Aldriana, I'd like your opinion on a few items that can't easily be answered by this sheet.

My guild is working on M'uru, and I want to reduce my hit to a point where it's not wasted on the level 71 door adds. My calculations show that I need to get under 307.5 buffed hit rating for them, but obviously the nature of this fight means that even if I get under that, I won't be optimal. Do you have a suggested rating level that would be ideal to get under for this fight? My guess would be to replace Lionseyes with Pyrestones until I'm around 290-300 unbuffed (and use Warp Burgers for food).

I'm also pondering what the ideal second trinket for this fight would be. I suspect that SoC is less than ideal, for the same reason that Hit is on this sort of "on and off" fight. This also means that WSC and Madness (which I don't have) aren't great. ATL suffers due to compressed cycles (I tend to do smaller cycles so that I can get EA up). Tsunami Talisman could be good if I actually had one. However, I'd think that Berserker's Call would be promising, since it could be used with BF each time thus inflating its value. Any comments on this?

Well, since M'uru-specific discussion is still taboo, I'm going to pass on giving M'uru-specific information. Anyone who wants specific M'uru information is free to PM me, but for purposes of the public forum that topic is still off limits.

In terms of the more abstract question around dealing with trash and multiple low-level boss adds, my answer would be this: First, hit over 299/307/315 is largely wasted (yes, you can gain partial benefit from an additional point above those numbers, but in general it's not ideal to do so) against level 70/71/72 mobs. Hence, it is advantageous to your hit rating below this level. However, once you're safely below that level, there is still no "magic" amount of hit to aspire to; hit is still a valuable stat, and should be used accordingly. The value of hit may drop somewhat, of course, depending on the interrupted-ness of the combat; but you should still use the best gear available regardless of the exact amount of hit it may happen to have - it's just that the "best gear available" may tend to have slightly less hit on it.

The obvious follow-up question, of course, is how much the value of hit drops when you're in a trash-type scenario. The fundamental answer is: not that much. If you search, you can probably find a post I made a while back which asserted that in a fight where you're 30 seconds in 10 seconds out, the value of hit is only about 5% lower than in a 100% time-on-target fight. So hit may drop in value by .1 to .15 EP... but that's hardly an earthshattering change. Hit is still good, so don't go overboard with dropping it. Particularly since not all trash situations are nearly that interrupted - 30 seconds is probably on the right order of magnitude for time on one mob, but it takes nowhere near 10 seconds to move from target to target in most cases. So hit probably doesn't even lose that much.

The stat that does tend to lose value in trash situations is ArPen. In multimob situations, it's rare to be getting CoR, and you're unlikely to be getting both Sunders and Faerie Fire. Moreover, EA tends to be a bad choice, as by the time one gets a 5-pt EA up you've already half-killed the mob. So, while on Brutallus there tends to be 4000-4500 in armor-reduction debuffs on the boss, in trash situations it's rare to have much more than Sunders (2600). Hence, the overall armor value of trash tends to be somewhat higher, which in turn reduces the value of ArPen.

The level of interruption also determines the value of proc trinkets. WSC, for instance, is all about the proc; if you spend half of a proc running from one target to the next, the value drops in a hurry. So if you're mostly going straight from mob to mob with only a second or two in between, a low-uptime proc trinket like WSC can be quite good; however, if interruptions are frequent, you're better off with either a higher-proc rate, passive, or activated trinket. I'm also of the opinion that AToL is not generally a good choice for this sort of fight due to the tendency towards unstable cycles.

So, all in all: getting below the hit cap is good; dumping hit in a significant way outside of that is bad; ArPen becomes less valuable; and low-uptime proc trinkets tend to be bad in trash scenarios. The exact balance of these influences depends on exactly what you're fighting and the way your guild sets up the fights (buffs, debuffs, positioning, etc.).

Thanks, that's good enough for me. Yeah, I know M'uru is off-limits, I wasn't trying to discuss the fight itself. Rather, I was curious how you would gear for "waves of interrupted level 71 mobs." Your comment regarding Armor Pen was particularly useful.

Aldriana, thank you for creating and maintaining this spreadsheet. It is my spreadsheet of choice. Just wanted to send a quick thanks.

I was removing points in Vile when I was modeling Fist/Sword, and putting the Vile points back for Fist/Fist, and Sword/Sword. You may or may not be choosing the gear I did, and the gems I did.

I've decided that it's time to make official something I've been thinking about for quite some time, namely: I am no longer going to be maintaining this spreadsheet. There are a couple reasons for this:

1) The sheet basically doesn't really need much in the way of further changes. All the major items and functionality are there, and given that it's been months since there was a major bug found with the sheet, I'm not really expecting anything major to come along. So, in part, I'm just declaring it "done". There's nothing else I feel like adding or changing, so I'm not going to add or change anything.

2) While it's true that something new will be needed for WotLK, I'm somewhat disinclined to continue within this framework for the expansion. Much of what's here would need to be rewritten anyway, so if I'm going to do something for the next expansion (which isn't a given) I'd rather start from scratch and try to fix a lot of the architectural problems with this rather than continuing to clunk along with the same old framework.

