Answer: read this thread, as well as the DPS Spreadsheet thread and Gear Spreadsheet thread (both linked in the first post). Hint: try searching for "Shard of Contempt".

Because the information in the first post is primarily derived from the Gear sheet which the consensus of more expert rogues than me has come to consider more accurate, if less comprehensive.

The DPS spreadsheet is not hard to find, it's thread is reliably on the first or second page of this forums if somebody needs to seek it out.

I've heard rumors of them fixing daggers in general for WotLK, but does anyone have any idea how they could do this while keeping them balanced?
Source

I'm sad to see the link go, because the DPS spreadsheet, while admittedly not as accurate, is (a) more comprehensive in terms of spec, (b) gets gear updates significantly more frequently, and (c) is far easier to use. It is also the only current point of comparison for Mutilate and Shadowstep builds, which are common point of debate among raiding rogues. It provides our only real theoretical analysis that Mutilate is competitive and that Shadowstep is not, so in my mind it deserves a link in the first post.

Also, despite being bug-prone, there is some significant cycle work being done on the DPS spreadsheet right now that, when completed, should significantly improve and standardize the modeling.

In summary, you could link it and say "known to be less accurate but more comprehensive; use with caution" if you like, but I think the link should be there.

For reference:
http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t19926-r...s_spreadsheet/

Just to play the devil's advocate, I would say that it IS this thread's job to decide. I would say that it is just as useful, if not more useful, to rule OUT bad info as it is to rule IN good info. So if one spreadsheet is more accurate than others then there should be a link to that spreadsheet and only that spreadsheet. If there is more than one, than uninformed readers won't know which to use and could leave with poor assumptions. Given the amount of posts in the last few pages along the lines of "what do you guys think of shard of contempt? I couldn't be bothered searching for it or reading the last page of posts." It's pretty clear that a lot of people coming to this thread are pretty clueless. If people are actually interested enough to use more than one spreadsheet I would imagine that many of those people are the ones that would also manage to find the DPS spreadsheet on there own.

Honestly, I'd say the largest difference between the two sheets these days in terms of reasons why one should pick one over the other is simply one spreadsheet program compatability. My sense is that the DPS sheet only works fully in Excel; much of it's functionality still works in OO, of course, but there's a few things that don't. Meanwhile, the Gear sheet has been designed from day 1 with the idea in mind that it should work with both OO and Excel (a fact which has nothing to do with the fact that I don't have Excel at home, I assure you).

I do think the Gear Sheet is somewhat more accurate (though I admit to a certain level of bias on the matter), but the DPS sheet has definitely improved in that department over time; at this point, with the possible exception of a few proc effects, they're probably both good enough for the questions most people are likely to have.

The DPS sheet does support some additional talents and thus specs, which means it's the one-stop-shop for Mutilate Builds. One could also argue that it's the only one that supports Shadowstep builds, but, frankly, Shadowstep is such an irrelevant DPS talent I don't see that that actually much matters (which is why it's not in the Gear sheet).

The DPS sheet does update more regularly, which is both good and bad. It's good in that new changes find their way in faster (though the Gear Sheet does get most of that in a timely fashion itself; it's just the more complicated proc effects that take a bit longer). However, it also means that there tend to be tweaks and balance updates and whatever that find their way in, meaning that if you enter the same gear in twice two weeks apart, you may get different answers, which I can see being frustrating.

