Friday, April 9, 2010

Good Bad Items - Spark of Life

Most people seem to decide whether they should take an item based on the following check list; Is it epic? Does it increase my overall gearscore/does it have a higher itemlevel than my current gearpiece? If the answer is yes to one or both of these criteria, then they will need the item. There isn't anything generally wrong with this procedure as it will most of the time reward you with a better item than your current.

Epics, gearscore and high ilevels do look pretty when people inspect you. I actually know alot of people who equip a ludicrous mix of items for when they're random pugging, just to look good on the outside. But there are plenty of items out there that rock ass, eventhough they're not of high ilevel (high is always relative of course, currently that would be around 232+) or even epic. Rough diamonds if you like, that can shine if you give them the chance.

One such item is Spark of Life (EDIT: Added link), that drops from Sjonnir the Ironshaper (the last boss) in heroic Halls of Stone. It is a trinket, and good trinkets could be hard to come by overall. It doesn't look like much, it is of blue quality and only has ilevel 200. So why on Azeroth would you want to equip such an item? What makes this trinket so good is that it provides a really nice amount of haste - 73 rating to be exact. At level 80 that is 2,23% (according to wowhead.com). The second mechanic gives an overall mp5 of between 42-50mp5, depending on your spell cast style. That too is a great amount. Compare that to the normal version of Sliver of Pure Ice which has an ilevel of 251 and requires you to raid to acquire. It has an average of 75mp5, which also isn't passive like in Spark of Life.

What makes this trinket so special? Well it is actually the only haste trinket available, that is also useful for healers. Every other trinket has a second mechanic that only works either for caster dps or melee/ranged dps. Haste is an awesome stat for healers, regardless of class most healers seek to get above 20% haste, at least. So it is quite strange that there are no more haste trinkets out there that aren't designed solely for dpsers. There are two pvp-trinkets that could work for healers as well, as one increases health and the other removes movement impairing effects. But these mechanics are not something you'd usually find useful in a pve-setting.

So if you want a good chunk of haste, and you're a healer - Spark of Life is where you'll have to go.

2 comments:

  1. I have been thinking about getting this too, been doing HoS almost everyday.

    I'm a resto shammy on ICC 10 progression, with Talisman of Resurgence + Je'Tze's Bell, and Im thinking of replacing my Talisman with this trinket.

    I just wonder have you tested this?

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  2. Tested it? Yeah I used to have it a long time ago, and I liked it. It's one of the reasons I recommend it like this. But I've replaced it since with slightly better trinkets. That is because I get enough haste from the rest of my gear.
    If your question is if it's better than Talisman of Resurgence I'd say - not impossible. It depends a little on your other stats. Remember, alot of intellect gives good mp5 too as long as you have someone with replenish in your raid. Probably even more than the Spark of Life proc. The second buff "599 spellpower for 20 seconds, 2 min cd" is worth about 100 spellpower overall, if you use the trinket at every cd. Haste is a really good stat for shamans though, so it's a tough choice! In the end it depends alot on the rest of your gear right now. Overall I would say Talisman is the better choice. But, if you feel that haste is what your gear seem to lack the most at the moment(you should have -at least- 20% imo), switching to Spark of Life could be a good idea.

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