There has been no mention of ammo changes on EJ since Blizzard mentioned working on Big changes to the system. Do the geniuses here have any ideas about what those changes should be from a theory crafting perspective to address weaknesses in tank pulling or Hunter PvE/PvP?


I posted my ideas but they sucked.

Seeing as it would be better for them to introduce epic gems (it is boring to have same gems for a whole expansion), I think it's safe to assume they will buff all professions to match the bonus of BS.
This is a win/win scenario since people love it when they get buffs/upgrades and it will follow the basic idea of a MMO of continuously improving ones char. And I am sure they will be available both through PvE and PvP as they don't need to be rare (aka. MH/BT) but simply exist for the reasons mentioned above.

I really don't see why you all keep thinking that it's impossible for Blizzard to just make epic gems unique (3) or something.

It solves the problem with BS being OP and neither will JC get underpowered (as long as 3.2 gear provides a few more sockets).

<shrug> Lots of options. The simplest as far as I can see it is:

1) Set the BS sockets to only accept blue quality gems
2) Change the JC perk to allow 4 Dragon's Eyes in your equipment rather than the current 3.

That leaves both the BS and JC perks effectively static while introducing epic gems. Other professions don't need to be touched.

There have been no new mention of ammo changes; perhaps they have yet to come up with a working model. So instead they buffed the dps on high-level ranged weapons as a stop-gap measure. According to a post on Big Red Kitty forums these are the numbers:

iLvl : dps gain
226 : 21.5
232 : 25.4
239 : 30.2

With raid buffs it's a quite nice boost. As an engineer I had hoped for some new ammo recipes, perhaps dropping from the mechanical bosses in Ulduar.

Another problem with epic gems is that they make gemming for socket bonuses even less lucrative than it is today. This can fall under the "we like players to have choices" mantra.

One of the major attractions of jewelcrafting at the moment is that the prismatic gems allow you to meet your meta requirements without much thought.

However, I've yet to see the obvious conclusion that if people are levelling jewelcrafting for this reason there must be something wrong with the system of meta requirements in the first place. I propose that instead of changing jewelcrafting a far more effective change would be to remove meta requirements altogether.

For starters, it's always bugged me that at the start of an expansion you can end up with a new helm that you can't socket because the rest of your gear doesn't have enough sockets (or the right type). It also doesn't fit with the concept of socket bonuses - indeed, for a lot of metas, it actually promotes ignoring the socket bonuses to instead meet arbitrary meta requirements. Finally, the socket system already has a nice "decision" element built into it with the trade-off between socketing all red gems or using different colours to achieve socket bonuses. I feel that if the itemisation team put a bit more thought into the socket bonus system we would find that people would still use orange and purple gems.

Disclaimer: I'm basing the following on fairly old information, which I'm not 100% certain is still accurate.

It already is, just because of item-level budgeting, at least if I understand the mechanics correctly. My understanding is that you could have an item with 116 points budgeted to strength, or one with 100 points budgeted to strength and 16 budgeted to a red socket - but because the item cost formula is exponential, you would end up with an item with 114 strength in one case, but one with 100 and 16 in the socket in the other (the numbers aren't exact but you get the idea) - and that's not even counting Socket Bonuses, which I believe are totally free on the item budget.

Nobody ignores socket bonuses to meet meta requirements. Everybody exploits their best socket bonuses in the course of filling their meta requirement, then ignores the rest to use the maximum possible optimal mono-coloured gems.

I also disagree with the removal of meta requirements, as without them everyone would just fill every slot with a 16 Strength/Int/SP/whatever gem and the perfect meta, and 90% of all cuts would instantly be rendered worthless.

That's not really a problem that originates from the meta requirements. It's just that single-stat gems always give the best return even if it means losing the socket bonus. Metagem requirements are just a nuisance that forces you to use a few crappy multi-colored gems. You "exploit" the socket bonuses to make the loss as small as possible.

As a caster I find it rather frustrating to have to socket +19 spellpower in every slot, because even with the best socket bonus (+5 Spellpower), putting in a SP/crit or SP/haste gem is still not worth it. IMO the whole gemming system needs an overhaul with regards to socket bonuses. They're just so pointless.

Even without epic gems, BS looks to be the best future investment. If WotLK is not going to see epic gems (which may well be the case after the recent JC nerf), the next expansion will add new gems with superior stats. Unless the lvl 90 BS profession quirk will be "add two sockets to gloves/bracers", being able to add a socket to an item will always be valuable.

For certain classes (pretty much everyone besides the pure SP/AP gemmers), the ability to choose which stat you add makes blacksmithing already much stronger than the alternatives, and on equal footing with JC after the nerf.

I think it's safe to assume Blizzard will keep the current (post JC nerf) balance once they introduce epic gems. Be it by restricting BS sockets or by buffing everything else.
There might be a slight nerf to tailoring if it becomes the new FoTM for spellcasters though.

Some examples of why BS beats the rest could be:
- intellect/spirit/haste instead of SP for certain healing classes
- strenght/agi/arp instead of AP for certain dps classes

I'd assume everyone who posts on this forum knows how valuable blacksmithing is already though, so we can safely stop "discussing" the value of BS and JC.