gem (fits in Blue / Yellow socket, etc) actually counts as both a Blue AND Yellow gem for purposes of Meta Activation.

[rk47]

Is there even a worthwhile meta gem for my dps elemental caster?
I heard the proc rate on 300 mana given per spell cast is around 2% which is very very low. Even my Lightning Overload 5% gives better deal than that.
5% to half next spell cast spd? No, I need longetivity, not faster dps. I don't think 1 second lightning bolt is gonna matter much compared to the 3 x 8 Spell Crit I'm missing should I trade my 3 socket helm with a meta socket one, and that doesn't even need 5% chance to trigger.

So no, I don't think Meta gems are even worth the trouble or price.

[MisterNoisy]

Is there even a worthwhile meta gem for my dps elemental caster?
I heard the proc rate on 300 mana given per spell cast is around 2% which is very very low. Even my Lightning Overload 5% gives better deal than that.
5% to half next spell cast spd? No, I need longetivity, not faster dps. I don't think 1 second lightning bolt is gonna matter much compared to the 3 x 8 Spell Crit I'm missing should I trade my 3 socket helm with a meta socket one, and that doesn't even need 5% chance to trigger.

So no, I don't think Meta gems are even worth the trouble or price.

The Swift Starfire Diamond should be pretty worthwhile for dps casters, (since any bonus in that slot is better than nothing) and only costs 8 Spirit Shards (collected from bosses in Auchindoun instances while the +xp buff is active in Terokkar); the +run speed is a nice bonus.  It's not top-tier, but it's definitely readily attainable.  Not sure if there's a meta gem hat that'll offset the loss of the +24 crit tho.

[Trouble]

A common misconception is that you need to follow the socket color. You can put ANY COLOR gem in any slot (aside meta). You only need to follow the slot color if you're trying to activate the socket bonus. Most of the time the socket bonus is not worth activating, unless it's a really high end item. For your class and current gear there's probably an optimal gem/s to use and it most often does not follow the socket color. For example, as a shadow priest the only gem worth a damn is the +9 spell damage one. All my sockets have those.