Which trinket combos for Dragon Soul?

The goal of this post is to ask other tanks what trinket combinations are best to use on different boss fights in Dragon Soul.
If this is just a forum searching fail on my part a moderator can delete the thread.

I am part of a 10man team and I am looking for advice that can help me make things easier on our healers / improve our chances of success. I would call us decent to good, but by no means hard-core raiders on the bleeding edge. Here is a link to my character profile: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/s ... cow/simple

I am trying to gear/gem around 1 stamina + 1 mastery trinket since I feel it provides more flexibility to swap trinkets around for each boss fight. One caveat is that I have not even tried any heroic modes yet so I have no idea if damage output pushes gearing towards more stamina or trinkets with strong On-Use/Proc abilities.

So here is my current general pupose goal:
Stamina Trinket - Veil of Lies (Stam for effective health with dodge proc that lessens overall incoming melee damage)
Fire of the Deep (melee on use) or Mirror of Broken Images (resistance on use)

Are there any boss fights in Dragon Soul where Mirror of Broken Images or Indomitable Pride are extremely strong? For example I could see Indomitable Pride being very strong for a tank eating Ultraxion "Hour of Twilight". For general purposes Veil of Lies would seem to provide better overall stamina/damage reduction combination.

And just so the other non-heroic alternatives are listed in 1 place.

Stamina Trinkets
1. Veil of Lies (ilvl 378) - 575 Stamina, Proc 1149 Dodge (45sec Inner CD)
In reality 44% uptime adding about 6-7% dodge after diminishing returns
2. Indomitable Pride (ilvl 397) - 687 Stamina, Proc "Attacks which reduce your health below 50% grant you an absorb shield equal to 50% of the damage done by the attack for 6 sec. This effect cannot trigger more often than once every 60 sec."
Ranking it a close second, but concerned about the proc size depending on HP
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=32286
3. Scales of Life (ilvl 378) - 575 Stamina, On-Use 17095 heal IF YOU'VE BEEN OVERHEALED CONSISTENTLY (1 min CD)
Unfortunately, I often find this "buff" is lost when I need it most. Could also just be a tank failure on my part.
4. Vial of Stolen Memories (ilvl 359) - 482 Stamina, On-Use 1605 Dodge 20 sec (2 min CD)
5. Moonwell Phial (ilvl 365) - 510 Stamina, On-Use 1700 Dodge 20 sec, but you can not move (2 min CD)
6. Soulshifter Vortex (ilvl 397) - 687 Stamina, Proc 2904 Mastery (Bad trinket is still just bad if you're a paladin tank)


Mastery / Dodge Trinkets
1. Fire of the Deep (ilvl 397) - 458 Mastery, On-Use 2290 Dodge 15 sec (90 sec CD)
2. Mirror of Broken Images (ilvl 359) - 321 Mastery, On-Use 400 Resistance (1 min CD)
3. Stay of Execution (ilvl 378) - 383 Dodge, On-Use mini Divine Protection (2 min CD)
Edited Dec 13, 2011
Probably the strongest "oh-crap" On-Use tank trinket available because it is guaranteed damage reduction
(thanks for pointing this out fuzzygeek)
4. Spidersilk Spindle (ilvl 378) - 383 Mastery, Proc 17,905 damage shield when melee attack drops you below 35% (1 min Inner CD)
5. Resolve of Undying (ilvl 397) - "Your melee attacks grant 88 dodge rating for the next 10 sec, stacking up to 10 times."
Original
Not really sure about this one, but not really thrilled about a pure RNG based trinket.
Edited Dec 13, 2011 (thanks to feedback and poor explanation of what I meant by "RNG")
Not really sure about this one. The avoidance is nice and it has 100% uptime, but I feel that a little more stamina instead of 3.43% higher chance to dodge (thanks Maklesh) would give better chance of surviving burst damage if you don't dodge it. There is no On-Use effect. Here is another way to look at it (assuming a tank has both trinkets available). If the goal is to reduce incoming melee damage over a long time, Veil of Lies gives roughly 4.5% dodge 44% of the time + Effective Health gain from stamina vs Resolve of Undying giving 3.4% dodge 100% of the time.
6. Essence of the Eternal Flame (ilvl 378) - 383 Master, On-Use 1277 strength (1 min CD)

Thanks in Advance!

