First of all, sorry if it's not quite as clear what everything does -- it originally was just intended for myself to use, but I hear the question "AP or agility?" asked so much that I thought I'd just put it out there.

Based on a few tests I've seen, I believe the RED gives a 2.06 crit modifier. This matches the way they are handled in Aldriana's gear spreadsheet. I'm not claiming it couldn't be wrong, but it seems that this is the current working theory on the PVE boards, and unless I see some proof otherwise, I don't see a reason to change it. As for Murder, that's also another "working theory". When Murder and RED are present, they seem to multiply with one another -- i.e., 2*1.03*1.02 = 2.1012. Again, this is in line with how Aldriana's sheet handles it as well. In any case, I don't think small variations in the crit modifier change the ranking of gems anyway, as a smaller crit modifier just hurts agility more.

As for GLB and GDB: They refer to [Guardian's Leather Bracers] and [Guardian's Dragonhide Bracers]. The rogue and feral druid bracers are again very close in AEP for season 4, so this is one way to compare them (from an offensive standpoint).

Thanks for clearing that up. Upon looking at the item again, I realize that RED states it increases crit damage by 3%, not increases bonus crit damage by 3% (as in lethality), meaning 2.06 makes perfect sense.

Thanks for making this sheet available, also. I was interested to find that straight AP would be better offensively, even though almost everyone at the AJ forums recommends agility. Agility does add some defensive bonuses as well, especially against warriors and rogues, but it's nice to know how much damage I'm losing for that benefit.

For those of you with access to the 3 new pieces of Sunwell T6, what 4th piece of T6 do you plan on using with Season 4 gear? I think the obvious answer is the shoulders, for a few reasons:
1) you can't replace gloves, because of the Deadly Throw bonus
2) of chest/head/legs/shoulders, shoulders have the lowest resilience, so the drop would be the smallest
3) S4 shoulders take the highest rating to obtain

Is there something I'm missing, or is that what others are planning on doing as well?

Some quick questions that I can't seem to find..

Is Dory's embrace still the best back for S4, I can't seem to find any alternatives.

For a mutilate/sub rogue, should I be gemming agi+hit or ap+crit in yellow sockets? (Perhaps crit+stam in neck and wrist to hit the meta requirement?)

And I know theres been a lot of talk about surefooted vs 12agi for boots but I seem to see thats there more than enough hit just on arena gear to hit the special cap. Am I missing something here? Or is surefooted still considered superior even after hitting the special cap?

big fan of hit even past the special hit cap, cant go wrong with more hits -> dmg and poison applications

Clearly 5% snare/root resist is unmissable anyway, especially for Muti rogues with no Prep etc...

Dont underestimate relentless strikes and ruthlessness, you wont be drowning in energy and those two really help.

edit

I started with 20/0/41, switched to 0/20/41 for a few weeks until just earlier tonight, I switched back.

In a BG, you have to worry about what you can do quickly then fuck off. BG, as you know, is nothing like arena so you don't have to worry about accountability or sustained dps and so on.

During the usual dailies for gold, I found earlier tonight I was suddenly killing mobs significantly quicker because there was then virtually no time spent standing there with my thumb up my ass waiting on energy to tick. Hate to say it but warrior white dmg is often > ours. Its our bells and whistles, and the en/cp required, that makes all the difference.

Besides, if you're only gonna be on a target a few moments, long enough to kill it then haul ass or at least soften it up so a warr or caster can finish it off.. then a valid justification for cookie cutter 20/0/41 is improved EA. It is just awesome, thus:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Initiative is worth its weight in gold for that 3rd cp you can get on a cheapshot. Premed then cheapshot (or more often garrote if a mage) and there ya go, 5cp. On a shaman or hunter for example, this is devastating, you just completely nixed one of their primary trump cards; their superior armor. Setup is more of a 2v2 talent IMO, somewhere where you don't have 2342343 potential targets to deal with. CP, after all, are not interchangeable. Setup would likely be a nightmare in AV. From what I've seen, its rarely spec'd in any situation at all.

List of things that at least partially make up for the dmg lost from your now-weaker offhand;

2% to everything, from Murder
20% to poison dmg, from Vile poisons, including envenom which you might use on warriors occasionally
5% global crit from Malice
12% crit dmg bonus to hemo, shiv, and gouge from Lethality (overrated talent, the 2 points are mostly filler)

As for hit, a serious concern of mine.. I can't remember if your specials are hitcapped at 5% or 9% but I think its 5, in which case your gear should get you to that point just fine.

The general rule is that hit trumps all in pve and thats about it. The weighted value of hit is in proportion to time spent on target.. rogues often stick 'n' move in pvp, so the missed hits you'll get aren't enough to sway an entire spec one way or the other, generally. Natch, a missed kidney shot can be a total fucking car crash (hate that so much) and therefore no one would ever fault you for hitcapping special attacks. Besides, there are also dodges and parries to deal with, which you won't have the usual combat talent for. You WILL get a 'dud' from time to time, whether it be a miss or a dodge/parry.

Bottom line, for running around tearing shit up in a BG, 20/0/41 may be the best bet since having/generating the en/cp necessary to do something significant to your target in a short amount of time is key. Its not like your target will ever stand there and let you just drill on them, like a raid boss.

edit -

WoW Forums -> Guide: Hit Rating, Spell Hit, & Expertise

5% hit to cap your specials against same-level targets.. lv70 mobs or players in a bg or whatever. 9% is for specials against raid bosses. One of these days I'll quit getting this shit mixed up..

