I understand what you are saying and I probably just worded it badly. It wasn't that I was looking for targets to try and hit at all costs or at the expense of better gear ... more so, I wanted to know what a good level was in a perfect world without other stats sacrificed.

The input was appreciated ... Cheers - Lyphe

The correct, unmisinterpretable statement to make is that those values are the inflection points where the EP equivalence changes. Just about any other statement you can make is an exagerration. In a perfect world where no other stats are sacrificed, you get as much as you can without any heed to caps since it's free. In the real world, those are the values where after you achieve them by whatever gearing method you were previously following, you reload your spreadsheet and clean your mind of previous assumptions before picking your next piece of gear. If there is anything of note that makes those numbers magic, it's that a few edge cases of cycles reseting due to misses (finishers and DP stacks, respectively) cease to exist, but that has more to do with the variance of your DPS than the mean so it's a matter of personal preference. Actually it's probably more to do with the skewness, but I don't think any of our spreadsheets yet model third moments, so it resolves to personal choice anyways.

For the off-hand which has Deadly Poison, it's actually not that much. Sinister Revenge @ 171 DPS and 1.8s is very slightly (we're talking like 4-5 DPS @ 5k DPS) better than Webbed Death @ 156 DPS and 1.4s.

However, the numbers change dramatically when you're looking at the MH with instant poison. I'm not able to really give you exact numbers at the moment, so I don't want to speculate, but Webbed Death is better than Sinister Revenge for the MH by a fairly significant margin.

Regarding Avoidance tanking,
Will It even Be possible in wotlk due to the changes in the dodge and parry formulas
(Dodge and parry rating now have diminishing return, i.e. additional 10 agility at 40% dodge now gives significantly less extra dodge % than at 20% dodge.)

Also If so Dose anyone have some solid numbers on stats needed.

Only because you know I love arguing with you, and being pedantic, and this is an opportunity to do both, but there is one case where these ... uhm ... 'soft caps' are important, and that's in gemming - since the gem stat values are static, but the EP values of those stats aren't a continuous function, the EP values of gems above and below certain points of discontinuity is probably valuable information.

So, here are those values, for simple reference:

Starting with these EP values provided by Aldriana: Rogue: Simple Questions/Simple Answers

Also referencing Chalon's expertise caps: Rogue: Simple Questions/Simple Answers

And here's info on how to find out, according to your spec, what the various hit caps are: http://elitistjerks.com/956961-post3931.html

Then here are gem values at various thresholds. Expertise is obviously worth its value below the expertise cap and worth nothing above it, so I'm ignoring that entirely and assuming you're not overcapping Expertise. Also note that I added a non-zero value to stamina so that the stamina+DPS stat gems would float above CasterStat+DPS Stat gems.

Mutilate, below yellow hit cap: Gems - Items - World of Warcraft

Red is Glinting/Pristine, Yellow is Rigid, Blue is Vivid

Mutilate, above yellow hit cap, below poison hit cap: Gems - Items - World of Warcraft

Red is AP/AGI (equal), Yellow is Glinting/Pristine, Blue is Balanced/Shifting (equal)

Mutilate, above the poison hit cap, below hard hit cap: Gems - Items - World of Warcraft

Red is AP/AGI, Yellow is Deadly/Wicked, Blue is Balanced/Shifting

Combat, below yellow hit cap: Gems - Items - World of Warcraft

Red is Agi/AP, Yellow is Glinting/Pristine, Blue is Balanced/Shifting

Combat, above yellow hit cap, below poison hit cap: Gems - Items - World of Warcraft

Red is Agi/AP, Yellow is Glinting/Pristine, Blue is Balanced/Shifting

Combat, above poison hit cap, below hard hit cap: Gems - Items - World of Warcraft

Red is AGI/AP, Yellow is Deadly/Wicked, Blue is Balanced/Shifting

There's also the complicating factor on whether the soft caps changes whether it's worthwhile to even go after an individual socket bonus in the first place.