Edited Dec 13, 2011
Edited Dec 14, 2011 (fixed typo on Veil of Lies dodge proc after dim returns)

Some general comments on the trinkets:

The Pride can be really strong or really weak -- it gives a 50% shield based on the size of the hit that took you there -- so if you're at 51% and take a 5k hit to 49%, you've got a 2.5k shield, which isn't terribly helpful. Murphy's Law being what it is, this will happen just before you take a 300k Hour of Twilight while the trinket is on ICD, so you get no shield.

On the other hand, I get 90k shields from it on Ultrax. But generally it's in the 10-30k range. I like this a lot, but it depends on how your healers behave. Mine tend to try to keep me topped off, so the Pride isn't on ICD when the Big Shit Cometh. This may not be as powerful in 10M when healer resources are stretched thinner.

For Scales, I have it macroed to cast just before WoG to try to top myself off as much as possible before the WoG overheal kicks in its shield. The only time I use the stored health is to either top myself off after a huge hit, or to generate a shield before a huge hit. I think the benefit you get out of this thing is very dependent on how savvy you are with using it.

I personally like the Stay of Execution a lot; I ran that and Spidersilk for all of FL. I liked having another clicky guaranteed CD. One of the reasons I'm so down on the Fire of the Deep is that its on-use pushes that we've spent itemization points on off the bottom of the table, rendering them wasted. It is also chance to dodge, which is RNG -- you could pop the trinket and still take every hit for the duration of the proc. I would far prefer "guaranteed to dodge next 2 strikes within 5 seconds" than 15 seconds of better RNG.

For a trinket-by-trinket breakdown for fights specifically for 10m I can't speak to that very much. If you have a Pride and Spindle available, I would argue that would probably be the most solid general purpose setup. I personally haven't run the resistance/mastery trinket since early T11, but I don't know that it's make-or-break for normal T13.

Pride / Spindle | Fire of the Deep for me. Most likely the former for the second selection, depending on how well gear drops for me.

If you can sacrifice the mastery (meaning you keep full CTC), Pride / Scales would be better. I'll be switching out the Pride with Rotting Skull on farm content / trivial shit like Lootchok normal.

Nice thread - having finally got enough gear to wear a stamina trinket, I was wondering the same thing. It's especially useful having the OP spell out the alternatives.

I got addicted to the Mirror in the Firelands (there seemed so much magic burst), but it does not seem so essential in Dragon Soul. The OP has convinced me to use Veil of Lies rather than Scales of Life; the former has a lot of uptime and I don't use Scales as well as I could. For mastery, I use the Spidersilk Spindle. Eventually, I will upgrade to Indomitable Pride and Fire of the Deep.

I've gotta say, Mirror still seems indispensable on some fights for me. It seems to shine particularly on Zon'ozz and Yor'sahj, both of whom have big spiky damage attacks on the tank. I also like it for Gunship, since it helps mitigate damage from soaking void zones.

Didicow wrote:5. Resolve of Undying (ilvl 397) - "Your melee attacks grant 88 dodge rating for the next 10 sec, stacking up to 10 times."
Not really sure about this one, but not really thrilled about a pure RNG based trinket

This trinket has no RNG. It's a 100% proc on melee hits (including all special attacks). Can we just ignore the 880 dodge it gives us? Because I can't really think of any bosses where you don't hit anything for 10 seconds.

I just got this trinket last night and was wondering how good it actually was. At the moment this gives me 3.43% dodge (buffed with only BoK), which isn't all that bad I'd say.