I guess I'm a bit surprised to see "ease of use" marked in favor of the DPS sheet; I suppose Armory Import helps in that department, but personally I've always found the DPS sheet fairly confusing, and have made an effort to keep the Gear sheet as simple as possible. Though I suppose things like the ability to save + reimport your gear would save time in managing the many updates. Though since the the Gear sheet updates so rarely, I guess I've never felt that needing to spend 5 minutes once a month to enter your gear was a major issue. But fundamentally: if there are usability improvements (that don't require macros) you'd like to see in the Gear sheet, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

I guess my point in all this is: they're both good sheets, and in a lot of ways whichever one people pick will be fine. I guess it really comes down to whether the spreadsheet listings in the first post are supposed to be more "References" or "Additional Information". If it's intended purely as a bibliography of the first post, it's probably the way it is; but I think it's probably more productive to list it as an "Additional Information" section, meaning that, flattered though I am to have only the Gear sheet listed, it would probably make more sense to include both... though it might be worth including a brief (very brief) discussion of the pros and cons of each.

I'm guessing that for every person who prefers the gear sheet, there's one who prefers the dps sheet. I'm personally in the later camp (not a reflection of the quality of ald's work) and think not listing the dps sheet is doing a great diservice to both the community and to the work dmm has recently put in to it. My 2c as well.

Just to address a few things...
DPS Spreadsheet and Open Office compatibility -
Currently the spreadsheet should be just as accurate in Open Office as in Excel. Granted, a lot of the features that make things easier like the Armory import or saving Talent sets and the like do not work in Open Office, but the main spreadsheet is completely compatible and will continue to be. Of course without the Macros, entering the data may not be as straightforward and compact as the Gear spreadsheet. I can certainly see the Gear spreadsheet as being more user-friendly if you are using Open Office and are using a supported Talent build.

The only current deficiency is in the Open Office AEP category as that module has become quite outdated and I was forced to disable it as it was giving erratic results. This does not affect the accuracy of the spreadsheet relative to Excel versions, but is an inconvenience to those who wish to use player specific AEP values.

Accuracy -
Well, sometimes the DPS spreadsheet is behind, sometimes ahead. The DPS spreadsheet had the correct Mace crit formula long before the Gear spreadsheet. The Gear spreadsheet has had much more advanced proc modeling long ahead of the DPS spreadsheet (some proc effects still are behind). As I get to these, I hope to make these effects at least, if not more accurate, than those in the Gear spreadsheet. But its fair to admit some are still behind the Gear spreadsheet. Both sheets have run across their share of bugs, probably more so for the DPS spreadsheet. As anyone who has ever programmed would know, the more updates one makes, the more chances something gets screwed up. The extra variety of builds covered (including Mutilate and Seal Fate variants) doesn't help, as it creates more situations where a bug hides and only shows up in certain builds.

Mutilate has been all over the place lately. There have been a few bugs lately that have made it appear better relative to Combat builds. One a few versions back which devalued Sword Spec for one version, another which was fixed yesterday that overstated Mutilate a bit. Given the difference in how Mutilate operates, it makes it very difficult to fairly compare the two builds anyway. When more talents change, when your instant attack is different, when you use a completely different type of cycle, it's rather unlikely that any spreadsheet is going to be able to compare the DPS of those two builds with perfect accuracy.

At least the DPS spreadsheet has gotten past the days where Seal Fate was giving 100's of DPS and the endless posts about how X Seal fate build shows to be superior than Combat Swords when everyone knew that there was an undiscovered bug somewhere.

It doesn't help that with the expansion coming up probably sometime this year, that I'm doing a lot of reorganization of things to make the conversion go more smoothly. Hopefully, there will be an, at least, semi-functioning spreadsheet as the expansion hits. And of course, it's in the process of a cycle revamp which should give more usable and slightly more accurate results. Of course with any major changes come more chances of undiscovered bugs.

I prefer the DPS sheet at the moment as my gear is still pretty sub-par so the wider range of items and ease of adding gear that is not on the sheet is nice to have, especially when deciding what upgrades to focus on acquiring first. As my gear gets better I'll likely use the Gear spreadsheet more often.

That being said, I agree with Aldriana that it's probably best to put them both in the first post with a brief comparison so people know what to expect from each of them.

