Comments on: Brief thoughts on Meta Gems

By: Ding! I’m 80, Now What? | Tales of a Priest

Ding! I’m 80, Now What? | Tales of a Priest — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 03:32:04 +0000

[...] high levels of intellect. Our fellow healer Etherjammer has a great breakdown on meta gems over at Duct Tape and a Prayer for a more in depth [...]

By: Chris Anthony

Chris Anthony — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 01:54:47 +0000

@Jess, haha - I didn't mean "pah, merely damage" so much as "only damage and not healing". Didn't intend to imply that damage was beneath me! :) Chaotic Skyflare is great for Shadow priests, and as soon as I get an spriest hat I'm stickin' one in. But healers generally are at the bottom of DPS meters for good reason. ;) And yes, you should! The site's there when you want it. :)

By: Jess

Jess — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 23:36:29 +0000

… /should just launch moulin rogue already… =<

By: Jess

Jess — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 23:35:01 +0000

It’s interesting that Chaotic Skyflare Diamond is a “no” for you guys. Relentless Earthsiege Diamond (and Earthstorm for pre-80s) has the same 3% crit damage boost and is THE go-to meta for rogues:

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41398

Shadowpanther.net is a well-respected authority on number-crunching and min-maxing for rogues, and here’s their PvE gem chart:

http://shadowpanther.net/gems-pve.htm

You say, “It’s tempting to think ‘oh, they mean “critical spell effect”.’ They don’t. It’s just damage. Steer clear.” It’s not quite “just” damage– that 3% translates to a reasonable boost in dps. In fact, all of the top rogue metas have that particular 3%. =)

I totally understand that this is a list for priest /healers/, and you say you’ll be “leaving out the gems that are clearly not healing gems”, but the Skyflare was still in there and caught my attention, so here’s my comment on its usefulness– if not for haelz priesties, maybe some food for thought for a future Tiryns? ;)

By: ambient

ambient — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 19:21:34 +0000

Slightly off topic, but if you’re even *considering* the Tireless gem, just get the boot enchant for run speed — it’s called Tuskarr’s Vitality and also adds a bit of stamina. The boot enchant alternatives are lackluster (spirit, crit+hit), compared to the excellent meta gem options you open up (yes, they’re annoyingly all mana-oriented, but still a darn sight more useful than +18 spirit). And everyone can use more stam.

I highly recommend it for healers, particularly if you’re pugging frequently. Tanks who run without raid frames, and are oblivious to the fact that Charge and Pursuit of Justice can carry them swiftly out of heal range? Less of a problem. : )

By: Chris Anthony

Chris Anthony — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 17:32:13 +0000

Dawn had a good point - it was just hard to dig out of the column because of the organization. It's unfortunate that there really isn't a good meta gem for priests who are okay on mana - all of them have to do with mana pools or mana return. Blizzard's using Meta gems to do interesting things, when what the top-end raiders want is gems that do universally useful things, and so they're forced to take something they don't really need. In this case it's a choice between lots of mana pool manipulation/mana return and a little manipulation/return, and if she doesn't need the mana then her choices are valid. That said, I think most priests should probably stick with IED just because mana is an issue for everyone who's not just stacking Intellect like it's sweet, sweet candy.

By: Derevka

Derevka — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:54:37 +0000

Glad you wrote this up… I have to admit I died a little on the inside and /headdesk when I saw the post the new Spiritual Guidance writer put up. (poorly written and even more poorly researched, in my eyes. WoW.com is where people go to for information… anyhoo, I dont want to go on a diatribe) One thing that I’m glad the priest community is seeing, is people speaking up and commenting on that thread and creating Blog Posts about this as well. Kudos to you good sir!

By: Chris Anthony

Chris Anthony — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 14:24:13 +0000

@Miss Medicina, that seemed right to me, too, when I was writing it, but I did some quick envelope math: if I crit for 10,000, my Divine Aegis will shield for 3,000. With Revitalizing Skyflare, that 10,000 crit will actually be 10,300, and the Divine Aegis will be 3,090 (30% of 10,300). The additional 90 shielding is 3% of the original 3,000. To go into probably more math than you wanted, that holds true because +3% in WOW is almost always actually *1.03, and because multiplication is both associative (the order of evaluation doesn't matter: (x*y)*z = x*(y*z)) and commutative (terms can be rearranged without affecting the outcome: x*y*z = y*z*x) but not distributive (that is, (x*y)*z != (x*z) * (y*z)). So (taking X to be the amount of a critical heal) (X * 1.03) * 0.3 is equivalent to (X * 0.3) * 1.03, not (X*0.3) * (1.03*0.3), which is the answer that made sense to both of us at a quick glance because the tooltip implies addition, not multiplication. I hope that made sense. :)

By: Miss Medicina

Miss Medicina — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 07:32:12 +0000

Regarding Revitalizing Skyflare Diamond, your Divine Aegis bubbles’ size are 30% of the crit. So, if the crit is increased by 3%, that does not equate into a direct 3% increase in the size of your Divine Aegis bubble. It equates into.. uh. 1% increase? .1%? hrm.

By: Ndiayne

Ndiayne — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 02:07:19 +0000

Excellent brief run-down on the various meta gems and their usefulness in PvE. .-= Ndiayne´s last blog: Return of the flailtank =-.