ToS Trinkets for Affliction, Which are actually best in real time?

[Deleted]

I know Tarnished Owl trinket is suppose to be best on paper but im not convinced in game. Tides trinket is really good in practice if you can not waste the proc and i dont know about KJ trinket. Which trinkets do you guys consider best in there? Trying to decide which to use

[Chogg]

Just the mastery alone on the Owl trinket makes it a very powerful stat stick. I use that and a 910 titanforged whispers.

[Moggie]

Vendor the KJ trinket. The gold is worth more than the on use effect. =P

[Deleted]

Owl is very strong but only in single target, when there is 2 targets it already loses a lot of value, you use the owl+whispers for st and whispers+arcano for multi target and you would be set.

[Kekful]

I have a 920 owl 920 terror from below 920 haste stick with a socket and an archano crystal, between simming it and real time testing I can't figure out what is my best and when.

[Sgtbaker]

Hey guys, I have basically the same question. I'm struggling with the fact that my sims show my 860 socketed crystal and 915 owl sim highest for me, yet all the top 100 parses are showing whispers. Some folks even using 900 whispers, which I have as well, but sims significantly lower. Also, what trinkets beat out the mastery on Owl for WiA/AC build fights? The owl trinket just feels so bad...

[Liarparadox]

Hey guys, I have basically the same question. I'm struggling with the fact that my sims show my 860 socketed crystal and 915 owl sim highest for me, yet all the top 100 parses are showing whispers. Some folks even using 900 whispers, which I have as well, but sims significantly lower. Also, what trinkets beat out the mastery on Owl for WiA/AC build fights? The owl trinket just feels so bad...

Ignore anyone who criticizes Whispers. It's incredible. Sure you can have some bad luck, but you can also adjust that bad luck to some degree. The only real problem I have with Whispers is that it's inconsistent. I'm not suggesting you take it in every situation at every ilevel compared to other trinkets at every ilevel. But it's an absurdly good trinket atm.

Also, stat sticks are excellent as they are versatile and pretty much foolproof. Arcano is still sickly OP. So if you're lucky enough to have that, it's probably worth using unless you have another stat stick that is MUCH higher ilevel (for example, for affliction, a 920 with a socket stat stick of Mastery is going to be better than a 860 Arcano). You of course want to sim to compare as weights adjust constantly and under different boss encounters.

I have owl; it's OK but if you don't use it properly it's not going to be THAT great, even on ST where you simply may have to stop dpsing and move, which will really hurt owl's worth. For multitargets, mastery stat stick of roughly same (even lower) ilevel will pull ahead, no question. Owl is only good for ST imo. It's pretty 'meh' for more than one target.

Sims are good to use; but just be realistic about your capacity to use "on use" trinkets. Just because Owl sims high on ST, doesn't mean you should take it. On use trinkets are good in that they can be used for dps checks/phase pushes/burns. But if you are holding on to your "use" too long or not using it properly, or pop it then have to stop dpsing the boss, then it won't compete with stat sticks that are mindless and affecting every spell on every target. This of course is one of the issues with Whispers; it can proc at a horrible time; and the debuff can come up at the absolute worst time as well.

In your situation, I'd test this stuff out in LFR (not ignoring mechanics just cause you can) and then requeue and try again with different combos. Log them all and take a look how you did (taking into account abnormal RNG). I can't imagine OWL beats out Whispers on multi-target in your case (I mean in game); but maybe that has to do with some of your other gear.

Remember (as this thread already suggests) sims have to be interpreted and applied to some degree. If you suck at remembering to push the "on use", then either try to get better at that or consider a stat stick (with good stats of course, that sims decently closely). I see people making poor gear choices frequently because they don't understand what they are reading or how to apply it to themselves. I know someone who takes an on use trinket and almost never activates it. But hey, it sims high! Lots of people do similar things; quite frankly they don't know how to interpret their simc output and apply it to their own skill level (and I question what their simc input is as well).

[Deleted]

I know Tarnished Owl trinket is suppose to be best on paper but im not convinced in game. Tides trinket is really good in practice if you can not waste the proc and i dont know about KJ trinket. Which trinkets do you guys consider best in there? Trying to decide which to use

Owl is definitely strongest for single target, it lines up with SH and does a crazy amount if you set it up properly, its like 5-6% of my damage on gorgoth and maiden.

Whispers is just too good to not use, it is a trinket that is made for affliction, sure its a pain when it doesn't proc or procs when you dont want it too, but even still its cant be denied that is is absurdly good.

Unfortunately thats about it regarding TOS trinket apart from the owl the rest are garbage, i'm still chasing the arcano dream so am just running a mastery stat stick for mutl-dot fights instead of the owl, which is fine tbh since i have whispers/concordance to track to spend shards on during those fights anyways without adding more shennanigans.

[Kirroth]

Yeah, the ToS trinkets are so bad for Afflic that I'm still gambling on Relinquished trinkets. So far my best one is a 900 Stormsinger Fulmination Charge, which is a very good alternative to the Owl for multi-target fights.

Maybe someday I'll hit the jackpot and land that 880+ Arcano.

[Deleted]

Yeah, the ToS trinkets are so bad for Afflic that I'm still gambling on Relinquished trinkets. So far my best one is a 900 Stormsinger Fulmination Charge, which is a very good alternative to the Owl for multi-target fights.

