Noob Q alert - Meta Gem requirements

This question so starkly exposes my lack of basic WoW knowledge I hesistated posting it. However, I have noticed several threads recently where people have posted "I equipped X item and my stamina/avoidance dropped" only to be politely reminded they'd probably lost their meta gem bonus.

So my question is this:

How can I easily tell if I've fulfilled my meta gem requirements? I dumbly assumed that if you could equip the meta you had the pre-requisite gems.

I recently equipped:

Eternal earthsiege meta gem

...and have no idea what it requires or whether I can quickly tell whether the bonus is working ... unfortunately, like many, I can only access this site at work.

Ooops sorry this should have been in the other gear question folder.

Usually the socket gem bonus will go from gray to green/white and the actually gem will go from gray to white when you scroll over it in the Socket Gems window.

Or you can just double check wowhead for the requirements of the gem and then look at the gems you currently have.

A little fact nugget I found out two days ago. I only had two sockets and was bummed about my meta just burning a hole in my head. Figured I'd just try using the multicolor gems, and lo and behold, it worked. Essentially, those suckers can count as two towards your meta requirements.

Two birds, one gem!

I'm sure I'm the last person to have known this, but boy was I happy.
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Meta gem activated:


Requirements are listed right under the gem.

Meta gem inactive:


Note the gray text.
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Don't forget that you can add a socket to any belt - there aren't that many blues with sockets, so at first I could only activate my meta after socketing my belt.

Also, unlike BC where some of the socket bonuses seemed pretty lame, they all seem pretty useful in Wrath (so far, in the gear I've gotten).

So I'm using these gems in 100% of the appropriately colored slot:

blue slot - 24 STA

red slot - __Dodge/12 STA

yellow slot - 8 Def/12 STA

I'm using the Defense meta-gem at the moment.
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I can get parry/defence gems on my server but cannot get dodge/defence.
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This isn't the "Offtankadin" forum.
Knaughty of the Nightfall.
Basic FAQ and Advanced FAQ

Thanks Fuzzy, you understood what I meant.

I use prismatic for stam as a JCer for the meta requirements.
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