This is slightly off-topic but ... what would you suggest we use to find upgrades? Going through the spreadsheet in its current form and exhaustively plugging in long lists of possible items in each slot is ... not fun. Of course you will use the spreadsheet to compare the relative merits of a couple of items for a slot, but as a means of finding out what might be upgrades, it is not my tool of choice.

Scribes can make [Darkmoon Card of the North], which in turn can be 1 of 8 cards from 1 of 4 decks. For the rogue-centric one, you wan Ace through Eight of Nobles. Combine them, make the deck, get your trinket.

Shadowpanther lists the most likely item ugrades, listed via his calculations. While those calculations might not be the same as what you use to determine usefulness, you can still see what items are out there, and based off those items, get an idea of what upgrades to shoot for. In my experience, I've seen that the item rankings he has are generally correct, and something higher up on the list is generally going to be a DPS upgrade.

Be prepared to spend several thousand gold in order to make the card, as well. Completed mine, now just have to wait for the Darkmoon Faire to come back in town.

Ouch, 1.5k-3k is incredibly high. On Lightbringer I was able to get some in the ~500g range, got lucky on some crafts, and made some trades. Overall I spent maybe 5 or 6k.

Regarding your other question, I think the weapons at least is pretty decisive. And it's also pretty decisive that you want to run 4 piece T7.25. The best combo is to get helm, shoulders, chest, gloves and for legs run [Leggings of the Honored]. I don't think that will change much.

But for something like [Dawnwalkers] vs. [Footwraps of Vile Deceit], it's really very close and hard to say definitively one or the other. Personally I prefer Vile Deceit because a.) I need Expertise Rating from that slot (for me, having high Expertise is important as Mutilate, even though the spreadsheets disagree) and b.) It has a socket which makes it more flexible. That's not to say that Dawnwalkers aren't good -- they are itemized well, it's just I prefer Vile Deceit.

But in these tossup cases, if there is a DPS difference, you're talking on the magnitude of 5 DPS @ 5k overall DPS, so 0.1%.

When I plugged an optimal setup into the spreadsheet, I found different results.

I saw the optimal offset piece to use was chest of the recluse for mutilate, and frosted adroit handguards for combat.

The expertise was the difference.

Well, it will depend a bit on what other non-set pieces you're running, I imagine. But you can pretty easily cover 213 expertise without the Malygos BP, in which case its values greatly diminishes.

In any event, all three of those are smart pieces to swap out simply because they are ilvl 226 alternatives.

Gem for whatever the spreadsheet says is better.

The main issue with this is that every rogue will want Webbed Death, because it is the best weapon for both specs, so until you get enough to start giving people a second one, you probably want to look for the next best alternative.

No one has mentioned it yet but how do you think 2 piece Slayer's stacks up against some of these upgrades? 5% haste on slice and dice seems pretty huge even compared to the raw stat upgrades wotlk items offer...

Just going by shadowpanther for the sake of argument.

slayer's wrist - 112 maep
sinner's bindings - 167 maep
+55

slayer's boot - 162 maep
footwraps vile deceit - 230 maep
+68

slayers belt - 158 maep
stalk skin - 223 maep
+65

Passing on the smallest upgrades in favor of Slayer's 2pc you lose 120 MAEP from raw stats but gain the 5% haste on snd. I'm not too great at haste calculations, someone check my math here :X Going to use my gear which currently has 230 haste rating, or almost exactly 7% haste. I got Torment of the Banished (2.6 spd)

Using
Hasted Speed = Weapon Speed / ( (1+(Haste1 %)) * (1+(Haste2 %)) * (1+(((Haste Rating 1 + Haste Rating 2 + ... )/100)/32.8)) )


So if I wanted to achieve the same weapon speed without 2 pc slayers I would have to add X haste rating to my gear:

X = 129 Haste rating (i think )

Shadowpanther values 1 Haste rating at .90 MAEP so

129 Haste rating = 116 MAEP

So 120 maep vs 116 maep, those are pretty close values. Unless I'm retarded

So I guess the point is to keep the 2pc slayer's until you can replace all 3 of the Sunwell Slayer's pieces with some of the high end wotlk epics that Chalon or shadowpanther list.

What are the thoughts about [Mark of Norgannon]? It seems like it would be very good underneath the expertise cap, and the use on it is incredible; how does it stack up against the other available trinkets?