I am a miner and herbalist to gather gold while leveling but i have a lot of purple green, blue and purple gems that arent selling.
Not sure what they are used for too. I have some quest gear that allows gem sockets but i cant put them in my gear?
i am so confused.
I asked my friend if they go in max level gear and he says no and they are “trash”
But i have so many of these gems they need to be good for something, right?
Not really. They had a purpose back in the day but about the only use is if you want to level BC/Wrath JC for some reason.
Go to Tanaris. There are a lot of goblins there who will happily buy them from you 
Those are uncut gems used by Jewel Crafters for their respective expansions recipes, because these aren’t as good as they used to be relative to dungeon/quest items they normally aren’t bought unless someone really wants a ring/necklace with sockets…or the gem itself to fit into a socket once it’s cut. The market for these is relatively small.
why would they implement such a great way to enhance gear and then seem to stop.
It’s work for miners and JC and it seems like everyone would want them
Jewel Crafters that have raised their skill in that expansion are the only ones that can cut those gems.
Most people don’t bother buying them because the gems have been nerfed to being incredibly weak…and most people barely take care of their characters and are in a rush to max level, so they don’t often bother with gems or enchantments.
Don’t worry, nearly all professions are disappointing up to BFA content now.
Old content is just that old content don’t expect a market value off of everything in it that no longer matters.
They have changed gems a few times over the expansions. They were introduced in TBC with socket colors and having a bonus. If you put the correct color in each socket you got the bonus. In WotLK they were the same way, but 99% of the time the bonus wasn’t worth getting so you stacked 1 color. They redid them in WoD(Thanks Impsie) so they were all just prismatic. I stopped playing heavily in Cata, but I know at some point after gem sockets became a rare roll on gear. Now they’re still a rare roll on gear, but in 8.3 the Horrific Vision vendor also sold an item that allowed you to put a socket on an item. They’ve had and removed a few systems that people loved. They seem like they have no plan and just wing it for class and armor design.
wow that’s really sad
I believe seeing how much the professions changed since wotlk is a good indication of just how far this game has fallen in terms of its dynamic complexity.
The talents, and builds you used to have influence over would lead to a lot of fun gameplay choices.
My best guess is that like reforging it was too good of a system to ensure you got the stat(s) you wanted/needed making the gear last a bit longer than they liked.
JC was the first profession I actually did in WoW and now I’m lucky to even get an item that has a gem slot in it.
“We want you to be able to immediately equip an upgrade”
More brainless design philosophies from Ion.
No, they didn’t redo them until WoD. Cata/MoP had the same original socket system as TBC and WotLK. If anything, Cata got excessive at the end with the amount of red gem sockets on Tier 13 gear.
Thanks for the correction. My memory isn’t what it used to be, especially for a game that I lost interest for at those periods.
What a disappointment I was starting to think my profession was about to get interesting