Season 3 Trinket Preview – Part II

This is part 2 of a 2-part article. You can find part 1 here: https://questionablyepic.com/season-3-trinket-preview/. A large percentage of this tiers trinkets are fairly standard stat sticks and most of those are included in part 2 here.  That does mean it’ll be a little less exciting of a read but some of these are contenders for your best trinket choice. Boring but strong is practically a healer classic at this point. Everything on this page is based on PTR and is subject to change.

Before you go on…

Calculations are based around high-level versions of the trinkets but the same will be true at any item level – images don’t always match so don’t get too caught up on tooltip values. With the new Myth upgrade track we’re also able to upgrade any dungeon or raid trinket in the game to max level (489) with Blossom of Amirdrassil going all the way to 496 – for dungeon trinkets this will involve getting lucky with your Vault. You can see a full chart of all new and old trinkets at Questionably Epic Live. The 10.2 update will drop shortly.

Trinket Tuning & Article Updates

• No changes have been made to any trinket on this page. Note that trinkets in part 2 are somewhat less likely to see changes since they’re quite well-tuned already.

Mirror of Fractured Tomorrows

Initial Rating: B-
Drops from: Dawn of the Infinites Pt II

The Breakdown

• You should know:
  • Mirror of Fractured tomorrows has two effects: you’ll get a big stat buff and you’ll get a clone version of yourself. Unfortunately, your clone won’t spam rejuvenation, ramp atonements, or drop Emerald Blossoms – instead, it’ll spam a slow 2.5s cast on random allies. If your raid is full health, or if you move more than an inch it’ll stop doing even that. It’s mostly fair to say this is a stat trinket with some extra flavor attached – but don’t expect too much more out of it.
• Numbers wise:
  • You get almost 4000 secondaries when you use the trinket and the secondary you get is based on your highest secondary. This does mean you tend to lose quite a bit of it to diminishing returns but it can’t be helped. This averages a paltry 410. The trinket is of a reasonable budget but this kind of design isn’t really what we’re looking for as healers and the clone isn’t smart enough or fast enough to be very impactful.

Mythic+

• This is even weaker in Mythic+. Your 3-minute cooldowns (if you have any) are even weaker here, and a madman version of yourself spamming 2.5s casts isn’t of much use.

Verdict: Not a great fit

It’s pretty tough to use a 3 minute cooldown trinket well as a healer. Your 3-minute cooldowns usually either do sufficient healing already or don’t scale with every secondary (or any at all in the case of Rewind). They’ve also been left behind a little bit in general compared to shorter cooldowns in the last few years and a stronger Tranquility or Healing Tide Totem is of interest to very few. This would really have to be exceptionally strong to see play and it doesn’t really meet that bar. At best a temporary fill-in while you search out better trinkets but it’s not really a tuning issue. It just doesn’t help us meet our primary fight objectives.

Lady Waycrest’s Music Box

Initial Rating: B
Drops from: Waycrest Manor

The Breakdown

• You should know:
  • The DPS and healing procs are separate which means if you are actively DPSing and healing you should get a full amount of procs of each.
  • The trinket pairs with the Lord Waycrest’s Signet ring. If you are getting the maximum number of procs of both then this is a 24% increase to the power of each. It’s a nice increase but keep expectations in check. If you aren’t pressing any DPS spells then the set will just give you some damage value, but no healing increase.
  • The trinket just heals random injured targets. It won’t necessarily be the person you healed. That tends to be a positive.
• Numbers wise:
  • Each Waycrest heal is about 44k at max level. That’s pretty small but the trinkets budget is split between healing and damage. As a result, the HPS on it is quite low. You can expect 2.5k HPS or so.
  • If you’re actively DPSing you’ll also get ~2k DPS. This is going to be pretty spec-dependent with Discipline Priest and Emerald Blossom Evokers having no issue getting a full number of procs while you might see a lot more variance among other specs. Mistweaver hasn’t been tested in-depth yet but standard Fistweaving gameplay won’t proc the damage portion of the box.

Mythic+

• An acceptable middle ground. It contributes a bit of damage without butchering your healing. The trinket is also much less spec-dependent in Mythic+ since every healer spec is likely to be weaving more DPS spells.

Verdict: Bits and Pieces 

Almost the definition of a tidy mid-tier trinket. It’s easily accessible and does a bit of everything. Beaten by better trinkets – yes even if you are wearing the ring – but it’s fine as a fill-in if you actively DPS as part of your regular gameplay. There are better damage trinkets and better healing trinkets but none that just do a bit of each.

