Originally Posted by
Tiberria
The Persistence trait is the strongest minor trait on paper. However, I think that the 15-18 second ticks of Rejuv tend to inherently be less valuable in a lot of cases than ealier ticks, because of the additional propensity to overheal and how long the 18 second duration is. I think looking at things assuming 100% effective healing probably makes Persistence look stronger than it really is. With that in mind, I don't think Persistence is strong enough to warrant the most efficient path in terms of getting major traits. Also, most artifact power calculators estimate that we should have 22 traits before raids open. If you go to Dreamwalker then back to Tranquil Mind, you will still have 3/3 Persistence for week 1 of raiding.
You could argue that the mana reduction traits are worth bypassing the min max of major traits, but I don't agree with that either. The 3/3 6% Wild Growth mana reduction trait is actually an extremely weak trait relative to almost anything else along the paths to the major traits. It's a fairly trivial mana savings. Knowledge of the Ancients is the one really strong trait that you won't have for week 1 of raiding if you follow the Dreamwalker/Tranquil Mind path, and 6% total mana regen is significant. However, I still don't think it's good enough to warrant taking a weak major first and having less majors. You can work around having less regen by having more throughput on the spells you do cast if you're smart about it. You should be able to get Knowledge of the Artifacts at 3/3 by about week 4-5 of raids.