Maklesh wrote:This trinket has no RNG. It's a 100% proc on melee hits (including all special attacks). Can we just ignore the 880 dodge it gives us? Because I can't really think of any bosses where you don't hit anything for 10 seconds.

I just got this trinket last night and was wondering how good it actually was. At the moment this gives me 3.43% dodge (buffed with only BoK), which isn't all that bad I'd say.

I quite like it to be honest and I would love one, but maybe later on, a mastery trinket gives me way more coverage and considering that I want the souldrinker and a stamina trinket.

As far uptime is concerned the only two bosses coming to mind where you could lose the buff are Morchok in the blood phase and Hagara in the ligthing one, so would be pretty much a 100% uptime.

I'm currently stuck using 2 Mastery trinkets (391 Spindle + BH Trinket) because I had to use all raidfinder set items to get the 4-piece bonus for our raid, one of which is the shoulders, which is preventing me from using my heroic Morchok shoulders

Now, I must say, I think some fights will still warrant the use of the BH trinket. They won't necessitate it from what I'm seeing, but I think it's still worth using in many respects. I personally found it very helpful dealing with Tetanus on Madness of Deathwing.

However, as we progress in gear, I see the most highly-sought after trinket being Indomitable Pride. Pride+Spindle will probably be the core configuration for most boss fights, until we can comfortable wear 2 stamina trinkets (assuming that you want to), at which point it may be best to use Pride+Scales.

You know there's no golden rule for trinkets, the best idea is to keep as many as you can for as many different configurations possible.

That being said, here are some configurations I predict will become quite popular:

1. Indomitable Pride + Heroic Spindle/Fire of the Deep (Normal Mode + Early Heroics)

2. Heroic Indomitable Pride + Heroic Scales of Life (Late heroics, CTC capped from gear alone, focusing mostly on survivability)

3. Heroic Indomitable Pride + Heroic Spindle/Fire of the Deep (Late heroics, focusing more on Hit/Exp in gear reforging, thereby necessitating the mastery trinket)

There's also warrant to using Stay of Execution for the CD, ofcourse. In which case, you'd probably see loadouts such as:

4. Heroic Scales / Pride / Heroic Pride (based on what you've got) + Stay of Execution

Or if you have no good stamina alternative, you might use:

5. Heroic Spindle + Stay of Execution (probably outdated, or soon to be).

Other configurations I can see happening would be to push even more out of Tank DPS. Possibly:

6. Heroic Pride + DPS Trinket (mid to later heroics, assuming CTC coverage from gear alone. Only seems likely if you can get full CTC and full hit/exp from gear by itself. I'm not sure if that's possible or not?)

I don't love our options for this raid season, but oh well, we're stuck with it.

Maklesh wrote:

Didicow wrote:5. Resolve of Undying (ilvl 397) - "Your melee attacks grant 88 dodge rating for the next 10 sec, stacking up to 10 times."
Not really sure about this one, but not really thrilled about a pure RNG based trinket

This trinket has no RNG. It's a 100% proc on melee hits (including all special attacks). Can we just ignore the 880 dodge it gives us? Because I can't really think of any bosses where you don't hit anything for 10 seconds.

Avoidance itself is RNG. Sure, you will reliably have the added dodge from the trinket, but dodge is not very strong. It's pure RNG whether or not the trinket would even help you or not in any kind of death scenario.

Now that I think about it, once reaching tCTC becomes less problematic, I think the on-use of the Stay of Execution is stronger than the proc on the spindle. Although the damage taken is capped, it's significantly larger than the post-hit proc of the Spindle.

The SoE's strength is its on-use -- the dodge is just icing.

Right now I'm running rf.Pride/h.Scales. When I don't need the stam, I swap in the hit trinket. I'd prefer to be able to reach 8/26 without the trinket so I could have it at all times -- at which point I go double-str trinket for loldps when I don't need a huge pile of hps -- but just don't have the gear yet.

fuzzygeek wrote:Now that I think about it, once reaching tCTC becomes less problematic, I think the on-use of the Stay of Execution is stronger than the proc on the spindle. Although the damage taken is capped, it's significantly larger than the post-hit proc of the Spindle.

