When it was announced that Icecrown Citadel would be reducing tank dodge by 20% I immediately thought... "Hmmm I wonder if the gem which increases dodge will go up in value..." Much to my surprise, it didn't. I did not have the Subtle Cardinal Ruby cut at the time, purchased it and started pumping out gems after the first ICC wing opened. I'm still sitting on those rubies and am usually the only poster.
It's times like these where you really just have to pick yourself up and say oh well I made a mistake, better luck next time. I did not invest a huge fortune into these, nor did I rely on them as one of my main sources of income (I'm stating the obvious here for those that make the mistake of doing just that with items they are unsure will sell).
Maybe it's because my server has one horde side guild even doing ICC and none on alliance side that I know of. Perhaps, perhaps not. Either way, this is just one example of times I've failed in world of warcraft, and there are many many more of them! Sometimes people look at success and see nothing but the reward... I look at success and see the pile of failures holding the person up at that pinnacle which they achieved. Can't succeed if you don't fail a lot first. Unless your name is Markco, in which case success kind of is in your blood.
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18 comments: on "Subtle Cardinal Rubies"
Argon said... March 27, 2010 at 8:24 AM
The dodge nerf made it worse, not better. Not to mention that no reasonable tank would ever take a gem without stamina. :)
Anonymous said... March 27, 2010 at 9:32 AM
Well, it's probably because stacking dodge, or any kind of avoidance, isn't really the best way to go for ICC. At least from a Tankadin perspective it's all about stacking stam nowadays with the rare exception of two or three hybrid Gems if you find a piece of armor with an amazing socket bonus.
Anonymous said... March 27, 2010 at 10:21 AM
Ditto on US-Blackhand despite ICC being heavily raided on both sides.
Anonymous said... March 27, 2010 at 10:48 AM
That's because the -20% dodge debuff makes avoidance [i]worse[/i] not better.
Avoidance has increasing returns for each 1%, and diminishing returns on how much rating you need for each 1%. The more avoidance you have, the more valuable each 1% more is. Basically you can think of it like this:
- If you are at 0% avoidance, gaining 1% means you take 1% less hits compared to before.
- If you are at 50% avoidance, gaining 1% means you take 2% less hit.
- If you are at 90% avoidance, gaining 1% more means you take 10% less hits.
Technically if you could ever go up to 99% avoidance, the value of 1% more avoidance would go to infinity against purely physical based attacks. This is counteracted by diminishing returns on the ratings themselves, as you need more and more rating for each 1%. In Sunwell against Mu'ru adds (they were unaffected by Sunwell radiance), it wasn't uncommon for druid tanks to stack agility to gain up to 80-90% avoidance.
The dodge debuff in ICC made stamina and armor even better compared to avoidance than before. It didn't make dodge any better, but rather it made dodge even worse than before.
Unknown said... March 27, 2010 at 11:06 AM
As a tank, in ICC, dodge nerf or no, you still gem for stam. You almost /never/ gem for avoidance.
Anonymous said... March 27, 2010 at 11:13 AM
Hey Markco don't feel bad I have had the same problem been posting the same three Subtle Cardinal Rubies for the past week. Yesterday one finally sold and since I haven't had much competition that one selling paid for the deposit on all 3 for the week and covered the cost of the 1 cardinal ruby. Now if only i could get those other to sell.
miked said... March 27, 2010 at 11:39 AM
Gemming priorities for tanks did not change. Nearly all ICC-ready tanks should have over 20% dodge to start with, meaning once they step into ICC they have a dodge % that is greater than 0.
This is important to note because it means there will be no gear/gem/enchant changes necessary to attain a non-zero chance to dodge inside ICC.
Given that, every bit of dodge a tank adds still affects their chance to dodge in a positive way, exactly has it always has.
1% more chance to dodge is still 1%, regardless of if you end up at 6% or 26%.
It's important to note that getting another 1% will be more difficult due to diminishing returns, but this would be true regardless of the Icecrown Radiance debuff.
Anonymous said... March 27, 2010 at 12:14 PM
This is where a little research comes in handy. Tanks are not stacking dodge to make up for the nerf. Dodge was never that good to stack in the first place because of diminishing returns. The ICC aura doesn't suddenly make dodge good. It's business as usual stacking stamina to survive all the magical damage in ICC. You'll only get rid of those gems if someone is really confused. (Which sadly happens a lot.)
