No, Illusion of the Dragonsoul is the best trinket but generally it remains unattainable. Bell is a very nice trinket if you cannot get IDS or if you do not wish to use MDF/Greatness in your second slot.

Thanks. The categories are a nice way to think about trinket itemization.

No need to overly complicate matters, but just food for thought: Haste and crit trinkets could stand as their own categories. There are a few trinkets not on your list, especially from the heroics, that emphasize those two stats. (I'm thinking about Spark of Life and Forge Ember from heroic Halls of Stone; Meteorite Whetstone from heroic Utgarde Pinnacle; Tome of Arcane Phenomena from normal Oculus). Again, further subdivision is probably unnecessary since both haste and crit fall within the notion of throughput, but I tend to break out those stats when I think about itemization.

And one more thing: There are some decent stamina and damage absorption trinkets available in the heroics that would fit nicely within your survival category. (For example, Essence of Gossamer from heroic Azjol-Nerub; Offering of Sacrifice from heroic Gundrak). Not so much in WotLK (yet), but BC had some raid fights where it was helpful to buff health or absorb damage. That said, shame on the healer who rolls against a tank for those items.

[Edited to add references to specific trinkets]

I would like to push this discussion of classification a bit further. I see this big list and immediately throw out at least half of them as being sub-par for current and future content. To me, they are 'stepping stone' trinkets and not worth long-term consideration. Here is how I see it:

Short-term:
[Battlemaster's Bravery]
[Forethought Talisman]
[The Egg of Mortal Essence]
[Embrace of the Spider]
[Mercurial Alchemist Stone]
[Figurine - Sapphire Owl]

Long-term:
[Illustration of the Dragon Soul]
[Je'Tze's Bell]
[Majestic Dragon Figurine]
[Darkmoon Card: Greatness]
[Darkmoon Card: Illusion]

Should not be used:
[Spirit-World Glass]
[Living Ice Crystals]

I struggled with placement for DC: I because it requires monitoring the CD for maximum effect. In the end, it should be a battle between IDS, MDF and JB based on the encounter from my POV.

If you feel like you have so much mana trouble that you need S-WG or LIC, I can almost guarantee the problem is not your gear, but your play style, group comp or target's gear. Overcompensating for other's weaknesses seems beyond the scope of this conversation specifically and this forum in general.

This is admittedly a short-term view, but I really like Living Ice Crystals for one primary reason: The instant +2710 healing. I've bound the use effect on the trinket to Swiftmend to get a bit more punch from Swiftmend in an emergency.

Even though many of us are farming to maximize spell power and other stats for future content patches, the reality is that we do not need more spell power or mana regen right now. What does help right now, however, is extra "flash" healing in an emergency situation when someone accidentally pulls aggro, gets back-to-back arcane hits in Phase 2 of Malygos, etc. The extra +2710 from the trinket isn't overwhelming, of course, but it helps.

Another way of saying the same thing: I like Living Ice Crystals for the situational use. It may not happen often, and may not account for a large portion of my healing. But when I pop the trinket, the benefit is very helpful. Looking at last night's WWS from Naxx, I used Swiftmend and Living Ice Crystals a whopping total of 7 times. Overhealing from the trinket was minor, suggesting that the extra healing typically helped when it was needed.

Resto druids have other tools, of course, such as Nourish and Nature's Swiftness+Healing Touch. That said, I often find myself using Swiftmend with Living Ice Crystals if a HoT is already planted on the target.

Longer term, I agree with you. Unless we hit a fight requiring massive mana regen, Living Ice Crystals is not necessarily a trinket for every fight. But right now, it works pretty well in a pinch.

I've been using 4 trinkets depending on the situation:

[Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon]
[Darkmoon Card: Illusion]
[Majestic Dragon Figurine]
[Je'Tze's Bell]

The mana return on DC:BD is absolutely ridiculous. It procs on average once a minute and raid buffed that means for me~180mp5 sustained...

So for "never run out of mana" set I use DC:BD and MDF.