I'm still wondering where this magic point is where CTC becomes less problematic. So many of these 397 pieces are CTC downgrades compared to Firelands gear. I've been struggling to even maintain block cap, and I've actually had to start gemming for pure Mastery some again.

Kihra wrote:

fuzzygeek wrote:Now that I think about it, once reaching tCTC becomes less problematic, I think the on-use of the Stay of Execution is stronger than the proc on the spindle. Although the damage taken is capped, it's significantly larger than the post-hit proc of the Spindle.

I'm still wondering where this magic point is where CTC becomes less problematic. So many of these 397 pieces are CTC downgrades compared to Firelands gear. I've been struggling to even maintain block cap, and I've actually had to start gemming for pure Mastery some again.

I don't think it will fully happen with all 397 gear (because, like you said, many of the pieces actually sway from providing optimal CTC coverage). ALTHOUGH if you wanted full survivability, going with 2 STAM trinkets in full 397 gear should be plenty more than possible (hell, it's already been done!)

It's mostly when you start getting a lot of the heroic DS gear that mastery will become less and less of a concern, giving you more room to play around with a variety of trinket selections.

(Correct me if I'm wrong here).

tCTC is less problematic if you don't have a problem gemming Fractured, which I don't. I've also got ten Lightstones in my gearset in order to get tCTC with two stam trinkets and Souldrinker (h.Mandible is good for, what, 1.96% CTC?). Also, JC/BS is still ridiculous, even given the indirect JC nerf.

The trick is going to be getting tCTC with 2 Stam + Souldrinker + 8/26. I think it can be done, but it's going to require doing some unconventional things.

As Theck pointed out a while ago when we were discussing the merits of stam trinkets (I didn't like them (found the Scales to be lackluster), and ran Spindle/Stay all of FL), you're going to make the stam/mastery trade off somewhere, either with stam gemming and CTC trinkets or vice verse. Having the stam on the trinkets makes it easier to swap out stam for something else (be it hit or str or whatever) without ever compromising tCTC. I am personally finding this approach appealing now, but YMMV.

fuzzygeek wrote:tCTC is less problematic if you don't have a problem gemming Fractured, which I don't. I've also got ten Lightstones in my gearset in order to get tCTC with two stam trinkets and Souldrinker (h.Mandible is good for, what, 1.96% CTC?). Also, JC/BS is still ridiculous, even given the indirect JC nerf.

The trick is going to be getting tCTC with 2 Stam + Souldrinker + 8/26. I think it can be done, but it's going to require doing some unconventional things.

As Theck pointed out a while ago when we were discussing the merits of stam trinkets (I didn't like them (found the Scales to be lackluster), and ran Spindle/Stay all of FL), you're going to make the stam/mastery trade off somewhere, either with stam gemming and CTC trinkets or vice verse. Having the stam on the trinkets makes it easier to swap out stam for something else (be it hit or str or whatever) without ever compromising tCTC. I am personally finding this approach appealing now, but YMMV.

Thank you fuzzygeek and others for the feedback. If I feel good about my HP and tCTC, I can definitely see going back to using Stay of Execution for it's strong On-Use ability. I also like the thought of tanks as DPS but I suspect I won't be able to get the gear to reach the Holy Grail gearing strategy you suggest above.

Tamarins wrote:I've gotta say, Mirror still seems indispensable on some fights for me. It seems to shine particularly on Zon'ozz and Yor'sahj, both of whom have big spiky damage attacks on the tank. I also like it for Gunship, since it helps mitigate damage from soaking void zones.

It would be great for Zon'ozz's deathray beam thing, but I find DBMs timers so far off, I can't use it. When do you use on it on Yor'sahj?

Good idea on the gunship.

