Folks that have done a lot of heroics may have collected a bunch of epic gem drops. Currently, all of those gems are marked as "Unique Equipped", meaning you can only socket one of them at a time.

For example, if you've got a bunch of Royal Tanzanite, you can only socket one at a time. Boo urns!

In patch 2.4, the Unique Equipped status will be removed and you'll be able to use all the gems you want. Hoo ray!

There goes all my JC income :P

Is it just Heroics or does it count for pvp gems also?

So far they've only said Heroics.

Damn. I would love to put Bold Ornate Ruby in place of all the 16 attack power gems I have. Same for Inscribed Ornate Topaz

Yeah, I think socketing more than one of those PvP gems is possibly akin to shooting fishes in barrels WITH ELEPHANT GUNS.

2.4 news from blue posts:

You’ll find here after some excerpts of 2.4 patch notes. Enjoy!

Dungeons and Raids

* All 25- player raid bosses that drop set tokens will now drop and additional token!
* Gems obtained through Heroic difficulty instances are no longer Unique-equipped.
* Loot dropped by Doomlord Kazzak and Doomwalker has been changed to Bind on Equip. In addition, the cash dropped by these bosses has been significantly increased.
* Scale of the Sands reputation will now be awarded in Hyjal at a much higher rate.

**************************************************

Well aren't you the little Nostradamus for the day.

You're pretty close, but it's actually going to be a part of Enchanting. Once every 24 hours, through Enchanting (not Alchemy) you'll be able to split a Void Crystal into two Large Prismatic Shards. This is through a new recipe that's being added in 2.4.

This helps reduce the exorbitant prices currently being seen for Large Prismatics, and helps raise the value of the Void Crystals. While this is the only change planned in 2.4 to help the Void Crystal prices, we're still looking at the possibility of additional 'help' for Void Crystal value in the future.


**************************************************

Although not terribly relevant to your discussion I thought I'd jump in and let you know about some Spell Haste changes in the upcoming patch.

In 2.4, Spell Haste will reduce the global cool down on spells, down to a minimum of 1 second. It won't apply to melee and ranged abilities though however.


**************************************************


As the PTR approaches we wanted to give everyone a preview of one of the larger changes for PvP that's currently planned for the 2.4 patch.

Currently, diminishing returns are applied to all honorable kills. What diminishing returns mean for honor is that each subsequent kill of the same target will reward you with less and less honor; 10% less per kill to be exact. One of the major downsides to diminishing returns is that the calculations, for potentially hundreds of thousands of players, is too intense to do real time, so they are calculated during off-peak hours. This in turn requires that the honor you gain be temporarily displayed as "estimated" until the calculations are run. It's a system that we've certainly improved (moving the calculation from weekly to daily) but still always disliked. It creates a very uninteresting and sometimes aggravating or confusing detachment from your achievements and the actual reward.

The reason for diminishing returns has always been to avoid the potential exploitation of the honor system. As the game has evolved, especially the honor and battleground systems, exploitation of the honor system now without diminishing returns would no longer be considered a lucrative alternative to simply participating in a battleground normally. We've also greatly improved our ability to monitor and track exploitation of this nature.

We've reached a point where we're now confident that applying diminishing returns to honor is no longer necessary, and we're currently planning to remove it with the 2.4 patch.

With this change we’re including a few restrictions as well though: Players that have the resurrection sickness debuff will not be worth any honor, and if a player dies 50 times or more during a battleground they won’t be worth any honor for the remainder of that battle.

What the removal of diminishing returns means for you is that as soon as you defeat an opponent that rewards you honor, you will receive that honor, and you will be able to spend it right then. There will no longer be an estimate, and you will no longer need to wait until the next day until you can actually spend it. Your achievements through honor-based PvP will be instantaneous.

What I love about those gems it they don't cost any gold and no tokens either. Just yummy honor. They should make gems you can buy with arena points. That would be sweet. Maybe like 24 Attack power like the bop JC ones.

There will no longer be an estimate, and you will no longer need to wait until the next day until you can actually spend it. Your achievements through honor-based PvP will be instantaneous.

NICE!!!!!!!!

I like that spell haste change. Now that will be useful to Rastus, who mostly casts instaspells. Cutting down on the GCD will enable me to pour out even more lifeblooms!

I do know that in patch 2.4 players can only carry 80 of your delicious conjured manna biscuits at one time. As a result, you should experience less banquet-creating frustration. Sorry, the spell icon will remain the same and not look any more new or unique.

No more people snagging all your food in battlegrounds and afking out.

I like that spell haste change. Now that will be useful to Rastus, who mostly casts instaspells. Cutting down on the GCD will enable me to pour out even more lifeblooms!

I was just going to say.... Just about every shadow priest spell is either instacast or with a casting team equal to the global cooldown, making spell haste an almost useless stat to them before. Now....

The BoP/BoE drops from Kazzak and Doomwalker are... interesting. Raiding guilds could make a nice chunk of change downing those guys and selling the results on the AH.

And the void crystal / LPS thing is awesome. 'cause the 2 void crystals = 1 LPS price thing on the AH is just ridiculous.

Wow! Busy day!

Patch 2.4 will remove the restriction for Ritual of Summoning that prevents you from summoning players into instances. Provided the player meets the instance requirements, you'll be able to summon them in from anywhere in the world.

Maybe being able to use Fear Ward while in Shadow Form would help? Yeah, I like this idea, we'll roll with it in the next patch.

******************************

I'm working on my first actual fishing character I must admit, I've never even had one to 300 even. I enjoy the experience quite a bit actually, and I'm playing collector with cooking recipes at the same time. I'm trying to find a good way to recast though, I've tried some of the mods that allow a right-click recast but it's not working for the setup I have.

Anyway, along the lines of fishing we're adding a new daily quest for fishing. Once 2.4 goes live (or once the PTRs are up) you'll want to visit "the mysterious old man" near Silmyr Lake outside of Shattrath. He's sure to offer treasures beyond your wildest dreams... or ramble on about how they had to color their own margarine during the war. Either/Or.


Geez! Why don't they just post the whole thing already!

Here is all the info. http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=4311154290&sid=1&pageNo=1

edit: The Feral bears will be seeing an improvement with Lacerate dealing additional damage based on your attack power.

Some new posts today:

- New Heroic badge rewards

- New teleportation portal to the Caverns of Time accessible through reputation with Keepers of Time

- Buncha AV changes. http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=4311227692&postId=43106419155&sid=1#0

Some new posts today:

- New Heroic badge rewards


Just when I thought I wouldn't need more badges...has anyone seen a list of the possible new rewards?

Nope. Just that they will exist. Don't know what level they are or what role they play (PvP, PvE, Dancin', etc)