Noob gemming question

[Oxboy555]

How come, if hit and expertise are so important to us, that none of the gemming strategies in the major guides (EJ, Bassm, Tankspot, etc) talk about gemming with these two traits?

[DisRuptive1]

To be a properly geared protection paladin raid tank, you MUST:

- Reach Hit cap (2550 Hit rating)
- Reach Expertise hard cap (5100 Expertise rating)

Source

TLDR: Reforge to 7.5% hit (2550 rating) and 15% expertise (5100 rating, or 4400 rating if you use the Expertise elixir). Then prioritize Mastery and haste over parry and dodge.

Source

Granted, Fetzie really doesn't explain the theorycraft of why you should do his recommendations. He mainly just gives a generalized primer.

Don't know what Bassm is.

[Oxboy555]

To be a properly geared protection paladin raid tank, you MUST:

- Reach Hit cap (2550 Hit rating)
- Reach Expertise hard cap (5100 Expertise rating)

Source

TLDR: Reforge to 7.5% hit (2550 rating) and 15% expertise (5100 rating, or 4400 rating if you use the Expertise elixir). Then prioritize Mastery and haste over parry and dodge.

Source

Granted, Fetzie really doesn't explain the theorycraft of why you should do his recommendations. He mainly just gives a generalized primer.

Don't know what Bassm is.

Dis, not meaning to be rude but you didn't answer the question. I understand the hit and exp caps. I don't understand why none of the pro guides talk about using gems with these traits to arrive at the caps. Is it just assumed that you will get to the caps with gear stats, reforging and enchants alone without ever needing to consider using gems with hit and exp?

[daishan]

I can't say why they haven't specifically said to use hit/exp gems. You definitely should be using exp hybrids in red sockets and hit/stam in yellow sockets (its a green gem) if nothing else. Once you have some raid gear you more than likely can hit the caps without any gems, at lower gear levels don't be afraid to gem pure exp to get hard cap, assuming your not too low on hp ofc.
At what point you have enough hp is a whole other discussion, for 10 man normal I think it's well worth sacrificing some stam for hard caps gets more fuzzy for 10 man hm and 25's.

[econ21]

The OP makes a fair point. At lower gear levels, you are probably going to have to gem some expertise/hit to meet the caps. I prefer to try to meet those caps by reforges and to some extent enchants, because I don't like the idea of regemming whenever I get a new piece of gear. I have an aversion to destroying an existing epic gem by slotting in a new one, whereas paying for reforging does not phase me. I haven't looked at the cost of gems this expansion, though, so maybe my economics are off.

I was thinking about writing a short guide to gemming for MoP as it seems messy - I don't think there's a simple recommendation for each colour slot like the consensus at the end of MoP. Theck argues for prioritising stamina with hybrids with some hit or expertise when needed to match colours. Others might prioritise haste or mastery, or indeed hit and expertise.

[Thels]

Swapping a gem costs me around 30-40g, while reforging my gear costs around 200g. Still, even after swapping a gem, I'll still try to reforge my entire gear for optimal states. Thanks to ReforgeLite! (Though I have to swap Haste and Mastery)

I try to get Hit/Exp gemmed from gear, enchants and reforges first, gems after. That gives you some leeway between secondary stats and stamina from your gems. At starting gear levels, you really need some Hit/Exp from gems.

Once our gear reaches adequate values that we can Hit/Exp cap without gems or trinkets, I recommend not reforging trinkets towards Hit/Exp anymore, so you can easily swap trinkets based on the nature of the fight without losing Hit/Exp caps.

[theckhd]

The OP makes a fair point. At lower gear levels, you are probably going to have to gem some expertise/hit to meet the caps.

At low gear levels, you're also desperate for more stamina, which you can only get via gems and enchants. At those gear levels, it's probably more beneficial to stack stamina and not worry as much about being a little below cap. Obviously capping is good when you can get there, but having enough stamina is probably more important for survival.

[GreyedExpectations]

Hi,

according to Theck's MATLAB, expertise hugely drops in value after spell hit cap is reached (with 7,5% hit and 7,5% expertise), which makes sense, since that is also when the chance of getting dodged reaches zero.
So, if we have 7,5% hit and 7,5% expertise, which means we have reached hit cap and spell hit cap, shouldn't haste become better than expertise now, in terms of DPS aswell as Holy Power generation?

1% less chance to get parried increases our HP generation as much as 1% less CD on Crusader Strike, but other cooldowns are lowered too, e.g. Judgement, Avenger's Shield etc. Doesn't that mean that, after spell hit cap is reached with 7,5% hit and 7,5% expertise, haste becomes more valuable than expertise?

[daishan]

Our Holy Power generators count as melee attacks, so exp is just as valuable above 7.5% as below, for survival.

Just Quoting Worldie as I was somewhat fuzzy on just how exp worked in MoP

In cataclysm, first 26 expertise were removing both parry and dodge off the table, since bosses had 5% chance to dodge and 12%~ parry chance. So the first 26 expertise would remove 5% dodge and 5% parry, then the following expertise would remove only parry cause all dodge was already taken off.

In MoP, bosses have 7.5% dodge chance and 7.5% parry chance. The first 7.5% expertise remove only dodge while the following 7.5% expertise remove only parry.

[Schroom]

ok puting this here no need for another threat I guess.

in order to reach exp hardcap I used some pure Expertise gema and expertise/stamina gems.

now i reach hardcap way easier so my question is, is t worth switching hit/stamina and expertise gems for pure stamina or haste/stamina gems to get the most itemization out of it? or do I keep thos gems and reforging out of expertise gives me more haste in the long run?

[Thels]

Using Hit, Expertise or Haste in your gems doesn't matter in the long run, as long as you can still manage to get Hit and Exp capped.

However, if you still need to reforge towards Hit and Expertise, it might be slightly better to include some hit and expertise in your gems instead of haste. That makes it easier to reach the caps, so there are more reforge options to get there. That in turn most likely means you'll be closer above the caps.

Of course, that's if you gem Hit and Exp instead of Haste. You cannot gem Hit and Exp instead of Stamina this way, so then the question is, "How much stamina do I want?"

Note that if you gem for Stamina, you should first put the Sha Armor Kits on your boots and gloves (and enchant your cloak with Protection, if you're not already doing that).

[Schroom]

thanks for that. yeah the question is if it is worth switching hastegems for hit/exp gems.

I switched the enchants already (although I personally prefer pandaren's step on boots, love that speed increase)

although yeah, I am still reforging into expertise and hit. so what you're saying is that I should wait to gem haste instead of hit/exp until I no longer have to forge into the equivalent stat?

you can check my armory if you like, maybe you notice something http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/k ... m/advanced

thank you.

[Thels]

Theoretically speaking there's no difference between gemming Hit/Exp and reforging towards Haste or gemming Haste and reforging towards Hit/Exp.

However, if you gem for Haste, and need to reforge your entire gearset towards Hit and Expertise, there's a good change it won't be able to cut close to the cap, and you might end up with something like 8% hit or 15.5% expertise.

If you already gem towards hit and expertise, there are a lot of options to get to the cap using reforging, so there's a much bigger chance that the reforge will come out just above the caps.

Note that that's assuming you use some addon like ReforgeLite to calculate your reforges. Of course you can also ask a site like AskMrRobot, who can advise you on both gemming and reforging, which might cut it even closer. But are you going to swap all your gems around every time you gained one more piece of equipment?

[Schroom]

no, my goal was to get to one gemming strategy, or at least have one as a goal and after reaching that goal continuing with it without worrying to much about the rest. but yeah thanks your arguments cleared those questions and uncertainties I had.