It's not a particularly hard problem to solve, you don't even need a spreadsheet or a website. Find the EP equivalence for each gem under each cap-condition, compare the EP of full max-EP gems to that of a matched socket. For example, the EP of a blue Glinting gem drops by 1.6 after you hit the yellow cap, which I could see making a difference (well, a theoretical one, not a noticeable performance one).
The edge case you mention is particularly inane, and while it is likely to come up as you gem your gear I agree it's to small to worry about. In that instance, I would say capping is better, because at least some of your hit is still taking place below the cap and therefore at a higher EP value (over half for the socket bonus to make a difference). It's a bit weird that the value of a stat would change mid-way through equipping a gem, but that's the nature of discontinuities.

What is the offhand hit cap? People are saying to put wounding on the faster weapon, but unless your hit is way up there shouldnt it be on the MH since it wouldnt miss?

There is no difference in hit cap. When you dual wield all your white attacks get the miss penalty.

The reason to (generally) put Deadly on your MH, is to get 4-5 stacks back up asap for your envenoms, which means Wound goes to the OH.
At the same time, your OH is generally much faster than your MH, while your MH is used for most of your special attacks, which suffer a much lower hitcap. As a result, the applicationrate between the two is almost the same, but currently it seems that the MH is slightly better to stack up a poison.

So the question actually wasn't "Why does Wound go on that hand", but the question was "Why does Deadly go on that hand".

And this theory was modeled after the 5s/5r/5n and the mutilate rotations, if you prefer to stick to an Xs/Yr rotation or use Eviscerate instead of Envenom, then the difference is much smaller, since you'll be applying Deadly to keep it up to 4-5 stacks, not to constantly bring it up to 4-5 stacks.

I was wondering...

Is there any possible way the spreadsheet could be modified so that we could, say, check boxes with all of the gear that we own, put in our spec, and it would tell us what the best choices are? So instead of a dropdown menu with individual pieces of gear, we can just check a bunch of boxes and it automatically tells us what combination would best synergize. I think this would be a good idea.

Is anyone else having trouble with Tricks of the Trade?
I've been using it since day 2 of LK, and everytime I pull a boss with it, the boss/mob will hit me once before it goes to the tank.

So it looks like this:
Cold Blood -> TotT -> Distract mob, walk up behind.
Perfectly executed Ambush, mob doesn't see me or nothing, and the mob will hit me once on it's way walking to the tank.

Has happened every single time I pull with TotT.
The only time it doesn't happen, is when I get my tank to "shoot" the boss and I instantly ambush for 6k~ when the shot lands, No damage taken.

I play with 171ms, best possible from australia. Perhaps the threat transfering to tank and the 171ms is not good fast enough for the server to translate and I just end up being hit once before it figures out what happened.

*shrug*... working as intended?

Sounds a little odd, Ill jump on and give it a try in a moment. sounds like as you said the server is just not sending the agro to the tank quick enough, With a hunters MissDirect there is always the second or two between the shot landing and the mob reaching the tank.

I think this has been in the game ever since MD was brought out, because as you said, there is a split second where the mob continues to run to the hunter, then it turns to the tank.

The reason hunters don't have a problem is because they're ranged, the mob doesn't turn right around and slap them for 10k when they MD.

Let me know how you other rogues go, and post your latency too please.

Yes it takes a second for the new rogue md to work.. i have checked out how this ability works in various situations. It works exactly like the hunter md only for all of are attacks. I have pulled to other people using thrown as well as simply meleeing them.
Also note you dont have to switch targets anymore for this ability to work. If your target is the mob you are fighting and you want to pass agro to someone else simply click the icon for the ability located on your bars, mouse over party member or focused target and then click.. spell is insta cast and threat transfered as well as the damage buff.

Although i only really see optimal use for putting on tanks for threat this is negligible now because all tanks can aoe and and have improved threat build up. I can say that if your tank is having problems holding agro on several mobs that you can Bladefurry then cast the buff and hit your Killing spree in combat to help him agro several mobs at once. Just suggestions on use of the ability.

