Hunter (Re) Gemming

So my hunter is pretty well set up now. I finally got the Nethercobra Leg Armor on my leggings. I'm just an enchant away from replacing Savagery on my Legacy with 35 Agility. And now I look at my gems.

What I'm looking for in gemming is to replace all of my blue quality gems with epics. I'm going to be trying to get my hit rating over the 142 cap but as little OVER 142 as possible. Right now I'm 3 points over-capped. In general, I'm going to favor Agility over Attack Power. AP is probably the easiest buff to get in raids; agility is harder to come by.

Here's the table, showing my plans:

Equipment	Socket	Current	Planned
Helm	Yellow	+4HR/+4AGI	+10AP/+5Crit Rating
	Meta	+24AP/Minor Run Speed	+12AGI/3%Crit Damage
Shoulder	Red	+24 AP	+24 AP
	Yellow	+8 HR	+10 HR
Chest	Yellow	+5 Crit/+10 AP	+5 Crit/+10 AP
Boots	Red	+8AP/+6STA	+5AGI/+7STA
	Blue	+4AGI/+6STA	+5AGI/+7STA
Bracers	Blue	+5AGI/+7STA	+5AGI/+7STA

With these changes, I'll lose 2 hit rating (taking me down to 143 - still hit capped) and 22 AP.

I'll gain 5 Crit Rating, 14 Agility, 2 Stamina and 3% extra critical strike damage.

Since 1 AGI = 1 AP, I'll make up 14 of the lost 22 AP (net loss of 8). Additionally, my crit percent will go up 5/22.08% (from Crit Strike Rating) and 14 x 0.025% (from Agility). This is a .58% increase. I'll also be enjoying the 3% extra damage from critical strikes from the different Meta Gem.

The only drawback is even though I'm a jewelcrafter, I'm not exalted with the Consortium. Thus have no source for the recipe. Let's hope the guildmaster IS exalted with them.

Gem Combinations

Today I'm looking at crafted gems. This discussion doesn't consider the gems that can be purchased, are quest rewards or are drops in dungeons.

When you look at the gem possibilities for socketing you gear, you quickly can determine the following about the primary colors of gems:

• Red Gems affect Strength, Attack Power, Agility, Spell Damage, Dodge or Healing
• Blue Gems affect Mana per 5, Stamina, Spirit or Spell Penetration
• Yellow Gems affect Spell Critical Rating, Spell Hit Rating, Intellect, Resilence, Spell Haste, Hit Rating, Critical Rating or Defense.

Some of the color characteristics, don't combine with other colors, leaving the primary as the only option for increasing that statistic. These "pure" stats are Parry and Dodge (from Red) and Spirit (from Blue). All yellow characteristics can and do combine.

So, that leaves us with 5 combinable red characteristics, 3 combinable blue characteristics and all 8 yellow. So there are a potential for 15 purple gems (of which there are 6), 40 orange gems (of which there are 7), and 24 green gems (of which there are 6).

Sadly, its obvious that Blizzard can't put every combination into the game. Some of the combinations wouldn't even make sense for any class in the game (Spell Haste & Agility or Spell Damage & Hit Rating), but some of them would be welcome additions (Attack Power & Hit Rating or Healing & Spirit).

Please visit the gem resource I mentioned a few days ago to determine exactly which gems you want in YOUR gear.

Edited: There is indeed a crafted gem that combines healing and spirit , and not surprisingly is purple. However, it's pretty well hidden in that the base gem requirement is not a Shadow Draenite, Nightseye or Shadowsong Amethyst. Instead, the base gem is a shadow pearl. Thanks to Awlbiste's eagle eyes for catching this mistake.

Defeated.

I've been trying for days to get a post going about how I was going to resocket three pieces my hunter has with new gems to put less emphasis on Attack Power and more on upping the hit rating and doing a little more to round myself out.

For days I've been thwarted at every turn by tables in Blogger, broken links, corrupted save files, inappropriate codes inserted by text editors, and typing the wrong number in Allakhazam links. That's it. I've wiped on this post enough. I'm going to hit accept and take the 25% durability hit to my blog.

In the end, I'm losing 50 Attack Power, gaining 4 mana/5sec, gaining 12 Agility, Gaining 8 hit rating and gaining 6 stamina.

At this point I don't even care if I actually resocket. I just don't want to think about it and the blog post anymore.

BLECH!