Like any other trade skill Jewel Crafting is pretty straight forward. While post-60 its focus is on socket gems, before 60 its a great source of rings, necklaces and crowns well before you would normally gain access to them. In addition, it fills in the gaps that are often left in these inventory slots, further fleshing out Caster and DPS itemization. The trade skill is, at the time of this writing, incomplete. There aren't any recipes (that I have found) above skill 290, allowing a maximum skill of around 300. It should be done before the game goes live, and any major changes to the structure will be reflected in a new tutorial.

STARTING OUT
The first step to learning Jewel Crafting, is... well... learning Jewel Crafting. Free up one of your two craft slots and head to the Undercity, where you will find a Blood Elf ready to teleport you to Silvermoon. Once there ask a guard to direct you to the Jewel Crafting trainer area. Everyone you need to get to 300 skill teaches it right here!



MINING
Once you have learned Jewel Crafting in Silvermoon you are ready to start raising your skill. The companion "gathering" skill for Jewel Crafting is Mining. Pickup a mining pick and get to it! If you're leveling up you can simply train as you go. A level 5 character will be well suited to learning the trade and constantly making use of its trade goods.

PREPARING
If you're already 60, you are going to want bars and raw ore (yes raw ore) well in advance of the expansion release. The easiest way to do this, is to pickup mining now, and begin training in it. Decide that every day you are going to get 20-30 skill ups PURELY from mining (no smelting!) and save all your ore, stone and gems on a bank alt. This will ensure that you have plenty of materials for getting your skill all the way up to 300! For those of you who are already miners, here is a recomended list to skill up to 300:
200 Copper Ore
100 Rough Stone
100 Tin Ore
100 Course Stone
200 Iron Ore
100 Heavy Stone
20 Gold Ore
20 Silver Ore
20 Truesilver Ore
100 Mithril Ore
100 Solid Stone
100 Thorium Ore
100 Dense Stone Ore

For storage purposes up to 75% of the Ore can be in bar form, but try to keep as much in ore as possible. This list is somewhat padded, just to make sure nothing goes wrong. I rounded all my numbers up to the nearest 100, I only used 158 copper for instance, but better safe than sorry!

PROSPECTING
I won't go into the nitty gritty details of what you should make to skill up, that should be fairly straight forward, but I will explain Prospecting. Prospecting allows you to take 5 ore and turn it into a gem, working like Disenchanting. You first train the skill at 10 Jewel Crafting, but you require a certain skill to harvest each type of ore, the same as mining it. Now there are plenty of things to skill up on that don't require gems, settings and stone idols being the easiest.


FURTHER SKILL GAIN
Unlike most tradeskills, there aren't any (at least that I have found) complicated quests for skilling up your jewelcrafting skill. In addition, much of the post 60 Jewel Crafting recipes aren't in the game. Most players won't worry about anything below 300, as the outlands gear rewards are far superior to anything you could possibly get before level 60, it really is a whole new world. Just focus on gaining skill as efficiently as possible. Here is an idea of the things that get made:


RANDOM TIPS
Only do your combines in Silvermoon next to the trainer. This way you don't go green, and have to worry about what the next recipe is. You can also plan ahead, knowing whether ore not an ore is about to expire as a viable skillup option. It keeps things simple.

Most of the items you're making are also going to be disenchantable. While you won't have the skill, it pays to have a bank alt you can mail all your new green rings/necklaces too. Chances are the market will be flooded with cheap rings/necklaces from all the Jewel Crafters just starting up, so send yours to an alt and simply Disenchant them, and put the dust (which has no posting fee) on the auctionhouse instead!

When you are near the end of one metal type (it's trade items yellow/green) and the next tier of metal is orange, it often pays to begin making harder items of the lower tier. To do this you prospect out some gems (like malachite) and make the tougher stuff. It takes more ore for a combine, but you can get garaunteed skill ups rather than a "chance" with a green recipe.

Hopefully this clears up the nebulous void that is "what is Jewel Crafting gonna be like" that was in my mind before I got into the beta!

Your Imbedded Reporter from across the Dark Portal