World of Jewelcraftingcraft

Posted by Weezzii in ,

Leiandra made a post on Thursday concerning the lack of epic helms available for non-engineers and non-plate wearers. I've expressed my befuddlement concerning professions a number of times in conversations on ventrilo... and today it continues.

Of course the perfect world of crafting professions involves a sweet and tasty balance between money-making capability and out right usefulness to your character and/or raid/pvp team.
Without a doubt, this would be extremely difficult to achieve (if it's realistic at all). Balancing them for PvP usage probably being the most difficult of all tasks.

Personally, I'm glad LWing, Engineering, Blacksmithing, and Tailoring do not all provide epic helms. If you can achieve the exact same thing in all professions, then just remove them and put one crafting profession in the game as a catch-all. However, everything should provide usefulness on equal ground.

I commend Blizzard on the added uniqueness of gathering professions. It's nice to see small gains coming from that side of the house. I think the crafting side of professions could have had a little more thought put into it (in the big picture).

Across the board, I guess everyone should be a Jewelcrafter. There is simply no other single crafting profession that can match its usefulness. Being a JC, you have gems at your disposal even by simply buying ore off of the AH, and then just prospecting to at least match your money spent... or even triple it. Certainly non-JCs can attempt to mimic this activity by communicating with friends or guildies, but that's not the point of this... and for some people that may not be easily done. Gems are constantly in demand by every lvl80 player in the game. Sure the demand may go down at times, but you can count on it going back up at another time. New raid instance? Gems in massive demand... New arena season? Gems in massive demand... Been a while since a new raid instance or arena season? Gems are in demand (people getting alts into raids/arenas at that point).

Additionally, JC's have some very nice trinkets for self-usage at their disposal. They may not represent "end game" trinkets, but they're a very nice additive to the profession that some people will use for quite some time. Besides these trinkets, JC's can also craft some groovy rings and neck pieces that are desirable for a number of classes. Once again... they may not represent "end game" quality (can I say "end game" with the current content released? probably not), but they are still solid upgrade choices for many individuals.
Now, onto the bread and butter of the decision to be a Jewelcrafter -- JC only gems.

You can't beat them. You are allowed 3 JC-ONLY gems that fulfill the color requirement of a given socket.. allowing for easy gain of socket bonuses and meta-socket usage. This is H-U-G-E.

First off, the JC gem of any given type is superior to its "normal" counterpart.
For example.. the normal [Delicate Scarlet Ruby] versus the JC-only [Delicate Dragon's Eye]... or even [Solid Sky Sapphire] versus [Solid Dragon's Eye].
This is a pretty serious discrepancy. Some argue that this is a comparison between blue gems and epic gems... and the blue gems will be replaced by future, epic gems -- much like we saw in Hyjal/BT.

Unfortunately I can't find the reference, but I remember seeing somewhere that the +16 stat gems will be +20 stat gains when the next tier of gems come out. GREAT! ...but still more than a stone's throw from the JC-only versions. Factor in having 3 of the JC-only gems... and (in the current game) this difference is going to be 16x3 = 48 stat points... versus the JC-only 27x3 = 81 stat points -- totaling a 33 stat difference (and a 21 stat difference after the new epic gems come out). That's a fairly significant boost from an already strong profession.

This isn't the end of the usefulness of these gems. These gems fulfill meta sockets and socket bonuses, they become additionally amazing. Most people have to socket 1-2 gems that are not their best choice for their class/spec simply to make their meta work to their advantage. This changes the stat gain by probably about 11 now.. and 7 after new gems are released. So the real numbers are going to be more like a 44 stat difference and a 28 stat difference.

I liked some of TBC's usable items from professions... namely LWing drums and weapon oils. Tailoring was incredibly overpowered for dps casters when TBC came out... and it remains a decent profession, but doesn't offer much flare in the end.

There's more to be said about the professions I didn't mention much above... but I'm out of time for now. If you're thinking about switching to JCing and you can stomach the gold costs to level it... don't wait, just do it. It's going to benefit you for a long while to come.

13 comments

Anonymous   says February 15, 2009 at 3:15 PM

I've been tossing around the idea of dropping engineering and picking up JC. It's hard for me to stomach as I leveled JC on my DK (only 65) to 415 when Wrath first dropped.

Engineering, let's face it, is a money sink. There are NO benefits to being an engineer anymore. Oh you want to have a sweet ass mechano-hog, oh, they are BoE, not BoP like the flying Mount is. Oh look Saronite bombs, 1500 damage every minute. I admit, since Rogue dps has been sub-par lately, I've been using these every minute during raids. But, I would gain a constant DPS increase from not having to socket any Blue gems and just going 3x27agil and the rest 16agil gems.