IDS is pretty much unattainable and honestly I wouldn't even bother rolling on it since I think a caster DPS would benefit way more from the extra spell power than a tree - for me that's say extra 50 health on top of the 8K I'm already dumping on someone in a regrowth cast, while for a DPS that can be a measurable difference.

The bell and DC:I have very, very similar stats, so for static 200+ spell power and some 50-60mp5, those are very nice trinkets. DC:I can be easily managed into almost 50mp5 on any fight that lasts ~6 min (since you can use it twice in that case). The DC:G is expensive and nowhere near as much of a spell power boost as any of the other two, and roughly the same mp5 as MDF. MDF is a nice option to keep around and easy to get as the competition in a 10-man is not that big.

I used to use [Spirit-World Glass] but frankly that's way of an overkill when I'm sitting at 1k+ spirit raidbuffed and usually can afford casting and come out full after Innervate anyway.

Keeping patch 3.1 in mind, from current trinkets SWG will probably completely fall out, as the raw stats on the gear will go up, DC:BD will take 50% hit since the OOC regen will get nerfed, but so will the ultra-expensive DC:G (by roughly the same amount, putting it on par in mana regen department with DC:I - except DC:I also comes with 100 spell power). So ultimately, I'm pretty sure that coming next patch I'll forget about MDF (that being worth around 40 mp5 at that point), and I'll use either DC:I and the bell normally, or the bell and DC:BD if I'm desperate for mana, until I'll come across something significantly better.

I used to use the egg, but honestly in my opinion haste proc is the worst type of trinket proc for a tree - we benefit a lot from a static haste (which makes trinket like [Spark of Life] really decent with some gear) but not a whole lot from a proc haste (since you want your GCD at 1sec always, not whenever your trinket procs).

The thing with IDS is that there is a fair chance that Ulduar will drop better trinkets for DPS classes* as they have more options of stats which could be useful to have. Unless there is a fairly core change to our mechanics or some exceptional talent changes in 3.1 we will be limited by the fact no throughput stat really scales in a meaningful way compared to plain SP and the only way to really top IDS will be with IDS.v2 or a trinket with 175~ SP and an amazing secondary effect (an unlikely chance).

*Obviously this is just an assumption because no one knows what to expect in 3.1 regarding these things.

Just to strengthen - IDS is the best resto trinket by far. The 2nd best is half as good - and that says it all, really. DPS casters have a wide variety of trinkets they can utilize - curse, embarce, sundial.
Healing trinkets are very limited because healers like constant stats, not procs or clickies. Resto druids have the additional problem of not scaling with any other stat in a meaningful way, as stated above. As such I expect IDS to stay useable by healers long after DPS casters have abandonded it.

For me it will be fights under 7 minutes or otherwise not mana intensive:

[Je'Tze's Bell]
[Illustration of the Dragon Soul]

And mana intensive/multitank/long fights:
[Majestic Dragon Figurine]
[Darkmoon Card: Greatness]

The reasoning is fairly obvious. Now to hope we get four weeks of IDS in a row!

DMC: Blue Dragon's regen has been nerfed by approximately half.

selfbuffed
Live: 1008 oo5sr / 402 while casting

Trinkets:
Majestic Dragon Figurine
Living Ice Crystal

PTR: 684 oo5scr / 397 while casting

Majestic Dragon Figurine
Living Ice Crystal



During a 3d Satharion Fight I use DMC Blue Dragon (instead of Living Ice Crystal), wich proccs about by 7 times.
All in All, i've got full buffed (live) about ~36k / (PTR) ~14k Mana back.

I think DMC Blue Dragon is in a long term fight still a good alternative.

Ok so roughly 75 mp5. If mp5 is worth 2.5 item level points, then the trinket is now worth 187.5 down from 375. Where as Je'ztes Bell is worth 100 +sp (1point each) and 25 mp5 (worth 2.5 p) for a total of 162.5. So The blue dragon still wins.

Please tell me if I have my item stats wrong and if so where you get your numbers from.