Tomb of Sargeras Healer Trinkets

UPDATE: Trinket numbers were adjusted again with the live patch. All values contained within have been similarly updated.

Tomb of Sargeras adds six new healer trinkets across nine bosses and the effects vary wildly. In Nighthold we got one great (Map), one situationally powerful (Cake), one class dependent (Paradox), and one outright terrible (Mirror) trinket. They almost all received immediate buffs a week into the patch. The ToS trinkets might just need similar treatment.

Before you go on…

All calculations involve the 915 ilvl Heroic versions of the trinkets (925 for Kil’Jaeden). Some of the trinkets scale with Crit, Haste, or Vers and you will have to plug your own numbers in to get accurate values. Our demo character has the following stats:

• 25% Crit (no drape of shame)
• 20% Haste
• 5% Versatility
• The +5% and +10% healing traits.

None of the trinkets interact with Mastery, and all healing procs scale with Versatility. Priests can add 5% to most of the proc trinkets healing values, and Shamans 6% due to having extra +% healing traits.

Barbaric Mindslaver

Initial Rating: B

Drops from: Demonic Inquisition

The Breakdown

• Procs from heals, not casts (thus procs from HoT ticks). The effect can crit, and can proc off overheal (leading to… more overheal).
• AoE heals can proc the effect on zero, one, or multiple targets depending on your luck.
• Alright, let’s look at how it stacks up numbers-wise:
  • 6 rppm at 100% mana. 12 rppm at 20% mana and a proc rate that scales up linearly between the two. We will assume your average mana level over a fight is 50% which is 8.25ppm. This is very optimistic, we cannot source the true proc rate until the trinket is live and in-use.
  • The base heal of the heroic version of the trinket is 241,090 which on our demo character averages out to 316,430 (241,090 * 1.25 * 1.05) per proc.
  • The proc rate scales with Haste and our demo character has 20% so we can expect 9.9 procs per minute on average (remember that this an average taken over the fight, we can expect less procs at the start of the fight, and more near the end as our mana depletes).
  • 9.9 procs per minute * 316,430 per proc = 3,132,663 healing per minute.
  • This is a whopping 52,211 hps.
• Now, numbers wise this trinket actually stacks up very well but an unclear tooltip and a suspect proc rate adds a few question marks.

Verdict: Underperforming on Live

A random proc trinket that heals frequently for a little is mostly contributing to a fight through its HPS value. You aren’t going to see it save a low HP ally from dying, nor does it help much with big burst damage phases. It therefore has to do its job of pushing HPS very very well. With the numbers buffs it received on live it should compete very well with a stat stick when it comes to AoE healing. The intellect main stat means that the proc is competing with ~1200 secondary stats which is usually a ~2.5% boost to our healing. This trinket should beat that comfortably, so long as the base proc rate over a fight is close to the 8.25 shown above.

Live update: Most logs are currently seeing ~2% healing from the trinket (with 50%+ overheal). We’ll keep an eye on the logs over the next few days but 2% isn’t a great number so it’s likely the proc rate is lower than initially suspected.

Charm of the Rising Tide

Initial Rating: B

Drops from: Harjatan

The Breakdown

• This one is a little more straightforward, and you should already have an idea of how good or bad it’ll be for you by looking at it.
• The buff stacks up to 10, but lasts 20 seconds. Moving does not cancel or reset the buff – it just doesn’t stack up while you’re on the move.
  • This means that once you’re at 10 stacks you can move as much as you like without penalty.
• Numbers wise:
  • The maximum value from the trinket (where you are still for the first 10 seconds of the buff) is 7.5 * 609 * (20/90) = 1015 haste on average. This compares poorly with an equivalent ilvl stat stick (which offers 1248 secondary stats at that ilvl).
  • If you are slower to stack the trinket you could easily see a 20-30% lower value.
• So stats wise the trinket isn’t looking so good, however it has a key advantage that hasn’t been mentioned yet. The trinket is on-use. This means that you can combine it with cooldowns or pull it out during big burst phases, but the rest of the trinkets design works against this a little bit making it an annoying piece.

Verdict: Annoying, but might line up well on some fights

An on-use trinket with a 10 second ramp up (that you have to stand still for) is a little wonky, and the trinket doesn’t offer a large enough upside to be worth bothering with as a general-use trinket. You might find occasional value on fights that are conducive to standing still for 10 seconds, or where you can combine it with healing cooldowns.

Chalice of Moonlight

Initial Rating: B- to A- (depending on how much your class likes the stat you get during your raid times)

Drops from: Sisters of the Moon

The Breakdown

• The Etraeus’ Celestial Map of Tomb. Given how strong stat sticks have been for healers all expansion, this one is unlikely to be an exception.
• Most people will only see one of the two stats during raid, which makes it somewhat easier to gear around. It will be Haste for guilds that raid in the evening making it quite comparable to Flask of the Solemn Night / Chrono Shard.
• Numbers wise:
  • The proc on the heroic version of the trinket is 3828 Haste or Crit with a 12 second uptime and 1.5 procs per minute.
  • This is equivalent to ~1148 static secondary stats, which is about 100 less than a 915 stat stick would offer.

