Trinket Feedback in Season 3

#1 - Sept. 18, 2023, 4:22 p.m.
Blizzard Post

Trinket Feedback in Season 3

In this post I plan on covering feedback in regards to new trinkets for Season 3 and 10.2. I will specifically cover trinkets for Intellect Ranged DPS but feel free to add your thoughts below on any that I missed!

Before I dive into specific trinket feedback I wanted to mention the prevalence of on use and proc damage trinkets. For ranged DPS these trinkets are often under budget compared to ones that increase our secondary stats as most ranged specs have nothing to increase the damage like stacking Versatility. On top of that many modifiers have been changed in the past few years to not affect trinkets. Take Ancient Madness for example which used to give character sheet critical strike but now only buffs Shadow Priest spells. Losing these interactions has meant damage trinkets feel severely underpowered and undesirable as a ranged DPS with their current tuning.

Raid Trinkets

  • Ashes of the Embersoul
    • On-Use: Intellect → Lose Haste. Can also proc when “circumstances are dire”.
    • The passive proc seems to be buggy and proc when it should not be.
    • The gameplay seems a bit degenerate with the passive proc where players are encouraged to find ways to passively proc this on the opener of the pull with special damage-taken consumables or something similar.
    • Assuming the passive proc starts working correctly and/or is changed the value from the trinket seems relatively offset by the negative value for any spec that likes Haste.
  • Augury of the Primal Flame
    • Proc: AoE Damage
    • Seems like an okay trinket design wise but generally does not perform very well. In dungeons it was typically less than 2% of my overall damage.
  • Belor’relos, the Sunstone
    • On-Use: AoE Damage
    • Being a melee-range trinket makes it fairly disappointing as a ranged trinket. In addition the actual damage seems undertuned, even when using the trinket on a pack of 5+ mobs.
  • Nymue’s Vengeful Spindle
    • On-Use: Single Target Damage and Mastery
    • Currently not on the vendor for testing on PTR.
    • Reading the description only this looks like it could be a powerful option, however the channel time being 4 seconds seems quite long to use practically in the middle of an encounter, especially since it only lasts 15 seconds.
    • Would rather the channel time be shorter and/or the effect just be the secondary stat gain and not the damage on use.
  • Pip’s Emerald Friendship Badge
    • Proc: Mastery, Versatility, or Critical Strike
    • Decently powerful passive trinket of the tier, sad that Haste is not one of the offered stats but still performs well.
    • Wish there was some mechanic on how to select a Best Friend rather than it being random.

Dungeon Trinkets

When it comes to dungeon trinkets these are a bit tricky since the wide variety of dungeons from different expansions also comes with a wide variety of trinkets. The more modern expansion trinkets carry a bit more design with them, but since the pool is mostly old dungeons things start to feel stale quickly. Of the options in the pool below we have 3 AoE proc damage trinkets and 2 Single Target proc damage trinkets. For similar reasons mentioned above these kinds of trinkets are generally not desirable as a ranged DPS. They typically do not do enough damage to warrant using in most content since most specs do not have anything that scales these directly and usually we do not stack Versatility. Would prefer it if the pool of trinkets was a bit more diverse or tuned differently to make some of these trinkets more desirable.

The main point of this section is to give feedback on the power level of the trinkets, since it is unlikely to see design changes for older trinkets. I have added “Significantly undertuned” to any trinket that is currently performing roughly equal or worse at item level 489 than a Spoils of Neltharus at item level 447.

  • Mirror of Fractured Tomorrows
    • On-Use: Extra damage and increased highest secondary stat (3m cooldown)
  • Time-Thief’s Gambit
    • On-Use: “Borrow” Haste (1m cooldown)
  • Vessel of Skittering Shadows
    • Proc: AoE Damage
    • Significantly undertuned
  • Balefire Branch
    • On-Use: Decaying Intellect (1m 30s cooldown)
  • Lady Waycrest’s Music Box
    • Proc: ST Damage
  • Caged Horror
    • Proc: AoE Damage
    • Significantly undertuned
  • Corrupted Starlight
    • Proc: AoE DoT
    • Significantly undertuned
  • Oakheart’s Gnarled Root
    • Proc ST DoT
    • Significantly undertuned
  • Coagulated Genesaur Blood
    • Proc: Critical Strike
    • Significantly undertuned
  • Leaf of the Ancient Protectors
    • Proc: Versatility
    • Significantly undertuned
  • Sea Star
    • On-Use: Intellect (1m 30s cooldown)
    • Significantly undertuned

Breakdown of Types

While full diversity is challenging with dungeons from different expansions I wanted to highlight that there are a few types in particular that feel crowded in the field of trinkets.

