Cost of Gems

[Lissa]

The net result of Blizzard's grossly inflated gem economy is that the only type of gem that's worth socketing in an item is a flawless square (with the possible exception of a perfect square amethyst in a weapon for LoH).

That's patently untrue.

High level greens are a HUGE damage increase for crit builds. It's an enormous damage increase for someone with 30+% crit. Enough that your first level 60 weapon can be not so great (but have a socket). Invest in it's gem and see incremental return on your investment. At 30% crit, every +10% crit damage is about 2% total damage increase. Its' not a bad upgrade path as an initial investment... especially because that gem can get moved into your next weapon.

Similarly, for melee Life on Hit is a solid defensive stat that you can incremementally ugprade. Once you get to that top tier of +600 LoH, you have gained signiifcant defense over your basic flawless square at +65 life.

The cost of weapons with modifiers that high are INSANELY high, way over 16 million. You can end up with a solid life on hit weapon by buying a "decent" weapon without the life on hit with a socket and plopping 6 mil down for a +500 life on hit gem. Those gems in weapons are a huge deal.... game changingly good.

In hardcore, where you'll lose the gem eventually, it's a tougher decision, but in softcore, you never lose the gem... it's an investment you will never outgrow.
A 6 mil weapon might get replaced, but a 300k weapon and a 5.7 mil gem? you can throw the weapon away when you upgrade, you still have your gem to move to the next one.

I don't expect people to be decked in radiant stars on other sockets, but for weapons it's a solid investment, IMO.

To show what Conc is talking about, I have a base 28k DPS when not using Sharpshooter and having a +70% crit damage gem in my 700 and something DPS crossbow. As soon as I hit Sharpshooter and let it build, I'm running about 53k DPS (I have a couple items that add in a little more +crit damage, about 20% on top of the 70% from the gem). As you can see, that's a huge jump in damage.