Jewelcarfting, its a bad joke!

Looking back

Chasey's professions are Jewel Crafting and Enchanting. She has always been an enchanter but the other profession has changed a few times. I don't remember the 1st couple, but one day before Naxx. 2.0 I went mining to get the Stam. that goes along with that profession. Shortly after I realized, I must go JC, I was spending SO much gold on gems. At the time I did it, I was looking to save gold and get the unbelievable JC only gem bonuses. My goal wasn't to be a gold maker or to collect all of the recipes that the game offered. I was to make my gems or gems for my alt's. and to get the profession only stats.

Towards the end of Wrath I got to get the real benefit of being a Jewel Crafter. The awesome gold oppertunity and doing what the money makers call the "Saronite Shuffle" by prospecting Saronite. It worked but I was never a true auction house mogul. It was to keep my butt out of debt. Doing the JC daily wasn't much fun but it wasn't painful. The money you made became much better than any of the drawbacks.

During Cata, the money from JC was sickening! I made painful amounts of gold selling gems. Until the epics came out. At that time, being a JC was a pain in the ass! The dailies weren't horrible but it was something you had to do to get the patterns you wanted and the sheer fact your bonus was almost void by being a JC hurt to the core. I wasn't raiding but it saddened me I could spend 250g to get the same stats I had already by being the owner of a crafting profession. I heard some talk of it, but in the end Blizz never did up the JC only gem stats.

Enter the Mist of Panderia

For almost the entirety of Cata, blue quality red gem cuts sold for above 100g. They hardly ever dipped below that until the release of epics and even then certain cuts stayed pretty close. Every 4 days you had a new pattern that you NEEDED and could make a profit.

MoP has brought us a guessing game and the NEED for a miner on staff to get the gems you need. As we sit less than two months from release day, the blue quality red cuts are 60g on my server. That is even for the brilliant cut, which is much needed by ALMOST every class.

I'm a tank, I need 3 or 4 cuts. I'm not looking to sell at this point, I'm looking to get the cuts I need for my gear. It took me close to a week of buy or xmuting to get my cuts, per gem. Now I did get extra gem cuts but NO ONE buys blues. It is almost at this point (yes, even now in game) better to vendor them. Because re-listing them for 5 days straight makes no Goblin sense.

I thank Blizz for giving JC's a mount. Its been glorious doing dailies to get the pattern. While I discuss this I can see almost non stop for another poor JC, and I say poor because there seems to be a million of us, are now selling the panthers for cost. Yes, there is zero money to be made in the mounts.

No this isn't all about gold with me, my complaint isn't that the poor JC can't make gold, the simple fact is I've had to rely on RNG to get my patterns. I still don't have the pure mastery cut and the ring and neck patterns were obsolete a few days after level 90 for any toon.

Just quickly on another note, I think Blizz really dropped the ball on professions for this whole xpac. Sure I think they cut down the BOT'rs by making raw mats so very plentiful. But being a LW, Tailor or Blacksmith requires you to level and GRIND rep! OH, yes more grinding with the alts. Enchanting doesn't even have a use for the sought after Spirit of Harmony.

On the Spirit of Harmony front, I'm not sure if Blizz has implemented a worse idea to "get people out in the world". Making them BOE makes some of the raw materials less attractive. To my statement on enchanters, and even JC's who get their patterns they want they are now sitting on these and selling the raw mats you can buy from the panda. If you look it really has put dent in the Golden Lotus market.

Looking ahead

I'm guessing as teir gear becomes more regular on the normal raiders, as opposed to the hard core. That will once again make the gem market profitable again, but...

Sure being a JC is still fun at this point. The money from the profession is dried up. We are now only able to have TWO JC only gems in our gear and even cutting the Meta's is less cost efficient than selling the blue quality gems. I'm hoping that Blizz makes a change to the profession in later patches. Again, not raiding I'm not really disabled by this other than not having incoming gold flow that came with being a JC once was. Blizz has fixed that for us by giving us 120 or so factions that take no less than 9000 dailies to do to become exalted with.

Currently, being a JC is a joke. If I was raiding hard core again or on a serious scales I'd be upset by the 'nerfs' to the profession only benefit.