Posts with tag trinkets

Over at the official forums Community Manager Nethaera has a bit of an unusual question for everyone: do you dream of electric sheep? Well, okay, it's not exactly that question. She wants to know what unusual or unique items you hoard, keep, or carry and the reason why. Do you hang onto Pamela Redpath's tea for courage when you face the undead? Do you keep Archmage Vargoth's Staff for some company on those long, Netherstorm nights? Or is it a practical item that you prefer - a repair bot or the Direbrew Remote for when you simply must have some of that Dark Iron brew?

This question is actually a tough one for me to answer. Not because I don't have an answer but because I have entirely too many answers. My bags and bank are stuffed full of random items that I refuse to get rid of, even now-useless stuff like Shard of the Fallen Star. I guess if I had to choose, I'd say it'd be a tie for two: my Orb of Deception and Orb of the Sin'dorei. I love turning my night elf into an undead or blood elf, respectively, though unfortunately the Orb of Deception requires being equipped in a trinket slot to work, so it's not very practical for raiding. The Orb of the Sin'dorei you can just click to use. True story: once upon a time back in Wrath I was hanging out, transformed into a blood elf, at the Ulduar summoning stone helping bring my guildmates to the raid. Another Alliance player walked up and /spit on me. When I whispered him with a frowny face emote, he freaked out and thought I was a hacker. Helpful tip, my friend: a blood elf in full tier 7 druid gear is not actually a blood elf! Also, you shouldn't /spit on people, it's really rude!

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done.

I will be honest: I am still not impressed with our tier 13 set. The whole bone motif just isn't working for me. The set bonuses are also a little iffy for me, what with half of them being sort of OK and half sort of lackluster. It all leaves a bit of a lukewarm feeling. That said, I'm not too disappointed with the final tier of Cataclysm, because we have definitely received some pretty nice surprises from the itemization team.

Every tier should have those one or two items that make you stop and look again, items that, more than their superior stats, have a look or feel that just makes you feel warm and fuzzy and makes you want to get it no matter what the cost. We'll look at some of those items from the Dragon Soul raid today, starting with everyone's favorite sword that summons horrible visions from the depths of the earth, Gurthalak, Voice of the Deeps.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. On Wednesdays, shadow priesting expert Fox Van Allen comes from out of the shadows to bask in your loving adoration. He loves Lisa Simpson, and when he grows up, he's going to marry her!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Gearing in Cataclysm is a no-brainer. Blizzard finally gets the needs of different classes and seems to be making gear that we actually want. Spirit plus haste gear is all over the place. So is mastery plus haste gear. And since almost everything worth getting has red sockets, we don't even need to do the math on what gem to use. And even with the "wrong" gear, reforging can make it almost as good as a best in slot.

There's one place where gearing up is still somewhat of a challenge, and that's the trinket slot. Instead of flat secondary stats, trinkets typically rely on procs with unspoken internal cooldowns and hard-to-theorycraft bonus damage.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers the healing side of things for discipline and holy priests. She also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast.

There were five potential healer trinkets added in patch 4.3, some of which have their pluses and their minuses. If you're a holy or a disc priest and you're not quite sure what trinket you should be taking this tier, let me help you narrow it down. I'll give you a hint, though -- they're the trinkets that everyone else will try to kill you for. Watch your back!

• Windward Heart As far as healing throughput goes, this is currently the best trinket in the game. Many healers are reporting its doing up to 5% of their healing in a fight, and since the heal is a smart heal that will target the most injured member of your party, you know it's never going to overheal anyone. The internal cooldown is 20 seconds, meaning you'll see the proc going off constantly as long as you keep healing. There is some debate on whether holy or disc will benefit from this trinket more, since holy priests are typically healing more targets and thus more likely to get a critical heal, while disc priests are known to have more crit because of talents like Renewed Hope. First off, it doesn't really matter who benefits from the trinket more, because it's best in slot for both specs. Second, who it benefits more has to do with your raid role, not your spec. It's true that a holy priest is more than likely going to be acting as a raid healer, but disc priests will occasionally fill that role too, just like holy priests may occasionally tank heal. Because raid roles change from fight to fight, I would encourage you to not be that jerk who tries to make a case for it by waving his spec around.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. On Wednesdays, shadow priesting expert Fox Van Allen rains sheer purple destruction down on the growing list of WoW Insider columnists who oppose him (and sometimes, even on those who don't).

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Gearing in Cataclysm is boring. It's not that there aren't best-in-slot pieces -- there absolutely are -- it's just that reforging makes getting those best-in-slot pieces a lot less important. After all, if you need more haste or more hit, you can always reforge other stats until you have as much as you want. Simple.

There's one slot that's absolutely compelling, though, and that's the trinket slot. Trinket bonuses are so specific that it's often impossible to tell what's an upgrade and what isn't without a calculator or spreadsheet. And while those new i378 boots are almost guaranteed to be better than that i359 pair you currently have equipped, the same can't be said for the new trinkets.

So, which of the new patch 4.2 trinkets make the cut ... if any? Is the Darkmoon Card: Volcano still king? And further, what the heck are our new stat weightings in patch 4.2 going to be so we can figure these answers out?

