Covetous Shen – Gems and Sockets in Diablo 3

Posted on June 29, 2012 Written by Leave a Comment

Covetous Shen – Gems and Sockets in Diablo 3

 

Diablo 3 kept several of the main components from Diablo 2, sockets and gems to fill them. Although Diablo 2 had many different varieties of gems, Diablo 3 has simplified it into 4 gems to cover all the functions needed, in three different types of sockets. Covetous Shen, whom you rescue about half way through Act 2, is critical in upgrading these gems and getting the best results from your sockets.

 

Basic Gem Properties

 

Each of the gems fills 3 different types of sockets. The sockets used in Diablo 3 are weapon, helm, and other. The color of gem is the basis for the effect. The quality of gem determines the modifiers for each gem.

Amethyst
+ % Life (in helm)
+ Vitality (in armor or jewelry)
+ Life Steal (in weapon)

Diablo 3 Gem StatisticsEmerald
+ % Extra Gold From Monsters (in helm)
+ Dexterity (in armor or jewelry)
+ Critical Damage Increased by % (in weapon)

Diablo 3 Gem StatisticsRuby
Increases experienced rewarded per kill by % (in helm)
+ Strength (in armor or jewelry)
+ Damage (in weapon)

Diablo 3 Gem StatisticsTopaz
+ % Better Chance of Finding Magical Items (in helm)
+ Intelligence (in armor or jewelry)
+ Attackers take damage per hit (in weapon)

Leonne has written more on this topic of Diablo 3 gem stats here….

Upgrading Gems

With patch 1.03, upgrading gems in Diablo 3 has improved significantly. Covetous Shen upgrades the quality of the gems for you, for a small fee. Each upgrade requires a number of gems one tier lower than the the quality of gem you are making. Some gems require materials from Nightmare, Hell, or even Inferno difficulty.  These are summarized in the table below:

Gem Size Difficulty Shen Level Gold Cost to Produce Other Materials Gems
Chipped Normal N/A Found None Not Applicable
Flawed Normal 1 10 None 2 Chipped
Normal Normal 2 25 None 2 Flawed
Flawless Normal 3 40 None 2 Normal
Perfect Nightmare 4 55 1 Page of Jewelcrafting 2 Flawless
Radiant Nightmare 5 70 1 Page of Jewelcrafting 2 Perfect
Square Hell 6 85 1 Tome of Jewelcrafting 2 Radiant
Flawless Square Hell 7 100 1 Tome of Jewelcrafting 2 Square
Perfect Square Inferno 8 30000 3 Tomes of Secrets 3 Flawless Square
Radiant Square Inferno 9 50000 6 Tomes of Secrets 3 Perfect Square
Star Inferno 10 80000 9 Tomes of Secrets 3 Radiant Square
Flawless Star Rare Recipe



Perfect Star Rare Recipe



Radiant Star Rare Recipe

 

 

Full details on the attributes of each gem are linked below:

Amethyst

Emerald

Ruby

Topaz

Using Covetous Shen and upgrading your gems for your sockets will help keep your equipment competitive or even superior in many regards during your travels through Diablo 3.


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Diablo 1.0.3 Patch for Jewel Crafting

Posted on June 24, 2012 Written by Leave a Comment

Diablo 3 Gem StatisticsThere have been many people complaining on the Diablo 3 forums about this most recent patch, 1.0.3 and how many “nerfs” there have been.  They are threatening to go back to ______ (enter whatever game you want).  I say, “go ahead”!  So let’s take a moment and look at the Diablo 3 Gems, and how this patch has changed them.

Diablo 3 Patch Notes on Gems and Jewel Crafting

The gold and material cost to combine gems ranks 2-8 has been reduced
Combinations for these ranks now only require 2 gems, down from 3
The gold cost to combine each rank of gems is now as follows:

Rank 2 – Flawed: 10 gold (down from 500 gold)
Rank 3 – Regular: 25 gold (down from 750 gold)
Rank 4 – Flawless: 40 gold (down from 1250 gold)
Rank 5 – Perfect: 55 gold (down from 2000 gold)
Rank 6 – Radiant: 70 gold (down from 3500 gold)
Rank 7 – Square: 85 gold (down from 7500 gold)
Rank 8 – Flawless Square: 100 gold (down from 20,000 gold)

Diablo 3 Chipped Emerald When you loot a gem in Act 1, it’s just a chipped gem stone, like a chipped emerald.  That is a Rank 1 stone.  You can loot the bigger gems, but you can also combine smaller gems (after you find Covetous Shen) into bigger gems.  With the reduction of magic items dropping that I talked about in my last post, I’m glad that gold prices are going down too.  This might just make using socketed items in Diablo 3 worth it again at lower levels.


