- Author: Jamielolx
- Date: August 6, 2022
- Expansion: WotLK Classic
Equipment will be the main source of your character’s power, contributing the biggest bulk of your stats. It is therefore very important that you choose the correct equipment for each slot — commonly referred to as “best in slot” equipment – in order to maximize your power.
This guide will help you choose the best equipment possible for each phase, but also the best equipment you can find outside of raids, known as “pre-raid” gear or “pre-BiS”.
As an assassination rogue, you should be Engineering regardless, so these are essentially free for you!
If you chose not to pick Engineering, there are of course alternatives:
Alternatives:
Note: There is a big difference between the epic necks and the blue ones, so try going for those.
Alternatives:
Alternatives:
Alternatives:
Alternative: Advanced Tooled-Leather Bands (Halls of Lightning HC)
However, I cannot stress enough how important the Tier 6 2 set is for Assassination rogue.
Alternative: Gilted-Edge Gauntlets
Alternative: Slayer’s Leg guards Tier 6 item from Black Temple to match with the bracers — in case you cannot obtain the boots. It should be noted that the boots + bracer combo is superior.
While these boots are not useful as a standalone item, they are BiS together with Slayer’s Bracers.
Alternative: Boots of Nevermelting Path requires Argent Crusade Exalted, which is very easy to achieve — see here for details.
Alternatives:
There are currently debates going on if a slower main-hand weapon may prove to be more DPS, while some are skeptical if this holds true, especially for higher item-level weapons. So I will just put this one here with that warning in notice! The difference between Flesh x2 Paper cutters won’t be large however, as I have tested on the beta it swings both sides
There are no solid alternatives, paper cutterss are extremely easy to get and a far better option than the rest!
Alternative: Drake Mounted Xbow
Alternatives:
- Mobius Band
- Titanium Impact Ring (Jewelcrafting BoE)
Alternatives:
Alternatives:
Alternative: Aged Winter Cloak (significant downgrade)
Alternatives:
This is by far the most powerful item available in this slot.
Thrusting Bands exists as an alternative, but it is significantly weaker.
Alternatives:
Alternative: Belt of the Tortured
Alternative: https://www.wowclassicdb.com/wotlk/item/39761
Alternative: Footwraps of Vile Deceit
Alternatives (note that these alternatives are vastly inferior to the two BiS trinkets):
Webbed Death x2 is considered the strongest option for the weapon slot conventionally, but there are tests on the beta that have shown Sinister’s Revenge x2 to be slightly stronger, though by less than 10 DPS.
We will be recommending Webbed Death for the time being / until more testing is done, but bear in mind that Sinister’s Revenge is an excellent option regardless.
About the Author
when can we expect a phase 2 update
It will be uploaded very soon 🙂
Have you looked at the Wowhead guide? It disagrees on what the BiS for phase 1 is and I was wondering your take on it. I generally think this site is better but would like to hear from the one writing it since I know very little myself.
They are identical apart from him going for 4 set, and mine going for stats, I don’t think the 4pc is even close to good enough to warrant giving up 2x ilvl 226 items for.
The other only difference I can see are the trinkets, this should speak for itself – with mirrors lowish procrate and you being able to build up stats of FoTFF quick since muti rogues attack quick its better aslong as it doesn’t perma drop stacks
That being said the set I put together sims 45 DPS higher, but is harder to obtain
Correction, mirror appears to be proccing pretty fast on assa rogues, for the same reason : D
Any news regarding the wep? ( talking about the dmg difference?
I have not played rogue enough in classic to factually answer that question, sorry. – but it appears double webbed death is not the play here, weither thats because sinisters revenge has higher ilvl or slower dagger is better we’ll get to see in next patch 🙂
Hey is the 4.Set legit weaker? 😀
It simmed SLIGHTLY weaker for me personally, (talking literal 45 dps here which is around 0.6% of your dps) – you’re literally just trading stats for the 4 set bonus. I don’t particularly like the bonus, but if you do like it. use it. the difference is neglectable, its easier to get and is likely better on non patchwerk style bosses.
Can you give us a BiS list for Phase 2?
Thanks for the guide! I noticed a couple things:
The pre-BiS list recommends the mail engineering goggles instead of (I assume) the leather ones. Also, it may be strictly true that 2pc T6 is best, but I imagine most people will not actually pursue those on a fresh character. Finally, it may be worth noting in the guide that Bonescythe pieces can be sourced from Heroism badges. I had to think about that a little bit before commenting.
