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Generally I like to put together separate FAQ posts for each healing spec but given there are no class changes happening in season 4 and limited new content it made sense to put them all together in one. We’ll go over what you need to know about your legendaries, where to spend your Dinars and what cool stuff is in the returning dungeons.
Class Changes
… There are none.
Returning Greatness: Drape of Shame, Mechagon Rings & the Rest
Special effect items that of high value are actually pretty rare. This season we’re blessed with the strongest three we’ve seen in the last few years and we’ll have them all at once.
Drape of Shame
Usable by: All
Drape of Shame increases crit healing by 5% while worn (it technically increases your crit modifier to 2.05 from 2.0). At 25-30% crit you’re looking at around a 1% healing increase from the effect. It notably still has a full allotment of secondary stats on it so you will want to wear this in all scenarios regardless of which spec you play.
Mechagon Ring Sets
Usable by: All (but not optimal for Priest)
The Mechagon Ring combos consist of four different “If” rings and four different “Then” rings. You pair an “if” with a “then” and get the effect whenever you fulfill it’s condition. These are incredibly powerful and are must-haves if you’re looking to maximize your non-priest character. They are on a short 15 second cooldown.
Raid: Pair the healing effect (Rebooting Bit Band) with either Logic Loop of Division or Logic Loop of Recursion. Logic Loop of Division’s “behind” condition really just means “don’t be in front of the boss” and it’ll proc off DoT ticks so you’ll end up with very high uptime. If you don’t think it’s likely you’ll be casting a lot of DPS spells then Logic Loop of Recursion is extremely comparable.
Mythic+: Pair either the healing effect (Rebooting Bit Band) or haste effect (Overclocking Bit Band) with Logic Loop of Division. Higher keys will benefit more from the DPS gain of Overclocking but when starting out either are powerful options.
The Priest Exception: Unfortunately if you are a Priest then the Mechagon ring set competes directly with the Soulwarped Seal of Wrynn which is stronger.
Neural Synapse Enhancer
Usable by: Druids, Priests, Monks and Shaman
An on-use intellect buff that trades significant base intellect for a big proc. This is an extremely good weapon for Venthyr Disc Priests and almost nobody else. Druids and Shamans are better off sticking with Antumbra. It’s an upgrade for Disc Priests if ~half of your healing or more is within your ramp windows. You can use QE Live to compare with what you own but you might find it’s a choice you make on a fight by fight basis.
Warlords of Draenor Intellect Necks & Rings
Warlords of Draenor Mythic+ items use a different type of itemization since they were released in a time where rings and necks had intellect as well as secondary stats. You might initially think these would be quite good given how strong intellect is for all healing specs. Unfortunately they give up a significant amount of secondary stats for it and aren’t worth wearing in any scenario.
What are Dinars and where do we spend them?
Season 4 will offer a new type of gearing token called the Puzzling Cartel Dinar. You can trade these for normal versions of trinkets, weapons and special effect items from the three raids active this season. You can then later upgrade them (or any other raid drop you get) to heroic or mythic difficulty by using a second type of token you get for clearing 10 bosses on that difficulty across the three raids. It appears that your first Dinar won’t be acquirable until week 3 of the patch (since it requires 30 fated boss kills) which means the specific item you’ll want to buy might change based on what loot you get early (you might even get a few items on this list). As such don’t take it as definitive.
- Antumbra, Shadow of the Cosmos
- Shadowed Orb of Torment (Raid)
- Resonant Reservoir (Mythic+)
- Scars of Fraternal Strife (Advanced) / Cabalist’s Hymnal
Resto Druid has a few easy choices in Antumbra and one of the two S-tier trinkets. The last slot can be a little more flexible since Cabalist’s Hymnal, Scars of Fraternal Strife and Amalgam’s Sevnth Spine all compete closely for our second trinket slot. Amalgam’s has the highest potential of the three but involves a grueling Blackrook Hold farm in the one week Legion M+ is available, Scars is extremely strong but can be considered an advanced option and Hymnal is just a solid all rounder.
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- Shadowed Orb of Torment (Raid)
- Resonant Reservoir (Mythic+)
- Cabalist’s Hymnal
- Exacting Mindslicer / Ruined Crest of Lordaeron
Holy Paladin options are awkward since we aren’t able to buy our best in slot weapon with Dinars. It’s tied to a token which drops off Sire Denathrius. This means that after lock away two trinkets we’re a little more stuck on where to spend our 3rd. In most cases you’ll want to grab a Shield if you’ve already had a weapon drop and a weapon otherwise.
- Maledict Opus
- Cabalist’s Hymnal
- Resonant Reservoir (Mythic+) / Titanic Ocular Gland or Elegy of the Eternals (Raid)
As a Mistweaver our best in slot weapon is either going to be the ultra high level Maledict Opus, or a weird mix of Stone Legion Generals & Sire Denathrius weapon / offhand tokens which aren’t available with Dinars (the tokens aren’t very functional on the PTR so there’s a wait and see component. The difference between them and Opus is so minimal that in most cases you should just grab the staff.
- Maledict Opus
- Soulwarped Seal of Wyrnn
- Scrawled Word of Recall (Advanced) / Cabalist’s Hymnal
Soulwarped Seal of Wrynn is a very strong and difficult to obtain item and it’s an easy choice for a Dinar. When choosing which item to upgrade though you might do your weapon first since it scales significantly harder with item level. You can run specifics through QE Live at the time.
- Antumbra, Shadow of the Cosmos (Advanced) / Maledict Opus
- Cabalist’s Hymnal
- Shadowed Orb of Torment (or a generic stat trinket like Elegy of the Eternals) / Resonant Reservoir (Mythic+).
Weapon: As a Shaman you have a choice of weapon. Antumbra has a notable cheese strategy where you get to 19 stacks of the buff, and then stop casting DPS spells, or a second where you swap the weapon out while it’s on “cooldown”. Either of these make it a clear choice for best weapon but if you’d prefer something that doesn’t require so much micromanagement then Maledict Opus is also very good.
Trinkets:
- Soulforged Seal of Wyrnn
- Antumbra, Shadow of the Cosmos (Advanced) / Maledict Opus
- Cabalist’s Hymnal / Shadowed Orb of Torment (Raid) / Resonant Reservoir (Mythic+)
Holy Priest has an insta pick item in Soulforged Seal of Wrynn and then a bit of flexibility after that. Then you can opt for the extremely overbudget Shadowed Orb of Torment (which requires a bit of smart usage but is very strong) or the easier to use but slightly weaker Cabalist’s Hymnal.
All you need to know about Legendaries
Legendaries are staying at 291 item level in Season 4 and there won’t be a way to upgrade them further. This means that the technically optimal slot for them will change from a high budget item to a low budget item. This is fairly low impact swap and if your legendary isn’t currently on a cape or ring slot then you shouldn’t feel like you must move it.
The rough new slot order will be Bracers > Neck > Belt > Boots but it will depend on what high ilvl slots are available to your spec and which slots your non-unity legendary can actually fit into.