We have 14 legendary gems including the Boon of the Hoarder, yet only a small handful of them are useful at all. All of the XX% Increased damage gems are completely pointless and are severely outperformed by the others, while some of them might have somewhat useful rank 25 abilities.
Everything written here assumes you are using a 1.00 speed weapon since gems use your weapon damage to calculate damage, not your weapon dps. This means that the faster your weapon is, the more effect the gems that deal direct damage lose which further pushes two-handed weapons into the realm of OP, not that The Furnace needed any help with that.
The powerhouses:
Gem of Efficacious Toxin - This gem does 2000% (+50% per rank) poison damage over 10 seconds, and at rank 25 increases all damage done to the target by 10%.
2000% poison damage over 10 seconds (on rank 0) translates to 200% weapon damage per second. That means that with a 1.00 speed weapon Efficacious Toxin would practically add 200% damage to your swing per second. Compare that to a gem like Bane of the Powerful that increases your damage by 20% AFTER killing an elite pack. That means for Bane of the Powerful to be as good as Effecious Toxin your skill would have to do over 1000% damage to reach the same 200% damage bonus as the toxin gem, and that also assumes you can use that 1000% damage skill once every second for ten seconds to compare to one application of toxin.
Next up:
Pain Enhancer - This gem does 1200% (+30% per rank) physical damage over 3 seconds on a critical hit. At rank 25 it adds 3% attack speed per bleeding target within 20 yards.
That means that your crits add 400% damage per second to everything you touch. With a critical strike chance of 50% that translates to a 200% damage increase on rank 0. Which is the same as toxin.
Wreath of Lightning - This gem has a 15% chance per hit to do 600% (+10% per rank) lightning damage each second for 3 seconds. At rank 25 it gives you 25% bonus movement speed while the buff is active.
That means 1800% damage over 3 seconds to everything in an area around you. If we assume the player is using a skill with a 1.0 proc coefficient, that translates to a 270% damage increase per second. But for the sake of realism let's assume you are using a skill with a proc coefficient of 0.75 which again puts it at 200% weapon damage per second. That is unless you are attacking more than one target and are keeping it up 100% with whirlwind for example, which then means this gem increases your damage by 600% per second and by far makes it the most powerful gem in the game, especially considering that it is affected by elemental bonus damage.
Honorable mentions:
Mirinae, Teardrop of the Starweaver - This gem has a 15% to do 2000% (+40% per rank) holy damage to a nearby target. At rank 25 it does it's effect once every 5 seconds which increases your damage output by 400% per second. This gem is cool since it has big numbers and nukes targets and stuff. However, since it is single target only and it has a proc chance of 15% that means it only increases your damage by 300% per second with a 1.00 coefficient skill. This is however only one one target which makes all of the previous ones stronger unless you are specifically building holy (and probably even then unless you are fighting a rift guardian). WoTF - Fists of Fury for example has a proc coefficient of 0.75, 0.18x7 (1.26 sort of), and 1.0 for each hit which somewhat translates to a 15% chance every second over 3 seconds which still doesn't make this gem that amazing. It is however still better than all the gems I have yet to mention.
Enforcer - This gem increases pet damage by 15%. Rank 25 reduces damage taken by pets by 25%.
Which is completely irrelevant since pain enhancer and toxin is still a better gem unless you are doing over 1000% weapon damage each second (which you actually might be with an M6 Demon Hunter). However, the 25% reduced damage to pets might be of interest since I have read complaints about pets not surviving enough in higher rank greater rifts.
Boon of the Hoarder - You know why.
The useless ones.
Zei's Stone of Vengeance - This gem increases damage you deal by 4% for every 10 yards between you and the enemy hit. Maximum 20% increase at 50 yards. Rank 25 gives you a 20% chance to stun the enemy for 1 second.
Not only is this gem insanely boring since you have to basically stand off screen to get the bonus, but it isn't even particularly good except for the stun. You would again have to deal over 1000% damage each second for it to be better than any of the greats.
Gogok of Swiftness - 50% chance on hit to gain 1% attack speed for 4 seconds, stacking 15 times. Rank 25 gives 1% cooldown reduction per stack of swiftness.
15% attack speed is like a really bad version of 15% increased damage. Not only does it not do jack shit for any of your cooldown spells, it mostly just drains your resources faster and doesn't actually give you 15% increased damage unless you can constantly use your spender without running out of gas. Only use this gem if you ABSOLUTELY need the 15% CD reduction.
Bane of the Trapped - 15% increased damage vs slowed enemies. Grants an aura that reduces enemy movement speed by a laughable 30% within a 15 yard radius. Even at rank 25 this gem only grants a 22,5% damage increase which is completely pointless.
