Whispering Fanged Skull

Since ICC was released I wanted to get the Whispering Fanged Skull for my hunter.  I've been rocking a Darkmoon Card: Greatness and a Needle-Encrusted Scorpion for some time now.  It has dropped a few times and I always seemed to lose the roll.  Finally I got it last night because nearly everyone that needed one already had it.  So my odds were getting better.  Only one person to roll against and I was lucky enough to win.

I was one of the lucky ones that got the Needle-Encrusted Scorpion on the day the 5 mans where released, going to show that sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don't.  I've read some horror stories of people doing it daily since it came out and still never having seen it drop.  I guess I was lucky that time around.  In about 15 runs I have seen it dropped 5 times.  Three of those five times it just ended up disenchanted.  The Darkmoon Card: Greatness basically did not cost me a thing being I have an inscription alt maxed and made it myself.  So being I gathered the materials in the process of questing and did not set out to gather them for that purpose all it cost me was the time to press create/mill/etc to make the cards. Even at that I still think of it as a 5000G item and still say it is one of the absolute best hunter trinkets.  If I did not already have the mats anyway I would have gladly paid 5000G for it.

Now I find myself a little perplexed. What should I do?  I want to keep using the NES being I am working on an armor penetration build and when it procs I am not far from the cap.  I also feel a connection to my Greatness Card that makes me not want to let go of it.  And it sure does rock even still.



Right after I won the Fanged Skull I neatly stuck it in the slot my beloved Greatness has been sitting in since shortly after I hit 80.  Watching my procs to time my shots I noticed when the Fanged Skull went off I was over 10,000 attack power at times.  My screen was lighting up with numbers larger then normal.  Over all however, I did not see an increase in DPS.  But then again, both fights I tested it on, The Gunship Battle and Deathbringer Saurfang I tend to do a lot of movement.  If you want to take that into account then saying I saw no DPS increase really does not mean much.  I did not see any DPS decrease either.  To be doing around the same DPS while moving a bit more often, by logic, would mean it is an increase even if I can not see it.

What I am questioning now is this.  Should I switch the Greatness back in and take the NES out?  I swear I have never and I repeat, never seen it proc.  Now I am sure it has here and there.  I doubt it would have never proced just for me and worked fine for everyone else.  It also has the same proc imagine as rapid killing so I might be getting it confused when I see it on the fly.  I am no theorycrafter and do not pretend to be one.  Sure, I have ideas that I will look up to see if someone else has done the math on them.  Sure, I could do the math myself if I wanted to, I even have the degree to prove it.  I just choose not to.  I've got dailies to do, I can't be wasting my time playing with numbers.  I'll let the guys and gals over at EJ worry about that stuff.

Guess it is time to get to some reading.  Everyone has opinions and it seems all anyone ever presents on trinkets are exactly that, opinions.  Blame that on the RNG.  That is why I always liked items that have a set bonus on equip over things that have procs.  Procs are not something you can count on.  It is like an employee that only shows up on payday.  Sure, it comes out, but doesn't always work.