Socketed items still not impressing players
by Mike Schramm 
Mar 12th 2007 at 2:38PM
I asked this question when the expansion first hit: do sockets suck? It seemed to me that there were lots of socketed items in game that, even with great gems in them, just didn't match up to the nonsocketed items I was finding.And now, Passion of Anub'Arak posts on the forums with much more concrete evidence of exactly that. Even the epic socketed drops in Karazhan, with great gems in them, don't have the stats of some of the nonsocketed drops from the level 70 5mans. There's no point to wasting all the time, consumables, and gem money to get the higher level items if a run through a 5man instance will net you better gear.
Fortuately, Neth replies in the thread, and says that item balance is still ongoing. Unfortunately, she (I'd imagine she did it on purpose, tricksey CMses) goes right down the middle, and says that they'll be looking at items "that may not be living up to what we wanted them to be or are more powerful than originally intended." As for whether that means they'll make the epics dropping in Karazhan even better (yay!) or nerf the 5man drops (boo), your guess is as good as ours.
As a final note, I'll just throw out there that this one may not actually be Blizzard's fault. The availability and price of good gems depends on how many players are jewelcrafting, and how often. It could be that everyone tried out jewelcrafting in the beta, and so Blizzard figured that jewels would be better or more plentiful that what's out there right now-- with not enough good jewels to go around, it's no surprise that socketed items are disappointing.
Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Economy, Jewelcrafting, The Burning Crusade
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
tylendel Mar 12th 2007 2:53PM
not true my oblivion gloves are a dissapointment compaired to my tempest touch gloves that are socketed
aaron Mar 12th 2007 4:57PM
The whole deal is midly dissappointing from an upgrade perspective. Raid set 2 gear is about the same as fully socketed level 70 blues, a sidegrade at best. The crafted socketed epics are nearly identical to the non socketed level 70 blues (except they cost several hundred gold to craft and socket).
Orin Mar 12th 2007 3:00PM
I'm afraid to put gems in ANYTHING right now because blizzard might nerf it and then I'll wish I could put the gems in something else. I really don't enjoy spending upwards of 100g on a few gems...
Ryan Mar 12th 2007 3:02PM
Its not that the items suck, its that the gems suck and/or are way too expensive. The socket bonuses are mostly a joke as well.
Zuuler Mar 12th 2007 3:02PM
You can always grind more gold. And its not like you have bills to pay in WoW (other than repair bills), so spend the gold, then jsut go farm more if you need it.
I had 1 socketed item, robes that drop off the last boss of underbog. I wasn't dissappointed, even if all the gems i had were uncommon quality. For lvl 64 warlock, it seemed worth it to me. I don't have anything from the lvl 70 5-mans or raids yet.
Sorcefire Mar 12th 2007 3:07PM
Most drops in Outlands are scaling very well and don't seem to encourage a continuous stream of gems to socket when a piece of gear may be offloaded in a few levels anyway.
Perhaps if more socket items were available for the under 50 crowd, the value could better be realized?
Synapse Mar 12th 2007 3:05PM
Hm, I'm not too sure how true this is. Currently my Gloves of Saintly Blessing looks like this:
106 Armor
+24 Stamina
+23 Intellect
+22 Spirit
[+35 Healing Spells Enchant]
Red Socket [+18 Healing Gem]
Blue Socket [+7 Healing and 1 Mana per 5]
Socket Bonus [+7 Healing]
Equipt: Increases healing from spells and effects by up to 33.
So for those of you keeping track, without gems or enchants these gloves give +33 healing, with correctly colored gems these gloves give +65 healing, nearly double. Add in the +35 healing enchant and you're sitting at a solid +100 healing on these gloves.
Seper Mar 12th 2007 3:29PM
i keep dreaming of the day i get more socketed items. So far they have been amazing (i'm only 62 though)
JC is hard to lvl on the other hand. Mats are super expensive and most of them need a TON of mats.
I think they need tuning... but I LUV statting my gear to what I need and not just let blizzard do it.
Ben Mar 12th 2007 3:19PM
"There's no point to wasting all the time, consumables, and gem money to get the higher level items if a run through a 5man instance will net you better gear."
Except...I don't know, experiencing new game content? Getting to play with a group of friends/guildmates? The satisfaction of learning and then executing a new boss strategy?
Seriously, am I the only person that just plays this game for fun?
Paul Mar 12th 2007 4:35PM
My experience so far is that the socketed items are better. However things are easy for my friends and I, as we had one person power level jewelcrafting (started getting mats before TBC came out), now we just default him all of the patterns and gems, and just have him make the gems for us. The only things that I am not impressed with are the Meta Gems, there are some decent ones, but not that impressive to me. I still haven't placed one in my Righteous Helm.