Bane of the Powerful - 20% increased damage for 25 seconds after killing an elite pack. +1 seconds duration per rank and 15% increased damage vs elites at rank 25.
This gem is the absolute best of all the % damage increase gems. It is however still bad compared to the direct damage ones, even in combination with them. 200% per second (like the good gems do) * 35% = 270%. If you can dish out 600% weapon damage each second you can get a 210% damage increase at rank 25, which is still way lower than rank 25 of any of the top 3 gems.
Taeguk - Gain 0.5% increased damage for 3 seconds after spending primary resource. This effect stacks up to 20 times. +1 stack per rank and rank 25 gives you 0.5% increased armor every stack.
This means that you have to attack for 45 seconds to stack it to maximum at rank 25 which forces you to dual-wield, which is currently awful not only for regular damage, but it also completely gimps the damage of the top 3 gems. This gem also only lasts for 3 seconds so if you ever run out of resources, or you get stunned, you have to start all over again just for a useless 22.5% damage increase at rank 25.
Simplicitiy's Strength - The most useless gem in the entire game. 25% increased damage on your primary skills, +0.5% per rank, and at rank 25 it heals you for 2% of your max health.
This means that even at rank 25 this gem barely makes your PRIMARY skills stronger than with bane of the powerful. Which means that Demon Hunters Hungering Arrow will deal a staggering 213% instead of 155%. Also at rank 25 it will heal you for an insane 8000 life per hit with 400k health. This gem might somewhat help you with survivability as a monk since you will be spamming WoTF quite a lot, but it is still not as good as other defensive gems and the damage bonus is laughable.
The only remaining gems are Moratorium and Invigorating Gemstone, and they don't help with your damage output and I'll allow you to choose which one works best for you if you need one at all. Personally I'd rather stick my armor full of diamonds and use more offensive gems.
I would like to point out how the insane damage increase the top 3 gems provide with two-handers is completely broken, and the reason for that is how damage is applied based on weapon damage instead of weapon dps. The faster your weapon is the less damage your gems and cooldowns will do. You guys in the Diablo team should go and ask your buddies in the WoW department why they implemented damage normalization for instant abilities and see what you need to do and why.
While having skills doing damage unmodified by weapon attack speed allows us to have builds that require certain weapon types, it also makes it nearly impossible to balance and doesn't really add anything positive to the game except forcing you into certain play styles. Big damage cooldowns are much much less powerful while dualwielding or with 1h + offhand, especially with a quiver, which means you have to completely rely on resource spenders to deal damage. However, unless you actually need the faster attack speed to build said resources it isn't actually better to dualwield, and it was barely better to dualwield even before the two-handed buff. There were still very effective two-handed builds back then, and now two-handers have been pushed too far and are simply the only option except for when weapons have unique legendary effects that you need for your build. However I doubt whatever it is will be stronger than 50% increased damage vs elites.
Am I wrong? Efficacious toxin + Pain Enhancer allows my shitty Witch Doctor to move from barely doing T1 to destroying T4 even with dexterity ring + amulet with an insanely useless build.
Everyone ontop of the DH ladders is using 3 of the "useless" gems you listed.
Most Firebird Wizards are using "useless" gems, too.
I personally do WELL over 1000% damage per second. Probably closer to 5000%? Ignoring everything else - I fire ~1.4 cluster arrows a second. That alone is 550%+550%*4rockets. That's also only at 3 sentries. At 5 sentries I fire ~2 Cluster Arrows a second. Firebird Wizards do 3000% damage per second after they poke the mob once. Not..exactly hard.
Crusaders can be doing 3-6 Condemns a second.
Jade WDs do something like 70k% weapon damage in a burst - %s are MASSIVE here. Screw your silly 2k% dot, I'll take +20% damage on that, please.
Yes, Some builds will see more power out of procs. Some will not. They are viable for different builds.
I do not have any of the "The top three" I use instead Starweaver, Simplicitiy's Strength and Gogok of Swiftness,
Gogok of Swiftness lets me use a 2 hander like 2 one hand weapons. Simplicitiy's Strength combined with Depth Diggers gives me 120% primary skill damage boost (hardly the worse gem of all) and Starweaver is a nice extra damage nuke especially on single targets.
This works well on my Fist of Fury Monk and has vastly improved the enjoyment of the game for me.
As mentioned, different gems for different builds (not just WD's)
You spent ages writing this entire post, but spent zero time in game testing all your assumptions before you actually went ahead and posted? That's... Bold, I guess.
