So I made a stream. I had it up during our Ruby Sanctum/ICC run tonight, and reached the staggering numbers of 30 viewers online at the same time. 30! Uhh. I guess it’s not bad for a first night of streaming. I will be putting it up whenever I feel like there is something worth showing – our raids, most likely, or if I am forumwhoring or making a blog post, and I want to give you a bit of insight to my “creative” writing process.

At the moment, the quality of the stream is “okay”. For a graphics whore like myself, “okay” is not good enough. Sure, it’s watchable, but its not nearly as good as I want it to be, but I need to figure out how to send in a higher quality without dropping too many frames. If anybody is a streaming wiz, let me know, I could use a hand to tweak the line.

Anyways, I hope you will stop by. 25 man raids are happening on thursdays, sundays and thuesdays, with the occasional 10 man raid on wednesdays, always between 20.00-00.00 CET (that’s Europe, guys!). I will post on Twitter if I am streaming outside of these times – like, when I’m blogging – and alternatively, you can follow my channel if you are often using Justin.tv. You can also see past broadcasts, so if you *really* want to see tonights Ruby Sanctum and ICC HC raid, you can find them in the archive.

Cheers! Check out my stream on justin.tv/Qieth!

So I thought it would be a good idea to compile a list of the most common trinkets, and my thoughts on them. I have excluded certain trinkets, those from Naxx and those dropping from the later parts of Ulduar, simply because these instances aren’t really that popular anymore, or because most random groups seem to crumble before you reach the boss that drops them. If you are still raiding Naxxramas and Ulduar on a regular basis, then no problem, but then your choice in trinkets is quite limited anyways.

Sundial of the Exiled and the Abyssal Rune

The Sundial is a very easy trinket to get. Not only that, it is remarkably strong, and will surpass many higher level trinkets, purely because it gives us the stats we need at a very early stage in the game. If you are just starting out at level 80, you will probably find yourself soft haste capped fairly quickly, and the crit rating on the Sundial gives you a boost just where you need it. It has a good, reliable spell power proc, and can last you a long time – and since we are usually swimming in Emblems of Triumph, it’s very easy to downgrade a handful of emblems and gain a powerful trinket right off the bat.

The Abyssal Rune is similar to the Sundial, as it gives haste instead of crit, and a similar spell power proc. Since it drops in Trial of the Champion normal, it can be farmed with relative ease, and it will still give you a good buff when you are starting out.

Darkmoon Card: Greatness

Most people strive for a Darkmoon Card, but the caster version of this is not as strong as you might think. The intellect one gives you 90 int and a 300 int proc, which is just a few percentages of crit when the proc is running, and a little bit of spell power. You can get the spirit version which gives you 90 spirit – or 30 spell power – but you will still be stuck with a 300 intellect buff, as your intellect will undoubedly be higher than your spirit. For the weak buff it gives, and the price you have to pay for it, it is simply not worth pursuing.

Majestic Dragon Figurine and the Illustration of the Dragon Soul

These trinkets, dropping from Sartharion 10 and 25 respectively, are quite sought after. Once they get going, you have a constant amount of spell power, which means they suffer very little from movement. Trinkets with a proc on them has a chance to be completely useless if you are forced to move for the duration of the proc. There are little concern with these trinkets. The upside of these trinkets is that they are relatively easy to get – in terms of killing the boss – but they are very strong in the eyes of almost every single caster in the game.

Embrace of the Spider

Similar to the Sundial and the Abyssal Rune, although it gives spell power instead of crit or haste. It is not too difficult to farm, being on a 20% drop chance from Naxxramas 10, but you may not get a chance to see Maexxna this late in the expansion.

Scale of Fates

You may get a chance to kill Thorim in Ulduar, and if you do, you can consider this trinket. The spell power bonus is as good as any, and quite strong for that level of raiding. However, be mindful of the proc, as it will only really do you any good if you use it during lunar eclipse. In all other cases, the haste will be useless.

Elemental Focus Stone

As a drop from Auriaya in Ulduar 10, this is not a hard trinket to get, but one can wonder if you really need 108 hit rating if you are already raiding Ulduar. Whats worse, the trinket has a haste proc, and not a use ability, which means that it will be completely useless if it procs during solar eclipse. This is not a trinket you would want to aim for.

