Restoration Trinkets
 

Trinket discussion always seems to be a point of interest when raiding, and more often than not specific trinket discussion is lost in the endless amounts of pages around here. So I (quite literally) ran down the Trinkets list in Wowhead to see what was available to us in Lich King and to start some discussion on trinket choices.

Icecrown Citadel:
[Althor's Abacus] - Gunship Battle (25)
[Ephemeral Snowflake] - Halls of Reflection (5 Heroic - Marwyn)
[Purified Lunar Dust] - 60 Emblem of Frost
[Sliver of Pure Ice] - Lord Marrowgar (10)

Argent Coliseum:
[Binding Light] - Faction Champions (10)
[Solace of the Fallen] - Lord Jaraxxus (25)
[Talisman of Resurgence] - Emblem of Triumph Vendor
[Tears of the Vanquished] - The Black Knight (Normal)

Ulduar:
[Energy Siphon] - Flame Leviathan (10)
[Eye of the Broodmother] - Razorscale (10)
[Pandora's Plea] - Mimiron (25)
[Show of Faith] - Yogg-Saron (25 Hard)
[Sif's Remembrance] - Thorim (10 Hard)
[Spark of Hope] - Kologarn (10)

Tier 7 Raids:
[Forethought Talisman] - Naxxramas Shared Loot (25)
[Illustration of the Dragon Soul] - Sartharion (25)
[Living Ice Crystals] - Malygos (25 man)
[Majestic Dragon Figurine] - Sartharion (10)

Heroics/Five Mans:
[Soul Preserver] - Culling of Stratholme Normal (Mal'Ganis)
[Spark of Life] - Halls of Stone Heroic (Sjonnir the Ironshaper)
[Talisman of Troll Divinity] - Drak'Tharon Keep Heroic (The Prophet Tharon'ja)

Other:
[Darkmoon Card: Greatness] - Darkmoon Nobles Deck (+90 Int, Spirit Proc)
[Darkmoon Card: Illusion] - Darkmoon Prisms Deck
[Figurine - Sapphire Owl] - Jewelcrafting
[Je'Tze's Bell] - World Drop
[Mercurial Alchemist Stone] - Alchemy
[The Egg of Mortal Essence] - 40 Badges
[Titan-Forged Rune of Audacity] - Wintergrasp Vendor (25 Badges)

Edit: 5/9/09 for 3.1, will add more as Wowhead updates

Edit (5/9/09): As guilds progress through Ulduar, Wowhead updates its list of loot. As such, there are some items that have been datamined but that Wowhead hasn't put up yet, so no links yet.

From the new list generated, it's clear to see that certain Trinkets pull out ahead of others - [Spark of Hope] seems custom made for Druids, as we're throwing SOMETHING out every GCD. Rough math shows that we'll get approximately 210 mp5 from this trinket from the effect alone, nevermind all the Spirit on it. Unfortunately it calculates the mana reduction before Tree Form, so we don't get to double dip for a full effect.

I would say that if you're looking at [Eye of the Broodmother], pass it to some DPSer or other healer and get them to run OS25 with you. [Illustration of the Dragon Soul] still drops off Sarth without ANY drakes up, which is 10-15 mannable for a guild in Ulduar, and frankly, it's better for Druids than the Eye. We scale MUCH better with straight SP than with Crit, while other classes can use both. No, I'm not telling you how your guild should loot. But really, Illustration is EASILY farmable, and any Resto Druid who doesn't have it should be pressing their guild (or anyone they have on their buddy list) to farm OS25 no drakes for it.

The other new trinkets (save for Sif's Remembrance) are kinda lackluster. Best in slot looks to be Illustration + Sif's (ignoring the one off Yogg 25 since Wowhead is lame). Is anyone else excited about the PVP Trinket effect on a PVE item? Not that we've come across an encounter with that yet, but it's nice to have on hand.

Original Post (11/25/08): I was debating adding a list of quest rewards, but frankly, there's nothing terribly unique about any of them - Equip: +Haste, Use: +Spell Power, or vice versa, generally. Some have Stats instead of an Equip bonus. Nothing gamebreaking though. This list also only lists items with a iLevel higher than 156 (save one, mentioning later) - we all know the greatness that is Memento of Tyrande or Glimmering Naaru Sliver.