But to set a few things straight:
The toxic and pain enhancer gems do not "stack" - they can only have one effect at a time. It will, however, refresh the duration if they are triggered again. For me on my seasonal wizard, it means my Toxin gem at lvl 25 is doing 1.5m ticks every second. Nothing to scoff at as I can leave mobs on a little less than half health and have them die as they try to follow me due to the DoT, but not nearly as gamebreaking as you suggest.
Likewise, you seem to think adding 200% weapon damage to an attack is significant. It's not. I'm currently running a wand of woh explosive blast wizard in seasons. I have my EB on a 2.55 second cooldown. It triggers 9x attacks doing 520% weapon damage each. Let's be generous and say that's 3x attacks every second (so 3 sec CD) - you're now looking at 1560% weapon damage per second from my main attack. Sure, 200% wep dmg per second is a decent chunk, but after removing the affixes you lose out on due to needing sockets in jewellery, and accounting for the fact that no fucking build uses physical (pain enhancer) or poison (toxin) +dmg bonus, and you'll be using say, +fire dmg with my build, you're looking at maybe 10% damage added per second for a gem.
Now compare them to the "useless" percentage gems - the ones who increase your damage by a flat amount. I use gem of the trapped because of the way my build works, which means that I am adding a 22.5% damage debuff to every mob I am hitting. 1560*1.225=1911 - or 351% weapon damage, not accounting for the bonuses to fire dmg increase. It's far more potent on it's own (although the lvl 25 bonuses lets the toxin and enhancer gems catch up due to their secondary effects being damage increases, and trappeds being CC).
So essentially, yea, you're wrong. You're *extremely* wrong.
As an honorable mention:
Do you not think the developers are aware of how damage normalisation works, and the fact that the pure damage based gems works better with slower weapons (eg Toxin, Enhancer)? Of course they are. That's why they offer alternatives to builds that relies on fast attacks - it's called "proc based" gems, and Mirinae and Wreath are the given choises. If you do 1.2 attacks per second with a slow 2H, then yes, you'll gain far more from hitting stuff with the Enhancer gem or the Toxin gem. On the other hand, it'll take you an average of five to six seconds to get a single proc of wreath or mirinae. But the monks rolling with Flying Dragon that are doing more than 6 attacks per second? Those guys are getting procs of wreath and mirinae left and fucking right, averaging a proc every second (essentially? They have 100% conduit uptime).
So no - there's absolutely no need to enforce WoW's normalisation in Diablo. It'd make for extremely boring build choises. Just learn how the game works instead please.
Everyone ontop of the DH ladders is using 3 of the "useless" gems you listed.
Most Firebird Wizards are using "useless" gems, too.
I personally do WELL over 1000% damage per second. Probably closer to 5000%? Ignoring everything else - I fire ~1.4 cluster arrows a second. That alone is 550%+550%*4rockets. That's also only at 3 sentries. At 5 sentries I fire ~2 Cluster Arrows a second. Firebird Wizards do 3000% damage per second after they poke the mob once. Not..exactly hard.
Crusaders can be doing 3-6 Condemns a second.
Jade WDs do something like 70k% weapon damage in a burst - %s are MASSIVE here. Screw your silly 2k% dot, I'll take +20% damage on that, please.
Yes, Some builds will see more power out of procs. Some will not. They are viable for different builds.
You're right, unfortunately. It only goes to show how insanely out of whack some of the sets are. So basically the best gems I listed are terrible for the top tier sets, and the terrible ones are better for them and vice versa. However, this just means that the sets are just as imbalanced, and gems are still just as imbalanced as I said, because in comparison the bad sets are barely viable... at least from a competetive standpoint.
Everyone ontop of the DH ladders is using 3 of the "useless" gems you listed.
Most Firebird Wizards are using "useless" gems, too.
I personally do WELL over 1000% damage per second. Probably closer to 5000%? Ignoring everything else - I fire ~1.4 cluster arrows a second. That alone is 550%+550%*4rockets. That's also only at 3 sentries. At 5 sentries I fire ~2 Cluster Arrows a second. Firebird Wizards do 3000% damage per second after they poke the mob once. Not..exactly hard.
Crusaders can be doing 3-6 Condemns a second.
Jade WDs do something like 70k% weapon damage in a burst - %s are MASSIVE here. Screw your silly 2k% dot, I'll take +20% damage on that, please.
Yes, Some builds will see more power out of procs. Some will not. They are viable for different builds.
You're right, unfortunately. It only goes to show how insanely out of whack some of the sets are. So basically the best gems I listed are terrible for the top tier sets, and the terrible ones are better for them and vice versa. However, this just means that the sets are just as imbalanced, and gems are still just as imbalanced as I said, because in comparison the bad sets are barely viable... at least from a competetive standpoint.
