Cataclysm Gemming

Cataclysm items are flooding the internet. It's impossible for me to post everything, as much as I like to say HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THE NUMBERS ON THIS ROBE I'll have to keep such posts to a minimum.

However, some items are notably profound. Comparing a level 79-81 dungeon to level 80 raid content is particularly compelling for the sake of the gear reset, but also compelling are the more mundane items we'll be using all the time. Today, those mundane items are gems. Stats get moved around a lot in Cataclysm, and gemming had to be almost completely redone as a result. Click for details.



So, with stats swiveled all over the place on different gem colors, how did things settle for us? Well, let's look where the stats landed first.
Red Stats: Strength, Intellect, Agility, Parry, Expertise
Yellow Stats: Resilience, Mastery, Haste, Crit, Dodge
Blue Stats: Stamina, Hit, Spirit, Spell Penetration

Rare gems (as with BC and Wrath there won't be any epic gems initially) have 50 of their given stat, or 75 in the case of stamina. Split gems have 25 of each, or 37 stamina.

Note blue sockets don't really give us a solid pick. Spell pen presumably still doesn't function in PVE, spirit no longer benefits us, stamina isn't a DPS stat and hit is highly situational, it may not always be a gain to gem. Oh shame mastery wasn't a blue stat.

Yellow's not easy, either. Mastery's there, and haste and crit are still there. The rating conversions suggest haste will still be better than crit, however destruction may strongly favor crit because of their critical damage mastery bonus, and mastery remains the great unknown that could fall just about anywhere.

Red is at least easy, 50 intellect (that is, 50 spellpower) is spectacular, and always a solid pick. 25/25 split with any of our secondary stats isn't bad, either.

An interesting fact, however, is that currently none of the new meta gems indicate activation requirements, which may mean it's not such a big deal we have no good blue stats, we can just bugger blue sockets and their bonuses. The Chaotic Shadowspirit Diamond gives 54 crit and 3% crit damage, and has no listed requirement. This could be a bug or just not implemented yet, or it may be a move away from meta requirements, which could be very good indeed if blue remains such a lackluster DPS gem. Particularly with that possibility on the board, tier 11 may default to stacking intellect and ignoring bonuses much like tier 7 did. Socket bonuses have never been a huge DPS gain, just that extra 15 dps you wouldn't have had otherwise, and while hopefully the first tier won't be as easy as Naxx was, don't expect Heroic LK or pre-nerf Muru in tier 11, it is still the first tier.

Last note, if you're a jewelcrafter, red gems are more in demand than ever. Not only are all three main DPS stats still on red, but the big stack-stat for healers is there now, too. When in doubt, everyone except tanks will be stacking red gems, and orange/purple half red gems will be the major option for hitting bonuses.