CheshireCat

In TBC, Blizzard has clearly moved almost completely away from the fully passive trinkets we healers loved so much. Virtually every available trinket choice has a use effect or proc.

I think the change is good for the game, making trinkets more than just one more stat slot, but traditionally the healing playstyle has been built around consistency and reliability, so it represent a big change from the Rejuvenating Gem.

It opens up a world of matching your trinkets to a fight, and of using trinkets in conjunction to make them stronger together than they are separately.

What are some of the fight-specific or synergistic combinations that people have found?


The Alchemist's Stone is a clear choice on any fight that calls for chain mana potion chugging. A ridiculous 40 MP5 using Supers, and even more using Fels or (presumably, I haven't tried this) GDS. The 15 stam means it's part of my high-stam set, too.

I love the Bangle of Endless Blessings for almost all fights. The controllable increased regen has bunches of great uses, which makes it a fun and interactive trinket.

Pop it if you can manage a prolonged period without casting, like a Curator evocation phase, for some truly ridiculous regen. For priests, using it with a Clearcasting proc, followed by an Inner Focus, can get you the full benefit and still let you get heals off. If you know you're getting an Innervate, save it for that. If nothing else, wait for the regen proc before you set it off. Brilliant trinket design, I think.

Besides boosting both throughput and flexibility, the Scarab of the Infinite Cycle's haste proc seems tailor-made for creating synergy with other trinkets. Pop your clicky +healing trinket to get more boosted casts, or the Lower City Prayerbook to save more than the usual amount of mana.

Personally, I've never been a fan of the clicky +healing trinkets, like Essence of the Martyr. There are certainly times where I could use the burst healing, but predicting them far enough ahead of time to click the trinket is difficult, and I find that I appreciate mana regen or flexibility a little more. Am I missing a brilliant use of these?

I just picked up a Ribbon of Sacrifice. It's possible that this could pay for itself in situations with lots of healers on few targets, like Gruul. But the short duration and the long cooldown make me hestitant. Is anyone in love with this trinket and have some tips for its use?

 

Amera

I did some casual math just on the opportunity cost of using this trinket for myself (what I would lose with it in a trinket slot) and came to the conclusion that it's a pretty horrible trinket. I'd lose more of my own healing from -heal and -mp/5 from my own trinkets than I would give a normal amount of raid healers (6-7). If they changed the cooldown to 1 minute it would be much more viable.

 

Unraveller

Well...

To be honest, I haven't found a trinket yet that is superior to Rejuv Gem.

As a druid, I weight healing at 1 Point, intellect at 1 point, MP5 at 5 points. That scores Rejuv Gem very high...

One of the most under-rated trinkets, and my personal favourite right now, is

Talasite Owl
14 mp5
900 mana (5 minute cooldown).

Assuming you only get to use this trinket once in the fight, and the fight lasts 5 minutes exactly:

900 mana / 60 mp5 ticks = 15 mp5 equivalent.

Now, in this worst case scenario, this trinket reads: "29 mana per 5". Which makes it one of the best in the game, hands down...

Great thread though, there are so many comparable trinkets, I would love to see a more detailed analysis of the "reduce mana cost by 25" "200 healing for 20 secs", etc, etc...

 

◊ Praetorian

Rejuv Gem is 66 healing and 9 mp5, or 108 mana per minute.

http://thottbot.com/i30841 is 70 healing and, if you cast 5 spells in 15 seconds, 110 mana per minute. If you're using that time to put HoTs on and such, you can get well over 5 spells in that period. A lot of people miss the fact that the Prayerbook is on a 1min cooldown.

For me, Scarab of the Infinite Cycle ( http://www.thottbot.com/?i=59592 ) is, in practice, one of the best trinkets I've ever had. It's going to be very, very hard to replace.

My personal dilemma is searching for something that will replace my Warmth of Forgiveness. Using it averages out to 24.89 mp5 in the long run, but in fights of variable length it can be used to greater effect. In a 4-minute fight, if I use it once 30 seconds in, and again 3min 30sec in, the net return is 1480 mana from the trinket over 4 minutes, or 30.83 mp5. None of the alternatives I've looked into seem to be superior. As a shaman, I don't really need a burst healing trinket -- I don't have HoTs that I can use the trinket to power for max efficiency. That shaman-only trinket from Serpentshrine is, I suppose, the logical replacement down the road.

 

Avair

The click '+heal for X sec' trinkets seem to be designed for Shamans 'fire and forget' heals. Basically, Earth Shield and Healing Totems, then swap out to a passive trinket. Beyond that, sustained throughput and efficiency seems more important, and that's where passive +heal/mp5 would seem to be king.

 

Malan

The Scarab is *amazing*. My 2.5s Healing Wave gets reduced to about a 1.9s I believe, and it procs *all the damn time.* During KZ clears it goes off at least once on every trash pull, sometimes twice. Most boss fights I get the proc 2-3 times. I have Power Aura set to show a little icon when I have it and I just spam heals during that period to top everyone off. Probably one of the best trinkets available for a healer right now.

