On Tuesday after (finally) having the Mirrored Boots crafted and picking up the shoulders off of Alysrazor — while still stabbing that Domo voodoo doll relentlessly to compel him to drop enough Conq tokens for me to win one — I finally amassed enough surplus mastery to be able to drop a mastery trinket.
To cross the finish line, I had to swap around six gems: four Puissants into blue sockets, one Fractured into my relic socket, and one Fractured Chimera’s Eye into a yellow socket. With that done, I picked up the last 183 mastery I needed to cover for removing the Spidersilk Spindle from my default kit.
I’m not block capped with the assumption of the Mirror of Broken Images being equipped, and I chose that particular trinket to be my default so that if I want to use the Spindle instead, I won’t suddenly be a chunk of mastery under the cap.
In return, I now run the Scales of Life (which I’m training myself to use like a cooldown, a mini-WoG) in my second trinket slot. If it’s Baleroc, I’ll swap that out for the Spindle to have the extra mastery needed to reach Baleroc’s special super-CTC requirement. If it’s Alysrazor, a dps trinket goes in. If it’s a primarily physical damage fight (like Shannox), I’ll swap out the Mirror for the Spindle and keep the Scales.
This is why I hope we’re allowed to continue to block cap in 4.3. All this dancing around the cap and gearing intelligently and effectively depending on the fight while keep our necks above the caps is fun. At least, to me. I might be a masochist when it comes to stuff like this.
I still haven’t made that transition. I ended up opting for just pushing a couple more percent in straight avoidance (almost 16% for dodge and parry) and swapping a couple of pieces around to make things work as needed if I need a bit more coverage or if I need a bit more damage.
I may end up making the change if I can score a firestone for the scales.
Also, we still have not seen a single shield from Baleroc *shakes fist at the RNG*
@Rhidach
That’s me with basically every other shield in the game. For some reason, Baleroc drops his once a week. Sometimes twice a week. It’s very confusing.
Update: So Baleroc still didn’t drop a shield, but he did drop a heroic hat, so I took the plunge on the Scales. Gonna mess with it more on Sunday.
Do you use something to track the SoL reserve?
@Rhidach
There’s an addon called ScalesOfLifeTracker, which was handy, but I noticed in a raid the same thing fills up nigh immediately. So I stopped using it. I just assume that once the minute cooldown is up, the trinket is full.
Do you still use the mastery elixir and food in raids? I’m trying to gear so I don’t have to use either. I’m part of the way there since I can eat the fish feasts. Btw, you seem to have some knowledge of the inner workings of Blizzard, so who do I have to sleep with so Baleroc drops the shield when I’m there with my pally and not another alt.
@Rhidach
Hahaha, I wish I knew, because I need more Conq tokens to drop on Domo. I’ll let you know when I find out. Hopefully it’s not Morhaime.
I do still use the elixir/mastery food. I’d like to not use it, but it’s SO MUCH mastery. More heroic gear and I can probably pull it off.
I’d take the Stay of Execution over the Scales of Life. Cooldowns are still king, and the ability to have an extra Divine Protection with 25% uptime is so much better than a tiny heal. It even works on Decimation Blades.
The Renaissance Man\’s last [type] ..15 Days Through My Interface: Day 5
@Rhidach
I haven’t really explored that trinket at all because it looks so wonky to me. What’s your experience with it been? Sounds like you like it.
A well timed 19k heal (which the Scales delivers) can definitely be useful. Kind of sucks though that if it because overheal it’s completely wasted.
The strength of the stay is it’s on use effect. It’s also got a ton of dodge that can be reforged however you like, but the CD is what shines. What it really boils down to is it’s 12% DR plus an 8% damage delay. You pretty much defer the damage until either 30 seconds elapse, or you take slightly less than 300k damage. Once the effect ends, you’re given a bleed that ticks for 8% of the damage absorbed every 2 seconds, for 10 seconds. This means that you only have to pay back 40% of the damage you absorbed, and it will never tick for more than 4,558 damage per tick. The bleed damage can be further mitigated through other defensive CDs. So basically you’re trading 20% damage reduction for a span for an additional 2k damage taken per second for the following ten seconds. If you’re using the CD to cover a period before a tank swap, such as on Beth’tilac, Rag, or Alysrazor, then the damage from the bleed is covered through AoE splash heals. If you’re using it as part of a rotation for a phase with heavy sustained damage, like late Baleroc or phase two rhyolith, then the next CD in the rotation will mitigate the majority of the bleed. If the healer can keep you up through 30k incoming damage per second, then the odds of them not being able to handle 31 or 32k is pretty slim.
It basically boils down to an extra divine protection that works on everything.
The Renaissance Man\’s last [type] ..15 Days Through My Interface: Day 5
Just want to give a +1 to Renaissance Man’s recommendation to use the Stay of Execution. It is, for me at least, by far the best 378 trinket available, for the same reasons he described.
Meanwhile Scales of life is nigh unusable on hc 10man, hurrah.