Eye of the Broodmother

Now this is a wonderful trinket. Razorscale 10 is so easy to get to, so quick to kill, and trinket really delivers. With crit rating equaling that of the Sundial, and a constant 125 spell power as long as you are casting, this will provide a powerful buff for you for a very long time. If you can get into Ulduar 10, this is definately a trinket to go for.

Shard of the Crystal Heart and Living Flame

The Shard is good, and bad. Good, because it can be used to cover a lot of hit rating, actually half of what we need to be hit capped. If you need a lot of hit and you need it now, this can be obtained by just 50 Emblems of Triumph – a night of farming heroics or so. Just be sure to cast the Use ability during lunar eclipse, so it is not wasted on wraths.

The Living Flame is a similar hit trinket, obtained from Razorscale 25. It is nice, if you need the hit, and we can always use another +spell power ability. But if this puts you massively above your hit cap, you might want to pass this on to someone else.

Nevermelting Ice Crystal

The Nevermelting Ice Crystal looks like a really good trinket, but in truth, it is nothing more than a “Well, there is nothing better”. Heck, even the ilevel 200 Sundial of the Exiled surpasses this trinket, purely because a lot of the item stats are put into the proc – and the proc doesn’t do us good. You have such a high chance to crit with your spells, even wrath, that the trinket gets exhausted from crits that you would have gotten anyways. In truth, you can take your crit chance with wrath and reduce it from the crit on the trinkets proc. If your wrath has a 40% chance to crit, you are only really getting three extra crits, not five. This trinket works if there is nothing better, but these days, there is usually something better. The Nevermelting Ice Crystal is usually much better off on a class with a low chance to crit.

Talisman of Volatile Power

On paper, this looks like an awesome trinket. In reality, it is not. Sure, it can fill a spot if you really have nothing else, but it can’t hold a candle to more stable trinkets like the Sundial, or the pure spell power trinkets you can find from Sapphiron or Razorscale. The biggest issue with this trinket, is that the only way for a moonkin to benefit from it, is to use it during lunar eclipse. A trinkets power is calculated from the assumption that its use ability is being activated the moment it comes off cooldown, and you will undoubedly go out of sync with your lunar eclipse very quickly. You can use starfall to stack this trinket up faster, but you will have to time the cooldown of the trinket to your lunar eclipse proccing and your starfall being off cooldown – if you delay any of these for the sake of waiting for the others, you are losing DPS.

Sliver of Pure Ice and Purified Lunar Dust

The Sliver of Pure Ice is an easy trinket to aquire. Any PUG, even the worst possible PUG, can kill Marrowgar. It adds a lot of spell power to you, but you must keep in mind that half of the trinkets value is lost on a useless, weak version of a mana potion, and mana is the last thing you need if you step into Icecrown Citadel.

The same goes for the Purified Lunar Dust, which is obtainable from emblems of frost, which also adds a bucket of spell power, but which gives you nothing but mana. If you are a resto going moonkin, it is a good starter trinket – since you have it anyways – but die hard moonkins should probably spend their frost emblems on something else.

Reign of the unliving/dead

Now this is a fun trinket, and one that is spurring a lot of debate. It starts out as a very powerful trinket, giving you a lot of spell power, and a very potent proc. When your starfires are at 2 second casts, you can be guaranteed a Mote of Flame every single cast during lunar eclipse, and generally on every other wrath cast. It almost seems like the perfect trinket – as long as your starfire crits every two seconds (and it will, during Lunar Eclipse), you will fire off a Pillar of Flame every six seconds.

But the moment your starfire lands after 1,9 seconds, the game is lost. A couple of haste is all it takes to go from 2 second motes to 3,8 second motes. From 6 second Pillars to 11,4 second pillars. The damage from the proc is effectively halved once you start going above 401 haste (lets say 450 because of latency), and then it starts getting better again.

As I said, there is a lot of debate about the value of the trinket after 400 haste. Some say its good. some say its bad. I say it’s okay, but I still choose to put my faith in higher levels of trinkets, which offer either more spell power, crit or haste, or at least more reliable procs. You can still run with it, and it is still one of the best trinkets in the game, but I am not convinced that it can surpass the bonusses we can get from the trinkets in Icecrown Citadel.

