Here is another one that was on the Forums:

Let me start by saying that I love the profession of Jewelcrafting, I’ve got 360 skill in it myself and I’m super excited about the future. I’ve collected some of the common questions people have come to me with, as well as some obvious FAQ-style questions to make a makeshift guide for Jewelcrafting. I would like to add to this guide as well as do more Jewelcrafting research, but I need your help! I’m compiling a list of all the Jewelcrafting recipes, the materials required, the items produced, and where to find everything. If you find a recipe, please post it here so I can add it, same for rare gems.

If you would like to directly contribute to my Jewelcrafting testing, I’m always looking for Fel Iron Ore, Adamantite Ore, and any Outland gem. Right now in specific I am also looking for Mote of/Primal Earth as it is the limiting reagent in two of my recipes. If you send these materials to Pern, I can send back Super Healing Potions or similar Alchemy potions (355 Alchemy). Please make sure if you’re sending the items from an alt that you indicate the name of the character you would like me to send potions to, as well as what sort of potions you are interested in. I’ll do my best to accomodate all requests, but certain herbs are rarer to me based on where I grind.

What do you need for Jewelcrafting?
Primarily, ore and gems. There are a few that use alchemy mats, a few that use enchanting mats, and a few that use assorted mob drops, but nothing in such quantity that it would merit taking a second profession other than mining.

Where can I use Jewelcrafting?
Anywhere, there are no fixed resources required (like a Forge or Moonwell). Most Jewelcrafting items require a Jeweler’s Kit to produce, this is a trade item you can buy from nearly any Trade Goods vendor for 8s.

What can I make with Jewelcrafting?
As the flavor text specifies, you will learn how to cut precious gems and craft jewelry. Specifically, Jewelcrafting allows you to make rings, necklaces, trinkets, a few crowns, and socketable gems. This is a very unique profession in that it produces two types of gains, new gear for accessory slots and augmentation of existing gear. It’s a hybrid between a production profession like tailoring and the service profession of enchanting.

How good are these accessories?
The obvious shining point of Jewelcrafting accessories is that accessories are traditionally rare to characters below level 30, so being able to create accessories customized for characters leveling up is wonderful. Past level 30, the Jewelcrafting gear is vastly outpaced by dungeon loot. Past 30, Jewelcrafting items seem to be at roughly a “quest reward” level, and as of yet there are no “ringers” that would warrant taking off dungeon loot for. I imagine this may be addressed at launch via rare designs and just more designs in general. Endgame Jewelcrafting is not about accessories though, it’s all about the gems!

Which classes benefit most from Jewelcrafting?
Since accessories can be used by anyone, and there are gem cuts to augment virtually every stat, all classes benefit most from Jewelcrafting. There are necklaces with high attack power, rings with armor and defense, trinkets with mana regeneration, socketed gems with crit rating. This really is a unique profession in that it doesn’t seem biased toward any class or role.

Which professions work well with Jewelcrafting?
I would strongly recommend picking up Mining if you plan on Jewelcrafting. The reason is threefold. First, it’s cheaper. Second, your materials may be in short supply due to the greater demand and lesser portability of ore versus bars, and you can’t do much with bars (I imagine the ore market will boost when the expansion is released, but overall the demand for bars comes from many sources, the demand for ore is exclusively on Jewelcrafting). Third, by mining you will find gems naturally on the nodes while mining in ADDITION to the gems you will get when you Prospect all of that ore, not to mention stones for statues.

If not mining, I might recommend Enchanting, as nearly everything you can produce as a Jewelcrafter is of at least Uncommon rarity, and in many cases isn’t worth selling on the Auction House due to oversaturation. Since very little of it is Soulbound however, there’s not much difference if you simply stick Enchanting on an alt.

What should I skill up on?
There are two major standbys for leveling Jewelcrafting, Stone Statues and Trade Goods.
Those practically worthless stones that drop from mining nodes are converted into Stone Statues for a cheap Renew (10 hp/s for 15s at the Rough level up to 50 hp/s for 15s at the Dense level) and cheap Jewelcrafting levels.
Trade Goods are mats required for some of your Jewelcrafting recipes that are made from base metals, very similar to the clothcrafting or engineering schema in that at the “Copper” level you use the “Delicate Copper Wire” trade good in almost everything you do, and it uses 2 Copper Bars. So this is an item you can make for cheap skill that you will use to gain more skill, and is one of the only times in Jewelcrafting that Bars will be more important than Ore.

What should I stockpile now to level Jewelcrafting?
As far as rare items at higher levels, you’re pretty much on your own because the recipes could change at a moment’s notice, but think about elemental essences and the like.

How high can I get with materials from Azeroth?
310, this is pretty much the same for all other professions as far as I’ve seen.

