Here is what we consider as the best setup for your rogue in Phase 2 of The Burning Crusade Classic raids, but keep in mind that even if there is always one list that is BIS some items might be hard to get. Don’t worry there is some option in phase 2.
This is why we will provide you with a deeper analysis of different kinds of build as well as what pieces you should focus on, and what pieces are not a good investment due to either high competition or poor performance.

The Best-in-slot rogue gear for each phase Listed below are the different phases planned for Burning Crusade Classic. Blizzard plans to release the content through 5 phases starting with Arena Season 1 (S1) and Tier 4 (T4), then S2/T5 for phase 2, S3/T6 for phase 3, Zul’Aman for phase 4, and S4/Sunwell for phase 5.

1. TBC Rogue - P1 Best-in-slot (BiS) Gear, Weapons & › Top Online Courses From www.tbcguides.gg Courses. Posted: (6 days ago) This is especially true for people coming from classic with Naxx gear, which will last you just fine all the way until you replace it with p1 bis. TBC Rogue Phase 1 (P1) BIS. Here are my recommendations for rogue P1 bis and the rough dps gains vs.
2. Welcome to our WoW Classic Combat Rogue Pre-Raid BiS & Best in Slot for all phases guide. On this page you will find out exactly what gear you will need to obtain to be prepared for raiding in the best way possible. If you acquire most of your Rogue Pre-Raid BiS before entering Molten Core & Onyxia not only will your character perform at a high.

All the gear comparisons in this sheet are done with Simonize’s spreadsheet version 2.1.12, and we can tell you that this is his amazing work that allows us to make such detailed research. You should definitely use his spreadsheet if you want to go deeper into rogue optimizations.

The Lists

We are giving you two different lists:

– The actual BIS list which is using Bloodsea Brigand’s vest
– And also the second-best which is really close (-2,72 DPS = -0,12% overall) with Shoulderpads of the Stranger.

Bloodsea Brigand’s vest setup

🔗 Link to seventyupgrades

Shoulderpads of the Stranger setup

🔗 Link to seventyupgrades

T5 gearing tips

We will see in this part a few important points to help you choose your gear setup during T5.

You absolutely need your 4 part T5 ⚡ ASAP

Some of your T5 parts are not even as good as T4. Most of them are okayish but your 4-parts is amazing and if you compare T4 versus T5 set slots, T5 comes ahead by 80+ DPS thanks to the bonus set!

NB: This is assuming 1 ppm (proc per minute) but even if it is a third it will still be BIS!
NB2: The tricky part here is, in most situations, you don’t want to break your Wastewalker and T4 2-part until you can wear 4-part T5.

Hit situation in T5

Another important thing is the fact that there is a very small amount of hit rating on your T5 and you may want to play with expertise items that also don’t have any hit rating.
So when you transition from T4 to T5 (and breaking your 2-part Wastewalker) you might end up with a very low hit at some points.
For this reason, we advise you to keep around some extra pieces like Spymistress’s Wristguards, Veteran’s Musket/Marksman’s Bow or even Romulo’s poison vial to help in that regard.

Gemming

The first thing to note here is that the hit rating gets even more value relative to agility in T5 as you can see with those updated AEP values:

This is even more important for gemming, and this can seem counterintuitive but you rather have less hit on your gear to be able to put more hit gems to get to your desired cap, instead of getting more hit on your gear and gemming with agility.

This is obviously true for equivalent value items, you’ll still want heavy hit pieces of gear like Bloodsea Brigand’s that have way more value than the competition.

NB: We aim for a 269 hit rating cap, if you want to know more you should check our guide about rogue gemming.

Alternative gear setup

Now that we saw the BIS lists and a few tips to help you, we are going deeper to see what are your alternative setups with all calculations done to save you some headaches !

Hard-to-get items

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: Belt of One-hundred Death which is BIS until Sunwell for basically every melee DPS and tank. Let’s just say most of us rogues will never get it and it will be tank prio for a lot of guilds.
The good thing is we have a very solid alternative with the Belt of deep shadow which gives us an average of -13 DPS across all gear setup we will see after.

The second one is the season 2 arena off-hand, some will get it, some will not but the average difference comes down to -3,86 DPS if you are still using Latro’s shifting Sword, so better but not game-breaking.

Primary Gear slot: Alternative setup

As we saw, 4-part T5 is mandatory and so (as for T4) the game is to look for the best piece to go alongside your set!

There are actually 7 pieces that are in competition for the last slot and we combined those with the two choices of offhand and belt and made simulations for each possible setup:

note: as a human with the two setups in red you will be over expertise cap.

– Seeing the result we will advise against going for Gloves of the Searing Grip and Leggings of Murderous Intent since those two pieces have a lot of competition and do not give you the best result, same story for full T5 as this token is wanted for a lot of classes.
– On the opposite side Deathblow X11 Goggles and Skulker’s Greaves don’t cost you any loot prio/DKP and are especially good with Latro’s/Belt of One-Hundred Death as this setup is quite low on hit.
– Shoulderpads of the Stranger and Blood Sea Brigand’s Vest are always the two best choices, and we will focus on those two for the rest of the guide.

Check our own spreadsheet with all those setups including the best gemming possible.

What are the items to prioritize in Phase 2?

BloodSea Brigand’s Vest setup

This is the piece for your best setup but also the easiest one to transition to as it got a ton of hit rating and on top of that the only competition you should get over it will be DPS warrior. Since it comes down to a +15 DPS increase from T4 chest you may even prioritize it after smaller DPS increase pieces with way more competition (rings and bracers).