Verdict: Strong, but class dependent 

Honestly I’m a little sick of stat sticks at this point of the expansion since they tend to almost always be the strongest option, and this tier is looking like no exception. While static stat sticks are often better than proc-based options like this one, the easy availability of the Chalice at a high ilvl will make this a raiding staple so long as whatever proc you get during your raid time is a reasonable or better stat for you.

Sea Star of the Depthmother

Initial Rating: A

Drops from: Mistress Sassz’ine

The Breakdown

• Versatility main stat? I hope you’ve got some big power in that proc young trinket.
• After casting your spell listed on the trinket (Wild Growth, Essence Font, Prayer of Healing, Light of Dawn, Power Word: Radiance, Chain Heal) you’ll gain a buff which heals the lowest nearby ally every 0.25 seconds.
• The tooltip says ‘nearest injured ally’ however in testing it picked the lowest health target every single time making it a pretty smart heal. It does have a 15 yard range, and won’t heal anyone outside of that.
• Numbers wise (PTR, see Verdict for Live):
  • The ppm is different for each healer class, so we will be looking at the Resto Druid version (1.34 procs per minute).
  • The base heal of the Heroic version of the trinket is 39,480 and you can expect 32 of them per proc.
  • The trinket can crit, and scales with Versatility so our demo character is going to see 51,817.5 * 32 healing per proc on average.
  • This is a little over 1.65 million healing per proc and we are expecting 1.34 * 1.2 (haste) procs per minute.
  • 1,650,000 * 1.61 = ~2.67 million healing per minute.
  • To make the comparison easier, we’ll convert this to 44,500 HPS. Decent but not mind blowing.

Verdict: Bugged on live, post-fix strength will be determined post-nerf

Alright, so this trinket on the PTR was reasonably weak throughout. A cool effect but it never did enough healing to really consider. On live however it received a few major changes that gave its viability a large boost.

• It is proccing on the start of cast, rather than the end. This means that as a Druid you can start your Wild Growth cast, get the proc, and then cancel your Wild Growth cast. No mana or cooldowns expended and you get a nice proc. This could be considered exploiting. This has been fixed.
• It’s proccing roughly 50% of the time for every healer (instead of using the rppm system every other trinket uses). This gives it a large uptime that must be intended at this point as the trinket has seen only minimal changes since release.
• It’s proccing the Holy Priest mastery, Echo of Light making it particularly strong for them.

Archive of Faith

Initial Rating: B-

Drops from: Fallen Avatar

The Breakdown

• This is an interesting one. A huge single target channelled heal on a moderately low cooldown.
• Weirdly you cannot target yourself with this one, but all other targets are fair game. It will likely see best use on a high tank damage fight, or an encounter with a special single target healing requirement like Kil’Jaeden.
• Two healers can freely target the same person with the trinket without issue.
• Numbers wise:
  • The base heal on the 915 version of the trinket is 2,700,000 delivered over seven ticks, with a 744,953 damage shield applied after a successful channel.
  • Each tick can actually crit, however the shield at the end cannot.
  • Including our demo characters stats, we can expect:
    • The channel to heal for 2.7m * 1.25 * 1.05 = 3,543,750.
    • The shield to block 744,953 * 1.05 = 782,201.
  • This is a total heal effect of 4,325,951 delivered over three seconds.
  • This would be equal to a huge 72,100 HPS if used on cooldown (however you’ll likely want to save it for a tough situation).

Verdict: Niche

The numbers on this one are very appealing, however we have to remember that it’s purely single target healing and your need for that will vary depending on the encounter and your healing composition. You can expect it to heal a ToS tank for about half their health, however the healing might be delivered too slowly in some cases, and in others it might be tough to give up the all-round strength of a stat stick. One to keep in your backpack for special occasions.

The Deceiver’s Grand Design

Initial Rating: B+

Drops from: Kil’Jaeden

The Breakdown

• Another single target healing trinket, this one dropping off the big boss himself. It offers a lot more healing than Archive of Faith and ditches the channeling requirement, but it also delivers it in a much slower way.
• The HoT portion scales with haste, crit and versatility. It also scales with any +healing % artifact traits.
• Two healers can put two HoTs on the same target, however a single healer cannot spend both charges on one target.
• The trinket currently seems buggy, with the shield not proccing when the target drops below 35% health. They instead need to take a hit while already being below 35%. This diminishes the ‘death protection’ aspect of the trinket but will actually help the HoT stick around for longer. A boon with its current strength.
• Numbers wise:
  • The HoT heals for 127,658 every 3 seconds for 2 minutes.
  • Including our demo characters Haste and Vers we can expect:
    • The HoT to heal for 127,658 * 1.2 * 1.25 * 1.05 * 40 = ~8 million over two minutes.
    • The shield to heal for 1,900,000 * 1.05 = ~2 million if procced.

Verdict: Niche

Blizzard toned this trinket down in the final PTR build and then again on live, seeing the high-flying trinket plummet back to a more reasonable set of numbers. It still pushes out a lot of healing and it’s still an attractive option when you need a lot of single target healing but you might find yourself replacing it for fights where your objective focuses more on raid healing, or when you need to be able to react to large damage bursts. Will be better than Archive of Faith in most scenarios.