Thanks Drumbum this is a huge help to me and a lot of other im sure. One thing that did interest me is the effects of murder as it seems to makes a big difference to hemo damage and white damage, where it could be overlooked as a optional / minor increase talent, but im sure this kind of proves its necessary for rogues trying to optimise pvp damage

I realized I made a mistake in the white damage calculations. Basically it was assuming every white attack lands, which unfortunately is incredibly unrealistic, so I made a modification that lets you enter your white attack miss chance. When I say "miss" I really am talking about every type of unsuccessful attack, so this should be your combined miss, dodge, parry, etc rate. Obviously all of these depend on who you're fighting, so you'll have to select a value based on what specifically interests you. The only effect this really has is the proportion of crit damage to regular hit damage, since dodge/miss/parry eat away from your hits before your crits.

http://www.filedropper.com/shsgemsv2

None of the gem rankings really change, but if you're using this for absolute damage measurements, it will change a little bit (only the white damage).

Vile Poisons is pretty vital for PvP I think.

But is it really? That 16/45 build Vestalina has looks like it would pack a hell of a punch. I guess if with a mage partner where you plan to just burn someone down that works but in longer battles Vile Poisons may be better because they force higher mana usage to remove and maybe stick at a crucial time.......but Vile Poisons adds sod all DPS with the usual wound/crip mix.

I am convinced that the guy asking for a build to just do BGs would be better off with Vestalina's build but I'd be interested to see what people think of Vile poisons and use of poisons generally in arenas.

My poisons are constantly under attack from Abolish and Shaman totems. Subtlety spec doesn't honestly apply poisons that fast. My priest partner constantly has his hands full trying to survive the Warrior that is mauling him and can't always dispell the Druid's Abolish Poison. Anything that makes my poisons resist cleansing is a hearty "fuck you" to enemy Druids/Shaman/Paladins, and what more can you ask for in life?

For my purposes Vile Poisons are pretty much indispensable.

Combat has a little easier time keeping poisons up with 5% more hit, but yeah as the seasons progress Vile is becoming more and more important. The day druids are the least prominent healer in 2v2 and 3v3 you can start dropping Vile for more offensive talents.

Would you want Vile or would you want Improved? I haven't done the math, but it seems to me that a higher chance to apply is better than a chance to resist being dispelled. The flaw in what I'm thinking (at least, the flaw that I see) is that Improved Poisons doesen't help Crip. at all, since it's usually shived on.

Yea, I see that now that I actually went back and looked at the talents. Vile Poisons definently beats out Improved Poisons because, as far as preventing dispels goes, its 4 times as effective as Impoved Poisons is at helping them be applied. Also, I don't think poisons have any dispell resistance at all to begin with, so adding even 1 point in Vile Poisons is a huge improvement.

That's not true. Improved Poisons increases the proc chance of Wound Poison and Crippling Poison from 30% to 40%. That's actually an increase of 33% in proc rate, not 10%. The difference is not nearly as big as 4-to-1.

Yes, but if you're going to consider that, then you also have to consider that 5 points in Vile Poisons increases the resistance to dispells from 0% (no dispell resistance) to 40%, which is a percent increase that can't exactly be quantified because you started with 0, and dividing by zero is bad. That's why I used the easier way of comparing them and just compared adding 2% v. adding 8%.

Either way, it's a moot point, as its pretty clear that Vile Poisons is more useful for pvp, and that I was wrong before (and that I need to respec and move points from improved to vile).

I think you're missing the point. Our "reference point" is not arbitrary. At least, not the way I perceive it.

Imagine A is the average number of successful poison applications per unit time, and B is the average number of poisons dispelled per unit time. As a rogue, we want to maximize the value A-B. Improved Poisons increases A by ~33%, thus yielding a value of (4/3)*A-B. Vile Poisons decreases B by 40%, thus yielding a value of A-(3/5)*B. Therefore, the following condition must be met for Vile Poisons to be considered superior to Improved Poisons:

A-(3/5)*B > (4/3)*A-B

This implies that Vile Poisons is superior in situations where B > (5/6)*A, or in words, when the rate of dispels is greater than 5/6 the rate of poison application. If we use the example of Abolish Poison, it dispels once per 2 seconds (assuming there is no base chance for dispels to fail -- I don't know if this is true though). Thus, logically, Vile Poisons should be superior if you apply poisons at a rate slower than 0.6 applications per second.

The real question is whether or not a Shadowstep rogue applies poisons faster or slower than 0.6 per second.

There are other caveats of this, of course. You can use Shiv to almost "guarantee" to apply a poison when it is critical to do so, which somewhat decreases the value of Improved Poisons. Improved Poisons is clearly better in situations where no one is trying or able to dispel your poisons. And so on and so forth. There are many arguments you can make. However, saying Vile > Improved because 8% > 2% doesn't really make sense.

Ok, when you put it that way, and with that math, I see that you're right. Thanks for pointing out that way of thinking about it; I'm going to try to figure everything out using math next time instead of just going with what should be right. Now that I think about it, I don't know why I wasn't doing thinking clearly in the first place.

I currently focus on my 2v2 Rogue/Priest team and we're at 1650 with minimal effort. I did some reading around on other forums and alot of people recommended that i have minimum PVP gear and to just wear PVE gear. I currently raid BT/Hyjal so I'm sporting mostly those items (Only T6 Helm currently though). I was also told my bootleneck was the Priest, who isn't exactly geared very well (He's sitting at 75k honor and plans on having max arena points for Season 4).

If you click on my armory URL on the left you'll see my Rogue with all his PVP gear on. What should I keep? What should I swap out for PVE gear? What resil should I aim at? Any other advice?