Now, you could argue that's been more or less true for a while, and wonder why now, specifically? Well, the answer to that is:

3) My guild decided to cease raiding today. I'm not going to get into the details of what happened or why, but suffice it to say that I find myself temporarily without a group to raid with. I've decided that this is an opportune time to take a break from the game. My immediate plans are to take a week or two away from the game - no raiding, no theorycrafting, no nothing (which, incidentally, means I won't be responding to PMs for a similar period of time). At that point, I'll assess how I'm feeling about the game, look at what my options are in terms of continuing to play and raid, and decide what I want to do. If I still feel the craving to play and can find a good guild to transfer to or reroll with, I may be back in a week or two. If not... it might be a month, or in the expansion, or never. I just can't say. But whatever happens with that, it does seem like a natural time to officially relinquish stewardship of this sheet.

So, what happens to the sheet now? Well, that's sort of up to you guys. If there's someone out there who'd like to take over ownership of it, that's fine with me, and I'd be happy to take a little time to show them the ropes and make a slightly more formalized handover of things - in a week or two, when I get back. If people more or less agree that it's fine the way it is and just want to leave it for now, that's fine too.

In conclusion: thanks to all of you who have used and supported the sheet, and a special thanks to Darlal and nelalas for their assistance with the UI side of things. This sheet has vastly exceeded all expectations I had for it when I released 0.1, and that's entirely thanks to you guys.

And on that note, I bit you all adieu (at least for now).

Indeed, thanks for all of the work you put into this. I know I referred dozens of rogue applicants and raiders in my guild to it and this thread constantly. It's been an amazing resource and I appreciate everything you've done. Good luck to you.

Echoing the others' thanks for all of your efforts. The spreadsheet represents the least of what you've brought to rogue theorycrafting -- which is impressive considering how helpful it has been to so many people.

Regarding taking the spreadsheet up, I think it's probably for the best to leave the spreadsheet in its current form as v1.0 and dub it complete. It currently encompasses the most accurate knowledge we have of Burning Crusade theorycraft and items. I can't imagine anything needing to be added to it before Wrath.

Be assured that we will be waiting for you Aldriana once the expansion hits

And just now i figured out a missing feature, a checkbox for bosses that neither parry or dodge because they are chain-casting (caster twin, a certain sunwell dweller).

Thank you Aldriana.

Thank you Aldriana. As 'class leader' in a casual raiding guild following your advice has made the difference between killing bosses before enrage timers or wiping all night. It's made the difference between fun and reward or frustration and failure.

On a separate note, is it at all possible for you to rehost the file somewhere else? I occasionally get a Data Execution Prevention panic from Windows when all the popup opens after clicking the link. I don't think the 'savefile' site accurately reflects the level of the spreadsheet's quality.

I'd like to thank you as well Aldriana, the Rogue Gear spreadsheet is and continues to be a great tool to use for many of us Rogues. I only ask that you leave it as is for now: it works well, no major bugs, and almost all desirable/useful loot/buffs/talents are included to make it an amazing tool.

While I pray that you return Aldriana, I want to deeply thank you for all of your hard work and wish you good luck in the future.

This may also sound a bit corny or excessive, but you and many other theorycrafters honestly improved my life outside of WoW a great deal. EJ taught me to use mathematical analysis and critical thinking as an important tool in many aspects of life, and no one represented this example better then Aldriana herself.

You will be missed.

Thank you Aldriana for all the hard work you put in the sheet.

All the best for you.

Thank you, Aldriana. Enjoy your "free time". I sincerely hope everything works out fine for you.

Thanks for all the fish. Vaya con Dios.

Cheers Ald, best of luck with whatever it is you find yourself doing. As much as I love the spreadsheet, I think I've appreciated seeing someone who can actually apply statistics even more ;-)

Aldriana, I've been a long time user of your spreadsheet and it suites me well. You did the math so that I wouldn't have to!

As such, I hereby volunteer to proceed with the maintenance of your spreadsheet in so much as adding requested features and keeping items up to date.

While I've not delved quite as deeply as you into the theorycrafting of this game, my background in math and statistics should be sufficient for me to fake it until you return! Send me a forum PM if you'd like to take me up on it

Hey what spreadsheet are you guys using for this..?

I went to the one linked in this thread I think, and it does not include the sunwell badge fist.

Trying to figure out if it would be better to upgrade from infamy to that, or just get one of the armor pieces.

Scroll down to the bottom of the weapon list.

Just like the rest of the bunch, I'd like to thank you for all that you've brought to the rogue raiding community. Seeing you take an almost scientific approach to the game was always a pleasure. And the spreadsheet has been enormously useful to me. Thanks!
On a side note, my guild got crushed by burn-outs and M'urus tight lineup requirements as well (which I guess is what happened to you guys too)

Aldriana - many thanks for the development of the sheet! Its been very helpful to me (and all the discussion in this thread too).