Muradin’s Spyglass

Ah, Muradin’s Spyglass, such a wonderful trinket. It has the power of the Dragon trinkets – only better. It has the crit of the Sundial – only better. And it drops from the easiest encounter ever seen in this game: The Gunship in Icecrown Citadel. Furthermore, a lot of 10 man PUGs seem to feature at least one person with a Lich King kill, and so many PUGs will do Gunship on heroic. It is just as easy, but it makes Muradin’s Spyglass just a little bit sweeter. Since it drops in 10 mans, you will usually only roll against a few people. And when you get it, you will scream with glee. If you are not already doing at least the first wing of Icecrown Citadel every week, then I think it’s time for you to suit up, Barney Stinson style, and get rolling!

Phylactery of the Nameless Lich and Dislodged Foreign Object

These are the creme de la creme of Icecrown Citadel, and for moonkins, they offer a perfect balance between crit and haste, and offers powerful spellpower buffs to boot. The heroic version of Muradin’s Spyglass is more or less equal to either of these trinkets on normal and, indeed, the Reign of the Whatchasay is nearly as good as these. If you are missing those two, and have a shot at DFO and PONL, they would be your optimal choice.

Use them wisely. If you can time your powerful abilities like starfall or pot+lunar eclipse with a proc of these, heck even both, you can dish out some serious damage. I usually delay the first starfall just until PONL procs for a massive increase in damage, and if the Gods of RNG allow it, you can pop your starfall when there is around 10 seconds left of the proc from DFO for maximum spell power gain.

Charred Twilight Scale

It is likely to assume that the Charred Twilight Scale from Ruby Sanctu, is a viable replacement for either DFO or PONL. Because it has haste, it will probably replace DFO rather than PONL. Haste is still stronger than crit, but barely, and when we are talking true best-in-slot, the differences would be minute. The best course of action would probably be to have one haste trinket and one crit trinket. If you can get it, go for it!

So there you have it! There were a lot of trinkets that I didn’t mention, for reasons explained above. If you have a trinket lying around that is not on this list, and you want to have a chat about it, drop a comment below!

- QQ

Before we do that, I want to try and make an important point. Best in slot lists are very discriminating. What I mean by that is that they asse that you have access to everything, normal and heroic, 10 an 25 man. If you don’t, the value of an item might change due yo caps and whatnot. Also, keep in mind that just because it is a best in slot list, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t alternatives out there. A good example is the Boots of Unnatural Growth. While they have spirit instead of haste, they are nearly as good as the Plague Scientist’s Boots.

An upgrade is an upgrade, so don’t go tunnelvision against these items in particular. If you an upgrade your stats with a nearly-as-good item, you should.

First things first, let’s take a look at my own 3.3 ICC BIS list. I am well away on getting these items. In fact, I’ve aquired them all on normal at least, and some simply needs to be upgraded.

• Head: Sanctified Lasherweave Cover
• Neck: Blood Queen’s Crimson Choker
• Shoulder: Sanctified Lasherweave Mantle
• Back: Frostbinder’s Shredded Cape
• Chest: Sanctified Lasherweave Vestment
• Wrists: The Lady’s Brittle Bracers
• Hands: Sanctified Lasherweave Gloves or Gunship Captain’s Mittens
• Belt: Crushing Coldwraith Belt
• Legs: Sanctified Lasherweave Trousers or Plaguebringer’s Stained Pants
• Feet: Plague Scientist’s Boots
• Ring: Ashen Band of Endless Destruction
• Ring: Ring of Rapid Ascent
• Trinket: Phylactery of the Nameless Lich
• Trinket: Dislodged Foreign Object
• Main hand: Royal Scepter of Terenas II
• Off hand: Shadow Silk Spindle
• Idol: Idol of the Lunar Eclipse

Because I have access to heroic gear, I get a little bit more out of the hit rating items. In fact, I am ble to achieve my hit cap using just four items: The rep ring, tier 10 pants and gloves and The Lady’s Bristle Bracers. If all of these items are from normal, I will be 3 hit rating under the cap. With just one from heroic – the bracers in my case – I am above the cap. If you are alliance, keep in mind that your hit cap is only 9%. However, it never hurts to go to 10% anyways, because you are not always covered by a draenei aura.