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Filed Under: Casual Gamer Patch Notes, Crafting in Diablo 3, Diablo 3 Tagged: , , , ,

Leonne’s Guide to Making Armor in Diablo 3

Posted on June 22, 2012 Written by Leave a Comment

I’d like to rename this guide, Dummy’s Guide to Crafting in Diablo 3, but that’s taken by an official company.  However, when recommending to Lord Rcane to post a guide to making armor last week, both him and our friend said “why bother”?  Well, crafting in Diablo 3 wasn’t easy for me to figure out (maybe because I skipped over that dialogue?)

Anyway, there are two types of crafting in Diablo 3.  Armor and weapons with Haedrig Eamon and gems with Covetous Shen.  You’ll find Haedrig in New Tristram in Act 1.  You don’t get to “rescue” Covetous Shen until Act 2.  Both of these gentlemen will “move” with you to the new acts and difficulties.

To make armor you need Pages of Blacksmithing that you pick up as loot through your adventures.  These are different than the Tome of Blacksmithing that you start to get in Hell Difficulty.  You also need lots of gold to make armor and weapons.  I guess this is for you to buy the metal and such from Haedrig, because you don’t collect any other items like you do in other MMORPGs.

  1. Click on Haedrig or any of his equipment that glows when you mouse over.  This will open the interface.  There are tabs on the side of the interface for crafting weapons, crafting armor, and destroying items to get their components.
  2. Choose what you want to make.  The button will light up if you have all the ingredients for crafting.

You can “level up” Haedrig Eamon to make stronger equipment (higher level armor and weapons). Doing this will open up other items you can make.  This costs gold at early levels, lots of it.

Rare ingredients you get from destroying Diablo 3 rare items and unique items include:

Normal Level Blacksmithing: Subtle Essence, Fallen Tooth
Nightmare Level Blacksmithing: Shimmering Essence, Lizard Eye
Hell Level Blacksmithing: Wishful Essence, Encrusted Hoof
Inferno Level Blacksmithing: Exquisite Essence, Iridescent Tear, Fiery Brimstone

Now, the great thing about Diablo 3 Crafting, you can’t “fail” and loose all your ingredients.  You also don’t have to keep clicking a button to “level up” your skill.  Many recipes have random properties.  You’ll notice on the Diablo 3 forums people selling “6 property” such-and-such items.  Inferno Level Blacksmithing items have 6 random properties on many of the recipes.  My feedback to Blizzard – it would be great to influence the properties by adding another component.  Maybe if you wanted intelligence you add in a brain or something?

 


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Diablo 3 Gem Statistics

Posted on June 22, 2012 Written by 1 Comment

When searching for a good write up of the Diablo 3 gem statistics, I kept getting beta information rather than live information.  I’m sure that time will weed these out of the search results.  But until then, here is what I have so far for the gem statistics.

Gems go into armor, weapons, and jewelry that have sockets.  Sockets in armor are randomly placed.  There are only four colors of gems: amethyst, emerald, ruby, and topaz.  Depending on your character class, different gems will be more important.  Also, which item you put the gem in will have different results.  Helms, armor, and weapons are the categories.

Diablo 3 Gem StatisticsAmethyst
+ % Life (in helm)
+ Vitality (in armor or jewelry)
+ Life Steal (in weapon)

Diablo 3 Gem StatisticsEmerald
+ % Extra Gold From Monsters (in helm)
+ Dexterity (in armor or jewelry)
+ Critical Damage Increased by % (in weapon)

Diablo 3 Gem StatisticsRuby
Increases experienced rewarded per kill by % (in helm)
+ Strength (in armor or jewelry)
+ Damage (in weapon)

Diablo 3 Gem StatisticsTopaz
+ % Better Chance of Finding Magical Items (in helm)
+ Intelligence (in armor or jewelry)
+ Attackers take damage per hit (in weapon)

My Witch Doctor loves topaz gems for the intelligence.  But she has an amethyst in her helm for the % life.  On the other hand, my Demon Hunter has mostly emerald gems for dexterity, although I have a amethyst in her bow for the life steal.  If you are adventuring with friends, you may trade out gems to get more of what you want.

