Spiritual Guidance: 17 trinkets for healing raiders

Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. How do you feel about trinkets? This week Matticus will examine a wide variety of trinkets in the game obtainable in Northrend for healers!
Trinkets are interesting items. They have different abilities and uses best suited for the situation at hand. Here is the majority of trinkets that I believe us healers would be interested in the most and my initial thoughts on them. I've even recommended a few of them for us Priests!
Soul Preserver: Kill Mal'Ganis in CoT: Stratholme, and you might get this decent trinket. This one of the first trinkets I acquired at 80 and it served me well. I had a lot of mana problems early on and this helped ease the pain. Resto Druids may wish to look at this trinket as well. I don't know if it procs off of HoT ticks or just spell casts. Comments on WoW Head reveal that it has no internal cooldown either. It can also proc off of every jump from Chain Heal for the Resto Shamans.Cannoneer's Morale: This comes from the sweet Icecrown quest where you defend the Argent encampment by commandeering the base defenses. You don't even need this trinket as a reason to do it. Go do it! It's loads of fun! It offers a solid 22 mana per 5 and it can boost your spell power by 281 whenever you need it. It's easy to obtain.
Wingted Talisman: Bigger brother to the Cannoneer's Morale. Obtainable from Halls of Lightning on heroic.
Mercurial Alchemist Stone: Limited to Alchemists, it's a good introductory and profession trinket. I honestly don't know how well it will do compared to higher end trinkets. The 1 potion per fight rule does make the bonus lackluster. Nonetheless, it's a great introductory level trinket.
Talisman of Troll Divinity: This comes from heroic Drak'Tharaon Keep. Try to gun for this one if you can. It has a lot of Spirit and the use effect is nice for AoE related encounters. Pop it and spam your AoE healing spells. Everyone affected by your heals will also get the bonus. Remember that other healing classes will benefit indirectly as your targets gain the increased healing done to them. Matticus recommended
Figurine – Sapphire Owl: Sadly, I believe this is available to Jewelcrafters only. It has a godly amount of mana return on it and it also has 2 blue sockets available for you to gem it with!
Forge Ember: Drops from heroic Halls of Stone. I would pass on this but if there's no one else, it's still something. The proc's an eye opener for sure.
The Egg of Mortal Essence: Same thing as the Embrace of the Spider. Good starter trinket for Priests if they need happen to need one. Pick this up from your local Heroism emblem vendor.
Spirit-World Glass: Oh, Earring of Soul Meditation I missed you. It seems to drop from Gothik in normal Naxx. It's not limited to just Priests anymore. I suspect Resto Druids may wish to exercise option on this. Pop it and watch the mana flow. Matticus recommended
Majestic Dragon Figurine: The mechanic is similar to the Illustration of the Dragon Soul (below). During prolonged encounters, you'll gain a constant 180 Spirit as long as you keep casting spells (like Levitate). Comes from the normal version of Obsidian Sanctum.
Embrace of the Spider: Increases your spell power by 98. If it procs, expect to see some really fast heals. Pair this with The Egg of Mortal Essence. It seems both the Embrace and the Egg can activate at the same time for ~1000 haste. I can see the Paladins salivate now. Obtainable from Maexxna in normal mode Naxxramas.
Darkmoon Card: Greatness: What the heck do Priests want with Agility? Did Matt lose his marbles? This is but one version of the trinket I could find. The other versions of the trinket offer 90 Strength, Intellect or Spirit. For the Priests, I'd say snag the 90 Spirit version of this. The proc chosen is calculated by your highest stat. This one is assembled from the Nobles deck.
Darkmoon Card: Illusion: Decent entry level trinket for Priests. I'm not sure if I would go out of my way for it. Some raid encounters have a 5 minute enrage timer. This means you'll get one use out of it per fight. If you're lucky, you might be able to use it twice. Assemble this from the Prisms deck.
Soul of the Dead: Snag this trinket from Sapphiron. I'm going to say this trinket may be better off for a Disc Priest than a Holy Priest. WoW Head commenters peg it with a 45 second internal cooldown. I would probably prioritize this for Holy Paladins and Resto Shamans. I'm sure there may be a few DPS casters interested in this trinket.