Zeran said... March 27, 2010 at 12:26 PM
My great gem-fail was lustrous sky saphires back before epic gems came out.... mass produced mass vendored at a 1g each loss... I learned to learn my market from that mistake.
Anonymous said... March 27, 2010 at 1:30 PM
...learn 2 maths. who the hell would gem dodge in ICC, way less avoidance from that, and no EH
Anonymous said... March 27, 2010 at 2:24 PM
Only 1 guild in ICC? What kind of server are you on O.o
Kring said... March 27, 2010 at 2:54 PM
Did you try selling them in trade with something like "wts [Subtle Cardinal Ruby] - They are perfect to compensate for the chill of the throne buff in ICC"?
Your customers are tanks who don't read takspot and therefore don't know that they should gem sta. A tank who doesn't read tankspot doesn't care that much about the mechanics and probably doesn't know that your wonderful gem even exists. Enlighten them. :-)
Ice said... March 27, 2010 at 3:17 PM
They still sell, like any other gem. Just at an extremely reduced rate. Someone seems to bite. < 5/week though.
Anonymous said... March 27, 2010 at 11:37 PM
Yep! The dodge/stam gem is a great example :)
That change is something you would have had no way of knowing unless you followed advanced endgame tanking forums and blogs.
From a logical standpoint, sure, an outsider would think that dodge nerf = tanks would want to make up for it with more avoidance. Actually, it did exactly the opposite.
Tank endgame gemming philosophy changed with ICC. Previously, some had advocated avoidance, some liked balance, and some liked pure stam/Effective Health. But with ICC and the nerf to avoidance, the general rule of thumb really became max stam, max armor. The gear most raid tanks wore into ICC was gemmed with stam everywhere, with 12 stam bonuses taken and the occasional 9 stam red bonus with stam/agi.
Why Stam/Agi? The answer isn't just that agility scales the best. Agility gives us a bit of armor, too, and with ICC tanks have fallen in love with armor (if they hadn't before). The armor contribution from +agi made stam/agi gems the unquestionable choice for red sockets.
Even now that some high-level tanks are building avoidance sets for ICC hard modes (the only time an avoidance set is now needed), the stam/agi gem will still be their gem of choice.
The kind of tanks who are gearing for ICC25 hard modes are a smart subset of the wow population. The only time you'll sell a stam/dodge gem is to someone who is very uninformed... although, there are still people like this :) I purchased the stam/dodge pattern on request, and sometimes I'm laughed at for having it, but hey- I've sold it a few times :)
Anonymous said... March 27, 2010 at 11:39 PM
Another note!
You might want to hang on to those dodge/stam gems.... there will come a point where they are actually useful :)
Reference: http://avengingwrathy.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/post-icc-buff-gearing-philosophies/
Basically, when raid buffed tanks start to hit 42.6k armor, the value of agility drops below dodge.
Therefore, as the ICC buff goes up, more and more tanks will start to hit the point where dodge/stam will get more attractive than agi/stam.
Those gems will start to sell again, I promise :) It might take another increase of the Wrynn buff, but, they'll sell :)
Anonymous said... March 28, 2010 at 4:10 AM
You shouldn't have pre cut them...What I do is just keep my gems uncut, then cut 1 maybe 2 of the very fast moving ones and post them. I wouldn't go and cut like 10 of the same one though. Lots of bag space + why limit your stockpile of gems to one specific cut?
Sure buy the recipe and if it doesn't do too well, not a big deal. If you cut 20 of them and they don't sell, that's a few gs.
Trellmor said... March 28, 2010 at 10:18 AM
It doesn't really make sense to gem for dodge. Must tanks went for stamina because it scales better, or defense because it increases dodge, miss and parry. Druids also prefer Agi over dodge because we get dodge, armor and crit from agi, making it way superior then pure dodge.
Well, this are my 2c on dodge gems ;).
Markco said... March 28, 2010 at 11:47 AM
I love leaving little breadcrumbs and watching the conclusions people come to. You are absolutely correct, I did not do my homework and check on the math behind gearing with dodge. When I was a tank all I did was stack stam, but I figured with the nerf maybe people would think they should switch to dodge.
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