One thing that I'm noticing is a severe lack of straight +Spell Power trinkets like Essence of the Martyr. This worries me a bit, only because the alternative is Crit/SP or Haste/SP trinkets, which aren't necessarily "ideal" for Druids. Anyway, a quick run down from my perspective:

[Je'Tze's Bell] is like Memento of Tyrande on drugs. Unfortunately, it appears to be a BOP World Drop. Grats to any Rogues who find this.

[Illustration of the Dragon Soul] is another one that I'm looking towards...mostly because it's straight Spell Power though.

[Talisman of Troll Divinity] seems horribly itemized. Direct Spells generally mean Pallies and Shammies, who get the least out of Spirit of all the healers.

[Soul Preserver] is the new Eye of Gruul - now that we have an AOE Heal, I wonder about the proc rate chances. Spirit is also prevalent on more trinkets then I would have expected. It seems Blizzard is focusing on more regen from your trinkets rather than straight output.

All three Darkmoon Cards listed are ones that I'm keeping my eye on. IMO, they're the most unique out of all the trinkets currently implemented. For [Darkmoon Card: Greatness], Spirit is the most obvious choice - bonuses to SP while in Tree Form, and nice regen whenever it procs. [Item not found!] is interesting because I've heard rumors that if you right click the bubble off, you gain an instant 1200 mana. Could also be useful for fights where you can't spare a GCD on yourself (admittedly, less of a problem now that we don't have a 7 second cycle). Also, 400 damage seems miniscule compared to the aoe we can reasonably expect in raids in the future.

[Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon] is a Trinket that I got earlier in the year when I was having mana problems (early t4). It served me well until the Alch Stones removed any mana problems whatsoever, but I'm thinking of bringing this back into my main set. With the nerf to chain potting, the alch stones have lost almost all their usefulness, in my opinion. Just some rough testing in 5 mans shows that the proc rate is still the same as I'm leveling to 80, but as I get more Spirit on my gear, I'm expecting the mana returns to be something close to ridiculous. Something I'm playing around with, but I'm really expecting it to pay off if I find myself with mana problems at 80.

I moved this commentary from the OP to this post.

I don't know why, but equipping both Illustration of the Dragon Soul and Majestic Dragon Figurine at the same time is very appealing to me.

With the massive amount of healer trinkets around I really can't see much use in prioritizing either of the 2 below for healers:
[Embrace of the Spider]
[Illustration of the Dragon Soul]

Unlike healers, dps-casters have fairly limited options.

-----
We had [Je'Tze's Bell] drop from trash in Naxx 10 - Might just be random but perhaps your info is incorrect?

I can confirm that it indeed is a world drop as well. It dropped for my roommate (warrior) in Icecrown last week.

Embrace is the same as the badge one so honestly it's fair games to whoever wants to waste 'DKP' on it or what not.

The Bell is really nice but it is something you cannot count on at all, Memento you somewhat had a realistic chance at some point.

I'm intending to use the two trinkets from Sartharion because there is almost no excuse for a Resto Druid letting that drop thanks to Lifebloom.
225 Spirit and 260(+34) Spell Power passive is pretty amazing to have although might cause issues if you do ever let it drop off by mistake (You have a more powerful spell active).

The Alchemy stone was nice while you are undergeared but once you reach the point of Naxx/Heroic+ epics it becomes pretty lackluster in my eyes... but that is when you compare it with epic items of which it is natural for it to not be as good.
Hoping that 3.1 will come out with some new profession items including the Alchemy stones to allow them to keep up else it no doubt fall into the shadows until they relent and add the upgraded version in.


I would recommend getting [Futuresight Rune] once you hit 80 to sustain you through bad gear - its very easy to get and it allows you to boost your Innervate to fill you up while missing out on stats early on.

The only problem with Illustration of the Dragon Soul is that every single spellcaster wants it. Every single one. That might take a while.


For [Living Ice Crystals] as long as it doesn't incur the global cooldown I could imagine binding it to a macro with Swiftmend as a sort of emergency heal booster.

Embrace may be the same as the badge one for healers, but the badge one only procs off heals, so it is in fact a lot worse for dps. Personally i find it quite lackluster anyways, as we're pretty much getting the haste we need for 1sec global (and some more to boot, sigh...) thrown at us from naxx gear as is.


