Why on earth would it make an item permanently boa? Wouldn't that just kill the AH? The only people who can afford that level of gem are going to be top tier players who will be equipping top tier gear, if every piece of gear they wear and socket can never be sold it'll make high end items much much rarer.

Posted by tsukiyomi at 01/19/2013 08:08 PM

Why on earth would it make an item permanently boa? Wouldn't that just kill the AH

It has to be another duping protection, but I can't figure out why or how. I highly doubt it will make it to the live patch unless it's an absolute necessity for some unknown reason. No one in their right might is going to give up a $75 weapon for 10% more CD. The only people that socket these gems will be people that don't know the consequences.

I think there could be a niche use for a Marquise Ruby. If the devs choose not to scale the existing Rubies up to meet the +150/+150 of the Marquise Ruby level - a distinct possibility - a one-time investment in the Marquise Ruby adds 225 (!) dps to any near-miss socketed weapon.

For any player that doesn't benefit tremendously from Crit Damage (rare, but exists), a 2 million Gold weapon becomes a 20 million Gold weapon and a 20 million Gold weapon becomes a 200 million Gold weapon.

Both Cold Damage and class-specific set weapons could become arguably viable. A very good Nat's 1H Xbow suddenly becomes an 11% IAS, 180 Dex, 1000 dps Cold Damage beast and frees up the Ring or Helm slot for a much better item while still achieving that 20 Max Disc bonus. Recall that Cold Damage gives you a +30% effective boost in aps (not IAS) for any white charging at you and an effective 10% boost in aps against elites due to the slowing effect. Double Marquise on the Danetta's Set would achieve a similar boost in efficacy.

Once you're at +350% Crit Damage on your gear, the next 100% CD (with 50% CC) is only adding 17% dps, at best. Your 700 dps socketed Darkblade offhand gains 21.5% damage ... for an overall 11% boost in dps. Okay, so still worthless there.

There are going to be some irate uber players in a few months when they decide to quit and they find out that Marquise Emerald has cost them a $75 sale on their weapon.

I don't mind a new gem tier - but considering the costs involved for it i would like the stats to be significantly better than the "one grade up".

They should be at least two to three to make them more desirable and worthwhile.

I believe with the costs involved only those with uber gold will be attempting them and then it will prob be a weigh up of cost vs benefit. as @shniggies they will only be in BIS to get the full beenefits as well - so thats more time and effort and gold if buying - for a mere 1lvl upgrade....

I just don't see it as a worthwhile expense personally.


*Granted i'm a poor D3 player so i tell myself this to feel better* :p

I currently only have Flawless Star Emeralds on my weapons, so I have no idea when I'll actually get a Marquise. >_<

Posted by ecocd at 01/18/2013 07:44 AM

Posted by ZRyoku16 at 01/17/2013 03:14 PM

.1% LS per tier of a gem wouldn't be to bad. :P

Amethysts are already LoH going up to 600 LoH and no one uses those. Serious question, would anyone use a 2% LS Gem? How much would it have to be? 6% 10%?

Actually, I disagree--I was using a socketed amethyst for LoH in my legacy Natalya's for quite awhile during my DH's tank build. This was while experimenting a lot w/ a DH grenadier tank & the near unlimited discipline from the legacy Natalya's set (I didn't have the ring so was using the low DPS Natalya crossbow, & because I needed a lot of life steal to play with low HP but high EHP, it worked out fairly well).

That being said, I agree that the Thorns effect for Topazes is pretty much worthless, and because there's already LoH gems, I don't really feel like it's necessary to have a LS gem as well (especially since LS is so heavily nerfed in Inferno & is thus really only useful in Normal through Hell modes, IMHO).

Since damage usually revolves around the trifecta, perhaps it would be cool to change topazes to adding either increased attack speed or critical hit chance? So for example starting off with a chipped topaz adding like +0.5% to IAS or Critical Hit chance all the way up to a Radiant Star adding +7%? OR maybe even adding a smaller percentage, but to both stats? (i.e., chipped topaz maybe adds +0.33% to IAS and CC, all the way up to a Radiant Star adding +4.66% to IAS and CC.) Dunno, just brainstorming aloud here.

Posted by ecocd at 01/19/2013 05:49 PM

I think the 1-click crafting would be great to save time, but it takes away from the excitement from the first time you're crafting gems up. That said, it sure as heck would be nice. From a programming perspective, however, it might not be possible.

I think there still will be plenty of opportunity to craft up gems for profit. All of the profit was at the Star or Flawless Star levels, anyway.

It could be like Elective mode, where it's optional & turned off by default. Or they could make it only applicable for players once they have reached Inferno, or who have upgraded their jeweler to a certain level. It could also be done for only certain levels of gems (i.e., Flawless Square and above), so that beginners still have to go through the grinding process. Indeed, they could even make it Tier 11 for jewelers, where players would have to get another plan & upgrade their jeweler to be able to craft in batch as opposed to just one at a time. There could even be an "expedite" fee, so that if you craft instantaneously & skip a bunch of steps it would cost slightly more gold (after all, "time is money", right?). There are so many ways this could be done.

And for a long time, most of my early profits weren't made by selling equipment on the AH--it was made by selling gems, usually at the perfect square or radiant square level since I had obtained none of the plans for the top three tiers (& indeed, I'm still missing a lot of those plans...). So there's definitely plenty of opportunity to craft up gems for profit, and almost none of my gem profits were made at the Star to Flawless Star levels either.

