The trinkets worth your vault picks.
Trinkets are the slot where the math runs out. So the rankings below check three things against each other: guide models, what the top of the ladder is actually wearing, and the hotfix notes. When those three fight, the badge tells you who won.
The pair to aim for
Equip these two and you can stop reading.
Vault-pick Soulcoiler the moment it appears - it is the best single item of the season for this spec. Bonus rolls go Heroic Ula'tek first (the legs, not a trinket), then Mythic Nek'zali for Soulcoiler.
The raid trinket really is worth raiding for; Lightspire is the farmable half - run The Blinding Vale.
The top-ladder Herald combo. Freightrunner's Flask is the alternative on-use if you prefer crit windows on Divine Toll.
Raid ranking
Nobody has enough raid logs yet this early in the tier, so this order is guide consensus. Every fact is checked, but the ladder has not voted on it.
Nek'zali the Soulcoiler - boss 1, The Venomous Abyss
On-use, 2 min: a 2-sec movable channel gives five allies a 50% damage-reduction barrier for 20 sec; ally deaths refund cooldown.
The only S-tier trinket on both guide sites and still the season's best after a 15% nerf. It is an absorb cooldown, not a stat stick - press it ahead of damage events rather than saving it.
A raid drop that 18-25% of top M+ players already wear anyway.
The Lost Explorers - The Venomous Abyss
Intellect stat stick whose frequent procs grant short random secondary-stat buffs.
Half of the guides' declared raid best-in-slot pair, but a 29% nerf thinned its lead - do not spend Gilded crests here before Soulcoiler is capped.
Zero of twenty sampled top M+ players wear it - but that is an M+ sample of a raid drop, and no raid usage aggregate exists yet. Fine for raid, skip for keys.
Nymrissa Wavecaller - The Tidebound Grotto lair (weekly world boss, NOT the raid)
Haste stick whose proc stacks Intellect up to six times, then cycles back down.
A-tier on both sites and untouched by the tuning pass. One shot per week, and because it is not a raid drop it will never appear in the raid vault or bonus rolls.
No usage observed yet - a once-a-week drop in week one is scarcity, not rejection.
The Coiled Altar - boss 7, The Venomous Abyss (flat item level 344, no upgrade track)
Haste stick that slowly drains your Intellect into stacks; the on-use converts the stacks into a large Intellect burst for 30 sec.
A-tier on both sites, and its fixed 344 sits ten item levels above the Myth cap. An Aug 21 hotfix fixed the dungeon stack-wipe bug.
A late-raid drop nobody has yet - guides only, for now.
Lightwarden Ruia - The Blinding Vale (Mythic+)
Intellect plus a permanent Mastery aura; a proc beam grants more Mastery while you stand in it.
Most of its value is the always-on passive, so it loses nothing in raid - the honourable mention behind the BiS pair.
Worn by 20-30% of top M+ players.
Mythic+ ranking
The lists diverge because dungeon trinkets are undertuned this season - both guide sites say so - and because key healers value on-demand externals over slow stat cycles.
Nek'zali the Soulcoiler - boss 1, The Venomous Abyss (yes, the raid)
Five 50% damage-reduction barriers on a 2-minute button - if anything stronger against dungeon pull damage.
Both guide sites tell M+ mains outright that dungeon trinkets are undertuned and this is worth raiding for; the ladder agrees.
18-25% usage in the top samples, skewed to Lightsmith players; Herald players lean Vile Vial instead.
Lightwarden Ruia - The Blinding Vale
Intellect, a permanent Mastery aura, and a proc beam with bonus Mastery.
The best trinket that actually drops in the dungeon pool, by unanimous guide verdict - and the single most-worn trinket in the top-20 ladder band. The safe default.
Rav'i - Altar of Fangs
On-use, 2 min: a large random secondary-stat buff for 15 sec, followed by a small random-stat debuff.
Guides shrug at it; a fifth of the top ladder wears it, and it is the most-worn trinket among Herald of the Sun players. Usage wins the argument.
Two independent usage samples taken the same hour agree; guide tier tables lag hotfix-week meta.
Zaen Bladesorrow - Murder Row
On-use, 90 sec: a large Critical Strike buff for 15 sec - pair it with Divine Toll windows.
Genuinely contested: one site ranks it highly, one omits it from its own table while praising it in the FAQ, and QE calls it undertuned. Use it if it drops; do not vault-pick it over the two above.
20% usage at the bleeding edge, half that just below - the disagreement is real on both sides.
Melidrussa Chillworn - Ruby Life Pools
A whelp companion you train once a day for six days; trained into Haste it becomes a solid passive.
The season's biggest guide split is really a conditional: trained for Haste it is decent, untrained it is filler - and most charts assume untrained. Only worth it if you commit to the training.
14-15% of top players bother with the six-day training.
Cheap fillers, and what to never crest
Fillers while you farm
- Effigy of Ula'tek's FaithfulWorld troves and the weekly Turn Back the Surge cacheBest zero-effort stat stick; Champion track, caps at 308.
- Drum of Renewed BondsTier 11 Delves at Delver's Journey rank 9Solid early filler. Caps on the Hero track (~320) - there is no Myth version, so never spend Gilded crests on it.
- Glorious Crusader's KeepsakeTier 11 Delves at Delver's Journey rank 9Same deal as the Drum: Hero-track ceiling, Champion/Hero crests only.
Do not spend on
- Preternatural AntivenomD-tier on both guide sites even after its bug fix and a 30% buff. Do not vault it, do not crest it.
- Kyrakka's Searing EmbersBottom of every chart even after an 80% buff.
- Seed of Radiant HopeC-tier everywhere; the 15% who wear it are wearing week-one stopgaps, not making a discovery.
- Crafted trinketsB-tier at best; the guides spend embellishment slots on bracers and boots instead.
Before you spend crests
- No raid-population usage data exists yet - the raid pair is guide consensus, and the first Warcraft Logs gear pull after a few resets will confirm or correct it.
- The world top 19 are all on ladders whose gear is not reachable from the public API, so usage numbers describe the band just below the very top.
- Tuning moves weekly. Verified through the Aug 21 hotfixes; re-check before spending Gilded crests late in a reset.
Sources: Wowhead - Holy Paladin BiS guide · Icy Veins - Holy Paladin gear page · QE Live model data · murlok.io top-50 Holy Paladins · raider.io ladder API, top-20 gear pull · Blizzard hotfix notes, Aug 13-21.