Maybe someday I'll hit the jackpot and land that 880+ Arcano.

Ye i feel you on this, atm i roughly get around 3 chances of the relinquished trinkets with shard missions, luck on keys and invasions. Best i've done so far is a 900 mastery stat stick.

Than 955 arcano dream tho!!!

[Shodan30]

I just want to get rid of my fucking 860 arcano. It's seriously dragging my ilvl down.

[Liarparadox]

Ye i feel you on this, atm i roughly get around 3 chances of the relinquished trinkets with shard missions, luck on keys and invasions. Best i've done so far is a 900 mastery stat stick.

Than 955 arcano dream tho!!!

I'm in the same boat. Never seen it once. Is 955 for real? I've heard rumors in dark corners of the broken shores but never seen one on anyone.

- - - Updated - - -

I just want to get rid of my fucking 860 arcano. It's seriously dragging my ilvl down.

Why is that so bad? For pugging purposes would suck for sure. Low ilevel can be fun if you don't have to pug; people underestimate you!!

If you want higher ilevel to get into groups, just do what others do and have a "max ilevel" set.

[Biomega]

do what others do and have a "max ilevel" set.

x100 times this.

PUGs are silly and narrow-visioned. They want the magical numbers to match up, but no one is going to bother inspecting you on each fight to check if you're actually wearing the advertised gear.

If you PUG a lot, keep any high ilvl pieces you find around to get easier invites. Void knows it's already hard enough to get a spot as a DPS, and they'll definitely just take the most geared ones with no further questions asked.

Outside of that, like in guilds and whatnot, ilvl shouldn't matter, only the actual stats and what you get out of them. If your theoretical best choice is a lower ilvl piece, then that's what you take.

[Shodan30]

It's not because of pugging. I have a raiding guild, It's just so...artificially wrong to still be better an item at 860 than trinkets at 915+. I care less about my I-lvl E-peen than most, but It still is suppose to be an accurate representation of the accomplishments you have made. With the trinket, I'm 916, when i could be 920 with a worse dps 920 trinket in its slot. One item dragging down my ilvl that much is just wrong. I'm not saying they should remove it from the game, I'm saying it should be set at its accurate correct ilvl and put on a boss in Tomb of sargaras since we have caught up to the point of its equivilent ilvl I actually had a 905 medallion drop for me yesterday and I'm going to be replacing the arcano with it even if its about a .5% less dps, but the problem with the crystal has never been that it exists, its that its ilvl was obviously incorrectly calculated.

[Biomega]

I care less about my I-lvl E-peen than most
[...]
One item dragging down my ilvl that much is just wrong.

So, it seems you DO care about it as much as most

Just don't obsess over these things. You want to do better, for your guild and your personal satisfaction, right? So do what you have to in order to get there. Who's going to look at you and go "lol he's only 916" if you don't PUG? Nobody but yourself. And if that bothers you, well, then that's ePeen I'm sorry to say :P

Item level is meant to be a ROUGH representation of your gear quality. The complexity of the game's mechanics won't allow for a reduction to a single number, no matter how much people want that. That's a GOOD thing, because otherwise we'd have boring homogeneity everywhere. If some pieces can compete from one or even two tiers away, that adds dimensions to loot and gear that increase the value of content considerably - think how many people are now still running the previous tier, hoping for good upgrade pieces!

And always keep in mind that most of the differences between pieces are not actually all that big. Few players can even make use of 1-2% differences, because they lose to much to the skill edge already. It's not like an Arcanocrystal will magically double your DPS (despite what certain people I won't mention would like to believe).

[Shodan30]

I don't care about it enough to replace it just for the sake of my number going up if it means im a detrement to the raid im with, which is what i mean about the e-peen thing. a 1% decrease isnt enough to make me not swap it out since my guild is mostly a casual type...but a 5-10% would make me stick with the +99 turd of holding piece of equipment since im hurting my raid.

[Biomega]

I don't care about it enough to replace it just for the sake of my number going up if it means im a detrement to the raid im with, which is what i mean about the e-peen thing. a 1% decrease isnt enough to make me not swap it out since my guild is mostly a casual type...but a 5-10% would make me stick with the +99 turd of holding piece of equipment since im hurting my raid.

I'm not sure I understand correctly, but are you saying you're willing to do less damage just to have higher ilvl?

[Scroff]

My PVP (highest ilvl) set is 8.5 ilvls higher than my PVE set and does 10% less damage, with trinkets being the items lagging behind the most. I don't recall a disparity to this degree in previous expansions but can't say that it matters to me

[Shodan30]

No, I'm willing to do less damage if it makes my play more interesting. One more button isnt much, but its one more than i had before.

[Liarparadox]

I don't get the issue at all. Seems like you're concerned with a number that isn't really relevant to much of anything. It wouldn't change anything if they just called it 910 instead of 860, especially for you in a guild. Your ilevel is irrelevant. Now you're introducing gameplay into it...goalpost moved.

I think a much bigger issue is having this item being THAT good that players since day one have tried to get this but there is no good way to go about doing so. The boss comes up rarely and the intro of relinquished is still a crazy low chance. People have bought over 100 relinquished trinkets and haven't seen it once. Not such a huge issue if it wasn't THAT good. But it's just insanely good atm. The number beside the item representing ilevel? I don't get the point of even the slightest concern over that.

Just ignore it and enjoy life a tiny bit more.