Trinkets do three things:
1.They keep your keys from being lonely
2.They hurt like hell when you forget to take them out of your pocket before playing pick-up basketball
3.They have the potential to increase your DPS more drastically than any other single gear slot in the game.
No other gear choice we make in this game will either positively or negatively impact our raw output than the two trinkets we select, and no other loot drop can be more infuriating to wait for. With trinkets, it’s imperative that you identify what you want, know where to go to get it, and then focus your efforts until you reach your goal.

With that in mind, let’s go over the best trinkets available for mages in the game right now, and where to go get them.

I will list each trinket in the order in which I believe they belong, from least powerful to most powerful. You will undoubtedly have differing opinions about the order I go with, and I want to hear about them in the comments. In addition to being the most important gear choices in the game, trinkets are also perhaps the most subjective in terms of raw stats. When you’re deciding between most gear, your comparison mainly involves seeing which item has a higher amount of intellect and then equipping that item. But when you’re choosing between a stacking intellect proc on a hidden internal cooldown and an on use ability listed as “Embrace the fel energies contained within,” that choice can be a little less black and white.

Welcome to another mail bag edition of The Lawbringer, ready to answer your questions, inqueries, and crazy considerations. A lot of you have been emailing me about SOPA and PIPA, the two bills currently being legislated on in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. These bills make it extremely easy for parties who feel that they are the victims of copyright infringement to take websites offline without much due process due to the overreaching aspects of the broadness of the respective legislations’ wording. We as a subculture of the internet do not like these pieces of legislation.

I chose not to talk about SOPA or PIPA because, honestly, I think everyone is saying what I would say better than I could say it. So many people much smarter than I have already said wonderful things about these bills that you should probably read those instead. If you’re looking for more information on SOPA, PIPA, and their general mechanics and potential fallout, hit up Wikipedia for a full FAQ about the bill and great links. For a different perspective, my good friend Chris put up a great discussion of SOPA from a non-legal standpoint as a developer and programmer.

My Lawbringer mail bag always has awesome questions, and I’m thankful to all of you who send them in. I try to get to as many of them as I can, and if you haven’t gotten a response, try sending your question in again. It might have just gotten lost or whatever. Email mat@wowinsider.com with any of your Lawbringer questions.

There are a lot of reasons hunters want to top the DPS charts: because the view is better from up there, because we’re a DPS class and it’s our job, because it makes killing bosses easier, or just because it makes your man parts appear larger.

We talk a lot here on Scattered Shots about optimizing your hunter and keeping track of the little changes that happen with every patch and hotfix, but after a while all those little changes add up into a very different optimization picture. Today, we’re going to do a quick review of exactly what is the optimal way spec and play your hunter right now. We’re getting a handful of minor buffs and changes in 4.3.2, and this optimization review will take those into account.

These 10 tips are the quick and dirty answers to the current state of hunter optimization. Bookmark this page and pass it along to that guy with a hunter alt as a one-stop shop for what he should be doing right now. As always, things change with gear and group composition, and there are often choices that are almost as good, but this rundown will get you where you need to go: the top of the charts.

Top 10 tips for topping the charts

1. Spec If your only motivation is going as much DPS as hunterly possible, then SV is the current spec of choice. Recent buffs (and 4.3.2 buffs) put the SV hunter on top, along with the tier 13 set bonuses that favor the SV hunter over MM.

If you want to play MM and know it well, then it is very close to SV in single-target DPS. If you want to play BM, you can do that too, but you will do noticeably less damage than SV does. SV does great DPS on both single and AoE but suffers from lower survivability (ironically) and poorer burst DPS for burn phases.

2. Talents Your standard cookie-cutter SV spec is 3/7/31. This will optimize your damage in raiding environments, and there isn’t a whole lot of variation on this build. The Survival Tactics points can go anywhere you’d like, and you could choose Bestial Discipline over Sic ‘Em, but you aren’t really drowning in choices.

3. Rotation Like all hunter specs, SV has a priority-based rotation. You want to start the fight in Aspect of the Hawk, with Hunter’s Mark and Serpent Sting on the boss. Your priority is then:

I was tired. I’d traveled to the End of Time, participated in one of the biggest moments in the history of Azeroth, and helped the spiritual leader of the Horde kill the spiritual leader of the Alliance (who, admittedly, had tried to kill us first). I’d never felt much of a calling to the Dream, but a few hundred years of meditation sounded great right about now.

Peering over the scales of my drake (I’d have flown myself, but they insisted), I gestured to the large dragon in flight beside me.

