Where to put the Dragon's Eyes

I plan to start being active in-game again, planning out what gear to get where etc. I'm a JC so I got access to those precious Dragon's Eye gems so I was thinking about where I should put them in.

I am working on my Tempered Titansteel Helm which gets a meta and a blue socket next patch. So I was thinking to put a +41 Stam one in there and enchant it with a Heavy Borean Armor Kit as I neither have the TBC head enchant nor the WoltK one (yet). Throw in the 2% armor meta the helm would net me 253 Stamina. Not bad for a single itemslot.

Being a JC I also have access to the high stamina trinkets, namely the Monarch Crab and the Ruby Hare with the Crab obviously being the 1st choice over the Hare. Both have 2 slots so theoretically I could stick my other 2 Eyes in there and make a 154 stamina trinket with a 300 dodge on-use effect.

I am pretty fixed on the helm idea but I'm not to sure on the trinkets and/or if my other 2 eyes even should be stamina-gems. I am in mostly crafted gear with high defense and from what I've heard upgrades can hurt your defense a lot in my situation. So I could create 2 +27 Def Eyes to counter that drop.

Then again I'm just a few mats short of the JC ring and necklace which also both have 63 Stamina and 1 Socket each making them potential 104 stamina boosts.



I'm horrible at making decisions so I'll put it in the words of Ciderhelm: "HALP!"

JC gems count as all colours, so to sue them to full potential, stick them into sockets you have most problem to find proper gem for.

For me it is:

- blue socket - 24 stamina
- red socket - 8 expertise/12 stamina
- yellow socket - 8 defense/12 stamina

Out of those three I find the def/stamina gem the least useful, so I put my 41 stamina prismatic gems into yellow sockets, that way I can keep socket bonus without gemming subpar gems (subpar from my point of view).

if you are still low on health, to get the most bang out of your buck use the Dragon's eyes in non blue sockets to get the socket bonuses, that way the blue spaces can still have the + to stam gems.

I'm a JC too and I basically used the 3 dragons eyes in the trinkets and loaded them up with Stamina.

Reaching uncrittable in gear and enchants is no problem if you follow the guides on here.

The World of Warcraft Armory

Here is my current gear, The only "creative" bit of gear I have are my boots which I took as an "easy" epic and gemmed for defense, I've lost out on some Strength over the Titansteel and a socket bonus but I still quite like them to be honest!! I'll swap them out when something better drops in Naxx but until then they cost me 100G and the gems i did myself, it was a no brainer really. :)

It depends on socket color and socket bonus. Matching socket bonuses in ways you shouldn't be able to is half of what makes Jewelcrafting so awesome. Thus, I present to you...

The Code Of The Dragon's Eye

Rule #1: NEVER put a Dragon's Eye that would normally fit the socket's color (ie: 41 Stam in a blue socket) unless somehow there aren't enough red or yellow sockets on your gear.

Rule #2: NEVER EVER put two or more Dragon's Eyes in the same piece of gear. You should be aiming for one "free" socket bonus per Dragon's Eye. If there's two suboptimal socket colors on a piece of gear, and the socket bonus is worth it, put a normal gem in one and a Dragon's Eye in the other. This also means loading two of them into your JC trinket is a bad idea.

Rule #3: ALWAYS match the socket bonuses that give you the most benefit. For tanks, this is usually something like a red socket with a +6 Stamina bonus. Putting a +41 Stam gem in there will make your Dragon's Eye effectively worth 47 stamina. Putting a Dragon's Eye in a socket that gives you +4 Parry Rating will not be nearly as effective. This means you'll want to plan out where you put your Dragon's Eyes (and possibly even replace them as you go). It'll take you 3 days to get them all anyway, you've got time.

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Originally Posted by Lore

Rule #2: NEVER EVER put two or more Dragon's Eyes in the same piece of gear. You should be aiming for one "free" socket bonus per Dragon's Eye. If there's two suboptimal socket colors on a piece of gear, and the socket bonus is worth it, put a normal gem in one and a Dragon's Eye in the other. This also means loading two of them into your JC trinket is a bad idea.

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Having done exactly this, I 100% agree with Lore's point. Not only for the reasons mentioned, but also because this leads to the specific item becoming "overvalued". I've run across some trinkets that would be better for me than Ruby Hare, but haven't used them yet because I just can't bear to give up the ridiculous amounts of Stamina I've stacked on it. One of my side projects over next several days is to re-gem so that I can make better use of this trinket slot.

The counterpoint: while leveling and acquiring gear as a new 80, you're going to be doing a lot of gear swap-outs. One can argue that making the JC trinket early and gemming Dragon's Eyes there is a pretty safe way to "park" your Dragon's Eyes in a piece of gear that won't change until you get well into heroics and assemble a gear set that will stay with you for a while as you start raiding. If you do it this way, however, I'd suggest the Monarch Crab rather than the Ruby Hare as I did (like a doofus).

Monarch Crab is more in line with 24 Stam + 41stam gem, i made a expensive booboo last night by forgetting i put a dragon's eye in my Engineering Gun and had 3 to put in..needless to say i replaced the gem in the gun but thats 350g i'll never get back. Just make very sure before clicking accept that you have them in the right spot.

Also, ruby hare might look promising but to keep it around for a minimal health gain over some of the better tank trinkets (Pantheon Trinket from Normal HoL comes to mind) is just silly. Personally I never even made the trinket and don't see a reason to. As is I find it hard NOT to use the Monarch Crab even thou, there are slightly better overall trinkets to be had once raiding.