No. The gems are strong for different specs. Read my post, please. None of the gems are particularly more powerfull or weak than their counterparts (with the exceptions being the stagger-damage, boon of the hoarder which isn't supposed to be a combat gem, and the movement impairing gem). The reason you see a combination of the DoT gems has nothing to do with their strength compared to the others. It is purely because Blizzard has decided to forego the feedback about how to make greater rifts more difficult (add more affixes to champions, have white mobs spawn with single affixes, apply zone-wide debuffs like an entire level of webs), and instead decided to just say "let's add health and damage till they can't take it anymore". This means that people *have* to kite and avoid every hit on higher levels, which means things like the Toxin gem, and builds like Marauder that *excells* at kiting, are going to be the most powerfull. I can assure you that a hydra+apocalypse build isn't the best for "pure output" for wizard, but on the other hand, you can't very well go into grift +35 with explosive blast builds because it requires you to be in melee range to work. Suddenly, bane of the trapped is no longer a choise because of the way greater rifts are designed - not because it's a weak gem.
Likewise, sets face much the same issue - Firebirds and Marauders are must haves for wizards and demon hunters, because kiting is required. On the other hand, a Archon-vyr's build would probably be capable of pushing the same damage as a firebirds, but it's not nearly as mobile and would see you squished fairly quickly. Again, issue with the greater rift design - not the sets. It's impossible to design two or three completly unique specs for each class that'll all be competitive, when the only viable option is "kite". Obviously the set designed to excell at kiting will be the most powerfull one.
I use the Conduit gem only for quick T6 speed rifts, because of the additional 20% movement speed. Its damage is laughable compared to other choices, especially since I've heard from Shinna that it doesn't even scale with lightning damage (I'm holy anyways, but it's nice to know). Still - as every other gem, it serves a purpose, so as everyone already pointed out, OP is wrong.
I guess this goes to show that Blizzard has done an awesome job to create 14 more or less well-balanced gems with entirely different mechanics that serve entirely different purposes!
Unless conduit has a 60 yard range it is by default useless for most wizard builds :3.
Well.....this is exactly the issue many are having, as is the OP. Many people aren't understanding the usefulness of certain gems because they haven't tried the gems in question with the appropriate builds.
Taeguk; worked well with my shotgun crus, didn't work at all with my monk's build.
Mirinae; The thread OP way underestimated the value of this punchy gem. I use it on my Holy Shotgun and it just flattens enemies, proc'ing often and obvious.
Goguk; Don't call this anything but a radical build changer. It. Is. Awesome (when used correctly).
Simplicity's Strength; Monk love
Bane of the Trapped;
Bane of the Trapped - 15% increased damage vs slowed enemies. Grants an aura that reduces enemy movement speed by a laughable 30% within a 15 yard radius. Even at rank 25 this gem only grants a 22,5% damage increase which is completely pointless.
"Completely pointless"? You seem to like math, why can't you do the figuring here? Mine grants 24% damage (shotgun crus), that's full-time damage to anything within 15 yards and/or anything on screen under a CI effect. For a melee class that is always at the toe of the enemy, that's more consistent bonus damage percentage coming from one affix than any other gem in the game. The MS affect is indeed a very small, but this affix ensures that any enemy within 15 yards will always take the bonus damage.
I use Mirinae, Bane of the Trapped and Bane of the Powerful on my Holy Shotgun. That's a potential +59% total weapon damage + 3160% proc'ing consistently from Mirinae.
These gems are taking non-sheet damage into a new realm for D3 players. Some folks, like the OP, aren't taking the time to understand that some of these gems will be garbage with your build, yet wreak havoc with other people's builds. My HC crus only does 730k sheet DPS, yet he stomps T6, can run GR's up to 28 solo and 31 party (that's in hardcore mode).
730k sheet that melts T6, that's what these "worthless" gems can do for you.
Going to depend on the build. In greater rifts it ceartainly won't be overly strong, but in T6/up to around lvl 30, the movement speed will vastly improve clear times.
Clearly sir if this is accurate you have done your research for one particular class, i tried Mirinae, Teardrop of the Starweaver on my DH, and sentries do not proc this gem, as far as i am aware pets in general do not proc any of your so called top 3 gems, making them 100% useless for pet/sentry specced classes at the moment i'm having the best success with Bane of the Trapped and Enforcer
As for your other gem, my main is monk up to rift 35, right now until i can find a weapon with LoH Simplicitiy's Strength is what is keeping me alive. as for Taeguk this is supposedly one of the best gems possible for a monk, 3pc Inna's mean Sweeping wind costs 5 spirit to maintain the stacks on this gem, keeping this gem active for 75% of the time should out perform Mirinae, Teardrop of the Starweaver, how ever with the likes of flying dragon this gem does insane amounts of damage. the higher you go in rifts the more damage we will take, problem being gear is only going to do so much to a point, get to lets say rift 45 as melee, when gems are boosting damage but survivability remains the same, all of a sudden Simplicity's strength and moratorium are going to start looking very attractive.