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Every Wednesday, shadow priesting expert Fox Van Allen rains sheer purple destruction down on all who oppose him (such as those who dress cats in outfits).

It's pretty much a known fact that we shadow priests are looked up to the world over. (Especially by Tyler Caraway, but that's mostly just because he's very short.) The reasons behind the admiration are many, but one seems to be more compelling than the rest: Shadow priests are capable of doing stunningly awesome DPS. Big numbers are sexy. There's no denying it.

The unfortunate reality, however, is that not every shadow priest gets to realize their true potential. Tiny problems and mistakes hold them back. And though some of these problems are easily fixed, the fact that they're damn near impossible to guess at and diagnose on your own leaves a lot of shadow priests frustrated.

Without a doubt, there are an awful lot of potential pitfalls out there. If you follow me after the break, we'll talk about eight of the most common ones. More importantly, though, we'll suggest ways to overcome them and get your priest back on the path to greatness.

Blizzard seems to be putting a lot of thought into trinkets this expansion. In Wrath of the Lich King, it was a struggle to get your hands on a pair of good, strong trinkets. In Cataclysm, while perhaps not every trinket is strong for every class (I'm looking at you, Fury of Angerforge), there does seem to be a whole lot more of them. The data for a whole slew of new trinkets in patch 4.1 is already in the game, with the heroic versions clocking in at ilevel 391.

The full list of trinkets is behind the break below (and it's quite a list), but I wanted to highlight a couple of them, as they have some fairly unique mechanics. Note that the numbers I cite below are from the heroic versions of the trinkets.

• Stay of Execution In addition to an impressive amount of dodge, this trinket has an on-use effect. "Absorbs up to 29125 damage for 30 sec, but once the absorb expires, you take 20% of the damage absorbed every 3 sec for 12 sec." Assuming you use the entire absorption bubble, that's 5,825 damage every 3 seconds. In most situations, that certainly makes that damage spike much more manageable. Of course, use it at the wrong time and you end up with a DoT ticking away as soon as a boss's enrage kicks in.
• Hungerer In addition to a glob of agility, "When using an ability causes your Energy or Focus to fall below 20% of your maximum, you will gain 1730 haste rating for 15 sec. This cannot occur more often than once per minute." Except in situations where you're pooling Energy or Focus to apply a debuff or interrupt a spell, all classes that can use this trinket bottom out their resources rather frequently. The cooldown will determine the trinket's power and not the actual mechanic of the trinket's proc, but on the surface it seems much more interesting. Time (and theorycrafting) will tell if it actually proves useful, though.

There are, of course, a lot of your typical procs and stacking stat trinkets (which many people prefer) mixed in with this batch, but it's nice to see cool new mechanics as well. Once again, the full list of new trinkets is behind the cut below.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests.

All armor is pretty much the same. That may have always been the case, when it comes down to it, but it seems especially noticable in Cataclysm. Each armor slot has the same "stat budget," with the only differences between pieces of equipment at the same item level being the secondary stats that piece contains. Thanks to reforging, finding the right piece of armor isn't a big deal -- we can just find something close to what we need and modify it until it meets our specifications.

Our two trinket slots are special, though. Trinkets don't carry around the same intellect and stamina that all other equipped pieces of armor do. It's notoriously difficult to rank which trinket is best, because they all have special "on-use" or "proc" effects that vary from piece to piece.

Of course, it's those differences that make trinkets so compelling. The right trinket can make a huge impact in your DPS. For those of you who have yet to raid, there are 10 solid DPS caster trinket options -- six ilevel 346 rares and four ilevel 359 epics -- that you can choose from if you have the patience (or gold). Most have a huge spellpower proc. Some offer haste. One special little trinket offers intellect. We'll break them all down in this week's quest to answer the question, "What trinket is right for me?"

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week, we're talking trinketry. I have a rubber pig keychain that has an on-use proc: When you squeeze him, poop comes out of his butt. It's difficult to measure the value of that, but I'm pretty sure it's worth a billion DPS.

Quickly: Close your eyes, forget that you have already seen the title and intro to this week's column, and tell me the first thing that comes into your head when I say, "hardest pre-raid gear slot to fill." No, not bracers. What ... dang it. I mean ... come on, guys!

It's trinkets! Trinkets. Didn't you read the title? It's right there.

Though you have two slots free for trinkets, they have always been one of the most notoriously difficult to fill gear slots in the game. And no single gear choice is more subjective than choosing one trinket over another. Instead of choosing between 225 intellect and 255 intellect, you're often picking between a Vengeful Wisp and a Fallen Footman. That's a bit like asking which is better, shrimp tacos or integrity? I don't ... I don't know. Sometimes the only indication that one given trinket is better than another is the item level, and let's be honest, even that isn't often a very reliable indicator. The math can be obtuse and often a bit fuzzy, and even plugging trinkets into a damage-simulating program like Rawr can prove problematic.

