Gemming for the Eternal Belt BuckleFollow

While I've read through most of the posts, and definitely through the sticky guides, in this forum, I do not recall seeing detailed advice regarding the gemming of the Eternal Belt Buckle (my apologies if I missed such).

It allows for a prismatic gem, but if I understand, any gem (other than meta) can be placed in the socket and a gem in the socket will activate a meta.

I chose, for both my Ret and Holy specs, to use Enchanted Tear with the thought that +6 to all stats (increased Str for AP, Sta for Health, Agi for Crit+, and even Int for mana) would outweigh a simple +16 (or +20) Str for Ret or Int for Holy, etc.

Assuming a person has reached hit cap (263) and Crit is 25%+ for Ret or high Int/SP/Crit/Haste for Holy, does this seem like sound reasoning or should gemming be more focused on Str/AP/Crit/Exp/Int/SP (assume a Prot would look at Sta/Avoidance stats)?

This would primarily be for PvE, as that is what I focus on most, but any PvP input would be welcome as well.


Here's my armory in case you wish to see it (I'm a casual player due to work/family so usually solo as a Ret since I tend to play late nights when groups are hard to come by and long sessions are rare):
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Garrosh&n=Taviras

Thanks

Edited due to strangeness with the original Armory link.

Edited, Jul 28th 2009 11:54pm by Taviras

Edited, Jul 29th 2009 12:17am by Taviras

This is 100% correct. Focus primarily on your personal stats. You can put any gem in any slot aside Meta, just have to give up the socket bonuses. 9 times out of 10 the socket bonus is not worth gemming for. The only time I hit a socket bonus is if I need, for example, a meta blue on Ret I'd use a Purple gem in a blue slot on gear. As Ret, your gems should be STR, as Prot Stam and apparently as Holy Int. Do not use a +6 to all because you're simply trading worthless stats for -10 to the one you need. (-10str, +6agi(basically worthless) +6stam(100% worthless) +6int(100% worthless) and same for Holy. You could argue it for Prot as +stam and +str are both nice but still a solid +stam and +str gem separate would give far higher bonuses.

The Enchanted Tear is, in general, the best way to activate your meta for Ret, and is fine for Holy meta until 3.2 (at which time, a green Int/Mp5 will probably leave it behind). You should try to get a blue socket bonus at the same time - using it in the belt buckle wastes the flexibility which is a big part of the gem's value.

But for pure DPS, which is what Ret should be concerned with (Ulduar gear ramps up the stamina on it in parallel to the added raidwide damage, so you don't need to gem/chant for it), 6 agility ~= 3 STR. So the Tear is slightly more than half as valuable as a straight +16 STR. A troublesome socket bonus might make up for part of this, maybe enough (say, +4 STR) to justify trading off a little STR for STA. But although a couple points is unlikely to be decisive, it's a bad precedent. Point for point, Hit up to hitcap > STR > expertise >> anything else.

A similar argument goes for holy. Point for point, Mp5 > Int >> anything else. NOTE, however, that due to itemization, gear/gems don't carry even close to as much Mp5 as they do INT. So +16 INT is the preferred gem, and will likely be so after 3.2 buffs Mp5 (while Int is being nerfed, they only brought out the giant bat for Crit).

In fact, for my Ret gear set, I like to use the belt buckle in case a gear change requires a hybrid HIT/STR gem to finesse myself close to the cap without going over - that way I don't have to worry about meta activation or socket bonuses.