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Originally Posted by Lore

Rule #2: NEVER EVER put two or more Dragon's Eyes in the same piece of gear. You should be aiming for one "free" socket bonus per Dragon's Eye. If there's two suboptimal socket colors on a piece of gear, and the socket bonus is worth it, put a normal gem in one and a Dragon's Eye in the other. This also means loading two of them into your JC trinket is a bad idea.

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I am going to disagree with this, and I will give you my reasoning why, although it is not typical.

I am a JC. I have two +41 stamina gems in my Monarch Crab. I do this because I swap out my trinkets regularly, as well as a few other items, to skew my gear a little more towards threat, or a little more towards block, or some other aspect.

Infact, I do this several times per raid, on a boss/trash basis. Example: I have a JC gem in my helm (biggest socket bonuses), and 2 in my trinket. But I'm clearing trash, and don't need that extra 5823582 stamina from the trinket. So I swap it out, and free up 2 dragon's eye slots. I put in some other trinket (block, crit, ap, hit, something like that). And I put in some other gear - my threat gloves (which have a dragon's eye in them and 2% threat enchant, for example), and my Inexorable Sabatons, which are amazing for block/threat due to having high strength, block rating, and block value. I've also got a dragon's eye in that (defense).

Now I was able to swap in some gear that is specialized and multi-purposed, without gimping my setup, because I didn't need or want that extra stamina at that moment anyway.

Those items have multiple purposes because the Inexorable Sabatons are the best-in-slot set for an "uncrushable" or full-coverage from Block set. That set of mine utilizes full Defense gems everywhere, so unless I get tons of extra pieces of gear, I keep an item maximized for its main purpose (Defense, block rating, block stuff, with the thick dragon's eye), can USE it for that purpose, and also use it for threat. Using it for threat is possible because I can take off my Crab trinket to free up those 2 dragon's eye slots.

I may be a unique case though; but I thought about it heavily and that made the most sense for me by far.

However, in general, the rest of you are right. You want to use Dragon's Eyes in the weakest socket color, to hit the most socket bonuses. One in the helm is always a given. Generally chest will be next cause they carry the next strongest bonuses. After that, it's whatever.

I haven't been too worried with trash gearsets yet, and I certainly wouldn't use Dragon's Eyes on one :P

To each their own, however.

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Originally Posted by Lore

I haven't been too worried with trash gearsets yet, and I certainly wouldn't use Dragon's Eyes on one :P

To each their own, however.

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I'm guessing you didn't read part of my post :(

The boots are not just a trash gear piece.

I read it, but I also forgot that Warriors don't have Holy Shield, so I was thinking of your block cap set as just something fun for unnecessarily large AOE pulls :P

Whoops!

Even so, i think putting a 2 dragons eyes in the crab is a bad idea. If you really want to max out trinkets (and if you look at my armory i dont, because i want to replace those trinkets some day..) you would put 2 in the hare and 1 in the crab. Thats 3 dragons eyes for a +18 stam bonus, which is the same as putting them in 3 different pieces of gear for 3 +6stam bonuses.

As for me, I'm putting them in red sockets right now because i feel I need the def in yellow sockets (and I don't have that many yellow sockets)

Yeah for sure using the Hare on top of the Crab is an idea, but that's kind of meh and max stam (and actually probably less than utilizing the helm socket bonus of +12 stam btw!).

That, and most tanks will use Hare+something else, like Gossamer or the Thiaddus trinket.

Oh what I would give for a new trinket, however nobody seems interested in dropping them for me. :P

Every day I sigh at my hare... but i cant deny the flexibility have having 2 extra sockets to play around with. WTB better trinkets, pst.

Speaking of JC and trinkets, I'm considering macroing the use on the Monarch Crab in to Shield Block. a 60 second cooldown on that dodge rating bonus isn't bad at all. I never use it nearly as frequently as I should. It's not strong enough to be any type of emergency button, but using it every time it's up is one way to up the trinket's overall use to you.

Heck, using it every time it's up makes it about equal to 50 dodge rating passive, plus all that stamina.

the only fight i've ever remembered to use it on cooldown is lotheb, a macro may be a good choice. SB is a good tag-along from a cooldown perspective, but i wonder if the extra dodge will be overshadowed by the extra mitigation you get when SB is up. Perhaps slapping it on another ability that one uses more often, like revenge or sslam, and then specifically hitting sblock after the first proc of the trinket so they are off sync for a while.

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Originally Posted by frim

the only fight i've ever remembered to use it on cooldown is lotheb, a macro may be a good choice. SB is a good tag-along from a cooldown perspective, but i wonder if the extra dodge will be overshadowed by the extra mitigation you get when SB is up. Perhaps slapping it on another ability that one uses more often, like revenge or sslam, and then specifically hitting sblock after the first proc of the trinket so they are off sync for a while.

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I use Crab every cooldown on Maxxena..i hate her so much >< or maybe my healers hate me? :(

Some interesting points here on the trinkets,

I suppose I could rejig the gear when a decent trinket drops but as yet there has been nothing to convince me that giving up the ton of stamina on the hare would be a good move.

Considering I am lasting longer than other tanks in the guild on raid bosses at the moment means I'm hanging on tight to my wee hare for now!


No doubt at some point we're going to see some epic trinkets which may be better too.

All this discussion of the +41 Stam gem I was wondering. Have I been completely wrong to have made 3 +27 defense gems and stuck them in my crab and helm? I'm at the cap without them (just barely) but I thought the more defense the merrier.

Being a smith and a JC I stick my Dragon's eyes for every gear set (solid for tank, bold for dps) in my 3 free sockets (bracer, glove, belt) makes swapping gear easier with itemrack and gives me a predetermined idea of how to look at one of those pieces of gear