They could always go the other way too, and make a lot more items similar to http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=37818. Then we could spend hours discussing how a "moderate" amount of strength compares to a "mediocre" amount of strength.

Does anyone know if Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon has a cooldown on its proc? If no one has tested it, how would I go about doing it myself?

To get even a chance to proof its on a 3 times effect-uptime cooldown, you would have to squeeze 50 cast into 45 seconds wothout a proc in the worst case.
Sounds fun.
Proof via negative result should be easy then. If you manage to get it proc twice within 45 seconds with e.g. instants (+ GCD) you can surely say its not on an internal cooldown.
On the other hand, who can make use of that trinket at lvl 70 beside a holy/disc priest? And even for them there are better trinkets.

It doesn't have a hidden cooldown.

Does anyone knows the proc rate on Mongoose and Battlemaster enchants?
Do they have cooldowns?

Thanks

I don't have any proc rate numbers but i have seen Mongoose proc twice on two swings. 1 was an auto attack and the other was a special attack. Given that info it seems to not have any internal cooldown.

In regards to proc rate on Mongoose, I don't have any specific numbers, but it "feels" like it procs as much as crusader did. The nice thing is it lasts for 15 seconds instead of 10. It really is an amazing enchant, as a tank I'm amazingly happy with it. On that note, from what I've heard from our enh shaman Battlemaster is complete crap. Go for mongoose if you're any kind of tank or DPS class, it's expensive, but totally worth it.

Here's another way to look at it, using Spellsurge as a particular example:

The description says a 3% chance on cast. That is, on average, a proc every 33 casts.

The actual implementation is 15% chance on cast, with a 30 second cooldown. Let's say you're casting every 1.5s GCD. That's a 20 cast period after each proc where no proc can occur, followed by an average of 7 casts until the next proc. A proc roughly every 27 casts.

Of course, the relative number of casts-per-proc is very sensitive to how many casts you get into a cooldown, and most people aren't casting every GCD so the actual casts-per-proc is much higher, but those are beside my actual point.

Which is: The two situations are very similar in long-term effects. (And if they weren't, they could be balanced so that they would be: that is, for every flat, no-cooldown proc percentage, there is a higher proc percentage and an associated cooldown that will approximate the long-term value of the flat proc rate.)

But, the variance of the cooldown-based model is much, much lower. The trinket becomes a much more reliable factor. That's better for balancing, and honestly it's better for players, because who wants to fail to drop a boss or top the meters because you're having a bad proc night? Unpredictability is fun in small doses, but the variance has to be limited for the sake of balance and sanity.

Internal cooldowns, combined with higher proc rates, accomplish this.

So, if you assume that Blizz has tuned an item for the long-term power they want it to have, then internal cooldowns aren't a limitation on the power of the item; they're a boost to its reliability.

I'm not arguing against transparency-- there's no point in having Spellsurge's tooltip be totally wrong; it really should reflect the actual mechanics. I'm just saying that the hidden cooldown system isn't really something to be railed against as a limitation on an item's power, because (high proc rate + cooldown) = (lower random proc rate), but with lower variance.

has anyone tested the new Eye of Gruul?

Insightful Earthstorm Diamond has no internal cooldown; I've had plenty of consecutive procs.

I haven't been able to get it to proc at all.

Question: For like buffs is there a linked or shared internal cooldown?

Scenario: A mage is wearing a Shiffar's Nexus-Horn and a Sextant of Unstable Currents.

Will the proc of one trinket force the other into it's internal cooldown since they have like effects or can both proc at the same time?

Thanks.

The internal cooldowns are not linked.

With the T5 gear on the PTR, I can get the Sextant and the Nexus-Horn to proc at the same time, and add the 4/5 T5 bonus, that's 3 buffs from one crit.
Also, you can use clicky-trinkets (Silver Crescent) while procs are up, there are no limitations either.

Quags Eye seems special. Nobody has ever gotten back to back procs in under 30 seconds. Several hours of Dr. Boom combat log parsing and I didn't even get one under 45 seconds. You can see testing on it in the spell haste thread around post 31+.

Or here for a cleaner focus on quag.

I'd really appreciate it if someone had any info on Robe of the Elder Scribes. Thottbot lists it at 5% procrate, which would be the same as the Spellstrike set bonus. I love that set bonus, and I can see it up regularly. Now, if the Robe had a hidden internal cooldown on it's proc, it would just totally suck. Any input?

There is a mod called proctracker that will track the hidden cooldown of items. So far Quagmirran's eye is 45s pre 2.1,

The fastest I've ever seen Hourglass of the Unraveller proc from my own tests was 46 seconds. I think it's pretty safe to assume the 45 second figure is correct.

Anyone have data on Mark of Defiance?

Have to see it proc at all first with my shadowpriest :/

Unfortunately it only procs on mindblast/swd hits. If you start using those in your dps cycle more often, you should see more procs.

ok, bad joke i guess?

It only seems to proc on DD spell casts, not on DoT casts.
Accorting to Thottbot, it has a 15% proc chance.

Did about 20 minutes of Dr. Boom tests, and the closest reprocs I got were around 18 seconds.
I had no timestamps or stopwatch, I used Mana Shield (cast and check remaining time on reproc), far from proper testing, I know.
I had ~10 reprocs under 25 seconds, and about ~5 at 18-20 seconds. Nothing shorter than that, especially no back-to-back proc. Bear in mind that the Mana Shield is missing a second or two.

My guess would be a 20s cooldown (maybe 15s), but the data is a bit low to make sure.