Come 3.5 and Ruby Sanctum, we will see three new items that could be relevant to us: A cloak, a trinket and a new pair of bracers:

• Trinket: Charred Twilight Scale
• Back: Cloak of Burning Dusk
• Wrists: Phaseshifter’s Bracers

We haven’t seen the heroic versions yet, but I think that it is safe to assume that they will be of an equal item level to items dropping from Lich King 25 heroic. So far, there are no sign of a caster ring – none that I have notices anyways. In any case, it will either be a hit + crit or haste ring, or a crit/haste ring. Either way, it will replace the two rings we have now, if it comes around.

It is likely to assume that the trinket is viable replacements for either DFO or Phyl. Because it has haste, it will probably replace DFO rather than Phyl. Haste is still stronger than crit, but barely, and when we are talking true best-in-slot, the differences would be minute. The best course of action would probably be to have one haste trinket and one crit trinket. The cloak is a straight upgrade from the Frostbinder’s Shredded Cape (or in my case, Aethas’ Intensity), so there is little debate in regards to this.

The interesting point are the bracers. We are finally looking at a leather wrist item with crit and haste. It is a wonderful item, but it has one drawback: No hit. Assuming that I have heroic hit pieces in other item slots, removing my Lady’s Brittle Bracers will put me at 239 hit rating (which is bloody well perfect for a night elf druid). I need to cover the 25 hit from somewhere, and I can do that with either a pure +20 hit gem or two Veiled Ametrine. Or at least, it can cover 20 hit rating.

The Veiled Ametrine is probably the safest bet, as they give spell power as well, and is slightly better than pure gems – much as it is the case with SP/crit and SP/haste gems. I may just use a third Veiled Ametrine and accept being 5 hit rating over the cap. This seems the best course of action, rather than being 5 hit rating below the cap.

So, where does that place us? Well, it gives us the following BIS list:

• Head: Sanctified Lasherweave Cover
• Neck: Blood Queen’s Crimson Choker
• Shoulder: Sanctified Lasherweave Mantle
• Back: Cloak of Burning Dusk (heroic)
• Chest: Sanctified Lasherweave Vestment
• Wrists: Phaseshifter’s Bracers (heroic)
• Hands: Sanctified Lasherweave Gloves or Gunship Captain’s Mittens
• Belt: Crushing Coldwraith Belt
• Legs: Sanctified Lasherweave Trousers or Plaguebringer’s Stained Pants
• Feet: Plague Scientist’s Boots
• Ring: Ashen Band of Endless Destruction
• Ring: Ring of Rapid Ascent
• Trinket: Phylactery of the Nameless Lich or Dislodged Foreign Object
• Trinket: Charred Twilight Scale (heroic)
• Main hand: Royal Scepter of Terenas II
• Off hand: Shadow Silk Spindle
• Idol: Idol of the Lunar Eclipse

And ofcourse, BIS gemming is important here: You must have Veiled Ametrine in three of your yellow slots. You still need two Purified Dreadstone for your meta gem. Red gem slots will obviously be for Runed Cardinal‘s and your remaining yellow slots will be for SP/haste gems.

Enjoy the Ruby Sanctum, and all the new, tasty gear!

- QQ

First of all, I still think that Cataclysm is many months away. It is difficult to really gauge when Blizzard might push it out, and there are tons of different factors: How long can they keep people entertained with the current content available in World of Warcraft? There are still plenty of people going through Icecrown Citadel, and Ruby Sanctum is coming as well. I’d say a few more months, at least, would be in order.

At this point, we would be relatively close to Blizzcon, scheduled for October 22nd 2010. If Blizzard were to release Cataclysm before Blizzcon, then they might as well shut down the World of Warcraft hall. Unless they plan to reveil their next expansion – the one coming after Cataclysm – it seems unlikely that we will see Cataclysm on this side of Blizzcon. Blizzcon’s logo even shows Deathwing – alongside with Kerrigan and Diablo – and while Starcraft 2 will come out before Blizzcon, I doub that Cataclysm will.