“You know, you dragons are always causing trouble,” I shouted as the frigid wind of Northrend whipped by. “Can’t you just drop me off at the nearest forest and call it a day?”

Nethestrasz chuckled. Through some queer trick of the dragons’ magic, they were fully understandable, even in dragon form.

“If a forest existed that would be spared from Deathwing’s flames, I might join you,” he replied. Unfortunately, any further reply was drowned out by a sudden, loud cracking noise as the earth split asunder before us, revealing a gigantic earth elemental.

“Well, looks like it’s time to be troublesome,” I thought. Wordlessly, I nodded to Nethestrasz, and our army turned as one and dove for the surface.

This week and next, I’ll be covering everything you need to know to DPS your way through the new Dragon Soul raid encounter. I’ll provide a quick capsule strategy for those attempting the fight in the Raid Finder, then describe the changes to the fight for normal and heroic modes.

Most guilds use one or more various systems to make sure loot distribution is fair. Some employ a basic rule of civility; once you get gear in an a raid, it’s polite to defer further drops to other guildmates. Others use complicated but effective point systems, assigning dropped gear a point value that members can bid against. No matter what the general system for rolling on gear, the foundation of the system is based on all group members’ being part of a common team.

Pickup groups and Raid Finder groups possess no such commonality. The teams comprise random folks thrown together by Blizzard’s behind-the-scenes group-building algorithms. Basic roles are filled, a few rules followed — but basically anyone can get thrown together into a group.

Random groups rarely agree on loot etiquette before getting started. We all say we should agree on loot rules beforehand, but that rarely actually happens. Instead, most folks charge ahead into the dungeon operating under only a few basic assumptions about how loot will be divided. With that in mind, let’s review the basic etiquette of rolling on gear in groups.

Blizzard’s Rolling Tool: Use it

Blizzard’s rolling tool has come a long, long way. At this point, the tool knows whether your class can use a piece of gear, and the tool allows you to roll need, greed, or disenchant. Just in case there’s some horrible error, you can even trade gear among members of the instance for some time after the roll, unless it’s been disenchanted, of course. (You only get the disenchant option if you have a disenchanter in the group.)

As a general rule, you should use the rolling tool exactly as it is. Don’t try and modify it with freaky rules and regulations. Just click need, greed, or disenchant, and move on with your life.

The tool does have a few challenges. We’ll discuss them in just a second, but I want to underline: Don’t do anything but use the tool as intended without discussing it with the group first. In the attempt to be a good person regarding gear, you could very easily just screw yourself out of loot. No sense in trying to alter the rules if the group doesn’t agree to it beforehand.

Consideration in low-level dungeons

One of the places the rolling tool falls a bit short is in lower-level dungeons. A few natural situation illustrate why. First, groups are comprised of people leveling up through the game, and most characters won’t yet be settled into their final role. Along the way, tanks and healers especially will be trying to maintain two sets of gear: one for DPS and leveling, one for completing dungeons. Second, some group members will be trying to switch roles, collecting DPS gear while still tanking the instance you’re currently in.

While that dynamic shouldn’t give a person priority in a need role, it’s fair to say that’s a good reason not to disenchant an item that would otherwise see use. Most players agree that disenchanting is cool, but it’s better for a piece of gear to actually get used. Breaking a useful drop into a shard is kind of a putz move.

For this reason, check in with the group members to see if anyone might otherwise use gear before you start rolling disenchant. This should only take a second or three and can save some heartache for someone who’s trying to leave DPS behind to get into the tanking game.

It takes a heck of a lot of courage to parody a Beatles song, and it takes a heck of a lot of skill to pull it off correctly. SilverLetomi has managed to do both, and she’s recorded dozens of Warcraft parodies and collaborations over the years. With an enviable vocal ability and an incredible amount of skill in creating and producing music, Letomi’s tunes have long been a favorite of many on YouTube, and it’s no wonder why — the girl’s got a great set of pipes!

Letomi’s work didn’t start with Warcraft parodies, however. She’s got years of experience in performing and audio engineering, something that is reflected in every song she puts out for people to hear. So what does it take to put together songs for the listening public? Letomi was kind enough to sit down with us and fill us in.

World of WarCrafts: Hi Letomi! Tell us a little bit about how you got into WoW. How long have you been playing? What got you into gaming in general?

Letomi: Lessee … I’m a Wrath baby. I’ve been playing for about two years now. I started playing because my boyfriend of the time was addicted, and I’d been watching over his shoulder going, “Oh, is that World of Warcraft? I’ve heard that’s addictive.” And then he proceeded to addict me.