What is the consensus on a sword mainhand/dagger offhand combat spec, something like 15/51/5 ?

I've got the nice KEB mainhand, but my offhand options are the wyrmrest honored offhand and a librarian's paper cutter, which is a superior offhand in every way (.2 speed faster, 10 dps higher) except that it's a dagger. I'm torn: it seems like it wouldn't be worth it because the strength of fist/sword is the offhand sword attacks proccing mainhand attacks with more crit and not the other way around, but the dagger is such an obviously better offhand that I'm not sure which is stronger.

I have messed with the linked spreadsheet (the sp00n one, since it seems the most user-friendly) but since some of the gear I'm using isn't available I don't think it's very accurate.

Well you might notice the tooltip says diminishing returns. Avoidance tanking as a rogue is now impossible. Avoidance at 100% which is what a rogue needs to tank won't be obtainable.

I guess this was Blizzard's intention. No more rogue tanking of anything, outside of the length of evasion.

What are everyone elses experience with this? Personaly I've found that my dodge is dropping so much each level that I've found myself having to eat more often even when fighting exactly the same mobs as I did the previous level. This isn't the way things feel with any other character.

It does seem strange that in some situations, especialy noticable fighting more than one mob at a time, a rogue becomes significantly weaker instead of more powerfull as they level. This is not really the experience of any other class, so something is definitely wrong with the picture here.

Personaly I think they need to up the numbers more for rogue dodge. It feels like they got a lot of expert advice on damage output to tweak those numbers and they seem fine now overall but that whoever they consulted as "an expert from the rogue community" as ghostwalker put it, either wasn't asked about or didn't care about day to day experience outside raiding, or perhaps did give input and was ignored.

I don't think this is the case. The dodge % listed in the window is your chance of dodging an attack made by a mob at your level. If a mob that's a lower level than you attacks, your actual dodge is higher than that. Your dodge chance isn't actually going down when you level, it's just that your stats are being compared to tougher enemies.

Lets say you are level 72 with a 30% chance to dodge (a level 72). Your chance to dodge a level 73 is a little less, say 29%. When you level up, these values increase very little, but your character window now reads 29% because it's looking at a level 73 mob instead of a level 72. But as long as you continue to fight level 72 mobs you should be doing better.

I think it did actualy used to say this on the tooltip "Dodge --- against a (your level) mob)" .. If i remember rightly, it no longer says that, are we sure this is still the case. This is just anecdotal, perhaps I was having a really bad streak, but just before the expansion I was spending a bit of time in Dire Maul to get Steamwheedle rep, I went back the other day at 78
While I was killing them faster and doing more damage, when I was fighting several things at once like the mass dog packs before I killed the first boss for a chance of the key drop, I seemed to be taking far more hits than I was at 70. This obviously wouldn't be the case if my shown dodge rate was actualy only for mobs my level. Likewise going back to killing level 71-72 mobs in the course of doing some of the dailys I seemed to be experiencing more hits when fighting multiple mobs.

Ok here is what im looking at for maintaining combat swords atm going into naxx. The Mh Sword off of Thadius and then the Trash drop dagger in oh. Due to the fact that the dagger does significantly better dps has the .10 speed inc over wyrmcrest sword and then is stated equally if not better but different the loss of dps from the sword procs will not rival that from the gain from energy procs and overall better dagger dps. Dont forget that the dagger comes with haste wich means its not 1.50 but something faster.

If this does not work out i have a great oh dagger to start with for my muti build. Honestly though this is the only combination i see working for combat atm and im still almost postive it will be outshined by mut on every single target fight till rogues get some actuall oh dps swords.

Why wouldn't mh fist + oh dagger and 5/5 CQC work ?

I don't believe the tooltip ever said that. In fact, some time ago (pre 2.0 I think) there was not even a "Defenses" tab on the character sheet and you had to open your spellbook to see your dodge chance.

The tooltips you are mentioning that say "against a -- level enemy" sound suspiciously like the tooltips in Diablo II, so you may be remembering from the wrong game.