And then there's the matter of finding said trinkets. Through each of WoW's three expansions, the relative difficulty of finding two good trinkets has been a frustrating constant. In many cases, you'll find solid endgame-level upgrades for every other slot while still waiting, an increasingly hard-to-ignore urge to kill swelling steadily behind your brow, for Paletress to finally drop the stupid Abyssal Rune, even though this is your 75th consecutive run and you've seen her drop the stupid hunter trinket the last 16 times ...

To compound the issue, there's the undeniable fact that no other single gear upgrade can improve your DPS as dramatically as switching from a crappy trinket to an awesome one. Those two slots are arguably the most important in the game.

Rich Maloy subsists solely on enhancement air. He experiences shortness of breath when offered spellpower gear and is easily confused by spirit and MP5. You can ask him anything about enhance at the Totem Recall roundtable or watch his WoW reality series, Big Crits.

In case you missed it in all the news about the Cataclysm beta, Ruby Sanctum was released into the wild on Tuesday. With a new instance out everyone is asking, "What's in it for me?" But my question is, "What's in it for enhancement?"

The short answer is ArP. For a stat that's going away in a few months, we're seeing a lot of it in Ruby Sanctum gear from both the 10- and 25-man versions of the raid. Armor penetration (ArP) is not the ideal stat for enhancement. Not ideal, but definitely usable. There are some definite winners among the RS loot -- on both 10 and 25.

I've created a new enhance gear spreadsheet on Google Docs including the new loot. It's read-only, so either make a copy to your Google Docs file or save a copy to your desktop as an Excel file. I've also included some sample EP values for different levels of play, including EP values derived from the latest Elitist Jerks BiS gear, setup and rotation.

We're taking a break from bare-bones basics this week to address a topic that pops up for fresh level 80s who are still adjusting to their new curve of power. When is the best time to use long-cooldown abilities, trinkets or anything else that provides a massive, temporary boost in power? (The quick, easy answer: Regularly. Unused abilities that you're saving "just in case" tend to remain ... well, unused.) Things get more complicated, though, when you're juggling cooldowns in a raid group that's savvy to the benefits of a well-timed Heroism (Alliance) or Bloodlust (Horde). When is the right time to go for broke?

Dear Glorious WoW.com Writers,

I have a question on my mind that I suspect a lot of other people have on their minds as well. Should DPS pop their cooldowns/trinkets during Bloodlust or after Bloodlust? I would think you should stack your cooldowns with Bloodlust because you get the effect of them plus 30% haste, increasing their effect by that much. On the other hand, maybe the wiser option is to use cooldowns after bloodlust, so you have the effect of the Bloodlust then the effect of the cooldowns, which spreads it out a little more. What are factors in deciding to use cooldowns with Bloodlust or after Bloodlust? Does mana limits factor in to this at all? I can't find a straight answer on the internet anywhere, and was hoping you could provide me with one.

Thank you,
Bownzy of Blackwing Lair (US)

Join us for a quick roundup of thoughts from WoW.com staffers, after the break.

Blood Pact is your weekly warlock digest, brought to you by Dominic Hobbs. "Shinies for the Great Rain Stone! Good! Good! We offer these right away. Lafoo thought of this, yes? He a very smart Rainspeaker." -- High-Oracle Soo-say

Unlike your normal gear items, trinkets offer a little more interaction. Whether they are proc-based and trigger themselves in response to things you do, or on-use and need to be activated, or even just charge themselves up to give a steady buff they normally need some degree of user attention. This makes them something of a personal choice item. There are certainly those that are bad, better or brilliant but choice and playstyle often impacts trinket selection.

Below I've listed out fifteen trinkets that can take a warlock from freshly dinging 80 to the best the game has to offer. They are in a rough DPS benefit order, though that will depend on your other gear, spec and preference to some degree. So lets see what shinies await us.

Since last week's weapons column went off with slightly less trolling than normal, I'm going to push my luck with another article about gearing. Today's topic: trinkets.

Trinkets are not nearly as hard to acquire as weapons. Unless of course the RNG gods hate you and Death's Choice/Verdict drops only once in your guild in all of the god-forsaken months you spend in ToC and the first time it dropped you passed to a hunter who really needed the upgrade and you thought to yourself I'll be a good leader and let someone else win because it will drop again and I'll get it next time only it doesn't drop again ever and you're convinced the RNG gods do in fact hate you so you wrap yourself in your towel and rock yourself gently to sleep.

Thinking back on that, maybe trinkets are a bit hard to acquire. Thankfully for us, one of enhancement's best-in-slot trinkets is very easy to come by.

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. See all our collected tips, tricks and how-to's at WoW.com's WoW Rookie Guide.

Oh come on, everyone knows that -- well, evidently everyone but you, poor rookie. Ever felt like a chump for not being aware of some game feature or function that would've made life so much easier, if only you'd known? Aww, it's OK. You're not alone. As accessible as designers strive to make games like WoW, it's easy for even a few basics to slip by, especially when you're brand new, thrashing about trying to find your quest objective and attack the monster and talk to that other player all at the same time.

Blizzard's tutorial tips help make sense of a lot of that under-the-radar knowledge. Still, players write in to WoW Rookie every week asking questions or offering various nuggets of acquired wisdom. Time then for another info dump -- the latest in our collection of frequently requested, handy things to know.