Illustration of the Dragon Soul: Drops off of Sartharion. The deal with these types of trinkets is that it takes a while before it reaches its full potential. Once you get going in a fight, you're looking at an overall increase of 260 spell power. Every cast seems to refresh the duration of the buff no matter how many stacks you have on. It literally kicks in off of every spell. It's good for not just healers but for casters as well. Even if there's a part in the encounter where you're not supposed to do any healing or DPSing, pop a few free spells to refresh it (like Levitate)!
Forethought Talisman: Hell yes. If you get the opportunity to snag one of these bad boys, go for it. Especially for the Holy Priests, this trinket will rock. Shamans and even Holy Paladins may wish to give this trinket a glance. It seems that Earth Shield can proc the affect. And why Paladins of all classes? A Glyphed Holy Light counts as a direct heal on all players affected by it. It does not appear to proc on multiple targets simultaneously (Example: It seems to proc on one target off of Circle of Healing). Nonetheless, it is a very good trinket. Matticus recommended
Living Ice Crystals: This trinket is obtainable after taking down Malygos in Heroic mode. I think this trinket may be better off in the hands of a Resto Shaman or a Holy Paladin. The on use effect is nice for the rare encounters where the entire raid gets silenced for a few minutes. It reminds me of Vial of the Sunwell 2.0 (without the need to build up charges). I don't think it's affected by spell power so you're stuck with the ~2710 healing burst every minute.
Have fun and happy healing! There's nothing wrong with picking up an extra trinket or two (assuming no one else needs it) so that you can swap to them if necessary!
Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Priest, Shaman, Alchemy, Items, Jewelcrafting, Raiding, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance
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Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
hedyd Dec 1st 2008 5:21PM
That is (was) an awesome trinket.
I too still have mine at lvl 75 now, but I just noticed the "% of mana regeneration" is scaling down with level.
At 75, it give 13% (12.5) and at level 80 it will only be 10%.
skelafeti Dec 1st 2008 12:51PM
the mercurial alchemist stone is worthless imnsho.
I will not be replacing my redeemers stone with this one anytime soon. As of now the only way I would even make the new stone was to get a skillup. It's garbage imo and has less spellpower than the redeemers..
I guess for the ones who can't get SSO exalted now with the new expac you don't have much options for a stone..
tarheelblue24 Dec 9th 2008 2:42PM
I have both stack trinkets the majestic dragon and dragon soul. They do wonders for mana regen for me. 10 stacks of spirit ups your mana regen well over 100.
Personally I stack int more than spirit now. Relying mostly on the spirit from gear and enchants when no other stat is available. Get your crit up to 25-30% raid buffed. Watch the SOL and HC procs, time your inner focus and with 10 stacks of spirit from the figurine the mana will come pouring in. Mix in Hymn of hope if possible or fiend and your 20% mana to full in no time.
Didn't know about the levitate deal, ill give it a shot since i have it glyphed.
iheal Dec 25th 2008 8:01PM
In regards to the SArtharion trinkets -
first of all, I wouldn't take the Illustration of the Dragon soul, if u wanted added spell power there are much better options like the egg and one from maexna. (as a holy priest tho, I find lookin for spellpower gains on other item slots and sving trinket spots for regen/spirit boosts a better way to itemize)
AS for the Majestic Dragon one, (spirit one), I find it very useful, granted, priests get the spirit benefit for time outside of the 5second rule but the trinket can easily be exploited. First, the full stacks of spirit add some spell pwer, and keepin levitate to refresh the stack every 8-9 seconds will give u a tick or two outside of the 5sr if i'm not mistaken.
Lastly, any free spell will put you oo5sr so, inner focus, lifebloom, proced flash heal for surge of light, proced heal from Clearcasting and hymn of hope (prolly forgot other stuff) are good ways to get full regen type out of this trinket. a common cast sequence? Toss out Prayer of Mending, Pop spirit trinket (earring or glass) Hymn of Hope, after channeling cast Innerfocus, cancel cast greater heal, if there is a SoL proc, cast another greater heal (one that costs mana) then use a Flash heal to put u back into oo5sr (via surge of light).
I'm not sure if Surge of light flashes put u out of 5 second rule but i'm assuming it does. Nevertheless thats a crap load of regen time. (and spelling/grammar errors)