 

CheshireCat

Wow, that Owl is really good. Especially when you consider that you'd get to use it twice if the fight lasted, say, 5 minutes and 10 seconds.

Some things to think about on the Lower City Prayerbook:

(I'm assuming here that "Reduces mana cost by up to 22" means that top-rank spells get a full deduction and lower ranks get less.)

Let's take the maximal case: You want to use as many spells as possible in the 15-second duration. With no lag, that's 10 spells (1.5 second casts or instants). If you get the full reduction on each, that's 220 mana back. On a 1-minute cooldown, that's 220 mana/minute, or 18.3 MP5.

Of course, our normal healing style isn't composed entirely of spammed instants and flash heals, and if it were, it would waste more mana than it saved.

Let's take a naive case: you continue to cast your normal heals as if you didn't know your trinket was active. Say, 5 of your slow heals, probably downranked, in the 15 seconds. How much of a hit that is depends on how the mana discount scales with downranking, which I haven't seen data on, but if there were no scaling, you'd be getting 9.15 MP5.

Realistically, you're probably looking at something in between the two extremes-- toss a couple more HoTs off than you usually would, or use a Scarab proc to squeeze in an extra big heal.

One fight where it could approach its max value would be the Red Riding Hood Opera event, which usually involves some spammed sheilds and flashes on RRH. Pop it right before a squishie has to kite and spam away.

 

SindirHH

Personally I like to use my alchemists stone and a rejuv gem in almost all boss situations. On trash I definatly like the scarab of infinite cycles.

I wouldn't mind grabbing http://www.thotbott.com/i27828 , though I have never been a fan of clickable +healing trinkets and personally enjoy passive effects much more.

I had the bangle for a very long time and just didn't like it Perhaps I didn't keep it long enough to do any serious testing, but I just couldn't find the place to replace my alchem stone and rejuv gem.

Does anyone have http://www.thottbot.com/?i=60468 or done any appropriate testing with it. I'm curious to see how well it pans out.

As well same with http://www.thottbot.com/i28727 has anyone done any testing with it? Just doesn't seem to be very good.

 

vorda

Does it reduce the GC aswell? (like bloodlust)

edit: to sindir: there is an entire topic about Pendant of the Violet Eye somewhere on this forum.
edit2: here it is: Pendant of the Violet Eye - How to put it to good use?

 

CheshireCat

I'm wondering if the Ribbon was meant to be used in concert with other healers who have it. A rotation could keep the buff stacked up permanently. (Assuming the buff from different healers refreshes the stack, a la pre-2.0 ignite.)

Adding a permanent 700 +healing (100 * 7 healers) on the tank might be worth 5 trinket slots across your healer corps.

Even then, if you could keep it stacked with 5 of them in your raid, that would still be just 140 healing per trinket, just on the tank. You're still brushing up against the opportunity cost of those 5 other trinkets.

Are we missing something, or is the trinket design just that bad?

 

◊ Praetorian

Ribbon of Sacrifice is garbage -- you are not missing anything. I looted one, played with it for a bit to make sure I wasn't misreading something, and then vendored it.

 

• Erongg

I'm thinking/hoping they'll buff the Ribbon of Sacrifice and Pendant of the Violet Eye. We're holding onto them in case they do.

 

• Snowy

??

Weren't you the same person who teased shamans for vendoring that helm from the opera event, then it got readjusted stats?

As for my healing trinkets, on the few times I actually do heal, I definitely use the Bangle. It's "Trans in a Can" as I heard someone say once. It's better for Druids and Priests though, who tend to have high spirit -- Shamans generally don't have spirit on their gear nor do they look for it. I use the Lower City Prayerbook for the other one, passive effects are always good, and the short cool down is what makes it good.

Paladin: Pyla
Mage: Pylah

 

Stein

...and Mages!

Bangle Use + Evocate = 2k extra mana

Mage armor (30%) + Arcane Meditation (15%) + Bangle Proc (15%) = 60% regen.....and mages get spirit/4 per tick just like holy priests!

 

Pyros

Lower City Prayerbook + Bloodlust + FoL spam=lots of "hidden" mp5. If you crit a spell with the prayerbook active, you actually gain 22mana back, with FoL spam you're pretty sure to land 9spells(10would be hard due to lag) and even more with bloodlust, and the passive is good too. Really awesome trinket imo, but as praetorian said, many people miss the fact it's 1min cooldown, not 2, which is why it's pretty good. I don't feel like bothering to find the math but when I checked, on FoL spam, with my crit rate, it was about 25mp/5, not counting Haste effects(I use scarab as my other trinket, so I often get self hastes).

As for the Scarab of Infinite Cycles, yes it reduce your GCD like every other haste effect afaik. I'm not 100%positive tho because when it proc on FoL spam(again), I sometimes get You can't do that yet, but I figured it only happened when the proc wear off while casting, and then the GCD goes back to 1.5 while you're done casting. I do see the heals going faster when it procs tho, just like when I'm under bloodlust.