Fuck it, I should just drop engineering and pick up jewelcrafting. If someone has 1 reason (other then rezzing Weezii after Sapphiron) to keep engineering. Speak up.

Anonymous   says February 15, 2009 at 6:18 PM

I dropped engineering for JCing once I got T7 helm. It cost me somewhere in the neighborhood to get 1-440 in about 36 hours real time. 2 weeks later I had made that money back x2 and Im doing more dps because of it.

Bottom line Knavve, just do it.

Anonymous   says February 15, 2009 at 6:18 PM

somewhere in the nieghborhood of 3500g**

Anonymous   says February 15, 2009 at 6:29 PM

Ya, I figured so. I'm just going to do it. I'm actually out farming Copper on my alt as I write. Any down side to having 2 high lvl JCs? My alt is at 440ish.

Anonymous   says February 16, 2009 at 12:02 AM

and there we go.. 440 JC and 1 +27 agil gem made...

good night.

Anonymous   says February 16, 2009 at 6:13 AM

My paladin is Jewel crafting and making some decent gold right now.

The benefit foir me as he is an alt is the trinkets they are amazing.

Anonymous   says February 16, 2009 at 7:42 AM

from the perspective of spellpowers:

LW bracer enchants will give you +37 spellpower over the norm.

JC's 3 fancy gems will give you 3x13more spellpower = 36.

Alchemy's mixology will add 32 itemization points to a flask, ie 37 spellpower.

Enchanters get 2x ring enchants of 19 = 38 sp

Inscription gives a shoulder enchant that's 37 sp higher than the norm.

Blacksmithing gives you two extra sockets = 38sp.

Tailoring and Engineering don't have any straight accross buff like these but has some other unique ones. Probably why I dropped engineering.

I was considering going JC before looking into this but the only big upside I see that it has over other professions is the ability to get your socket bonuses without stupid gems. Oh and the money making thing, which I'm not fussed about.

Weezzii   says February 16, 2009 at 8:45 AM

All the more reason to go BS + JC!

Weezzii   says February 16, 2009 at 9:00 AM

Dressa and I were just discussing this a bit more. And for casters, this works pretty well... but for physical dps it is slightly different.

In a lot of cases physical dps wants stats like Str or Agi... not Attack Power, which is what the LW enchant, Ring Enchant, and Inscription enchant are. Alchemy's mixology combined with a flask poses the same issue of getting AP instead of raw stats -- even choosing to go with elixirs won't net you a higher number of the stat you truly want, and would otherwise get if you were a JC (about 33 stat increase of the primary stat by being a JC)

BUT.. if all you want is AP, then the caster information above applies.

Weezzii   says February 16, 2009 at 9:09 AM

*You have earned the achievement: Triple Comment!*

An example... the LWing bracer enchant provides 114 AP, but I don't want AP... I want agility.
The normal bracer enchant gives you 50 AP.
114-50 = 64 AP
64/2 = the equivalent of 32 agility
And I don't gain the crit benefits of agility, because it's AP.

Weezzii   says February 16, 2009 at 9:55 AM

So one more comment before I head out for the day--

In the above comment, ~32 agility was the outcome.
The difference between being a JC and not being a JC is 33 additional stat points of agility (minus socket bonuses and minus making your meta gem work with ease)

Overall the difference is definitely less than I'd imagined or prompted me to make this post. On further review, clearly JC pulls ahead in many cases, but only by a small margin.

Being that the money can be made back (and then some) from leveling, I still believe it to be worth it if you're on the fence. Going with two crafting professions is the way to go if you want to min/max of course.

Anonymous   says February 16, 2009 at 12:35 PM

It seemed the only logical choice to make.. I was getting +64 ap from ring enchants and +0 from engineering.

Now with Jewelcrafting fully leveled, I am looking at this +16 AP +12 Stam gem gone replaced by +27 agil. Gain equivalent to +19agil and meta requirement filled with 1 gem.

+8 Agil +8 Crit replaced by +16 agil.. Equivalent to +2agil

2x 16 agil replaced with +27agil plus socket bonus of +6 agil. Gain of +28agil.

Total of +49 agil gained. Plus Jewelcrafting makes a hell of a lot more money than engineering will ever.

On the negative side. I can't be a rezzer anymore =(

Matticus   says February 17, 2009 at 3:42 AM

Just as an FYI, half your post turned up a really light grey in Google Reader. I suspect you may have hit a color changer somewhere along the way ^^.

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