Before WoW, though, I hadn’t done much gaming. My parents gave me and my sister a Play Station 2 and a couple games there, like the Hercules game and Harry Potter and Kingdom Hearts and Dance Dance Revolution. We’ve got a Wii now too and on that thing, we play Rayman’s Raving Rabbids TV Party almost exclusively. And by almost exclusively I mean I know we have other games, but I don’t know what they are. But really, I haven’t played very many video games at all, and it’s kinda sad to me.

You have a set of pipes and a talent for tossing music together! How long have you been singing and doing music? What’s your music background, any schooling?

Yeah, I’ve got schooling! I was accepted into an arts magnet school in sixth grade with a vocal music focus. The school itself was a middle and high school combined, so I was there, singing in choir and taking solo voice lessons, for seven years. They taught mainly classical styles of singing, but a newer choir conductor started getting us jazz music and our voice teachers broadened us with foreign language pieces and Broadway tunes.

As the great dragon crashed down, I turned and began padding toward the entrance to the shrine. The padding quickly became walking as I assumed my elven form, feeling the familiar weight of armor settle around my body. Brushing the sand out of my cloak, I turned to the figure who had silently watched us battle.

“Now that we’ve killed you,” I began, “You can help us?”

“Yes. The path to the Dragon Soul is open. It must be retrieved if we are to have any chance of stopping Deathwing and saving our world. I will now take you there.” He gestured, and a portal coalesced into existence.

I couldn’t help myself. “Um, I know you’re the Aspect of Time and everything, but wouldn’t it make a bit more sense to just go warn the other Aspects about Neltharion before he betrays them? This seems rather roundabout.”

He stared back at me, expressionlessly.

“Right. I’ll just … take the portal, and Shred something. Sounds good.”

The Well of Eternity

Well of Eternity is the second of the new 5-man instances released with Patch 4.3, and it is full of Burning Crusade lore. (In my subjective opinion, it’s the best of the three, which further proves that Blizzard needs to go ahead and release The Burning Crusade 2: They’re Really On Fire Now.) After a quick intro fight with a demon, you’ll meet Illidan, who will promptly enlist you, cloak you, and then lead you around as you kill demons and break things. After a short while, you’ll meet Peroth’arn.

The first phase is quite simple. You will enter with 30 stacks of Shadow Walk, which will turn into 30 seconds of Shadow Ambusher, which will grant you some crazy damage. Just dodge the obvious void zones and do your thing. Assuming the other DPSers in your group are reasonable, you’ll likely push him below 60% before the buff wears off, which triggers the “run away” part of the fight.

At this point, everyone gets re-stealthed and has to dodge some floating eyes for a while. With your feral movement abilities, this is pretty simple, but many groups just let themselves be found immediately to get it over with. Either way, he doesn’t do anything new, so just finish him off and proceed to Queen Azshara.

Of course, you don’t actually get to fight Azshara yourself (yay, lore), so this is a battle against her magi, who will spawn in twos. They fling quite a few spells around, but their damage output is mostly trivial for a good healer to handle. If your healer needs help, though, all the magi are stunnable with Maim, and most of the spells can be interrupted (but don’t; you want to save your interrupt).

More important, however, are Azshara’s spells. First will be Hand of the Queen — a ghostly hand that will mind-control one of the players in your group. It has very little health, so just kill it quickly (or rage at your group when you get MCed and everyone ignores it … seen that, too). Second will be Total Obedience, an AoE MC that thankfully has an 8-second cast time. You’ll get a very obvious warning message, so just run over, Skull Bash her, and get back to what you’re doing. Some groups will attempt to assign someone, but that usually ends in disaster, I find.

Despite any arguments to the contrary, I don’t feel that spirit is a true secondary stat. I know you can reforge in and out of it and that it’s not as ubiquitous as intellect, but it’s actually closer to being our fifth primary stat. In Mists of Pandaria, intellect will no longer grant additional mana, making spirit the only game in town for improving longevity. Because of the way holy paladins function with the new Judgements of the Pure regeneration mechanic, spirit has gone from a good choice to a must-have stat.

When we start talking about the true secondary stats, we realize that there’s a lot of baggage here. Haste rating was the de facto champion due to its ability to affect all of our heals, critical strike rating was avoided after the removal of Illumination, and our master rating has gone through more iterations than any other spell in Cataclysm.

Get past your bias

I will freely admit that haste is my favorite secondary stat. I have always liked the idea of lowering the global cooldown, and I hope to eventually get to the five-tick Holy Radiance haste break point. While haste is definitely awesome, it has one major flaw: It doesn’t increase the HPM of most of our healing spells. I love haste for the HPS it brings, but casting more spells means using more mana. Critical strike rating and mastery rating don’t have that penalty.