What is Prospecting?
Prospecting is a skill that can be trained at level 20 Jewelcrafting from any Jewelcrafting vendor. It grants the Prospecting ability in your ability book. In game text:
Prospecting

2 sec cast

Search 5 ore of a base metal for precious gems. This will destroy the ore in the process.

The function is incredibly similar to Disenchant, it kills the ore but has a chance at returning materials used in your profession. In this case, gems.

What gems can be found with Prospecting?
From all testing so far, you can get any gem that is naturally found on the node of that ore type (eg Shadowgem from Copper, Citrine from Mithril, Azeorthian Diamond from Thorium, Flame Spessarite from Fel Iron)

Are there any restrictions to Prospecting
Two actually. First of all, as the description states you can only search ore of a base metal. This excludes noble metals such as Silver, Gold, Truesilver, Eternium, and Khorium (any ore with “green” rarity). This ALSO excludes all “special” metals that are not considered base such as Indurium, Lesser Bloodstone, Dark Iron, et cetera. Second, you must have Jewelcrafting skill roughly equivalent to the mining skill required to mine that ore (eg 175 for Mithril, 300 for Fel Iron, 350 for Adamantite)

I have a ton of gems, now what?
Below 300 Jewelcrafting skill, gems are only used as part of jewelry creations, and although you will need a lot of gems to skill up, they don’t really take value until past 300.

Past 300, the Outland-exclusive gems can be “cut” into gems that can be added to socketable equipment.

Aren’t socketable gems just portable enchants?
Gems are “portable” in the sense that a Jewelcrafter can cut a gem and sell it on the Auction House, but they have restrictions too. Gems can’t be added to gear that does not have pre-existing sockets, enchants can be.

Can I stand in Orgrimmar all day cutting gems for people to make money?
While it is true that gems are significantly easier to acquire than enchanting materials, there is a cooldown imposed on gem cutting. From all testing so far, this cooldown appears to be 10 minutes for Uncommon gems and 60 minutes for Rare gems. I can easily see Jewelcrafters selling the ability to cut a gem though for this very reason, since your time is a premium and the recipes are rare.

How do I cut gems?
Gem cutting requires a gem, a recipe for the specific “cut” of gem you’re aiming for, and a Simple Grinder, which is just a trade item found on nearly any trade goods vendor for 2g50s.

What does specific cut mean?
As mentioned in the Jewelcrafting preview, there is more than one way to cut each type of gem. For example, a Golden Draenite can be cut Brilliant (+6 Intellect), Gleaming (+6 Spell Critical Rating), Thick (+6 Defense Rating), Rigit (+6 Hit Rating), or Smooth (+6 Critical Strike Rating), and these are just the ones we know of so far. Every cut requires a different recipe, so you can imagine already how many potential recipes there are!

Where do I find these recipes?
In the alpha, a small selection of gem cutting recipes have been placed on the Master Jewelcrafters in Thrallmar and Honor Hold. In the release, these recipes are designed to be world drops. I imagine some of them will be vendor-bought, but the vast majority of gem cuts will be found in the world. Additionally, there are some blue gem recipes that have so far been found only in Nagrand.

EDIT 09-28-2006 12:06 PM PDT: Noted Prospecting restriction for “special” Ore, thanks to Zaraton for that catch.

Blue gems?
There are six “uncommon” (green rarity) Outland gems: Blood Garnet, Flame Spessarite, Deep Peridot, Golden Draenite, Shadow Draenite, and Azure Moonstone. They come with relatively similar and common drop rates from Fel Iron, Adamantite, and Khorium nodes, as well as Fel Iron and Adamantite prospecting. In addition to this, there are super rare blue (blue rarity) gems that are found the same way with an exceedingly lower drop rate, these gems tend to produce fabulous effects when cut.

What kind of effects?
From the limited number of rare recipes I have so far, the stat gain from rare gems is a very marginal increase over their uncommon equivalents. For example, the Brilliant Golden Draenite gives +6 Intellect, but the extraordinarily rare Brilliant Dawnstone, with an even more rare recipe drop, gives +8 Intellect.

Are rare gems really worth it then?
Absolutely! For the extra day of stripmining it takes you to find a Dawnstone, you can have 100 days of playtime with a piece of Tier 7 armor that has 2 more intellect than everyone else’s. Understand that as a line item, the increase is not that significant, but when you consider that it is a bonus above and beyond everything else you have, getting the best gems you can for your gear will be crucial.

What is the best gem you’ve seen so far?
Brutal Earthstorm Diamond

+3 Melee Damage & Chance to Stun Target

Requires at least 5 Red gems and at least 5 Yellow gems and at least 5 Blue gems

“Only fits in a meta gem slot.”

What does the 5 Red, Yellow, and Blue gems thing mean?
Good question.

Can Jewelcrafters create socketed items?
Not in any recipes I’ve seen.

Can Jewelcrafters add sockets to items?
No.

Can a socketed item have an enchantment on it in addition to gems?
Yes.