As an excellent trinket to go with the futuresight rune pre raiding, there is [Badge of the Infiltrator].


Currently I'm using majestic dragon figurine together with the badge trinket (while the haste proc is fairly useless, it still has a lot of spellpower). I really like the figurine, but am at a loss on what to aim on for my second slot. Illustration of the dragon soul probably is the strongest indeed, but as mentioned every caster will be trying to get their hands on that. Je'zhe's does really seem like the most balanced choice, but being a world drop the odds of getting it are very low.


Another trinket of interest is [Bangle of Endless Blessings]. At level 80 it's only 10% mana regeneration, but it is still interesting as it will scale very well with gear. With my current gear (1372 spirit, 779 intellect with motw and figurine 10stack, it increases my mp5 from 339 to 445, so 106mp5 for its duration. According to wowhead, it procs on average every 51 seconds, so using 1proc/minute or a 25% is most likely fairly accurate. So we're looking at ~26mp5 self buffed, and going from memory (iirc i have around 1400 mp5 not casting with kings, no divine spirit), around 35mp5 fully buffed. The use, assuming its used on cooldown, is ~22 spirit.

Comparing it to [Spirit-World Glass] we have 150spirit (calculating the use as passive) so 128spirit over the bangle. In my gear, 126 spirit (using stacks of the majestic dragon figurine to test) gives me 34mp5. So at my current gear level (Naxx10/heroic gear mostly) the two are very close. So if your unlucky with trinkets, your old bangle might still be worth using on mana intense fights.

[Soul Preserver] is currently bugged and the proc doesn't waste when you cast wild growth. You can spam Wild Growth for free when it procs unless you cast another spell. Doesn't know if this also happens with circle of healing.

Personally I'm gearing up with the principle that one should generally invest in mana regeneration until it's a non-issue (or at least not something you must constantly focus on). From this perspective a combination of spirit world glass and blue dragon seems quite strong (although I've been using alchemist stone instead of blue dragon, pending further testing).

Some people will probably prefer to maximize their hot ticks even at the expense of mana which isn't necessarily wrong. Personally I think that no realistic amount of +healing can replace a well-timed direct heal and the best way to actually get a well-timed heal is to get maximum freedom (=mana) to be able to cast those heals. Additionally when you are able to keep up more rejuvenations that means more replenishment and more potential swiftmending opportunities.

[Illustration of the Dragon Soul] is the new DST it seems. It surparsses every other trinket by so much I think I'd use one that had half the effect, and if an upgraded version (2 actually) isn't released, I won't be surprised to see it used for a long, long time.
The proc from [The Egg of Mortal Essence] I find a bit unreliable since it doesn't give you much if you need to recast bloom on the tanks. It's still a nice item for the sheer SP on it.

Perhaps I've been understanding these trinkets wrong - are we able to keep a stack of [Illustration of the Dragon Soul] and [Majestic Dragon Figurine] indefinitely? I never used [Darkmoon Card: Crusade] which seems to have a similar effect.

Crusade is not for healers, I don't believe we ever had a likewise trinket until now.
Normally healers have less need for cooldown/use functions to trinkets because we don't have any cooldowns worth stacking them with unlike DPS - which is why the pure raw stats of them look good.

Aye, I'm kinda excited about these stacking trinkets, I'm hoping Blizz doesn't go overboard with them. It's an interesting way to have a passive effect.

But what I mean is, does the stack wear off after ten seconds once it's been maxed out (and then start over from 1 stack, etc.)? Or will we be able to keep the stacked effect until we stop casting spells? It seems a bit too overpowered to be the latter, but I can always dream.

Either way, I'm probably going with [Soul Preserver] and [Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon] until I can pick up either of the two Dragon trinkets. Even debugged, Soul Preserver looks like it could be nice along with Clearcasting...unless necessary, I try to save my Wild Growths for a Clearcasting, because spamming them runs me oom rather quickly.

[Illustration of the Dragon Soul] works exactly like DMC: Crusade. So once it's stacked it's pratically a 260passive bonus to spellpower.

edit: got the Majestic dragon one 5min ago, works the same way.