If you look at most of the holy paladins breaking records on World of Logs, they’re almost all reforging into haste rating. AoE healing is the only way to generate enough HPS to land on top of WoL, and so you’re going to see the AoE-focused holy paladins doing well. The truth is that having high HPS numbers don’t always equate to being the most effective healer, especially when considering that many of the top holy paladins don’t even make their parses publicly available.

There’s nothing wrong with stacking haste rating on your holy paladin, and in fact, you’ll be in good company if you do. My point is that the other secondary stats have come a long way since Cataclysm’s release, and they’re strong enough to warrant a second look.

Mastery has a bad reputation

Illuminated Healing was very bad for a very long time, and so it’s understandable that holy paladins are still apprehensive about picking it up. The truth is that it’s been performing pretty well as a stat since Firelands, where several holy paladins switched from haste to mastery builds and saw success. Mastery provides significant and fairly predictable HPS and HPM increases and boosts a raid’s survivability by raising a player’s effective health.

The problem with mastery is still finding a situation where it’s always going to be useful. What I do is figure out where discipline priests are thriving, because that’s where Illuminated Healing will thrive too. Fights like Yor’sahj and Ultraxion require tons of healing, and the sheer amount of AoE raid damage being dealt ensures that our bubbles will be fully utilized. Holy paladins facing heroic Yor’sahj favor mastery builds to counter the purple ooze debuff, while heroic Ultraxion makes haste irrelevant by giving us the Source of Magic buff.

Mastery is a great stat if we know that our raiders are going to take damage soon, and Dragon Soul has enough AoE damage on every fight (save Hagara) to make mastery an attractive option. I have seen several holy paladin parses where Illuminated Healing is near the top of their healing done, simply because we get a lot of potency per point of mastery rating. Our mastery won’t be valuable on every fight, but it seems to fit in with the Dragon Soul encounters.

With transmogrification, you can morph yourself into one of these classic uniforms as well. Even better than that, almost all the pieces of this particular outfit can be crafted via blacksmithing, without need for endless farming. Though donning this set as a Horde player won’t make the guards any less hostile, if you’ve ever wanted to try and fool people into thinking you’re an NPC, it’s incredibly easy to do.

Head The iconic helm of the Stormwind guard is the Imperial Plate helm, crafted by blacksmiths.
Shoulders Unfortunately, the exact color and style match for the guard pauldrons is not available to players. But the Stormwind guards vary a little in armor styles — the Imperial Plate Shoulders are a good match in blue.
Back Stormwind’s guards don’t wear cloaks; turn off your cloak graphic for this particular look.
Chest Your chestpiece will be covered by a tabard, but the Imperial Plate Chest makes a good match with the rest of the plate.
Wrists You don’t really need to transmogrify your bracers, but if you’re looking to match, have your local blacksmith craft a pair of Imperial Plate Bracers for you.
Hands These are the tricky piece of the set. There isn’t an exact match for these available to players — however, Field Plate Gauntlets make an acceptable substitute. These gloves are a random green drop that can be found in most level 40 zones or your friendly neighborhood Auction House.
Waist Have your local blacksmith craft up an Imperial Plate Belt for a nice match to the rest of this set.
Legs Imperial Plate Leggings are a close match. While these lack the blue accents of the real Stormwind guards, the gold trim goes with Stormwind’s colors nicely.
Feet For the boots, nab yourself a part of Imperial Plate Boots, also crafted with blacksmithing. Again, these aren’t an exact match to the Stormwind guard, but they are close enough that anyone looking at you at a glance will immediately recognize the inspiration.
Main-hand weapon Any one-handed sword will work for this outfit; however, the most easily obtained and nicest-looking one in my book is the Footman’s Longsword. You must be level 60 and at least honored with Honor Hold in Hellfire Peninsula to pick up this particular blade.
Off-hand weapon If you are looking for a match to the Stormwind guard’s shield, you’ll want to complete the quest The Ballad of Maximillian in Un’Goro Crater. Upon completion, you can nab Maximillian’s Shield, which is an exact match, colors and all!
Tabard There are a couple of different tabard choices for Alliance players. The easiest to obtain by far is the Stormwind Tabard, available for 10 silver from the Stormwind quartermaster. If you do any PvP, you may also want to look at the Private’s Tabard, or the Knight’s Tabard, both available for purchase with honor points. All three of these tabards are Alliance-only, so Horde players wanting to dress up as an Alliance guard will have to skip this piece of the outfit.