Level 85 Gems for a Rogue

Level 85 rogue gems work in very much the same way as the Level 80 gems do. Our basic guidelines will be based on our Level 85 EP Values so far.

At the moment there are only two types of gems in Cataclysm available to all players, Green Quality (Common) and Blue Quality (Rare). Purple Quality gems (Epic) have not yet been added to the game however Jewelers have Epic Equivalent soul bound gems they can use called Chimera’s Eye.

Jewelcrafting
Chimera’s Eye gems can be obtained from completing the Jewelcrafting daily and exchanging the Token reward for a Chimera’s Eye. All blue gem patterns must also be obtained in this way. The Jewelcrafting daily can be obtained next to the Jewelcrafting Trainer in Stormwind or Orgrimmar at Jewelcrafting skill 475. If you are a Jeweler it’s highly recommended you obtain the [Delicate Chimera's Eye] pattern first as it will give you a powerful edge in heroics and raids. You can use up to a maximum of three Chimera’s Eye in your gear.

Blue Gems
Blue Quality gems are the current highest level of gems you can obtain excluding Jeweler only gems. The blue gem patterns require Jewelcrafting tokens to be obtained so you may find it difficult at first to find a Jeweler who does the gem cuts you need.

Gems For a Rogue
As a rogue you will need to assign the following blue quality gems to your gem sockets:

As you can see Mutilate rogues now no longer benefit as much from Haste and this has allowed Mastery to overtake Haste slightly. However, it’s important to remember that a balance of stats is needed so when choosing gear as a Mutilate rogue Mastery and Haste are always your best stats to go for after you are expertise and poison hit capped.

Meta Gems
There seems to be only two new Cataclysm Meta gems to choose from for a rogue and it looks like neither of them have our favorite mix of Agility and Critical Damage. First is the [Chaotic Shadowspirit Diamond] because even though the +54 critical strike bonus is weak for us, the 3% increased Critical Strike Damage is extremely powerful.

The second option is the [Fleet Shadowspirit Diamond] which provides a more powerful +54 Mastery Rating but only an extra minor run speed increase. Mutilate rogues will find the run speed increase entirely worthless due to their build even though they benefit more from Mastery than other rogues do. This makes this meta gem  all in all a poor choice unless you are after the run speed increase for damage up time. However, it pales in comparison to the Critical Damage bonus of the [Chaotic Shadowspirit Diamond].

Now I have also been reminded that the [Relentless Earthsiege Diamond] is a reasonable option still despite it being a Wrath gem. Here’s how the 21 Agility stacks up next to 54 critical strike and 54 mastery:

As you can see Mutilate rogues benefit the most from the Mastery stat gem but because the run speed increase pales in comparison to 3% increased critical strike damage it’s much more beneficial to use the 21 agility meta gem instead for Mutilate rogues too.

Meta Gem Requirements
In recent patches, the meta gem requirements changed to be “More blue then red gems” on many of our favorite meta gems. However, Blizzard blue posters announced that they realize this was a bad move and will be reverting these gems back to their usual gem requirements as soon as possible in a future patch. I have double checked the status of the gems and it seems that so far the Meta gems have not been fixed yet.

With this in mind until the meta gems have been fixed you should instead go for a Meta gem with a more suitable gem requirement. This means either the [Fleet Shadowspirit Diamond] or a Wrath meta gem such as [Thundering Skyflare Diamond] which is a popular rogue choice for those who need a meta gem while we wait for the patch.

[Thundering Skyflare Diamond] = 480 haste for 6 seconds every 45~ seconds. 13.3% up time of 480 is 64~ haste:

For more Cataclysm articles, click here: http://franksplace.org/2010/12/world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-articles/