Type Count
Proc: Mastery, Versatility, or Critical Strike 1
Proc: AoE Damage 4
Proc: Single Target Damage 2
Proc: Critical Strike 1
Proc: Versatility 1
On-Use: Haste 1
On-Use: Highest Secondary Stat 1
On-Use: AoE Damage 1
On-Use: Intellect 3
On-Use: Single Target Damage and Mastery 1

Early Sims

While looking at sims early can be tricky, I wanted to include as much preliminary information as possible in case it is helpful. Not all trinkets are working inside of SimC yet but hopefully this gives an idea of the power level of season three trinkets. I’ve only included trinkets at the highest level they can drop at from this season if they are implemented and working to match in-game. I have also included profession, timewalking, and previous season trinkets to show the lack of power level of season three options.

From the breakdowns below you can see that Timewalking trinkets and even trinkets from last tier are performing better than most of this season’s trinkets. I do not have hard confirmation the item level of these will be increasing, but assuming they are along with the rest of the seasonal gearing upgrades this is the item level that would match that change.

Single Target

Actor DPS Increase
Energy_Siphon_476 205042 10.29%
Pips_Emerald_Friendship_Badge_489 204973 10.25%
Living_Flame_476 204063 9.76%
Balefire_Branch_489 203817 9.63%
Idol_of_the_Life_Binder_483 203735 9.59%
Eye_of_the_Broodmother_476 203718 9.58%
Idol_of_the_Spell_Weaver_483 203654 9.54%
Mirror_of_Fractured_Tomorrows_489 203480 9.45%
Idol_of_the_Earth_Warder_483 203110 9.25%
Flare_of_the_Heavens_476 202656 9.01%
Sustaining_Alchemist_Stone_483 202565 8.96%
Necromantic_Focus_476 202421 8.88%
Scale_of_Fates_476 202044 8.68%
Idol_of_the_Dreamer_483 202023 8.67%
Ominous_Chromatic_Essence_Emerald_ALL_ALLIES_447 201705 8.49%
Elemental_Focus_Stone_476 201564 8.42%
Pandoras_Plea_476 201522 8.40%
Neltharions_Call_to_Suffering_457 201406 8.33%
Darkmoon_Deck_Box_Dance_Emberscale_483 201369 8.31%
Vessel_of_Skittering_Shadows_489 201167 8.20%
Sea_Star_489 201111 8.17%
Ashes_of_the_Embersoul_489 201066 8.15%
Spoils_of_Neltharus_447 200982 8.11%
Coagulated_Genesaur_Blood_489 200362 7.77%
Spoils_of_Neltharus_441 200327 7.75%
Darkmoon_Deck_Box_Inferno_Emberscale_483 200161 7.66%
Spoils_of_Neltharus_437 199871 7.51%
Ominous_Chromatic_Essence_Emerald_447 199327 7.21%
Darkmoon_Deck_Box_Rime_483 198576 6.81%
Leaf_of_the_Ancient_Protectors_489 197821 6.40%
Oakhearts_Gnarled_Root_489 197189 6.06%
Corrupted_Starlight_488 196214 5.54%
Caged_Horror_489 195967 5.41%