Posted by ZRyoku16 at 01/21/2013 09:01 PM

I currently only have Flawless Star Emeralds on my weapons, so I have no idea when I'll actually get a Marquise. >_<

Yah, I know how you feel--I finally managed to upgrade to a Perfect Star Emerald in my weapon yesterday & still haven't gotten enough gold to even reach Radiant Star level yet. So doubt I'll ever reach the Marquise level at all... :-0 That being said, I'm still kind of sad that the highest level gem is going to be account bound, as it seems like a tremendous gold investment for something that one would not be able to recuperate one's money off of in the event that one wishes to sell the gem in the future... :-(

Posted by eastdragon42 at 01/21/2013 10:30 PM

Since damage usually revolves around the trifecta, perhaps it would be cool to change topazes to adding either increased attack speed or critical hit chance?
...
There could even be an "expedite" fee, so that if you craft instantaneously & skip a bunch of steps it would cost slightly more gold (after all, "time is money", right?). There are so many ways this could be done.

I still think the IAS gem is something they're saving for the expansion. Crit Chance doesn't normally occur on weapons so I don't think that's going to happen, but I do like the idea of fractional increases.

I love the expedite fee idea. It costs 140k Gold to upgrade from Flawless Square to Radiant Square. Instead make it 160k or something to go there directly. Any players that choose not to use the Auction House will save a ton of time. That's essentially what's happening right now anyway with the Auction House. People are paying a premium to avoid crafting the gems themselves.

It's complete worth the investment to craft one Star Emerald for your weapons even on an account with limited funds. It was one of my earliest major investments and it was completely worth it. 10-20% CD does a lot and it's completely reusable when you upgrade to your next weapon. You can also unsocket it and pass it on to your other classes so it's a 1-time investment good across your entire account. Save up, spend the gold on a Star Emerald and don't be discouraged by all the people running around with Radiant Square Emeralds in their weapons. You'll be happy you did.

Posted by ecocd at 01/22/2013 04:39 AM

I still think the IAS gem is something they're saving for the expansion. Crit Chance doesn't normally occur on weapons so I don't think that's going to happen, but I do like the idea of fractional increases.

I love the expedite fee idea. It costs 140k Gold to upgrade from Flawless Square to Radiant Square. Instead make it 160k or something to go there directly. Any players that choose not to use the Auction House will save a ton of time. That's essentially what's happening right now anyway with the Auction House. People are paying a premium to avoid crafting the gems themselves.

Yes, & having an expedite fee would also serve Blizzard's purposes of providing another (albeit small) gold sink...

Posted by ecocd at 01/22/2013 04:39 AM

It's complete worth the investment to craft one Star Emerald for your weapons even on an account with limited funds. It was one of my earliest major investments and it was completely worth it. 10-20% CD does a lot and it's completely reusable when you upgrade to your next weapon. You can also unsocket it and pass it on to your other classes so it's a 1-time investment good across your entire account. Save up, spend the gold on a Star Emerald and don't be discouraged by all the people running around with Radiant Square Emeralds in their weapons. You'll be happy you did.

I assume that's a typo & you meant "Radiant Star Emerald" as opposed to "Radiant Square Emerald"...? :) The problem is I'd need two, cause I'm either dual wielding socketed Danetta's, or single wielding a double-socketed Manticore. I haven't done the calculations, but if I remember correctly just crafting a single Radiant Star Emerald would cost around 22 million gold? So for two, I would need double that amount... & at the moment, I'm desperately trying to save gold for a legacy Natalya's Mark before they become totally out of my price range... :-0

Posted by eastdragon42 at 01/22/2013 05:32 AM

I assume that's a typo & you meant "Radiant Star Emerald" as opposed to "Radiant Square Emerald"...? :) The problem is I'd need two, cause I'm either dual wielding socketed Danetta's, or single wielding a double-socketed Manticore. I haven't done the calculations, but if I remember correctly just crafting a single Radiant Star Emerald would cost around 22 million gold? So for two, I would need double that amount... & at the moment, I'm desperately trying to save gold for a legacy Natalya's Mark before they become totally out of my price range... :-0

Yeah, everyone running around with Radiant Star Emeralds. I misread your comment to say you had radiant square emeralds in your weapons. I suppose I could direct that comment to @ZRyoku16 instead to mean he should spend part of his bankroll on crafting 2 Star Emeralds.

Regarding your Radiant Star Emerald, yeah, don't worry about dropping 40 million on 2 Radiant Star Emeralds for a long time. I got mine during the duping debacle for around 7-8 million each so I count myself very lucky. I'm saving up a jillion Gold for the Marquise Ruby in 1.0.7 to go in a rare 1H XBow.

Posted by ecocd at 01/22/2013 06:26 AM

Regarding your Radiant Star Emerald, yeah, don't worry about dropping 40 million on 2 Radiant Star Emeralds for a long time. I got mine during the duping debacle for around 7-8 million each so I count myself very lucky. I'm saving up a jillion Gold for the Marquise Ruby in 1.0.7 to go in a rare 1H XBow.

Yah, I'm definitely not a part of the "1%" who have billions or "jillions" of gold at their disposal. Just checked my main hero's stats; since the game was released--which is when I started playing--I've played 501 hours & 39 min and accumulated 21,303,833 gold. Since the gold cost alone of a Marquise gem (not even taking into account the three radiant star gems that are also required) is already 20 million gold, I'm guessing that Blizzard probably never meant for the average Joe like myself to ever be able to afford one of those gems via regular grinding and farming w/o either (1) having some strong skills in selling stuff on the AH or (2) pouring some real cash on the RMAH to get 'em... :(

@ecocd

Yeah, I'll probably go for crafting one once my big item sells and I have a majority of my gold back again. Right now, the Flawless Star Emeralds are tiding me over. ^^