Didicow wrote:...
2. Indomitable Pride (ilvl 397) - 687 Stamina, Proc "Attacks which reduce your health below 50% grant you an absorb shield equal to 50% of the damage done by the attack for 6 sec. This effect cannot trigger more often than once every 60 sec."
Ranking it a close second, but concerned about the proc size depending on HP
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=32286
...
6. Soulshifter Vortex (ilvl 397) - 687 Stamina, Proc 2904 Mastery (Bad trinket is still just bad if you're a paladin tank)

Of the Stamina + proc/use trinkets these 2 seemed th best to me, why is Soulshifter Vortex bad? Or are you assuming full CTC coverage rendering the proc useless?


Thx,
Bomzix

This trinket is bad because you either rely on it proccing to be full CTC covered, or you use it only for the stamina gain. DS raiders are expected to be CTC covered these days, if not then different trinkets are advised.

I still use the Mirror for most fights, it's amazing on fights like Madness and hc Yor'sahj.

I plan to pick up the VP trinket to swap in on fights with alot of physical damage where the dodge clicky can become very useful.

My second trinket is Indomitable Pride, It's a little RNG but it can provide big damage reduction if it procs on Impale from Madness for example.

The problem I have with dodge clicky trinkets is, say, in the case of the VP trinket, the click gives 15 seconds of 7.94% dodge before DR. You can activate this thing and still eat every single attack for the next fifteen seconds.

The more I think about it, the more I trend towards trying to fit the Stay of Execution back into my normal loadout. I'm attracted by the idea of a trinket that guarantees a temporary 56980 hitpoints on a 2 minute CD.

Reforged it's 0.92% dodge and 1.92% block (2.84 CTC), which certainly isn't amazing, but again, it's the clicky that's attractive. I don't know why this thing didn't get more love when it was current; I think I saw more people running around with the mast/str rep trinket than this.

I tend to think that the Mirror is much more likely to shine in 10M raids than 25M; additional chance to resist magic damage is going to help out a 10m raid much more when healing is more constrained. Or in a 25M that's running healer light to pack in more DPS, I guess.

Fire of the Deep is probably best used for a Dk tank, as is Soulshifter Vortex.


Fire of the Deep.
CD lines right up with Dancing Rune Weapon, giving you somewwere in the neighborhood of 20-22% avoidance buff, and can be macroed together.

Soulshifter Vortex
We don't CTC Cap. and since we can roll our bloodshields, that extra mastery smashing into a DS or two or three is always going to get used. The incoming damage may be... lighter or heavier depending on the fight, but it's still probably better for a DK than another tank.

Given that, I just don't see myself putting my scales of life away anytime soon.

fuzzygeek wrote:The problem I have with dodge clicky trinkets is, say, in the case of the VP trinket, the click gives 15 seconds of 7.94% dodge before DR. You can activate this thing and still eat every single attack for the next fifteen seconds.

The more I think about it, the more I trend towards trying to fit the Stay of Execution back into my normal loadout. I'm attracted by the idea of a trinket that guarantees a temporary 56980 hitpoints on a 2 minute CD.

Reforged it's 0.92% dodge and 1.92% block (2.84 CTC), which certainly isn't amazing, but again, it's the clicky that's attractive. I don't know why this thing didn't get more love when it was current; I think I saw more people running around with the mast/str rep trinket than this.

I tend to think that the Mirror is much more likely to shine in 10M raids than 25M; additional chance to resist magic damage is going to help out a 10m raid much more when healing is more constrained. Or in a 25M that's running healer light to pack in more DPS, I guess.

I never used Stay when it was current either, and do not know why as well I think I needed the mastery that Mirror has and just assumed I should use a stam trinket in the other slot. I did use Mirror all the time as its an excellent trinket for FL, and now that I'm CTC capped without the need for the added mastery of higher ilvl items I'm using it again. I think swapping between the two based upon the fight is probably our best option. I do run 10m so perhaps that is why the Mirror shines more than others notice. And its short cooldown is nice.

