Frostfire Bolt PvE Gemming

I've just recently started playing FFB in PvE, and I'm confused over how to correctly gem my pieces. I have severeal pieces, such as the sanctified gloves and legs, that I'd rather only have to gem once, so I'd like to know the correct gemming now. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The main 2 gemming strategies I have heard are

1. Red = 23 sp
Yellow 12sp/10crit
Blue (Greater than 5sp bonus) 12sp/10spirit
Bue (5sp or less) 23 2p


2. Blue - 10 crit / 10 spirit
Yellow / Red - 12 sp/ 10 crit

I've seen many other variations on forums or in game, and I'd like some closure.

Thanks to anyone who helps

I'm talking WOTLK here if there is any confusion

Between the two,the one focused more on spell power will beat the other in a DPS race.Recently I saw a person who had 1,700 haste and that person was first on recount on a LoD kill.If you want to know more about his kind of gemming go deathwing,name is Skateboard.

FFB mages ussually go for either for SP or for crit gemming.
SP is same as your option 1.
Crit is like your option 2 except getting 20 crit in yellows.

When going for SP you tend to have more good and bad fights (according to your luck) while your lucky fights result in absolutely amazing dps.. there is still quite a high chance to get unlucky and underaverage.

When going for crit you are trying to diminish RNG (luck) role. -> it results in less unlucky and more lucky fights, in lucky fights you do less damage than with sp gemming, but on average provides better dmg.

I personally prefer crit gemming.

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Originally Posted by michaelfloyd33

2. Blue - 10 crit / 10 spirit
Yellow / Red - 12 sp/ 10 crit

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bull****, never gem these 10crit/10spirit go for Spellpower

Crit gemming I complete bull****, molten has a crit DR which sucks. Go for sp it beats crit by far. I've tested both and I've played mage for a long time.

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Originally Posted by michaelfloyd33

I've just recently started playing FFB in PvE, and I'm confused over how to correctly gem my pieces. I have severeal pieces, such as the sanctified gloves and legs, that I'd rather only have to gem once, so I'd like to know the correct gemming now. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The main 2 gemming strategies I have heard are

1. Red = 23 sp
Yellow 12sp/10crit
Blue (Greater than 5sp bonus) 12sp/10spirit
Bue (5sp or less) 23 2p


2. Blue - 10 crit / 10 spirit
Yellow / Red - 12 sp/ 10 crit

I've seen many other variations on forums or in game, and I'd like some closure.

Thanks to anyone who helps

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hahahah spirit? hahaha

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Originally Posted by Drmagy

hahahah spirit? hahaha

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..... 10 Spirit mean 5.5 crit rating for Fire mages

For me I would rather prefer having both, 20 crit for yellows and 23 SP for others, you need both so why not?

The following is pulled straight from Faelarin's pve mage guide:

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LB FFB

Red Socket: Runed Cardinal Ruby
Yellow Socket: Potent Ametrine
Blue Socket (Greater than 5 SP): Purified Dreadstone
Blue Socket (5SP or worse): Runed Cardinal Ruby

CS FFB

Red Socket: Potent Ametrine
Yellow Socket: Smooth KingÔÇÖs Amber
Blue Socket (Greater than 5 SP): Misty Eye of Zul
Blue Socket (5SP or worse): Smooth KingÔÇÖs Amber

LB FFB (other)
See CS FFB above.
OR, If you feel like ignoring socket bonuses and only going for Meta Gem Bonus, after obtaining gems for Meta Gem activation, just use Smooth King's Ambers in all sockets. (generally a weak option and used only at lower gear levels)

If you have JC. Replace 3 would be Red/Yellow gems respectively for the DragonÔÇÖs Eye version. This means that if you are SP gemming you use Runed DragonÔÇÖs Eye x3 while Crit gemming you use Smooth DragonÔÇÖs Eye x3.

To explain the difference of SP gemming and Crit gemming you should first think about the fire specs itself. The most important difference in the 2 gemming systems is RNG. By gemming crit you reduce RNG by having more crits. This means you have more consistent DPS than a SP stacker. When compared to SP stackers, The DPS can be lower or higher. This depends on the SP stackers RNG. If a SP stacker gets good RNG, they will very easily outdps a crit stacker. However bad or mediocre RNG will put them even or below crit stackers.

