More JC info from the beta

Last time we met to talk about Jewelcrafting in Wrath, I only knew the names of the various uncommon and rare gems. Now I have the names of the epic gems too, as well as values for the cuts. The epics are called:

• Red: Cardinal Ruby

• Yellow: King's Amber

• Blue: Majestic Zircon

• Purple: Dreadstone

• Orange: Flawless Ametrine

• Green: Eye of Zul

More cool names, in this blogger's opinion. Except Cardinal Ruby – that sounds a little "blah" to me. Which is not to say I won't socket them, of course; that +parry rating cut that looks quite tasty for a Death Knight tank.

As far as the cuts go, it looks like uncommon Wrath gems are a step up from epic BC gems, which surprises me a bit – I was expecting them to be on par. I guess just about everything in Northrend is better than everything in Outland, which shouldn't be too surprising. The numbers go as follows (for basic stat gems like +strength; other gems scale similarly):

• BC:

  • Uncommon: +6 (Bold Blood Garnet)

  • Rare: +8 (Bold Living Ruby)

  • Epic: +10 (Bold Crimson Spinel)

• Wrath

  • Uncommon: +12 (Bold Bloodstone)

  • Rare: +16 (Bold Scarlet Ruby)

  • Epic: +20 (Bold Cardinal Ruby)

Pretty straightforward, I guess. The jumps between quality levels are twice as big in Wrath as in BC, which makes some sense due to stat inflation. It also addresses concerns that BC's epic gems are too expensive for too little added benefit.