Revitalizing Voodoo Totem

Initial Rating: B
Drops from: Atal’Dazar

The Breakdown

• You should know:
  • The number of ticks the trinket heals scales with haste but the multiplier caps out at 13 (or 13x the tooltip value). That means it scales incredibly well with haste since you’re not only adding more ticks, but you’re adding more ticks at maximum value.
  • For a similar reason, the trinket HoT starts low and ends high. That makes it a problematic answer to people who drop low unexpectedly, but a stronger one to dangerous DoTs.
  • You get a free tick on cast.
• Numbers wise:
  • The trinkets HPS depends heavily on your haste but expect a 400-500k heal on your target. It’s a really decent size.

Mythic+

• This is a niche trinket but could see play if there are any dangerous DoTs that you can’t remove with a dispel or Cauterizing Flame. It’s still unlikely to be your best in slot, but it at least offers an alternative for handling those kinds of healing checks.

Verdict: Well tuned, but in an awkward niche

The power level of the trinket is fine, but there aren’t many cases where you’d want to give up 2-3% overall healing in order to drop a short but large HoT on a target every minute and a half. Even for scenarios it’s perfect for (like heavy DoTs) you’re usually better off using other answers to those like externals and equipping a stronger trinket. Still, in terms of offering something a little different this trinket mostly hits its mark.

Coagulated Genesaur Blood & Sea Star

I’m pairing these together since they’re almost the same trinket.

Initial Rating: A
Drops from: Everbloom (Genesaur Blood), Throne of the Tides (Sea Star).

The Breakdown

• Genesaur Blood:
  • Coagulated Genesaur Blood procs 1.66 times per minute for about a 27% average uptime. This is about average for stat proc trinkets.
  • You can expect it to average around 720 crit at max level.
• Sea Star
  • Sea Star procs 1.5 times per minute for about a 35% uptime.
  • You can expect it to average about 821 intellect.
  • Note the versatility passive which means Sea Star has a lot more power in its proc than Genesaur blood, but less in the value of the passive stats you’re getting at all times.

Mythic+

• Both are just as solid in Mythic+.

Verdict: Boringly Effective

Stat sticks have always been a reliable fallback when healing-specific trinkets in any given tier are underperforming and they fill a similar role here. There’s nothing particularly exciting about either of these but they offer a reasonable amount of stats on a good enough uptime. If you have both at equal item level then Genesaur tends to be slightly better so long as your spec doesn’t hate crit. I’d still love it if they tuned proc trinkets around a higher (~50%) uptime to reduce fight-by-fight variance without increasing average power level but we’ve seen much worse than these.

Balefire Branch

Initial Rating: A (Disc Priest) / C+ (Other healing specs)
Drops from: Waycrest Manor

The Breakdown

• You should know:
  • When you pop the trinket you’ll get 100 stacks of Kindled Soul, each giving 1% of the on-use effects power.
  • You’ll lose 5 stacks per second from the natural decay, regardless of what’s going on. So 10 seconds in you’ll have lost half of its power.
  • You’ll lose an additional 2 stacks when you’re hit with damage, but DoTs are exempt. You generally shouldn’t lose too much value from damage taken.
• Numbers wise:
  • A 489 Balefire Branch, which you’ll need to get in a Vault, gives you 6600 intellect when you press it. After 10 seconds you’ll have 3300 left and so on. This averages a fairly high 733 intellect, though most of the power is in the first 5-10 seconds. That makes it a great fit for a Disc Priest Evang + Shadowfiend ramp.

Mythic+

• I don’t think Balefire Branch has a clear use case in Mythic+ except as a temporary fill-in. You’re generally not ramping the same way as in raid and so your healing is less concentrated in a short burst. You’re more likely to want either a damage-focused trinket or at least an intellect main stat trinket.

Verdict: Ramp Enlargement Device

This is a 1.5-minute whopper. It’s the perfect fit for a front-loaded burst spec that does huge healing on a 1.5 minute cooldown. It’s basically custom-made for Discipline Priest. This is likely to be particularly strong in Season 3 where other healers aren’t quite as bursty as before and will let the Disc Priest almost solo a mechanic every minute and a half.

For other healers, there isn’t much to love here and that’s ok. You just don’t have powerful enough cooldowns that line up well with it and the budget isn’t high enough that you’re happy holding it to use it with two-minute cooldowns. Flat mastery instead of flat intellect means you have to get excellent value out of the on-use and you’re only likely to do that on Disc. If you do snatch a high item level one on a different spec you can use it as a fill-in. It’s not terrible.