After you get to hell level, the perfect square gems start dropping.  I’m not very far into hell yet, but my friends tell me they sell the smaller gems because it’s not worth using Covetous Shen’s gem combining at that point.


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Diablo 3 Whimsyshire – There is No Secret Cow Level

Posted on June 10, 2012 Written by 1 Comment

Diablo III secret level

In Diablo 3, there is no secret cow level, but there is a secret level called Whimsyshire. This zone is filled with unicorns, rainbows, flowers, and teddy bears. It also drops some pretty good gear for the difficulty level. But how do you get to Whimsyshire? [Read more...]


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Diablo 3 Crafting – Normal Difficulty

Posted on May 24, 2012 Written by Leave a Comment

Diablo 3 Crafting – Normal Difficulty

 

Diablo 3 introduces a new crafting system, the Artisan system, starting in Act 1 of Normal Difficulty. The first Artisan you will be able to use is the blacksmith, Haedrig Eamon. In Act 2, you are able to begin crafting jewel augments via the jeweler Covetous Shen. Neither of these systems uses the old Horadric Cube method, instead you train the artisan and pay them and provide materials for crafting items.

 

Blacksmith Crafting

 

Haedrig Eamon – BlacksmithDiablo 3 crafting armor

Map Symbol: Anvil

Act I Location: North East of the Teleport Circle, New Tristram

Act II Location: North of Teleport Circle, Hidden Camp

Act III and IV Location: North East of Teleport Circle, Bastion Keep

 

Haedrig becomes available for crafting in Act I. With training, he can make several different items at various adventuring levels. But he needs to be trained multiple times in order to gain all the recipes in a level in order to advance to the next level.

 

For Normal Difficulty the recipe levels are:

 

Rank Minimum         Gear Level Range

Apprentice                 4-11

Journeyman              15-21

Adept                           22-27

Master                         26-29

 

All of these recipes use Tier I ingredients, specifically:

Common – Subtle Essence

Rare – Fallen Tooth

 

These ingredients are acquired by salvaging magical items at the blacksmith. Rare items (yellow) give both a Subtle Essence and a Fallen Tooth. Magical items always give a Subtle Essence and occasionally a Fallen Tooth as well. Items up to just under 30th level are considered Tier 1 and provide these materials.

 

Jewelry Crafting

 

Covetous Shen – JewelerDiablo 3 Gems and Jewelry

Map Symbol: Gem

Act I Location: Follow West Road from Teleport Circle to bottom of hill, Tristram

Act II Location: West of Teleport Circle, Hidden Camp

Act III and IV Location: North West of Teleport Circle, Bastion Keep

 

Covetous Shen is found in Act II and after finishing a small quest, he joins the hero’s camp. Shen provides the ability to combine 3 smaller gems to make one larger gem. Unlike Haedrig, Shen only trains once per level, increasing the size of the 4 gems he can make. Each of the gems has 3 distinct properties, depending on if it is a weapon, helm, or other slot. Gems also do not have a minimum level like other equipment does, however the first socketed items are found in Act II.

Gem sizes and the required Jeweler Level to make them, available in Normal Difficulty are listed below. Chipped Jewels are not made, only found.

 

Gem Size              Jeweler Level

Chipped                Not Applicable

Flawed                  1

Normal                  2

Flawless               3

 

Gem Effects:

 

Amethyst

Weapon: Heals Player per Hit

Helm: Life Increased by %

Other: Vitality Increased

 

Emerald

Weapon: Critical Damage Increased

Helm: Gold Found Increased

Other: Dexterity Increased

 

Ruby

Weapon: Damage Increased

Helm: Increased Exp from Monsters

Other: Strength Increased

 

Topaz

Weapon: Melee Attackers Take Damage

Helm: Find Magic % Increased

Other: Intelligence Increased

 

Summary

 

Between the gem augment system and the crafting of many items from the blacksmith, crafting may seem complicated. Players can both upgrade gems and make a wide variety of items. With a little practice, the simplicity of the crafting system will become apparent. Crafting in Diablo 3, starting on Normal difficulty, allows players to keep their character with appropriate gear and help their friends and alternate characters as well.


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