This is the wrong post to put this in I am sure, but since it is the most recent I figured you would notice faster.

No worries!

With the Nightmare tear in the red helm socket and yellow [Brilliant King's Amber] in all of the other slots I am wondering where you are getting the credit for a blue socket in order to activate the meta gem?

You know, it’s not a dumb question. The gemming mechanics are non-intuitive and the UI does a terrible job of presenting what’s going on.

The first trick is that the meta gems are activated by the color of gems that are in sockets, not the color of the sockets. A red gem in any socket will count as one red gem for the meta, no matter what socket its in.

The second trick is that multi-colored gems count as one gem for the meta activation for each of its component colors. An orange gem, for example, will count as both a red and a yellow gem for the meta.

So the prismatic nightmare tear counts as one gem of every color and activates the meta all by itself.

And no, there is no way you could have possibly known this if you only relied on content in the game. We all learn it from external guides or experimentation. That’s a clear failure on Blizzard’s part.

You are required to spend at least 31 points in one talent before you go to the next tree?

Yup. You can see this at work in Frostheim’s video of the hunter trees:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRZyR0kycrk

Once you chose your initial tree to specialize in the other trees are gray until you’ve put 31 points into your initial tree.

If mana will be such a major problem in Cataclysm, then I am kinda disappointed that Divine Illumination has been changed though.

I agree, it’s troubling on the face of it. It all depends on how regen is balanced, though, and in particular what happens to seal of wisdom. We’ll see how it turns out :).

But you’re right. I started thinking the same thing myself. These changes might not be so bad. Besides, they’re very likely to change during the beta anyway. The signs are obviously pointing us into the direction of dealing more damage and even healing through it. Sounds neat, if you ask me!

If mana will be such a major problem in Cataclysm, then I am kinda disappointed that Divine Illumination has been changed though. I think that this particular change would go better with an Illumination buff (back to 50% or even 100% would be cool).

That’s not to say the two stats are equal! If you’re at 3000 sp and 900 haste, a 23sp gem will be a 0.37% increase, but a 20haste gem will be 0.48% increase.

And yes, that encounter is so tightly tuned >.<