Also i'm pretty sure the damage over time gems don't stack, meaning i can hit the mobs as many times as i like i'm still only going to be doing X amount of damage per second, where Marinae is instant, the faster i hit the more procs i get making it VERY valuable for fast hitting classes
TLDR: research gems with ALL classes before making posts because it depends on Class, gear, and spec which gems will be valuable
Zeis gem is very useful. I'm running a phalanx build using the horses which in itself stuns and knocks procing the knock back bracers from a distance. In fact, enemies are pushed back while I stand still spamming which makes it effective over time as well. Another stun will always help, perma CCing even elites. It also works combo with the gem that increases damage against crowd Controlled enemies :-D oh, helps with the haunt of vaxo too.
Clearly sir if this is accurate you have done your research for one particular class, i tried Mirinae, Teardrop of the Starweaver on my DH, and sentries do not proc this gem, as far as i am aware pets in general do not proc any of your so called top 3 gems, making them 100% useless for pet/sentry specced classes at the moment i'm having the best success with Bane of the Trapped and Enforcer
As for your other gem, my main is monk up to rift 35, right now until i can find a weapon with LoH Simplicitiy's Strength is what is keeping me alive. as for Taeguk this is supposedly one of the best gems possible for a monk, 3pc Inna's mean Sweeping wind costs 5 spirit to maintain the stacks on this gem, keeping this gem active for 75% of the time should out perform Mirinae, Teardrop of the Starweaver, how ever with the likes of flying dragon this gem does insane amounts of damage. the higher you go in rifts the more damage we will take, problem being gear is only going to do so much to a point, get to lets say rift 45 as melee, when gems are boosting damage but survivability remains the same, all of a sudden Simplicity's strength and moratorium are going to start looking very attractive.
Also i'm pretty sure the damage over time gems don't stack, meaning i can hit the mobs as many times as i like i'm still only going to be doing X amount of damage per second, where Marinae is instant, the faster i hit the more procs i get making it VERY valuable for fast hitting classes
TLDR: research gems with ALL classes before making posts because it depends on Class, gear, and spec which gems will be valuable
Good post. As usual the stupid came out and had to be shown some common sense.
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Everything written here assumes you are using a 1.00 speed weapon since gems use your weapon damage to calculate damage, not your weapon dps. This means that the faster your weapon is, the more effect the gems that deal direct damage lose which further pushes two-handed weapons into the realm of OP, not that The Furnace needed any help with that.
The powerhouses:
Gem of Efficacious Toxin - This gem does 2000% (+50% per rank) poison damage over 10 seconds, and at rank 25 increases all damage done to the target by 10%.
2000% poison damage over 10 seconds (on rank 0) translates to 200% weapon damage per second. That means that with a 1.00 speed weapon Efficacious Toxin would practically add 200% damage to your swing per second. Compare that to a gem like Bane of the Powerful that increases your damage by 20% AFTER killing an elite pack. That means for Bane of the Powerful to be as good as Effecious Toxin your skill would have to do over 1000% damage to reach the same 200% damage bonus as the toxin gem, and that also assumes you can use that 1000% damage skill once every second for ten seconds to compare to one application of toxin.
Next up:
Pain Enhancer - This gem does 1200% (+30% per rank) physical damage over 3 seconds on a critical hit. At rank 25 it adds 3% attack speed per bleeding target within 20 yards.
That means that your crits add 400% damage per second to everything you touch. With a critical strike chance of 50% that translates to a 200% damage increase on rank 0. Which is the same as toxin.
Wreath of Lightning - This gem has a 15% chance per hit to do 600% (+10% per rank) lightning damage each second for 3 seconds. At rank 25 it gives you 25% bonus movement speed while the buff is active.
That means 1800% damage over 3 seconds to everything in an area around you. If we assume the player is using a skill with a 1.0 proc coefficient, that translates to a 270% damage increase per second. But for the sake of realism let's assume you are using a skill with a proc coefficient of 0.75 which again puts it at 200% weapon damage per second. That is unless you are attacking more than one target and are keeping it up 100% with whirlwind for example, which then means this gem increases your damage by 600% per second and by far makes it the most powerful gem in the game, especially considering that it is affected by elemental bonus damage.
