When are we getting Epic gems?

[Eon Drache]

Its not because of JC only. It's because of the combination of JC + Blacksmithing making them mandatory. Though, this time it seems to be Engineering.

[Deleted]

Really glad they didn't come back and hope they never do.

It's either gonna make JC less desirable than other professions if they left JC specific gems the same, or more desirable to people that don't use epic gems if they increased to bonus from JC to compensate.

Also, I don't really like being compelled to dish out 1k gold for a single gem just to be able to max my character completely. Good choice by blizzard this expansion I feel. Pretty sure most people haven't missed them, after all, everything is pretty much fair regarding professions for the most part, I'd rather a purple gem not spoil that.

[Lynneiah]

What if they put a cap on the amount of epic gems one could use? Say, you could only use 3 epic gems at the same time. Wouldn't that keep the BS bonus in check, while also keeping the JC bonus viable?

[Deleted]

I think we will see them in 5.5. It will be a way of nerfing the content for people who are struggling. I know we have upgrade vendors from the start this time, but I still think we will see them in a patch in roughly 2 months time!

[Fungj]

I think we will see them in 5.5. It will be a way of nerfing the content for people who are struggling. I know we have upgrade vendors from the start this time, but I still think we will see them in a patch in roughly 2 months time!

I doubt that, The chance that we will see epic gems again is low and it won't be in the same way as in DS.

[IRunSoFarAway]

Maybe next time.

[Baphomette]

If you value secondary > primary stats for gemming then BS gives you 640, but this isnt "double" effectiveness because 1 haste =/= 1 int (example). 2 haste > 1 int though.

obviously spec dependent but I believe for a lot of specs BS is now top because of this. Basically no matter what blizzard does BS ends up top by end of expansion.

Right, I forgot the secondary stat ones are underbudget (my two JCs gem Str and Int). BS has always been the best because of its flexibility, letting you choose the stats you want. Most professions give you no choice in perk stats. JC lets you choose... but secondary stat gems are the wrong choice.

[Deleted]

I expected Blizzard to use them as the savage nerf they always apply to the last tier before the next expansion hits. They haven't been doing any nerf to raids while they are current this expansion (only the 20% when the next tier appears), and I have to guess, it's thanks to the upgrade system. Epic gems would have fulfilled that role again.

Since GC said "no epic gems", I guess they would throw a 10/20% nerf this time when the next exp gets near.

[Arayaa]

Most likely due to challenge modes and proving grounds. Also (somewhat) RBGS/Arenas.

This expansion, gem sockets have been extremely good. Much better than ever before. Having double secondary stats on gems added a lot of interesting gemming, with many more classes/specs than usual going for socket bonuses and a wider variety of stats. It is a bit of a double edged sword though, in that we've been able to stack certain stats way higher because of it, with certain classes even mastery capping etc. Even for this reason alone, increasing the power of sockets is not a great idea.

I think the main one though is that they've tried their best to keep "scaled" content at a roughly even difficulty despite more gear being introduced. It hasn't really worked too well, challenge mode times have been steadily going faster throughout the expansion as we obtain more sockets. Introducing epic gems though would be a massive stat gain in an area that is supposed to have normalised stats. There is no easy way to add them without causing issues here. You can't have them not work, as this would require a completely different gear set. You can't scale them down to "blue" quality as you would lose caps.

As mentioned above, I think they decided to instead go for valor upgrades as a way to gradually increase character power.

[Romeothecat]

Why would you want epic gems now? Where are they really going to help? Same thing with a legendary after the final boss of the final raid of an expansion.

[Deleted]

I'm glad we had no epic gems this expansion. Felt gutted having JC in DS, when all other professions would bring a larger stat boost, due to the diminished effect of jc gems. The jc gems were never buffed when they added epic gems, since epic gems were something not everyone would use.

So yeah, I'm happy we didn't gey any now.

[Count Zero]

Because Blizzard don't want everyone rerolling JC for a tiny stat boost?

You mean reroll Blacksmith, as they get the most use out of epic gems (JC getting the least)