Thanks again!
Yeah – I guess they share similar IDs 😛 – T6 is BiS indeed it’s actually pretty important but alternatives are present. – I noted the heroism badges part before the guide went out but was told to remove it to avoid clutter.
After doing some sims it turns out the combination I put together sims 45 DPS higher, mirror and fury are about the same but the procrate on mirror seems lower than the sims put it at
what is the BIS pre raid headpiece then?
Engineering goggles, but the leather version, if no engi (you should be) then Mask of the Watcher
Lost the roll first run, the one time it dropped. It hasn’t dropped once since. Bought Greatness and Mirror, just got Fury, still never seen the Whetstone again. Mirror gives bigger windows for timing Mutilate/Envenom casts with your buffs, resulting in higher real-practice dps than Whetstone, I believe.
truesight ice blinders are mail. Did you link correctly?
Hey David, thanks for pointing that out. We’ve updated the guide so that it correctly links to Weakness Spectralizers. Thanks again!
In the Stat priority, it is mentioned that Expertise cap of 26 is second-highest priority. But the BiS list only gets you to like 13. What am I missing here?
It’s not persé a BiS list but more of a ”best item per slot” list
that being said – you can and will probably end up gemming some expertise, be it scarlet ruby or twilight opal (both most likely the former) and alternatives are listed (an example is the blue expertise cloak, instead of BoE LW cloak) it’s a lot of mixing and matching but I felt like stating the best stand alone items was better in this situation
Hi,
With your P1 build, I noticed that even if you were to gem all your available sockets to have expertise gems in them, you still wouldn’t be able to hit the cap and the max you could get would be 205. Infact, by opting into this build, you would be overdoing the hit cap by 55
points. This necesarily is not a terrible thing, however I am sure that those points could be allocated elsewhere.
I do agree with you that not everyone will be able to obtain all the pieces in this build throughout the phase and that the displayed items are the best case scenario, however for the sake of optimality, I think that swapping Dawnwalkers for Footwraps of Vile Deceit as the main build would be the best solution. Below is what I’ve worked out: I have highlighted the two important stats here, Hit and Expertise, for clarity.
Hit: 237
Exp: 214
Helmet: 58C, 42EXP, 170AP META + BLUE
Neck: 31ARP, 110AP, 41C BLUE
Shoulders: 58C, 43H, 100AP RED
Cape: 49C, 31H, 126AP
Chest: 83EXP, 232AP, 63ARP
Bracers: 41C, 24H, 96AP RED
Gloves: 58HIT, 53C, 174AP
Belt: 62C, 36H, 126AP
Legs: 66HIT, 65H, 196AP RED BLUE
Boots: 50HIT, 57C, 148AP
R1: 32HIT, 43C, 112AP
R2: 28HIT, 41H, 82AP
T1: X
T2: X
WEP1: 21HIT, 31C, 66AP
WEP2: 37HIT, 24H, 98AP
WEP3: 26C, 72AP
Total /w no sockets:
Crit: 519
Haste: 240
Hit: 292
Expertise: 125
ARP: 94
With gems for EXP cap:
5x Precise Scarlet Ruby (16EXP)
1x Enchanted Tears (+6 all stats)
125 + 80 = 205EXP
Recommended changes:
Swap Dawnwalkers (50HIT, 57C, 148AP) for Footwraps of Vile Deceit (49H, 30EXP, 112AP)
242 Hit, 235EXP + 1 yellow socket
Exchange 1 socket for AP = 219 EXP, 242 Hit
This only makes it so that both the hit and expertise rating are only slight above the softcap, but I believe it is better than what you have showing up right now. I also think that the Footwraps are a better item overall since haste has a higher stat priority than crit so you just get more overall out of this combination.
Let me know what you think and if you have any recommendations to other parts of the build being tinkered in order to reach both of the caps.
I will look deeper into the content of your comment tomorrow, – but just came to say that it seems mirror is infact better than fury of the five flights in a simulated situation.
It being easier to get is an added bonus.
So don’t grief players that actually want this! (Darkmooncard still ranks as #1 though) – heavily underestimated the procrate which is a lot shorter for assa rogues since they hit so much faster.. should be fixed soon 🙂
It’s a solid idea, but it does not sim higher atm (note: sims are not always correct, and neither are stat weights always linear – so it might as well be better now or at some point) I agree with the haste being better than crit for obvious reasons.