Stephen Mar 12th 2007 3:41PM
It'll probably start to make sense when you start adding Meta Gems to your gear sets. They add some stats & abilities to your gear that other enchants currently can not. I think the socketed items that drop in the levels below T4 are probably just for players to get used to trying out different socket bonuses and help other players level up jewelcrafting.
sealsay Mar 12th 2007 3:45PM
" Except...I don't know, experiencing new game content? Getting to play with a group of friends/guildmates? The satisfaction of learning and then executing a new boss strategy?
Seriously, am I the only person that just plays this game for fun? "
That's not what he said. He said there is no point wasting whatever TO GET HIGH LEVEL ITEMS if others are available else where. Get off your high horse and accept people have fun by having the best gear.
Robert Mar 12th 2007 4:01PM
I just mentally replace each socket with +12 stamina. Can't really justify putting anything else in there except for meta socket bonuses (and not much better than 18sta/5% stun resist which requires blue gems anyway).
FLoppyWesL Mar 12th 2007 4:04PM
Easy fix
all green gems are woth max +10 points in various stats i.e +10 stam,int,str etc or 5agi+5int etc( any combot that adds up to 10 )
blue items get 15 points and epic gems get 25 points to play with.
That would make epic socketable items worth it and those kind of stats would take tier 4 and 5 and 6 to the next level of stats.
/bubblehearth
Halicante Mar 12th 2007 4:04PM
So much of the karazhan loot is crap. We had blue bracers drop last night in heroic underbog that were better than my epic bracers from karazhan. Seriously, wtf?
Also, the epic gems that drop off of the heroics are underwhelming at best. All the ones I've seen have been only marginally better than green gems.
Arikul Mar 12th 2007 4:45PM
Anyone remember in Diablo II how there was always a chance that any item could be socketed? Would that be feasible in WoW? I mean, maybe leave out the socket bonus for random sockets, but I think people would jewelcraft/use gems more if every item (that wasn't already socketed) had a chance to have a socket or two or three. And then to compliment that change, they would have to make the socket bonuses on the epic items better, and I'd be in favor of the bonuses being new/unique abilities/chance-on-hits rather than +stat. That could make them a bit overpowered, but they ARE epics...
Ehud Mar 12th 2007 6:51PM
I don't buy that, sorry. They KNOW what items are in the game because they PUT them there. You look at your loot tables and go "Ok, with amazing gems will these suck?" and compare the stats. I understand there are hundreds of items, but honestly, sockets as far as I'm concerned are still mediocre at best.
Kazia Mar 12th 2007 7:22PM
I think some of the problem is not neccessarily the sockets, but the gems. Superior quality (Blue) gems, the gems you really want to put into socketed items to make them better than many non-socketed equivilants, are far to rare (and thus expensive) for the bonus you get from the cuts. An example is that you can get a Uncommon Quality (green) gem with 6 agility on it for 1-4 gold, whereas a the blue version that is only 2 more agility is 30-50 gold.
If I am going to drop 150g in gems into a item I want it to mean something. I suggest they improve the stats superior quality gems get for every single cut type.
goody24 Mar 12th 2007 8:05PM
I'm a 375 JC. I sell a boat load of gems each day: greens and blues, but have only sold one meta gem since BC launch. Even with my own gear, I agree that its not all it could be. A few ideas to make it better from a profession perspective:
1. Increase the drop rate of blue gems and add more to the economy and bring the overall price down.
2. Dramatically increase the drop rate of blue gem recipes (or just let us train them!). JC’s face not only an expensive grind, but they have to spend tons of money just to get their recipes. This investment has to be made up somewhere. This could help bring the cost of blue recipes down from the current 250 - 500g. I have spent many many thousands of gold to get where I am.
2. Increase the difference between green and blue gems. Take this example:
Shifting Nightseye: +4 Agility & +6 Stam - sells for 50 - 60g
Shifting Shadow Draenite: +3 Agility & +4 Stam - sells for 4 - 5g
45 – 55g for an 1 point of agility and 2 extra stamina just doesn’t seem worth it to me.
Vince Mar 12th 2007 7:52PM
As a 375 jewelcrafter on a high pop server, there are WAY more than enough jewels to go around. enough so that it makes the profession nearly unprofitable. if you check the profession forums, you will see all the complaints about the over saturation of gems on the market and just why jewelcrafters are unhappy.