3 Target

Actor DPS Increase
Pips_Emerald_Friendship_Badge_489 311192 10.10%
Energy_Siphon_476 310774 9.96%
Idol_of_the_Spell_Weaver_483 309799 9.61%
Living_Flame_476 309664 9.56%
Mirror_of_Fractured_Tomorrows_489 309525 9.51%
Idol_of_the_Life_Binder_483 308983 9.32%
Eye_of_the_Broodmother_476 308737 9.23%
Idol_of_the_Earth_Warder_483 308463 9.14%
Scale_of_Fates_476 308457 9.14%
Balefire_Branch_489 308389 9.11%
Sustaining_Alchemist_Stone_483 307777 8.90%
Flare_of_the_Heavens_476 307458 8.78%
Idol_of_the_Dreamer_483 307253 8.71%
Necromantic_Focus_476 307033 8.63%
Elemental_Focus_Stone_476 307026 8.63%
The_Skull_of_Guldan_476 306600 8.48%
Pandoras_Plea_476 306226 8.35%
Neltharions_Call_to_Suffering_457 306113 8.31%
Ominous_Chromatic_Essence_Emerald_ALL_ALLIES_447 306028 8.28%
Sea_Star_489 305855 8.21%
Spoils_of_Neltharus_447 305592 8.12%
Ashes_of_the_Embersoul_489 305274 8.01%
Vessel_of_Skittering_Shadows_489 305056 7.93%
Spoils_of_Neltharus_441 304647 7.79%
Coagulated_Genesaur_Blood_489 304064 7.58%
Spoils_of_Neltharus_437 303971 7.55%
Darkmoon_Deck_Box_Dance_Emberscale_483 303069 7.23%
Darkmoon_Deck_Box_Inferno_Sagescale_483 302769 7.12%
Ominous_Chromatic_Essence_Emerald_447 302439 7.01%
Darkmoon_Deck_Box_Rime_483 301208 6.57%
Leaf_of_the_Ancient_Protectors_489 300573 6.35%
Rotcrusted_Voodoo_Doll_447 298423 5.59%
Oakhearts_Gnarled_Root_489 297544 5.27%
Corrupted_Starlight_488 296970 5.07%
Caged_Horror_489 296485 4.90%
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WoW Developer
#5 - Sept. 18, 2023, 11:09 p.m.
Blizzard Post

Thank you for the thoughtful feedback! It’s always helpful to hear from specific perspectives like this. One relevant upcoming change is that Nymue’s Vengeful Spindle has been adjusted to deal less damage while granting additional Mastery and will be available for testing in the next PTR update. It should feel like a Mastery trinket that deals some damage rather than vice versa.

Tuning is very much ongoing and players can expect under- or overperforming effects to be brought in line. Community data from the PTR is very helpful alongside our internal processes for testing early tuning assumptions.

Ideally every tier presents players with a variety of viable trinket choices. Our goal with a caster-specific trinket like Belor’relos, the Sunstone would be that it finds a useful place somewhere in the toolkit across all caster classes, but not necessarily for every specialization that can use it. If Pip’s Emerald Friendship Badge and Ashes of the Embersoul are universally preferred over it by every caster in every situation, we would consider this a tuning failure.

In contrast, a trinket like Augury of the Primal Flame might simply scale better for non-casters to the point where it would be too powerful overall if it was balanced around caster performance.

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WoW Developer
#11 - Sept. 19, 2023, 4:41 a.m.
Blizzard Post

This is something we’ll keep an eye on as players get their hands on it. Trinkets with tradeoffs such as cast times, self-damage, or abnormal positioning requirements are intended to feel like a choice and an investment, and the payoff should be worth it both when considering both the numerical DPS contribution and the subjective ease of use.

As in the case of the Al’gethar Puzzle Box and Unholy Death Knights, role-specific modifiers are a tool we are more likely to consider when a trinket is substantially overperforming due to class mechanics as opposed to falling behind due to scaling differences.

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WoW Developer
#18 - Sept. 19, 2023, 6:03 p.m.
Blizzard Post

One more follow-up to this specifically regarding Augury of the Primal Flame and caster performance after reviewing some additional data: the proc chance has been changed to scale with the player’s haste. This will significantly increase its performance for specializations that prefer haste without much impact to melee specializations that do not. Thank you for helping to highlight this discrepancy!

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WoW Developer
#29 - Sept. 22, 2023, 8:04 p.m.
Blizzard Post

Thanks for the feedback and testing data. There are several changes in the next build:

  • Channel reduced to 3 sec with corresponding adjustments to damage and Mastery values
  • Mastery buff duration increased to 18 sec
  • Mastery increased by ~40% even after the duration and channel changes; the current value on the PTR is essentially a bug related to accounting for lost rotation time
  • Damage per sec channeled has also been increased to a lesser extent
  • Bonus damage to rooted targets increased to 50%
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WoW Developer
#30 - Sept. 22, 2023, 8:11 p.m.
Blizzard Post

Healing trinkets will be seeing tuning adjustments in coming weeks.