The only reason I see to use Fire of the Deep instead of these two would be if the large mastery on it allows you to completely re-gem around stamina. Otherwise I cannot see the mastery being necessary given the better on-use of Stay and Mirror (which has some mastery anyway).

I'm still using heroic Scales in the other slot. I do use the proc, but mostly just in situations where you are topped off then take a big hit (stomp, impale, etc.). Clicky and WoG and I'm out of danger after the hit while the healers are still casting (they seem to think their heal crit when I do this ). Pride looks to be an upgrade to this slot for me as stam trinkets go. I'll switch when I get it.

fuzzygeek wrote:The more I think about it, the more I trend towards trying to fit the Stay of Execution back into my normal loadout. I'm attracted by the idea of a trinket that guarantees a temporary 56980 hitpoints on a 2 minute CD.

Reforged it's 0.92% dodge and 1.92% block (2.84 CTC), which certainly isn't amazing, but again, it's the clicky that's attractive. I don't know why this thing didn't get more love when it was current; I think I saw more people running around with the mast/str rep trinket than this.

I tend to think that the Mirror is much more likely to shine in 10M raids than 25M; additional chance to resist magic damage is going to help out a 10m raid much more when healing is more constrained. Or in a 25M that's running healer light to pack in more DPS, I guess.

After clearing the Madness of Deathwing fight on 10man normal, I agree that Stay of Execution might be strongest Mastery/Dodge trinket because of On-Use ability, assuming you can maintain CTC with reforging and gemming. I remember a few times during the Madness fight wishing I had one more button I could click and I can only imagine that Heroic modes will have more such "Oh-Crap" moments. I ran Firelands with SoE and a 378 Mastery trinket and loved it for Heroic Domo "burning orb with fire kitties everywhere" phase.

Here is another way to think about Stay of Execution. It's 56980 damage absorb is a version of Divine Protection good for 285k incoming damage.

Been thinking about this more and need to ammend my earlier post.

In order to maintain consistent CTC and dodge/parry ratios we will need to either 1) have enough mastery from our gear that we need none from a trinket, or 2) always have a mastery trinket in our set (or a dodge trinket based upon your stats and setup, but that is rather limiting).

If you are in group 1, fantastic. You can use whatever you want whenever you want. Dual stams, just for the on-use, etc. Whatever tickles your fancy. You can stop reading now.


Right now, however, I'm in group 2 - need/want a mastery trinket at all times. And as long as I base my CTC on the mastery Mirror provides I can swap between several mastery trinkets without wasting too much mastery. Not sure how many fall into this category, but I would think it will be many until our gear improves.

- Mirror is still quite useful on a few fights, but not as useful as it was in FL.
- Spindle is my other choice - the absorb idea is really nice, but I do not find it procs much in my logs (2-3 times a fight).
- Fire of the Deep - unless you really need the mastery points I do not see the appeal in its on-use dodge. Lots of dodge or not, its been pointed out already that its still RNG with only 16.6% possible uptime. I let my DK tanking partner have it - generate some goodwill when something I really want drops
- Essense is good when you want the DPS.

So for me its Mirror if it has a use in the fight (take that psychic drain!), Spindle when Mirror doesn't help, and Essense to help beat an enrage timer. And the more I look at logs and see disappointing Spindle procs I may just run with Essence to see big numbers

The other slot right now is heroic Scales, but I'm thinking of using Stay more often. I don't need the dodge and it leaves me without any stam trinket, but the on-use could save more health/healing if used at the right times. I'll upgrade to Pride when the opportunity arrises, but that may be the only 'new' trinket I use - although the uptime on Veil of Lies is interesting.

I am using Soulshifter Vortex. The proc is terrible for us but the heroic version has too much stamina to ignore (775).

Default trinket combo for Dragon Soul: Mirror of Broken Images and Sindragosa's Flawless Fang.

No, I'm not being entirely facetious.