What are the best trinkets for bear tanks in Firelands?
The short answer:
[Matrix Restabilizer] and [Ancient Petrified Seed]
The long answer:
[Matrix Restabilizer] is best in slot for pretty much any agility user, and it drops off the most difficult boss of the instance. Demand will be high and supply will be low, so sadly it might take a while to obtain.
Details: Proc lasts for 30 seconds and the internal cooldown is 2 minutes, which gives us a 25% uptime, or around 383 mastery (or 432.5 mastery for the heroic version).
[Ancient Petrified Seed] requires revered with Avengers of Hyjal, which will take time. Once you get the reputation, you’re free to buy it. Supposedly you need a [Crystalized Firestone] to upgrade this to the heroic version, but because the upgrade is not available on vendors, we don’t know for sure. The mastery should be reforged to dodge.
Details: The on-use effect has a 15 second duration and a 1 minute cooldown, which equates to a 25% uptime, or around 319 agility (360 for the heroic version).
The final agility trinket in Firelands, [Hungerer], is decent simply because it has agility. The haste proc is poor, however, and makes it worse than [Essence of the Cyclone (H)]. This trinket drops of Majordomo Staghelm.
As for the normal tanking trinkets, they are all judgement calls and can’t easily be ranked. I’m listing them in the order of my personal favorites to least favorites, but that order can easily change from person to person.
[Spidersilk Spindle] grants mastery and procs an absorb for 17,095 damage when you fall below 35% health. The absorb has a short internal cooldown of 1 minute, so it should be available quite often. The mastery (which should be reforged to dodge) is a strong stat bonus. This trinket should be great for survival. It drops off Beth’tilac.
Personally, I’m a fan of the on-use heal from [Scales of Life]. Since that’s the only stamina trinket in Firelands, it will likely be my go-to trinket whenever I feel like I need more health. This trinket is a rare drop off Firelands trash. It’s also BoE, so you might be able to find it on the auction house.
Details: 1 minute cooldown, maximum of 17,095 heal (19,283 heroic).
[Stay of Execution] is a very interesting trinket. The static dodge bonus is strong, though still not better than the agility trinkets. The on-use effect reduces damage by 20% over 30 seconds or until it absorbs 56,982 damage, then (if I’m interpreting it correctly) it deals about 27,800 damage to you over 10 seconds. This could be strong in the right hands, though you really need to plan ahead. I’m also not sure if the damage happens once you absorb the maximum amount or once the 30 second duration runs out, because that can make the damage rather unpredictable. This trinket will make fights like Baleroc very interesting. I’ll need to play around with it before I can make a final judgement. You can obtain [Stay of Execution] when you’re Revered with Avengers of Hyjal, and we’re told you can upgrade it with a [Crystalized Firestone].
Don’t forget about [Mirror of Broken Images]. That trinket will be good for heavy magic damage fights for a long time.
As always, trinkets are a judgement call. Some fights will require high dodge, some will require high health, some will require high tank dps, and some will require more cooldowns or magic damage reduction. Experiment with these different trinkets and adjust to different strategies.