I am looking at picking up a Drakefang or Badge of the Swarmguard. I was wondering which is better to be using? I haven't found any math out there to find out which is the best yet, so was just curious what would be said here. Also using an HoJ currently with BHB. Should i be replacing both of these or just BHB? Thanks in advance.

DFT + HoJ - BotSG is typically considered a PvP trink, and absent a rogue ability to reliably trinket swap in combat, it will most likely stay that way.

I'm sure you were looking for this link:
http://forums.elitistjerks.com/profile.php?id=3096
followed by http://forums.elitistjerks.com/profile.php?id=3096

If you can get a DFT, pick it up. It will probably not be replaced until sometime in the expansion. The only two trinkets that are better are: Kiss of the Spider and Slayer's Crest

regarding the KoTS dps increase...

Assume: 1% crit = 1% dps increase
Assume: 1% hit = 0.6% dps increase (we're assuming 60% of your damage is white damage)

so for reference, Blackhand's Breadth dps increase = 2%

1% for 1% its Crit
0.6% for 1% its Hit
Subtotal of passives = 1.6% dps increase

assuming perfect time on target, 1/8 of time you'll have the 20% buff to weapon speed. This averages out to 60% of dps * 20% * 1/8 = 1.5% dps increase.

So, with perfect time on target with KoTS running, you're getting 3.1% dps increase. Relative to BhB, the scaling is the same (well, a little less when you consider that passives will never get wasted cause you got mindcontolled, died, had to bandage, got web-wrapped, etc), but compared to anything with a flat AP modifier, it will indeed scale better.

Bad assumptions to make, Discofiend, regarding how much of a dps increase crit and hit are. Plus, you leave out the best part of KoTS: stacking it with blade flurry and SnD. All haste effects are multiplicative.

first, what are better assumptions to make? The reason that i put those assumptions in is so that people like you could dispute them and give me better ones ;-)

second, your bladeflurry is going to be up anyway. 20% of 100 = 20. 20% of 156 = 31.52. Both are 20% increase of the initial value (the white dmg). I see what you're saying, that if you're only stacking them so that they're running at the same time, you get an additional attack speed bonus = to the marginal affect of KoTS on the BF, but the end result isn't *that* much different.

i've seen this numerous times and asked for explanations (i'm very open to being wrong). So far no one has spelled this out for me. Can someone help me here?

edit: pls ignore gimmick crit cap fights like loatheb, and assume you already have +15% hit or so for the purposes of this explanation.

I guess you'd have to reverse-engineer your question. How is missing 1% more not 1% less damage?

because 40% of your damage comes from attacks are special attacks which you already have 0% miss rate on since the base to miss on those are 5%, not the white damage 24%. If any rogue here doesn't have 5% at elast between precision and gear, i'd be astounded.

You only need about 6% hit to not miss on specials anymore, and you can get 5 of that through talents. After that, +hit is pure white damage increase only. Crit affects both white and yellow attacks and so scales better.

man, ej should really just make a new post and sticky a link to all the class spreadsheets that were made. Anyways, here's the rogue one, put in your gear, it shows you exactly what hit% = crit% in your current gear.

http://www.savefile.com/projects/299694

are you seriously saying that, for the question at hand - a rogue considering picking up a kiss of the spider, that you would assume they dont have at least 5% to hit from their gear?

Don't forget that people just figured out that having attacks be dodged does very little to hinder your dps (see Sneak Attacks). Thus you don't *really* need that +6% hit on specials.

I am seriously saying that you would not believe the amount of people that would read your post who have no clue about spec, to come to the conclusion that "zomg my blackhand's is better than naxx gear", without clarification. Sad but true.

To answer your question to me specifically, disco...the best assumption is to not make one at all. The DPS values of crit, hit, and AP are changing all the time based on what gear you're using.

+1% crit is also not +1% dps, considering you already have around 30% or so crit.

Trinkets? DFT, HoJ are nice for pre-Naxx trinkets. Hand of Justice is rediculously nice for how easy it is to get.

Don't feel bad. I only posted because I thought your original statement was 1% hit = *.06* dps increase.. rofl.

Is it seriously tuesday? I mean, I know it was a holiday weekend and all.. but wow. It's just monday with a different name. Orcs don't read good...

haha @ the 0.06 dps, yeah, that'd look a bit odd ;-) This spreadsheet is so much to internalize. I'm guessing that a lot of it has to do with numerator/denominators that I'm not getting right in my head. Also, to Karakas, dont forget Lethality's 30% bonus on crits, and 4/8 Bonescythe's bonus help boost the value of crit.

Edit...
Okie, figured out what i was missing - the static value of weapon procs and poisons, since +hit and +crit doesnt affect them.

Interesting fact. When i nix the poisons/procs and put the numbers in the spreadsheet and look at the white damage compared to total damage, it's showing as 71% of damage is white damage. When I look at the marginal benefit of hit compared to crit, it's 69%. I'm feeling very comfortable in my initital assessement of saying that the benefit of %hit to %crit ~ your % of your dps that comes from white damage.

The slight difference is that each additional hit has another poison proc chance, where as a crit doesn't. Side note - since i'm mace spec'd, additional hits dont give me add'l chance at sword procs.

so.... between poisons/procs non-hit/crit-affected damage, and some yet-undetermined factor(s), I see that 1% crit is much more like .85% dps increase, and 1% hit is much more like .58% increase, given 70% of dps coming from white damage. So i was definitely off in the "absolute ratios." In terms of the "relative ratios", i'm pretty happy with the rule of thumb mentioned above.

Two things:
1) Everything is relative.
2) Stop assigning values to crit and hit. It *is* futile.

Lethality's 30% crit bonus means that at 30% crit, your marginal %dps benefit per %crit for yellow damage will be 1% dps (instead of 0.77%dps).

Lethality will not work for white dps, so you have the baseline 0.77%dps increase for white damage.

+hit, on the other hand, at +15% will net you +0%dps on yellow damage.

However, it will be a 1.12% increase in white damage.

Assuming, for simplicities sake, that white damage constitutes 65% of your total damage, and yellow is 35%:

1%dpsyellow * 0.35totalyellow + 0.77%dpswhite * 0.65totalwhite = 0.85%dps increase for 1% crit
0%dpsyellow * 0.35totalyellow + 1.12%dpswhite * 0.65totalwhite = 0.73%dps increase for 1% hit.

0.73/0.85 = 0.859

So 1%hit is worth roughly 0.859%crit at 15%hit and 30%crit.

(of course, these are all VERY VERY VERY rough estimates, but it should give a good idea of how good hit is)

so we should just blindfold our selves and put our finger on the screen to choose what gear to wear? You have to assign values, hopefully the right ones, in order to make a reasonable decision. I was a good ways off in my weighting of +hit, and this thread has helped me understand why i should value it higher in relation to crit.

I still dont understand some things, such as how 1% hit = 1.12% increase in white damage (.01 / .91 = .0109), that's the closest i could come to a similar answer), and Karakas's post helped me understand how 1% crit = 0.01/1.30 = .77% white dps increase.

Is it really that wrong to
a) want to understand how/why things work
b) figure out how to make a better-informed decision because of it

?