WoW Guide: Gemming for mages

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In most cases, spellpower gives you the most bang for your buck. This is almost always going to be true. But it would be a mistake to assume that the optimal gem setup for every mage is always going to be a Runed Cardinal Ruby in every slot, regardless of the color of the slot. Past a certain point, more spellpower isn't always the best policy. Once you get in the neighborhood of 4,000 spellpower, other stats, most notably haste for Arcane mages, start to creep up on something akin to equal footing.

Lets look at the current stat hierarchy:  

• Hit rating - This is the single most important stat until it is capped. See this column for specifics on your spec's hit cap. It varies depending upon talents and raid buffs. Once geared in full epic gear, this should be capped in most cases, without the need for hit rating gems. If you still need hit rating to reach your particular cap, then gems are a good place to get it. Once capped, this stat ceases to be useful in the slightest.
• Spellpower - When in doubt, go with spellpower. In most cases, a Runed Cardinal Ruby is the single best gem you can put in a slot. This is your primary stat.
• Crit and Haste - These are your secondary stats. Haste is of more importance to Arcane mages, while crit is more valuable to Fire/Frostfire mages. Both have effective caps, where stacking more ceases to add value, but they are so high that most mages will never see them.
• Intellect - This is largely valuable as a mana-pool increasing stat. If you find you aren't running out of mana in long fights quickly enough to cause problems, you have enough intellect. In most cases, this isn't a stat you'll need to gem for. The exception is Arcane, which has talents that convert intellect to spellpower. For Arcane mages, the value of intellect jumps to the approximate level of haste, but is still well below spellpower in terms of pure point-for-point importance.
• Spirit is useful for adding crit rating through Molten Armor, but absolutely every other stat already listed is more valuable than spirit for mages, without exception. There is almost never a need to gem for spirit.

Meta slot

This is one circumstance under which there actually is one "optimal" choice: the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond.

The extra crit rating is minimal, and not worth factoring in here. The real value comes from the 3% increased crit damage. This is a flat-out DPS increase, worth around 200 DPS for the more crit-heavy specs. It's the best meta gem by a long distance, regardless of any variable. You might look at one of the other metas and be tempted. You might think something else sounds appealing somehow. You are wrong. In terms of pure DPS, which are the only terms a mage should care about, the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond is the only choice worth making.

It requires at least two blue gems, which is a slight limitation. You'll want to fulfill this requirement with purple or green gems, since the blue gems on offer all suck for mages.

Red slots

This one's also easy. When you have a red slot, there's no reason not to gem for spellpower. The best choice here is the Runed Cardinal Ruby.

Blue slots

Here's where it starts to get a bit more muddy. First, look at the slot bonus. Is it something besides spellpower? If so, you might want to ignore the color of the slot and simply gem for spellpower again. If it is spellpower, you may want to consider other options. Here are your choices:

• Sparkling Majestic Zircon - No. Just...no.
• Glowing Dreadstone - The spellpower is good, but gemming for stamina is usually not ideal unless you're gemming for a PvP setup. In which case, this week's column pretty much ignores you anyway. Sorry, guys. This might be a good time to point out that I'll also be ignoring gems with spell penetration or resilience on them, too.
• Purified Dreadstone - Spellpower here, but the spirit is of only marginal use. Still, if you're going with a purple gem, this is probably the best choice. If your slot bonus is 4 spellpower, you're basically trading 7 spellpower for 10 spirit, which is not a good trade in most cases.
• Intricate Eye of Zul - Haste and spirit. For Arcane Mages, this is an option, but not a really good one. Spellpower, even at the expense of a spellpower slot bonus, is likely going to be better.
• Misty Eye of Zul - Again, this will be an option for Fire/Frostfire, but still falls short of an off-slot-color spellpower gem in most cases.
• Seer's Eye of Zul - Intellect's inflated value to Arcane mages makes this an interesting option for Arcane Mages, but only if mana pool size is still an issue.
• Shining Eye of Zul - Only a valid choice if you're below the hit cap, and probably not even then. There are better ways to get your hit rating.

Yellow slots

This is actually a better slot for mages, since your orange gem options are better. All of the Green gem choices listed above, such as they are, apply here as well. Again, if the slot bonus is something besides spellpower, your best bet is almost always going to be to ignore the color and plop a spellpower gem in there.

• Brilliant King's Amber - A solid choice for Arcane mages, but only valid for other mages as a way to pump up mana pool size.
• Quick King's Amber - This is another interesting choice for Arcane mages, especially if your spellpower is already quite high.
• Rigid King's Amber - Again, only an option if you're finding it hard to reach the hit cap through other means.
• Luminous Ametrine - Intellect and spellpower. This is a nice alternative for Arcane Mages, and trumps the Brilliant King's Amber unless you really need the extra mana.
• Potent Ametrine - The extra crit rating makes this an intriguing option for Fire/Frostfire mages. If the slot bonus is 4 spellpower, you're trading 7 spellpower for 10 crit rating, and most of the time, the spellpower is still going to win that one.
• Reckless Ametrine - Haste makes this a decent choice for Arcane, if you can justify the 7 spellpower for 10 haste exchange rate.
• Veiled Ametrine - Once more, only valid if you need the hit rating. Great choice if you do, terrible if you don't.

The other choice, of course, is the Nightmare Tear, which provides you with 10 intellect, 10 spirit, 10 stamina, and the other stats don't matter. You can only have one of these, it works in every slot, and for the purposes of the meta gem provides the equivalent of one of every color of gem. Frankly, I believe there are better choices out there for mages to fulfill the meta requirement, but you may find this suits your needs. This is most useful to Arcane mages, due to the increased value spirit and intellect have for them. Feel free to shove this in a blue slot if you can't think of a better way to meet your meta requirement.
 

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