Apologies if I’m late to the discussion, but here’s my take:
Before Cyrce’s Ring, you could typically have 6 sockets: two on the necklace and two on each ring. With the introduction of Cyrce’s Ring, several things changed:
The total number of available sockets dropped from 6 to 4.
The demand for rings was reduced by 50%, and thus the overall jewelry market demand shrank by 33%.
The gem market also took a hit, dropping by 33%.
Algari Diamonds can no longer reach their full potential. Previously, you could get up to 5 unique jewels (counting Amber) and a 5x multiplier for critical effects, movement speed, etc. Now, it’s limited to a 3x multiplier, raising the question: are they still worth using, or is it better to just slot 4 single-stat jewels instead?
Granted, I disregarded PVP entirely. But other than that it looks to me as if Jewelcrafting took a heavy hit.
Correction, From 9 to 7… Helms, Bracers and Belts can also drop with or be upgraded with sockets.
I still (re)craft multiple rings daily, there´s literally someone asking in /2 what feels like every 5 minutes. The rings are at this point primarily used by most for chars that just can´t get a suitable one to drop, I don´t know any class off the top of my head that has one anywhere near their BiS, even with embellishments, though there probably are a handful…
It´s not a “5x multiplier” though, for example 5x.15% = .75% increased critical effect.
And for this exact reason I don´t know of anyone /class that actually socketed more than one different color if at all, because it´s not worth putting ~.5% worth of statpoints into suboptimal stats in your sockets to get what amouts to , in the best possible case (i.e. 50% crit chance assumed), a .375% DpS gain. If you´re going to Minmax for .5% performance, at least do it properly.
Blasphemites are therefore barely affected, as well as still being the only Mainstat gems you can socket. Single stat jewels are usually suboptimal because they always offer less total stats than a combo-gem, and socketing Amber is always a fail.
SO, long story short, yes, it could be seen as a minor nerf, but not necessarily for most of the reasons stated, and the impact on income is minimal at best.
Thanks for the input, I am not really that prolific with Jewelcrafting.
Let me quickly reply to some of your points:
Well, I have 8 chars with ikvl around 610 (I only do delves) and while I have occasionally see a belt, helmet or wrist socket, currently non of these chars has any of those sockets. That’s why I initially wrote “typically” 6 sockets because those are guaranteed and the others appear to be rather rare (unless for PVP, if I understood that correctly).
You wrote it yourself: “5x”, so that clearly is a 5x multiplier But generally I agree with your assessment regarding the Blasphemites. However, I read somewhere on reddit that “critical effect” is not to be confused with “critical hit chance” which is what is displayed on the character screen. But I will not take the chance on any of my characters.
Thanks, I did not realize this. I was just checking the auction house and there single stat gems are the most expensive (even though they require less knowledge points) so I thought they are in demand the most.
You can buy an item for great vault tokens that allows you to add a socket to any of these items
And that is exactly the issue… it’s a .15% increase to the critical damage or healing done, so even with a 50% crit chance (which is “high” to say the least) only a .075% increase in actual throughput. And therefore not really worth consideration when the 5 gems alone will giive you almost .5-1% of whatever secondary you priotoritize, which is effectively .5-1% more throughput. if you´re going for a speed set for farming old content, the 2%x5=10% are actually somewhat interesting, but that´s not the use case most players minmaxing their sockets find themselves in.
There are some classes that potentially benefit more from “hard stacking” a single secondary, firemage early in the expansion with haste for example… but as gear improves and DRs start to take effect, the benefit of that gets smaller and smaller as other secondaries start to climb in relative value.
edit PS: All of that said, for an “average” player clearing the normalmode raid or running keys <5, none of that really matters much at all. It doesn´t´t really start to gain relevance until they progress into content that directly rewards heroic or mythic track gear, where the performance optimization of the gear, esp across the whole group, starts to have a more measurable effect on the outcome than simply properly executing the encounters. It´s “nice to have”, but probably not going to be a decicding factor in teh case of most players
Wow, totally forgot about those. That’s a lot of work for a single socket, though. Only viable for those who already got everything.
Anyhow, thanks again, I really learned a lot from your replies.
It’s basically a way to still be able to upgrade your gear when the vault offers you nothing of value and you´ve no use for crests anymore, so more of a consolation prize than anything else, yes.
I personally don´t use them on anything < heroic level, because the chances are high that the 45 crests will at that point still be the bigger upgrade.
But generally I agree with your assessment regarding the Blasphemites. However, I read somewhere on reddit that “critical effect” is not to be confused with “critical hit chance” which is what is displayed on the character screen. But I will not take the chance on any of my characters.
