Optimizing my arcane trinkets given my suckiness at micro

[Sorshia 0]

Hi everyone,

I'm wondering if I can get some feedback about trinket usage. I generally try to follow the Icy Veins arcane mage guideline for stats, gear, talents, etc, but one place where I often feel I have to deviate is with regards to trinkets. The reason is because the recommended trinkets are often activate-to-use, and I find that I am really bad at taking advantage of those. I feel like I don't use them because I always worry it's not the right time, and I also feel like I try to stack them on top of my other cooldowns, with the result of losing time on things like Arcane Power and therefore just failing at the whole game of ability rotation micromanagement. So right now I have a level 890 Tarnished Sentinel Medallion and a level 895 Tome of Unraveling Sanity sitting in my inventory, but instead I am using a level 895 Infernal Writ and a level 870 Erratic Metronome, simply because their effects are passive. So my question is this... if I know I am not able to optimize my use of the use the activate-to-use trinkets manually, is it better to just keep using my passive effects trinkets, or would it be better to set up a macro that just automatically attempts to activate the trinkets each time I cast arcane blast (or some other spell)? I guess those sound like two extremes, but I'm just not confident that I can optimally pop trinkets when I should.

 

Which of those trinkets would you choose, and how would you get by the limitations I've outlined? Thanks for any feedback and suggestions!

[Nestar 0]

Hey there Sorshia,

 

To be completely honest, you should play with what you feel more comfortable on.

The purpose of the game, is to have fun, not have a headache after a bossfight :P

 

Now, having said that, I personally believe that (at least) the Tarnished Medalion is too strong to ignore.
So my suggestion would be, just put it on, and use it on CD! 
Don't try to micro-manage it. It is going to do enough damage even with simple use.
Not to mention that after a while, you will get used to it, so there will be not much 'thought into' its use.
A highlight weakaura (make it glow like a proc, when its ready to use) might help you with that ;)

For the record, the same goes with the Tome of Unraveling Sanity, only this is EVEN EASIER to implement!
you can just put it in a marco, and use it with Arcane Power, and be done with it ;)

 

I hope this helps :)

[Carmilea 0]

I macro all my on use trinks to my Arcane Power ability where it makes sense.  For the Tarnished Medallion I also have it on my hotbar and I just track it with a WA.  I try to use that trinket when I can with all my CD's but if the delay is to long I will just use the trinket instead like any other ability.

Passive trinkets are nice... but on use trinkets tend to be even stronger so figuring out a way to use them is probably the best thing to consider longer term.