I removed the link to the DPS Spreadsheet thread because its recent history includes a number of results that are, at best, questionable. I greatly respect Dontmindme's efforts (as well as Left's and Todemax's on the upcoming Mutilate modeling), but I think the DPS Spreadsheet is, at this moment, more of a hindrance than a help to DPS-minded rogues.

To be fair, the link probably should have been removed a good deal sooner than it was. The sheet has come a fairly long way since DMM took over, and several of the bugs that motivated the sheet's removal from the list have actually been fixed.

As it is, most of the information in the post is based on conclusions drawn either from the Gear Spreadsheet or from my personal spreadsheet (both of which typically corroborate one another's results).

To be clear: I'm not trying to disparage the work anyone has put into the DPS Sheet. I do think it's a worthwhile resource, and I do appreciate the time and effort people have put into it. I just wanted to touch on these points briefly.

On OpenOffice: I would argue that if AEP doesn't work, that's a significant hindrance to the sheet. The vast majority of questions in this thread that get referred to the spreadsheet are of the form "which is better, X or Y" - and while plugging in all relevant combinations of gear and checking DPS total certainly does work, I am of the opinion that AEP are a valuable tool. It was, in fact, the breaking of the AEP calculations that I was specifically referring to. It's not crippling... but it is a loss of important and relevant functionality.

On accuracy: as I said, I do think the DPS Sheet has improved by leaps and bounds in more recent times, and perhaps in particular under DMM's stewardship. My point is, neglecting bugs for the moment (as both sheets have had their share) and looking at only the thoroughness and accuracy of the modeling, the Gear Sheet has been ahead more or less as long as it has existed. There are any number of interactions and dependencies between stats that were discovered in the Gear sheet and only later added to the DPS sheet. It might be easy to forget now, but: a year ago, the interaction between hit and proc uptime was totally unknown; it wasn't modeled in the DPS sheet - at all - so no one paid any attention to it. It wasn't until the very first version of the Gear sheet was created and started ranking hit a good .5 EP above it's previous values that anyone thought about it. Now, in time, the DPS sheet has made an effort to model these and the answers are again converging... but I think it's worth noting that the DPS sheet is only in the past 3 months catching up to where the Gear sheet was last summer on these effects.

Now, there are certainly other effects in play beyond procs, and the DPS sheet does - and for the most part, always has - done an admirable job of modeling them. But fundamentally, it's only these effects that make modeling Rogue DPS hard, so if you're not going to get them right, that strikes me as reasonable thing to count against the accuracy of a sheet.

It is, of course, also fair to note that in some areas of modeling - such as Mutilate - the DPS Sheet is miles ahead in it's own right, which is a fair critique, to be sure. But then, the Gear sheet never was intended to address these things, either; it's stated goal was to give the most accurate possible answer in the most usable possible form for the 95% case, which is combat rogues, and I like to think it's done quite well at meeting that goal.

In general, I think what it comes down to is that both the greatest advantage and the greatest flaw of the DPS sheet is the simple fact that it's on it's... 6th? or so? maintainer. Speaking as someone with a little experience on the matter: it's very hard to stay passionate and enthusiastic about maintaining a sheet, perfecting the modeling, adding new features, and so on for a year. So the fact that recently the DPS sheet has been handed off from one owner to the next every couple of months means there's a constant influx of new ideas and the enthusiasm to put them into practice, which is why it has more bells and whistles, and why it gets updated once a week instead of once a month. On the other hand, it means that no maintainer of it can possible understand all of it's intricacies as well as I understand the Gear sheet, as there's significant sections of it that were written 5 authors ago, and it's not always clear what the assumptions that went into creating such sections are, nor the limitations that they might have. So the fact that there has been a lot more turnover means it's also more prone to developing bugs, and there's less of a sense of a guiding vision of where the sheet should be headed. It's just the tradeoffs of it's history. So I guess I can see Vulajin's point that for the casual forum goer who just wants to compare a few items, the stability - even in the absence of nifty features - of the Gear Sheet might be desirable.