What are they for and where do i get them? I was reading up on a class guide and i noticed a section on them. I’ve been playing for a couple years and this is the first I’ve heard of gems for my gear
Gem sockets on gear are random chance when you get the gear. It will say ‘prismatic socket’ on the tooltip and have a little icon.
You can buy gems at the auction house or from players with jewlcrafting
Gems are an extra type of stat enhancement for armor. They used to be more common, and Jewelcrafting was more profitable, because part of gearing up for endgame included figuring out which gems and enchants were most effective for your spec, and every time you got better gear you’d need to gem and enchant it.
Sockets have been another random “upgrade” ever since Warlords, although the older gear still has sockets and the older gems can still be made or bought for niche activities such as twinking or the Herald of the Titans achievement in Ulduar.
Looks like you have four sockets wanting gems. There is a gems section on the auction house. I wouldn’t spend a lot of money though. The quick way to see your spec’s general stat priority is to look at the icy veins class guide in the stat priority section.
The more accurate way is to sim your character with raid bots site or addon. That said, at your level getting gems with the top stats in the icy veins class guide would be fine.
Shift right click the piece of gear to open it up to add the gem. You can never remove gems only overwrite them with new gems.