Ok so now that I am doing 25 man raids again, it is time to look at gems and see which ones are the best for a tree specced druid.
Now with the changes in spirit, and intellect and they way that mana is replenished, I am looking at different gems that I used to. During the Burning Crusade I looked at pure healing gems as well as spirit gems. Wrath has given us more choices than we had before.
I am one of those people who tend to use socket bonuses unless they are completely bogus. But There are gems that can be found for any socket color that are useful to a resto druid.
Red
Runed Scarlet Ruby
Orange
Luminous Monarch Topaz
Yellow
Brilliant Autumn's Glow
Green
Seer's Forest Emerald
Blue
Sparkling Sky Sapphire
Purple
Purified Twilight Opal
The purified twilight opal is not actually able to be cut yet... not until 3.0.8 so we still have to wait a little while for that. But as we know, Red = Spell Power, Yellow = Intellect, and Blue = Spirit. So any combination of those make a hybrid gem.
The reason that I picked all of these gemz are for different reasons. The more +spell power a druid has the more their HoTs will tick for and the more healing that will be done for one spell. The more +intellect a druid has the more mana they will get back with replenishment and the more spells they can cast before going out of mana. The more +spirit the druid has the more healing in tree form as well as a higher base mana regen.
So depending on what you actually want from your healing you can gem all +spell power and have huge hots or you can gem all int and spirit for greater mana pools and higher mp5. I like a mix off all the gemz and tend to go for the +spell power +int, or +spell power +spirit gems.
Good luck with the the gems and have a delicious day!