I also agree with the fact that expertise from gear > gemming expertise- although for assa right now what you really gain is AP, which is on pretty much every piece of gear regardless not really making THAT much of a benefit. (though of course items with both expertise and AP are very valuable, like the boots you linked) Рthe list (esp the pre-raid one) was merely a best-in-slot, per-slot list not a package pers̩ (this is where the alternatives list comes in that often shows items that do have expertise)
While I often feel like sims are incorrect it is sadly the only tool we have in our grasp.
Edit: Nevermind, I found a combo that indeed sims better than the current one I was using. – though I did put them up as an alternative I did not think they were BiS at the time due to the number of hit Dawnstalkers offer, but this proves me wrong in every way.
That said, the extra stats gained from x2 226 items still sims higher than the 4 set bonus where you were to use ilvl 213.
Whether this is a sim error or not is up in the air but to me the 4 set feels underwhelming personally
Since you also mention that hit cap is 237 (like many sites do).
If you need 17% hit chance, and 3% comes from Boomie/SP, 5% from Precision.
Then you would need 9% from stats (which 237 hit rating dont provide)
Can you help out here? 😀
Hey there! Spellhit has a better ratio from hit rating than melee/ranged hit, and poisons use spellhit. 237 is for spellhit cap (with Precision+Boomie/SP bonus).
Hello, i understand that as game move on before patch we may get new item either from previous old dungeon perhaps or HorseMan. this Finger is missing
[Ring of Ghoulish Glee]
This item has already passed and was from the halloween event
True, but it didn’t disappear. For those who have it, it’s like 3rd-place BiS. Worth putting it on the list with a footnote, imo.
I somewhat agree but in the new format we will be introducing (that is already active in the Marksmanship Hunter section) focuses on obtainable items
Hi, for how long will the Greatness trinket be bis for rogues? is it replaceable in ulduar?
I think for assassination it will stay bis through Ulduar. For combat however (which a lot of rogues will be looking to transition into) it might be replaced by rocking the double ArP trinkets (grim toll and mjolnirs)
The problem you will face here is that together with your already passive armor pen you will be severely overcapping yourself when they both proc at the same time.
Assa will likely want Comets Trail + Dark Matter, they care far less about agi, and both have big Attack Power and some of their favourite secondary stats.
Combat likely the same, but they can make use of mjolnirs as you said, just not in combination with grim toll, rather to get decently close to the arp softcap, depending on which ilvl they will end up being.
That being said, I have seen people use the combo (tho it was a marksman hunter) – It didn’t seem terrible but it wasn’t anything special either, just a bunch of overcapped stats for the most part, I wouldn’t take it over DMC with it’s unrivaled uptime and all
TL;DR DMC still very good during and after ulduar, Grim Toll and Runestone TOGETHER has a niche if you have like literal 0 armor pen and they keep proccing at the same time.
Most likely outcome is you will be using DMC + Runestone until something better comes along you can snatch
This is talking about Combat btw, not Mutilate before I confuse people 🙂
It will not be BiS in Ulduar, but it will be high up there, due to how hard it is to get the alternatives.
Think it safe to say with the ilvl increases and DMC being relatively weaker than other STR/AGI users it will be replaceable in ulduar by most trinkets that drop there with Comets Trail (ilvl 252) and Dark Matter (ilvl 238) being bis, wrathstone is another (ilvl 232) on use trinket and yogg saron 25 normal drops an (ilvl 232) hit trinket with AP procc, – I expect all these to be better – with Dark Matter and Comets Trail being BiS with this scaling though the yogg trinket is interesting as well if you need hit
It’s trinket alternative #4 in the soon-to-be-coming bis list, so yes, it can be replaced – however mirror of truth (or fury of the five flights) whichever one you are using is probably the first one to go.
I don’t think it’ll come as a surprise (spoiler) that Comet’s Trail and Dark Matter are the best choices for Phase 2.
Followed by Blood of the Old Gods > Wrathstone=Pyrite Infuser > Darkmooncard Greatness, note DMC is still very close and easy to obtain nowadays, while the top 3 trinkets are pretty rare. So it’s still worth the gold imo, but no it’s not going to remain bis.
With the 2 set bonus being basically unused with assasination build if you have a bleeding effect already, would it be better to use the hood of exodus and the concealment shoulderpads that give you an extra 60 expertise rating?
only the shoulders*
Good question, as far as I know, the tier shoulders are also the best stand alone item, so for those it shouldn’t count.
The best thing you could do is simulate it and check the results, – I have not played rogue since classic so I wouldn’t know from the top of my head.
no