Honorable mentions:
Mirinae, Teardrop of the Starweaver - This gem has a 15% to do 2000% (+40% per rank) holy damage to a nearby target. At rank 25 it does it's effect once every 5 seconds which increases your damage output by 400% per second. This gem is cool since it has big numbers and nukes targets and stuff. However, since it is single target only and it has a proc chance of 15% that means it only increases your damage by 300% per second with a 1.00 coefficient skill. This is however only one one target which makes all of the previous ones stronger unless you are specifically building holy (and probably even then unless you are fighting a rift guardian). WoTF - Fists of Fury for example has a proc coefficient of 0.75, 0.18x7 (1.26 sort of), and 1.0 for each hit which somewhat translates to a 15% chance every second over 3 seconds which still doesn't make this gem that amazing. It is however still better than all the gems I have yet to mention.
Enforcer - This gem increases pet damage by 15%. Rank 25 reduces damage taken by pets by 25%.
Which is completely irrelevant since pain enhancer and toxin is still a better gem unless you are doing over 1000% weapon damage each second (which you actually might be with an M6 Demon Hunter). However, the 25% reduced damage to pets might be of interest since I have read complaints about pets not surviving enough in higher rank greater rifts.
Boon of the Hoarder - You know why.
The useless ones.
Zei's Stone of Vengeance - This gem increases damage you deal by 4% for every 10 yards between you and the enemy hit. Maximum 20% increase at 50 yards. Rank 25 gives you a 20% chance to stun the enemy for 1 second.
Not only is this gem insanely boring since you have to basically stand off screen to get the bonus, but it isn't even particularly good except for the stun. You would again have to deal over 1000% damage each second for it to be better than any of the greats.
Gogok of Swiftness - 50% chance on hit to gain 1% attack speed for 4 seconds, stacking 15 times. Rank 25 gives 1% cooldown reduction per stack of swiftness.
15% attack speed is like a really bad version of 15% increased damage. Not only does it not do jack shit for any of your cooldown spells, it mostly just drains your resources faster and doesn't actually give you 15% increased damage unless you can constantly use your spender without running out of gas. Only use this gem if you ABSOLUTELY need the 15% CD reduction.
Bane of the Trapped - 15% increased damage vs slowed enemies. Grants an aura that reduces enemy movement speed by a laughable 30% within a 15 yard radius. Even at rank 25 this gem only grants a 22,5% damage increase which is completely pointless.
Bane of the Powerful - 20% increased damage for 25 seconds after killing an elite pack. +1 seconds duration per rank and 15% increased damage vs elites at rank 25.
This gem is the absolute best of all the % damage increase gems. It is however still bad compared to the direct damage ones, even in combination with them. 200% per second (like the good gems do) * 35% = 270%. If you can dish out 600% weapon damage each second you can get a 210% damage increase at rank 25, which is still way lower than rank 25 of any of the top 3 gems.
Taeguk - Gain 0.5% increased damage for 3 seconds after spending primary resource. This effect stacks up to 20 times. +1 stack per rank and rank 25 gives you 0.5% increased armor every stack.
This means that you have to attack for 45 seconds to stack it to maximum at rank 25 which forces you to dual-wield, which is currently awful not only for regular damage, but it also completely gimps the damage of the top 3 gems. This gem also only lasts for 3 seconds so if you ever run out of resources, or you get stunned, you have to start all over again just for a useless 22.5% damage increase at rank 25.
Simplicitiy's Strength - The most useless gem in the entire game. 25% increased damage on your primary skills, +0.5% per rank, and at rank 25 it heals you for 2% of your max health.
This means that even at rank 25 this gem barely makes your PRIMARY skills stronger than with bane of the powerful. Which means that Demon Hunters Hungering Arrow will deal a staggering 213% instead of 155%. Also at rank 25 it will heal you for an insane 8000 life per hit with 400k health. This gem might somewhat help you with survivability as a monk since you will be spamming WoTF quite a lot, but it is still not as good as other defensive gems and the damage bonus is laughable.
The only remaining gems are Moratorium and Invigorating Gemstone, and they don't help with your damage output and I'll allow you to choose which one works best for you if you need one at all. Personally I'd rather stick my armor full of diamonds and use more offensive gems.
I would like to point out how the insane damage increase the top 3 gems provide with two-handers is completely broken, and the reason for that is how damage is applied based on weapon damage instead of weapon dps. The faster your weapon is the less damage your gems and cooldowns will do. You guys in the Diablo team should go and ask your buddies in the WoW department why they implemented damage normalization for instant abilities and see what you need to do and why.