Another key point about how the DPS differs is with movement. Generally when high movement is involved a SP stacker will out dps a Crit stacker, while on stationary fights it comes down to RNG.
So in general: SP stackers can pull more DPS but are more RNG based than crit stackers who are more consistent.

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So, I'd say at lower gear levels, prioritize crit more. At higher levels (really once you start raiding), it's your choice: Do you want to burst harder but more sporadically, or do you want to burst more often but with less intensity? I'm lb/ffb & like going mostly +12sp/+10 crit for both yellow & red with the +10 crit/+10 spirit for blues, but I'm still in t9 stuff (literally just got my first part of t10 last night) so that spirit is still really nice. I've found that I seem to finish really high on the dps charts in PUG raids, even over mages with much higher gear score than mine, but there are so many variables there that I simply go back to what the resident expert said in the quoted text.

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Originally Posted by Nidoxii

Crit gemming I complete bull****, molten has a crit DR which sucks. Go for sp it beats crit by far. I've tested both and I've played mage for a long time.

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Elaborate on this please. I've been paying attention to my crit rates as compared to non-crit stacking mages, and I've always been ahead of them in terms of my number of crits by the correct amount that I should be.

Unless you were talking about the argument that goes something like "1% more crit is a 1% dps boost at 0% crit chance, but only a 0.6% dps boost at 50% crit chance", because the idea that you get decreased returns from crit the more of it you have is a myth built on very faulty math and incorrect use of numbers. From your phrasing, however, I assume it's something else that's Molten specific.

You are correct,crit rating does NOT suffer from diminishing returns(you need more crit rate for every consecutive number of crit % you get).The thing with crit mages is that while they get fairly good procs cuz of less RNG their actual hits are pretty weak and in most fights,unless the sp mage is VERY unlucky,he will beat him at the end.I'm not talking about DPS,i'm talking about damage done.

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Originally Posted by Rifokelt

You are correct,crit rating does NOT suffer from diminishing returns(you need more crit rate for every consecutive number of crit % you get).The thing with crit mages is that while they get fairly good procs cuz of less RNG their actual hits are pretty weak and in most fights,unless the sp mage is VERY unlucky,he will beat him at the end.I'm not talking about DPS,i'm talking about damage done.

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The tradeoff is something like 300 spellpower for 5% crit. You're heavily exaggerating the importance of 300sp in relation to 5% crit. 300 spellpower is somewhere in the realm of 5-6% more flat dps. 5% crit is also around that range when you consider that FFB crits do almost 300% of normal damage, after factoring in ignite. Then you also have the added bonus of more crit exponentially increasing your number of hot streak procs.

Go raid with full crit in all raids and instances for a month,then try spell power,see how it is for yourself,I won't go argue with you why 300 static SP is a big thing pf.

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Originally Posted by Rifokelt

Go raid with full crit in all raids and instances for a month,then try spell power,see how it is for yourself,I won't go argue with you why 300 static SP is a big thing pf.

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The only reason I changed my position on crit in the first place was because a mage in our guild (pretty much top PVE horde guild on my server) went mostly crit with his gems, and he's now pulling out ahead of other mages in most encounters, to everyone's surprise. So I'm not basing this entirely on theory.

The only fight where crit loses significant value is LK, where spells are bugged on transition phase to almost always crit, regardless of what your crit actually is.

There is no such bug on LK as a fire mage who has no spirit items and is completely BiS(referring to faelarin's bis list) with proper SP gemming you're going to have ~75% give or take.So w/e you do STATISTICALLY you will have 3/4 crits on all fire spells,a crit stacked mage will have 4/5.And the reason why your guildie is doing more is probably because he knows how to play,Many BiS mages can pull dps but few can pull big dps.But really the only way to get an accurate notion of which is better crit vs sp is by playing each one and talking to people who have played them,go ask Faelarin,petkobika(ragnaros,aurora),myph(ragnaros, radiance),my gm Banebane(deathwing,encore),purl/leulz(ragnaros,aurora) if they still play,Xego(ragnaros,aurora),copper(i believe he's in ragnaros,radiance),there are other mages but i'm more aquainted with the ones on Ragnaros