 

Amera

It doesn't even matter. In a 40 person raid where you have 15 healers, the bonus would be more meaningful. Now you are running with 6-8, and its even less worth it. It really is worthless besides having the word Fecundity on it.

 

Donzilly

I find a great use for burst healing trinkets is actually in combination with earthshield. I currently have am still using the 10 mp5, 238 healing on caster and its up nearly every pull on heroics. Therefore with a caster group (wrath of air +trinket) puts me up around 1600ish healing and makes my earth shields tick for significantly more.

Same thing for arenas, I'll wear pve healing gear in, put wrath of air down, pop trinket, earthshield --> switch to pvp gear. 200 extra healing on each tick-2k extra healing during that arena. Very helpful, when get fucking rocked by burst damage. Scarab is my other trinket, its really great for arena's as well (in combination with Compass from last boss in Underbog for pvp).

Although if you area not speced for earthshield, I can see there's not much use for +healing trinkets like there is +dmg trinkets.

http://ctprofiles.net/2303173

 

◊ Lord BEEF

Small gripe with the prayerbook. The mana cost reduction works before talents.

With my current spec I have -19% off the mana cost of healing touch. This makes healing touch rank 1 cost 20 mana. If I use the prayerbook, it still costs 2 mana so it's really only taking off 18 mana when I use healing touch.

I was hoping it'd let me cast rank one touch while getting full spirit regen.

Check out my friend's bitchin' Lord of the Rings Art

 

◊ Oggie

What shaman class trinket were you refering to Gurg? Sorry to derail, but i can't seem to find any reference to one on Thott or Wowhead.

 

• Binkenstein

Earth Shield works on +heal when cast.
Healing Stream works on +heal at the point it ticks. I've seen mine boost by 4-6 points while I've got a +heal trinket active, but it drops again when it expires.

Currently got Scarab/LCPB and am working towards my Alchemists Stone. Probably going to drop the LCPB as I prefer the +haste proc more than the -mana cost.

Personally, I would value int/mp5 lower than Unravelers 1/5 values, especially for a druid, as int has limited impact on long fights, and mp5 works out to be more 3.5 for shaman (probably has less use for Druids with the in-FSR regen talent)

 

Naghat

Agreed. This trinket just plays extremely well. Spam heal mode makes a proc likely, and the effect helps you catch up. I rate it most highly of all my trinkets, simply because of how valuable the effect is when things start going poorly.

For mana intensive but controlled fights, (like Curator for my Karazhan group as we often run with 2 healers), I'll swap the scarab out for the Prayerbook & Alchemist's Stone, but I'm never thrilled to do so.

I've never really liked the Bangle. You give up the +70 healing of the Scarab or the Prayerbook for variable amounts of mana return. For fights that have both lenghty periods of no casting, followed by periods of intensive casting, (Netherspite perhaps?) I can see it being useful, but because I don't frequently use the trinket, I find that I'm poor at taking best advantage of the use effect. Usually halfway into my rest phase I remember that 'oh crap' I'd better hit the trinket. We're not really into the 25-man content yet, it is likely that I'll find more use for this when healer rotations become an option.

With regards to the Lower City Prayerbook. I played with having the use not bound to any of my spells, but I somewhat dislike having to make a use/don't use decision every minute.... so I've settled on trying to use it each time I throw a renew... which seems decent, but perhaps not ideal. Not sure if there is a better way to use it for a Priest however.

 

◊ Praetorian

Check this out: http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=30663

 

Quasi

Fathom-Brooch of the Tidewalker
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket Miscellaneous
Classes: Shaman
Requires Level 70
Equip: Your Nature spells have a chance to restore 300 mana.


Wow just wow and with a 15% proc rate that's not too shabby. Going to need some mathematicians to figure out about how much mana/5 that will net you under normal conditions.

Okay this is my attempt at some math. Correct me please if anything is off.

Assuming the proc rate is 15% and you are casting as fast as possible without haste effects. In 60 seconds casting a 1.5 sec spell (no lag) you can cast 40 spells.

40 spells * 15% = 6 procs * 300 mana = 1800 mana

So in 60 seconds of chain casting you ideally return:

60sec/5 = 12 1800mana/12 = 150 mana / 5sec

 

Ghando

Still rockin' Shard of the Scale + Rejuv Gem. I've wanted the Scarab for a while but luck isn't with me.

 

Kalto

One I've been playing with lately that hasn't been mentioned yet is the Shiffar's Nexus Horn ( http://www.thottbot.com/?i=59724 ). From memory it works out at about 1.5% spell crit, it procs quite frequently, and the buff actually lasts 15s instead of the 10s mentioned on the item itself. In my head it seems comparable to the Rejuv Gem but I can't say I've spent much time working out the math (which involves a few tricky variables like different spell costs or time spent casting vs idle time). At the very least, with the Infinite Cycle, Horn, and Mystical Skyfire Gem procs, my character puts on a good lightshow at every raid.