Rashok’s Molten Heart has provided more power than we would have liked and will require some changes beyond the mana restore reduction.

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WoW Developer
#36 - Sept. 22, 2023, 9:37 p.m.
Blizzard Post

I’m referring specifically to Blossom of Amirdrassil and Smoldering Seedling here. These should feel like competitive options vs. Pip’s Emerald Friendship Badge and Ashes of the Embersoul (or any of the M+ alternatives).

If this is the case, we’d likely shift some of the budget back to damage. There were some higher-level tuning changes involved here that we need to see shake out first.

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WoW Developer
#52 - Sept. 24, 2023, 3:55 p.m.
Blizzard Post
  • Damage and the cap scale at the same rate
  • This is useful feedback when it comes to interacting with the trinket; the tooltip will display the remaining damage in the next PTR update
  • We’ll look into these issues as potential bugs (thanks for the reports!)
  • The RPPM change was made too late to make it onto the current PTR and will be reflected in the next update

As far as any modifiers go, I can see that the tooltip is misleading as-is; it has been updated to better reflect the mechanics. You can think of the cap like any other damage trinket effect when it comes to scaling with Critical Strike and Versatility. As you would probably expect, these modifiers are taken into account after the damage cap calculations so that the overall potential damage can scale in the same way as a trinket like Beacon to the Beyond.

In addition to the above changes, the duration of the buff has been decreased to 20 sec to reduce the chance of overwriting itself while the bonus critical damage has been increased to 50% to offset this shorter window. It’s not intended that players necessarily get the full value every time the trinket procs (i.e., during the lowest DPS troughs for certain specializations with low Critical Strike rating), but it should feel easy to achieve during burst windows and reasonable the rest of the time. These values will be further adjusted as needed to achieve these goals.

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WoW Developer
#60 - Sept. 29, 2023, 10:29 p.m.
Blizzard Post

This has been fixed in the next PTR build. The Seedling will now spawn at 50% HP and burn down at a much slower rate. A few other changes:

  • Now grants Intellect rather than Haste
  • ‘Thank you’ buff changed to Mastery from Intellect
  • While the healing cap is lower as a result, it has also been buffed to reflect that it cannot benefit from critical healing (unlike Augury of the Primal Flame which can separately crit);
  • The healing increase per ally healed increased by 33%

As a result of these last two changes, it should be easier to get the full value of the healing cap without using additional healing cooldowns, but combining those with this trinket is encouraged! Regarding the positioning of the seedling, it is entirely fixed in front of you with no randomness.

In other healing trinket news, Blossom of Amirdrassil has also received some changes:

  • Now grants Haste rather than Intellect
  • Healing significantly increased
  • A bug set the threshold to proc to 20% health rather than the 85% tooltip value; this has been fixed
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WoW Developer
#63 - Sept. 29, 2023, 11:45 p.m.
Blizzard Post

This is intended and is important to its design as essentially an “execute” trinket. Unfortunately that makes it tricky to represent accurately in the tooltip, which is why it lists the min and max values.

The DoT ticks are intended to be able to crit, and you’re right that the AOE component was double-dipping with Versatility. The AOE should not have a separate crit chance from the DoT tick and is not intended to hit the initial DoT target. These bugs will be fixed in a future build. Thanks for pointing these out!

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WoW Developer
#67 - Oct. 2, 2023, 12:53 a.m.
Blizzard Post

Looks like a bug, we’ll look into it this week. My hunch is there might be an issue with multiple targets. Thanks for the report and testing effort!

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WoW Developer
#75 - Oct. 13, 2023, 5:16 p.m.
Blizzard Post

Just want to point out that circumstances that are dire when playing solo are not so dire when in a party or raid!

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WoW Developer
#94 - Nov. 7, 2023, 4 p.m.
Blizzard Post

Thanks for calling this out. We looked into this this morning and found a tuning bug that was covered up by the previous issues with errant dire circumstance procs during PTR testing. The primary stat granted by this trinket will be greatly increased in a future hotfix.

As for the AMS interaction, it is unintended that players should ever be able to immune the haste tradeoff.