Tuesday, September 22, 2009

The Stamfest Trinket

Thank you, Vene, for posting what I was thinking and proving to my brain that I wasn't wrong.

Here's my take:

When I logged on last night just about my whole guild was in BRD doing the Brewfest quest and picking up trinkets or, in some cases, mounts. I'm not a big holiday person, so I told them I'd just run some dailies while they were doing it. After a while (when I realized I wasn't going to get to do the daily heroic with guildies until they were done anyway), I conceded and went along.

We were able to fight the guy four times, and two stamina trinkets dropped. I grabbed one and our former RL roommate Tassh grabbed the other for his Warrior.

If you armory me right now you'll see that I'm currently wearing that stamina trinket. Will I continue to wear it as part of my "normal" tanking set? No. Will I keep it in my bags? Yes.

My other stamina trinket option is the Black Heart. I will lose 440 health if I run with the Black Heart rather than the Mug. However, the Aegis proc on the Black Heart is incredible...really incredible. It happens a lot and is a significant increase in armor during the duration. Plus, you get a cool little crown over your head (Warriors don't have a lot in the way of animations aside from Shockwave and Devastate, so crap like that makes me happy).

Most tanks who are ready to jump into heroics or raiding have at least 25K or so health (ballparking...willing to be wrong...don't flame me). If you've been heroicing or raiding for a while you're likely over 30K. What am I getting at? 400 health is, to borrow a term from my day job, immaterial. The armor proc from the BH, on the other hand, is material.

Should you ditch the Mug entirely? No. Should you be less stubborn than me and take advantage of the holiday to get what really is, all things considered, a pretty good trinket? Yes. Run it until you get it if you have the time because, if you're in a fight where having a dodge or other avoidance trinket isn't going to do you any good and you need raw effective health, stacking the Mug and the BH will, together, hand you almost 3K health and a nice, reliable armor proc.

Regardless of all of that, having a lot of trinkets to play with is always a good thing. I'm very hesitant to get rid of trinkets and I'll usually roll on them if I have the chance and nobody else needs them more (i.e. the Repelling Charge, which doesn't help me now but, if I need to build a resistance set, will come in handy). They're quick and easy ways to tweak your stats to prepare for a given boss fight.

I really need to stop being so hard on the holiday events. Live a little, Mis...live a little.

Happy Brewfest, boys and girls.

7 comments:

koalabear said...

I think I might actually complete all of this holiday's achievements.

Eck got his mount so now he wont get so pissy if someone else gets it :D

shieldbreakr said...

I had an almost identical choice, Mis: ditching Repelling Charge for the new mug/stamfest trinket. I can't say I need the defense on RC anymore, dropping it for the mug puts me at 561 and the extra life is very welcome [especially considering I'm getting an extra 6% from imp. frost pres].

WTB better tanking trinkets that don't cost me Triumph badges (and therefore tier loot).

Misneach said...

@shieldbreakr: First of all, thanks for the RT :)

My "normal" tanking trinks are the BH and the Valor Medal. I keep the Repelling Charge and now the Brewfest trink in my bags along with my offspec dps trinks.

Never can have too many...just need to know when to use what.

Trisk said...

Could not agree more on the ticket from Brewfest. I too am sporting the Black Heart, and cannot believe the number of times in a fight that it procs for the armour uplift (I also Love the little sparkly crown). The other trinket I am sporting is Essence of Gossamer (similar concept). Cannot see trading either of these anytime soon for the Brewfest trinket. The "use" attributes are just too good.

Misneach said...

@Trisk: I don't have the Gossamer trink. I've always balanced trinkets on a primary tanking set...1 effective health, 1 avoidance. As a result, and since I was going through withdrawals without my TBC pocket watch, I wear the Valor Medal along with the BH.

I'm glad I got the Brewfest trink, but, again, it'll only see the light of day in an EH set.

shieldbreakr said...

I skipped essence of gossamer as well. In the "effective HP" bracket, I can't keep repelling charge and my dodge trinket doesn't have any HP on it. Our (DK's) biggest problem right now is the tight DR's on our avoidance and lack of overall HP. Even with the proc up, I think I'm getting at best .65% dodge out of the trink normally and ~3% when I activate it [pushing 60% avoidance right now].

Misneach said...

@shieldbreakr: I haven't done the actual math, but the Valor Medal doesn't feel like the game changer that the Pocket Watch was at 70. The "on use" effect doesn't suck and I use it often, but it doesn't seem like as much of a save-the-day button as the PW used to be.

But that's from a Warrior's point of view. It certainly doesn't do much good for you guys, as you mentioned, if you're trying to improve your health or armor numbers.

In reference to your earlier comment, emblem tanking trinkets aren't terribly exciting. I'd like to see more options. IIRC, there's currently 2, maybe? The medal and the armor trink? Gotta be more to help alleviate some of the deficiencies at various gear levels as well as the differences in the needs of tanking classes.