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| Reviewed 10/2/2012 Patch 5.0.4 |
View other WHU WoW Mists of Pandaria hunter guides.
Mists of Pandaria brings us all new hunter gems and a host of familiar gem questions. What are the best gems for a hunter in MoP? Should I put agil gems in every gem slot? Do the best gems change from a beast mastery hunter to a marksman hunter to a survival hunter?
This guide will answer all your WoW hunter gem questions. We’ll lay out the best rare gem and epic gem for each slot, and break it down by BM, MM, and SV. This best hunter gem guide is specifically for optimizing your raid boss dps – these aren’t necessarily the best hunter gems for pvp or soloing (not that you really need to optimize for soloing).
Please remember that the best gem choices for your yellow slot change based not only on your spec, but also with your gear. With these gem recommendations we’re trying to target the best gems for the largest number of hunters playing that spec, but the only way to know for certain whether haste or mastery or crit is best for your hunter is to use a calculator like Zeherah’s spreadsheet or Simcraft.
| Best Hunter Mists of Pandaria Gems by Slot |
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| Gem Slot | Beast Mastery (BM) |
Marksman (MM) |
Survival (SV) |
| Meta Gem |
Agile Primal Diamond +216 agility & 3% crit damage |
Agile Primal Diamond +216 agility & 3% crit damage |
Agile Primal Diamond +216 agility & 3% crit damage |
| Red Slot | Delicate Primordial Ruby +160Agility |
Delicate Primordial Ruby +160Agility |
Delicate Primordial Ruby +160Agility |
| Yellow Slot | Deadly Vermilion Onyx or Perfect Deadly Tiger Opal +80 Agility & +160 Crit Epic: Deadly Sardonyx |
Deadly Vermilion Onyx or Perfect Deadly Tiger Opal +80 Agility & +160 Crit Epic: Deadly Sardonyx |
Deadly Vermilion Onyx or Perfect Deadly Tiger Opal +80 Agility & +160 Crit Epic: Deadly Sardonyx |
| Blue Slot |
Delicate Primordial Ruby +160Agility -OR- Glinting Imperial Amethyst or Perfect Glinting Roguestone Epic: Glinting Zyanite |
Delicate Primordial Ruby +160Agility -OR- Glinting Imperial Amethyst or Perfect Glinting Roguestone Epic: Glinting Zyanite |
Delicate Primordial Ruby +160Agility -OR- Glinting Imperial Amethyst or Perfect Glinting Roguestone Epic: Glinting Zyanite |
Blue Sockets
The best hunter gem for a blue socket depends on the socket bonus. If the socket bonus is an agility bonus, it’s worth using the purple Perfect Glinting Roguestone or the epic Glinting Zyanite. If, however, the socket bonus is a secondary stat (hit, expertise, crit, haste, mastery) then you want to go with a straight red gem, the Delicate Primordial Ruby.
Mists of Pandaria Epic Gems & Socket Bonuses
Mists of Pandaria has made some substantial changes to the way gems work. Now gems provide twice as much of a secondary stat as they do the primary stat. Furthermore the epic gems are only available as hybrid gems. This design decision is clearly intended to keep people from stacking only red gems in every slot. With socket bonuses in the mix, this works well. Yellow sockets are worth using an orange gem, and blue sockets should use a purple gem as long as the socket bonus is more than 40 agility (usually the case) or more than 120 of a secondary stat (not usually the case).
For red sockets you still want to use only red gems, not even epics.
One thing to keep in mind when measuring the stat weights of gems, is that a hit or expertise gem should not be weighted with the higher stat value of hit/exp: with reforging you are going to be hit and expertise capped either way, so what these gems are really getting you is the ability to avoid a bit of reforging. In other words, the net benefit of using these gems is a higher haste or mastery — not a higher total hit or expertise.
When evere choice is the same, regardless of spec, why are you differencating because of spec? More comlicated is not always better…
Because we as Hunters typically focus on our primary spec. I use BM for PvE and PvP, thus, all I care about is BM. Had I not read your comment on accident, I’d have never known they were all identical. At any rate, who cares?
Because stat weights tend to change as the expansion goes on — even though the priority order is the same for all spec now, any bug fix or even just gear progression could change that.
This way when the stat weights do change, everything is properly formatted here and I just have to update the gem.
Whats the best 2 cogwheele gems for the hunter’s engineering helm?
That depends if you have to Transmorg into hit or expertise, if not then crit and haste (non bm), or crit and mastery( bm )….
Was looking for a blue socket gem. Didn’t want hit because to socket bonus is 120 hit which gives me more than i need.
I found this which i think is a nice fit for hunter.
Shifting Imperial Amethyst – purple gem (80 agility, 120 stamina)
Oooh! You do not want to use that gem! Unless your goal is PvP, stamina does absolutely nothing for you. Extra hit is fine — just reforge some of your hit into crit so that you can use the extra 120!
Even for pvp you don’t want that gem. There are much better choices, 320 pvp power comes to mind. Maybe that gem would be handy for an extreme soloing build. It’s prbly meant to be used by druid and monk tanks? I don’t even know if they have a better blue choice.
I’d go with the pvp power (assassin?) for purple and pvp resil for orange in that case (lucent?)
Stam isn’t worht worrying about.
Gem for stamina, ffs,
read your articles for years, glad when saw your back drop in Zands.
Amases me how silly some hunters still are, with sites like yours
But some truely are Huntards
How do the serpent’s eye gems fit in here? is it best to place some hit og crit serpentseye in the yellow or blue sockets? or shuld we stick to the table above?
Thanks to the 522 valor trinket, I had an excessive amount of hit. Couldn’t reforge it all away so actually had to use some of those Agility + Stamina gems… I still have too much hit but 8% is better than 10%…