While having skills doing damage unmodified by weapon attack speed allows us to have builds that require certain weapon types, it also makes it nearly impossible to balance and doesn't really add anything positive to the game except forcing you into certain play styles. Big damage cooldowns are much much less powerful while dualwielding or with 1h + offhand, especially with a quiver, which means you have to completely rely on resource spenders to deal damage. However, unless you actually need the faster attack speed to build said resources it isn't actually better to dualwield, and it was barely better to dualwield even before the two-handed buff. There were still very effective two-handed builds back then, and now two-handers have been pushed too far and are simply the only option except for when weapons have unique legendary effects that you need for your build. However I doubt whatever it is will be stronger than 50% increased damage vs elites.
Am I wrong? Efficacious toxin + Pain Enhancer allows my shitty Witch Doctor to move from barely doing T1 to destroying T4 even with dexterity ring + amulet with an insanely useless build.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Kashou-2197/hero/48440713 (Might be out of date if you are reading this even a day later)
Most Firebird Wizards are using "useless" gems, too.
I personally do WELL over 1000% damage per second. Probably closer to 5000%? Ignoring everything else - I fire ~1.4 cluster arrows a second. That alone is 550%+550%*4rockets. That's also only at 3 sentries. At 5 sentries I fire ~2 Cluster Arrows a second. Firebird Wizards do 3000% damage per second after they poke the mob once. Not..exactly hard.
Crusaders can be doing 3-6 Condemns a second.
Jade WDs do something like 70k% weapon damage in a burst - %s are MASSIVE here. Screw your silly 2k% dot, I'll take +20% damage on that, please.
Yes, Some builds will see more power out of procs. Some will not. They are viable for different builds.
Gogok of Swiftness lets me use a 2 hander like 2 one hand weapons. Simplicitiy's Strength combined with Depth Diggers gives me 120% primary skill damage boost (hardly the worse gem of all) and Starweaver is a nice extra damage nuke especially on single targets.
This works well on my Fist of Fury Monk and has vastly improved the enjoyment of the game for me.
As mentioned, different gems for different builds (not just WD's)
But to set a few things straight:
The toxic and pain enhancer gems do not "stack" - they can only have one effect at a time. It will, however, refresh the duration if they are triggered again. For me on my seasonal wizard, it means my Toxin gem at lvl 25 is doing 1.5m ticks every second. Nothing to scoff at as I can leave mobs on a little less than half health and have them die as they try to follow me due to the DoT, but not nearly as gamebreaking as you suggest.
Likewise, you seem to think adding 200% weapon damage to an attack is significant. It's not. I'm currently running a wand of woh explosive blast wizard in seasons. I have my EB on a 2.55 second cooldown. It triggers 9x attacks doing 520% weapon damage each. Let's be generous and say that's 3x attacks every second (so 3 sec CD) - you're now looking at 1560% weapon damage per second from my main attack. Sure, 200% wep dmg per second is a decent chunk, but after removing the affixes you lose out on due to needing sockets in jewellery, and accounting for the fact that no fucking build uses physical (pain enhancer) or poison (toxin) +dmg bonus, and you'll be using say, +fire dmg with my build, you're looking at maybe 10% damage added per second for a gem.
Now compare them to the "useless" percentage gems - the ones who increase your damage by a flat amount. I use gem of the trapped because of the way my build works, which means that I am adding a 22.5% damage debuff to every mob I am hitting. 1560*1.225=1911 - or 351% weapon damage, not accounting for the bonuses to fire dmg increase. It's far more potent on it's own (although the lvl 25 bonuses lets the toxin and enhancer gems catch up due to their secondary effects being damage increases, and trappeds being CC).
So essentially, yea, you're wrong. You're *extremely* wrong.
As an honorable mention:
Do you not think the developers are aware of how damage normalisation works, and the fact that the pure damage based gems works better with slower weapons (eg Toxin, Enhancer)? Of course they are. That's why they offer alternatives to builds that relies on fast attacks - it's called "proc based" gems, and Mirinae and Wreath are the given choises. If you do 1.2 attacks per second with a slow 2H, then yes, you'll gain far more from hitting stuff with the Enhancer gem or the Toxin gem. On the other hand, it'll take you an average of five to six seconds to get a single proc of wreath or mirinae. But the monks rolling with Flying Dragon that are doing more than 6 attacks per second? Those guys are getting procs of wreath and mirinae left and fucking right, averaging a proc every second (essentially? They have 100% conduit uptime).
So no - there's absolutely no need to enforce WoW's normalisation in Diablo. It'd make for extremely boring build choises. Just learn how the game works instead please.
