June has been very kind to me, and my Mage has been receiving gear left and right. This time, it is the highly coveted trinket that drops off The Betrayer himself. The Skull which transformed Illidan Stormrage, upon absorbing its power, became half night elf and half demon, the all mighty and powerful: [The Skull of Gul'dan]. That mighty power is finally mine!

Illidan: “I’ll give you my Skull when you take it from my cold, dead hands!”
Utada: “As you wish, Mr. Illy Dan. Now don’t go crying to Kil’jaeden if I do.”

“The Skull of Gul’dan was a powerful demonic artifact created from the skull of the orc sorcerer Gul’dan. Used for a plethora of demonic activity, from opening portals to corrupting the forests of Ashenvale, its powers were finally consumed by Illidan Stormrage. Although weakened, the skull still holds power and is in Illidan’s possession.” - some extra bit of lore from Wowhead.com

My two trinkets are now the Skull and the [Hex Shrunken Head], and since they have changed it in Patch 2.4.1, so that the Skull now shares a cooldown with damage trinkets, I had to make a few changes with my macros. Instead of popping damage trinket, pet, and Icy Veins like I used to, I now use two separate macros.

Since the Water Elemental doesn’t gain any benefits from Spell Haste, it would be pointless to pop the pet with the Skull. So Squirtle will be used only with the Hex trinket with the following macro:

#showtooltip Summon Water Elemental
/use Hex Shrunken Head
/cast Summon Water Elemental

Since activating a damage trinket puts a cooldown on the Skull for the duration of the damage trinket, I have to wait until the Hex Lord trinket buff wears off before using the Skull. Now I am saving my Icy Veins to use it in conjuction with the Skull trinket with the following macro:

#showtooltip Icy Veins
/cast Icy Veins
/use The Skull of Gul’dan

Water Elemental gains damage bonus from Hex Lord trinket, and I gain double haste effect with Icy Veins and Skull trinket. Sounds like a good plan.

What do you guys think? Should I continue to use Icy Veins with Hex Lord like before and have Spell Haste with the extra damage bonus, and use the Skull by itself? Or should I go with the new plan and save Icy Veins for the double Spell Haste?

Related Posts:

• PTR Patch 3.3 – Permanent Water Elemental
• PTR Patch 3.1.0 – New Mage Glyphs
• Primary Professions for Mages
• My Dual Specs
• Patch 3.0.9 – Arcane Changes Again