So I am taking my time. I’m not stressing. That being said, I am making preperations and there are things I have to consider.

Switching mains

In Vanilla, I was a priest. In The Burning Crusade, I played a hunter. In Wrath of the Lich King, I’ve been a druid. If there is any sort of pattern to my choice of playstyle, this pattern dictates that I should find a new class to play. Maybe a shaman or a mage or something.

But on the other hand, I don’t think I have ever been so involved with a class as I have been with druids. When I was a priest, I was practically on noob-level. As a hunter, I started caring a bit more – I wrote some guides, I posted on forums and the like. But as a druid, I’ve been camping forums and even started this blog. An enourmous amount of time has gone into being a druid, thinking about druids, writing about druids and, yes, even dreaming about druids. This class also have the benefit of having a lot of choices: I started out as a tank, and now I am a moonkin. Who knows, maybe I’ll be a restoration druid in Cataclysm! Hah, as if..

Hand on heart, I don’t see myself playing anything else than a druid – a balance druid that is – in Cataclysm. I think this is a good time to break the pattern, and stick to what I know best: Being an awesome moonkin. You have nothing to fear.

Achievements and old stuff

There are a lot of people who plan to round up a lot of achievements now that they have time. Finishing Glory of the Hero, killing rare spawns and whatnot. If you know anything about me, you’d know that I care little for achievements, unless they offer me something unique, like a cool mount or a title I might want to display above my head. I’m not really that much into stuff like “Outland Dungeon Master”, because it is nothing but an image that noone will ever see, and points that I could never spend. I am not all that hyped up about achievements, as others are, and I’m beginning to find them a bit boring; When a single player game such as Splinter Cell: Conviction has an achievement for using a flash bang on 15 people – an achievement that nobody else would ever see me do – then they are becoming sort of redundant.

I don’t PvP much, cause, truth be told, I suck at PvP. I also don’t think I quite have the time to get seriously involved with PvP or arenas, and I don’t like to do things half heartedly. So I am probably not going to spend my time on that as I wait for Cataclysm to come out.

Stocking up

I have never been a huge gold hog. I’ve farmed for what I needed, and that has been enough for me. But ever since a few months ago, when I found myself wanting to make a pair of leggings for my DPS set and realised that I didn’t have enough money to buy all that Saronite, I’ve been camping the Auction House quite a lot. It’s not going fast, but it is going up there, and in the past few weeks I have pushed my gold up to around 40.000. Cataclysm is most likely going to bring a lot of fancy new things to play with, so having extra gold will do me good.

I’ve thought about buying the Tundra Mammoth to have a shop ready at hand, but I have never actually found myself in need of that. All the time, as I have been leveling up, I always visit a vendor often enough to let me empty my bags, and I have never found myself without reagents. I also wonder what the value of the Tundra Mammoth will be if Blizzard decides to not upgrade the items available on the vendors – what good would a reagent vendor be if it didn’t have the reagents I would need in level 85?

So at the moment, I’ve decided to hold on with buying it: I don’t need it rigth now, and if I decided that I do, I have enough cash to get it. Who knows, there might be something even cooler in Cataclysm – a kodo or your own private zeppelin – and I can spend my money on that instead.

I have an alt, Niknoom, who is currently stocking up on gems. These gems is sort of an investment, leftovers from a lot of Titanium Ore prospects, that won’t really sell on AH. Or, they will sell, but I can’t be arsed to relist them over and over again for 3 gold with one or two sales every day. Instead, I figure there will eventually be a lot of people wanting to level up professions on new characters, and I will be the one helping them with items to do that – at an insanely unfair overprice.

Gathering intel

The biggest preparation I can do, however, is getting to know what I will be facing. There will be a lot of moonkin information to read up on and digest, a lot of theorycrafting to do, and a lot of new stuff to find and kill.

So in the end, I guess I’m not really stressing about Cataclysm. I do my stuff, I gather some gold, and other than that, I’m just sitting here waiting for the world to end.

What do you do to prepare for Cataclysm?

- QQ