No. The gems are strong for different specs. Read my post, please. None of the gems are particularly more powerfull or weak than their counterparts (with the exceptions being the stagger-damage, boon of the hoarder which isn't supposed to be a combat gem, and the movement impairing gem). The reason you see a combination of the DoT gems has nothing to do with their strength compared to the others. It is purely because Blizzard has decided to forego the feedback about how to make greater rifts more difficult (add more affixes to champions, have white mobs spawn with single affixes, apply zone-wide debuffs like an entire level of webs), and instead decided to just say "let's add health and damage till they can't take it anymore". This means that people *have* to kite and avoid every hit on higher levels, which means things like the Toxin gem, and builds like Marauder that *excells* at kiting, are going to be the most powerfull. I can assure you that a hydra+apocalypse build isn't the best for "pure output" for wizard, but on the other hand, you can't very well go into grift +35 with explosive blast builds because it requires you to be in melee range to work. Suddenly, bane of the trapped is no longer a choise because of the way greater rifts are designed - not because it's a weak gem.
Likewise, sets face much the same issue - Firebirds and Marauders are must haves for wizards and demon hunters, because kiting is required. On the other hand, a Archon-vyr's build would probably be capable of pushing the same damage as a firebirds, but it's not nearly as mobile and would see you squished fairly quickly. Again, issue with the greater rift design - not the sets. It's impossible to design two or three completly unique specs for each class that'll all be competitive, when the only viable option is "kite". Obviously the set designed to excell at kiting will be the most powerfull one.
All the top players are using these 'useless' gems...
I guess this goes to show that Blizzard has done an awesome job to create 14 more or less well-balanced gems with entirely different mechanics that serve entirely different purposes!
Taeguk; worked well with my shotgun crus, didn't work at all with my monk's build.
Mirinae; The thread OP way underestimated the value of this punchy gem. I use it on my Holy Shotgun and it just flattens enemies, proc'ing often and obvious.
Goguk; Don't call this anything but a radical build changer. It. Is. Awesome (when used correctly).
Simplicity's Strength; Monk love
Bane of the Trapped;
"Completely pointless"? You seem to like math, why can't you do the figuring here? Mine grants 24% damage (shotgun crus), that's full-time damage to anything within 15 yards and/or anything on screen under a CI effect. For a melee class that is always at the toe of the enemy, that's more consistent bonus damage percentage coming from one affix than any other gem in the game. The MS affect is indeed a very small, but this affix ensures that any enemy within 15 yards will always take the bonus damage.
I use Mirinae, Bane of the Trapped and Bane of the Powerful on my Holy Shotgun. That's a potential +59% total weapon damage + 3160% proc'ing consistently from Mirinae.
These gems are taking non-sheet damage into a new realm for D3 players. Some folks, like the OP, aren't taking the time to understand that some of these gems will be garbage with your build, yet wreak havoc with other people's builds. My HC crus only does 730k sheet DPS, yet he stomps T6, can run GR's up to 28 solo and 31 party (that's in hardcore mode).
730k sheet that melts T6, that's what these "worthless" gems can do for you.
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Clearly sir if this is accurate you have done your research for one particular class, i tried Mirinae, Teardrop of the Starweaver on my DH, and sentries do not proc this gem, as far as i am aware pets in general do not proc any of your so called top 3 gems, making them 100% useless for pet/sentry specced classes at the moment i'm having the best success with Bane of the Trapped and Enforcer
As for your other gem, my main is monk up to rift 35, right now until i can find a weapon with LoH Simplicitiy's Strength is what is keeping me alive. as for Taeguk this is supposedly one of the best gems possible for a monk, 3pc Inna's mean Sweeping wind costs 5 spirit to maintain the stacks on this gem, keeping this gem active for 75% of the time should out perform Mirinae, Teardrop of the Starweaver, how ever with the likes of flying dragon this gem does insane amounts of damage. the higher you go in rifts the more damage we will take, problem being gear is only going to do so much to a point, get to lets say rift 45 as melee, when gems are boosting damage but survivability remains the same, all of a sudden Simplicity's strength and moratorium are going to start looking very attractive.
Also i'm pretty sure the damage over time gems don't stack, meaning i can hit the mobs as many times as i like i'm still only going to be doing X amount of damage per second, where Marinae is instant, the faster i hit the more procs i get making it VERY valuable for fast hitting classes
TLDR: research gems with ALL classes before making posts because it depends on Class, gear, and spec which gems will be valuable
Play all classes pls :-D
Zeis gem is very useful. I'm running a phalanx build using the horses which in itself stuns and knocks procing the knock back bracers from a distance. In fact, enemies are pushed back while I stand still spamming which makes it effective over time as well. Another stun will always help, perma CCing even elites. It also works combo with the gem that increases damage against crowd Controlled enemies :-D oh, helps with the haunt of vaxo too.