Don’t forget your first priority will be your 4-part T5 followed by Talon of Azshara, one of the two belts. Warp Spring Coil is obviously amazing but it is only for a rogue so no worries on that particular one.

The rest are minor upgrades and should depend on what you have on those slots.
note: setup with high-hit items like Deathblow X11 Goggles and Skulker’s Greaves should have a similar prioritization as well as using season 1 sword offhand.

Shoulderpads of the Stranger setup

This one will be harder to transition to and will give more value to items with a lot of hit. It is harder to make a direct calculation of the DPS increase as you will break your 2-part Wastewalker to equip it, but compared to T4 shoulder it is also a +15 DPS increase. The difference is there is way more competition on this item, and you should prioritize it just after the Belt of One-Hundred Death if you go for it.

Mostly the same except that your Arcanite Steam-pistol is way more important here, but don’t take it over your hunter! (note that this gun will be BIS until Sunwell!)
note: setup with no hit item like Leggings of Murderous Intent, Gloves of the Searing Grip, and full T5 should have a similar prioritization.

Last Thoughts

And now it is time to talk again about Belt of One-hundred Death, yes it is beautiful but our mindset about it is:

– The DPS increase compared to T4 belts is massive, not so much compared to the crafting belt.
– If we are looking at T5 upgrade only, there are definitely other things to spend your loot priority/DKPkp on.
– If we are looking back you should prioritize DST if you haven’t got it yet, and forwards, well you all know what is coming in the next phase!

The last big item to talk about is Rod of the Sun King and we don’t know yet, if the proc rate is good, this will be amazing and BIS for both rogues and warriors, if it is not it will end up as offhand for Enhancement Shaman.

note: every other item in T5 is basically worse than T4 items, except Tsunami Talisman which is a very small upgrade from Bloodlust Brooch, if no one wants it why not but that’s all.

Classic TBC Phase 1 Best-in-slot List for Rogue

Disclaimer

This guide will tell you about all the best gear you can get for your rogue for PvE damage dealing in Phase 1 of The Burning Crusade Classic. This is written with the assumption that any items added in patch 2.1 or later will not be available in phase 1 of BCC. Notable exclusions are Deathblow X11 Goggles and Relentless Earthstorm Diamond.

All of the gear comparisons in this sheet are done with Simonize’s spreadsheet version 2.0.40, which you can find here

First, we want to make it clear that there are many different configurations of gear that are almost identical in terms of damage output – less than 0.3% difference! This allows you some flexibility in which pieces of armor and which weapons you pick up. We’ll show the absolute best list first, and then discuss the different options.

Head: Netherblade Facemask (with Glyph of Ferocity)
Neck: Choker of Vile Intent
Shoulders: Wastewalker Shoulderpads
Back: Drape of the Dark Reavers (+12agility)
Chest:Terrorweave Tunic (Doomwalker)
Bracers: Nightfall Wristguard
Hands: Wastewalker Gloves (+15 agility)
Belt: Girdle of the Deathdealer
Legs: Netherblade Breeches (Nethercobra Leg Armor)
Boots: Edgewalker Longboots (+12agility)
Ring 1: Ring of a Thousand Marks
Ring 2: Garona’s Signet Ring

Trinket 1: Dragonspine Trophy
Trinket 2: Bloodlust Brooch

Ranged: Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix
Main Hand: Gladiator’s Slicer
Off Hand: Latro’s Shifting Sword

Primary Gear Slot Options

Most of the options come in the 5 primary gear slots: the head, shoulders, chest, hands, and legs. You are going to want to get the 2 piece bonus of both Netherblade and Wastewalker sets. The only really fixed slot in those 5 is the shoulder – you really want to use Wastewalker Shoulderpads. Then among the head, chest, hands, and legs, you want to have 1 piece of Wastewalker, 2 pieces of Netherblade, and 1 good non-set item. Here are the 4 best setups to use, in order of preference:

Head:Netherblade Facemask
Shoulder:Wastewalker Shoulderpads
Chest:Terrorweave Tunic
Hands:Wastewalker Gloves
Legs:Netherblade Breeches

Head:Cowl of Defiance
Shoulder:Wastewalker Shoulderpads
Chest:Netherblade Chestpiece
Hands:Wastewalker Gloves
Legs:Netherblade Breeches

Head: Netherblade Facemask
Shoulder:Wastewalker Shoulderpads
Chest:Netherblade Chestpiece
Hands:Wastewalker Gloves
Legs:Skulker’s Greaves

Head:Wastewalker Helm
Shoulder:Wastewalker Shoulderpads
Chest:Netherblade Chestpiece
Hands:Grips of Deftness
Legs:Netherblade Breeches

The difference between the best setup and the worst is estimated to be 1631.24 DPS with Terrorweave Tunic compared to 1626.86 DPS with Grips of Deftness, a difference of only 0.27%!

Other Gear Options

Outside of those 5 primary gear slots, there are some other gear options as well.

Neck: Worgen Claw Necklace is almost identical to Choker of Vile Intent – only 1 hit rating less! A more interesting alternative is Braided Eternium Chain. This has an on-use effect that gives a 30-minute critical strike chance buff to your entire party. For you, the individual Braided Eternium Chain with its buff active is on par or very slightly better than Choker of Vile Intent – and it buffs your party too!

Wrist: Spymisstriss’s Wristguards come from the Auchenai Crypts quest, “The Soul Devices”. They are just ever so slightly behind Nightfall Wristguards – you’ll do fine if you pick up these quest bracers instead of the heroic drop Nightfall Wristguards.

Waist: Gronn-Stitched Girdle is a bit worse than Girdle of the Deathdealer, all things considered. Both of them might be a little difficult to get seeing as one is a heroic dungeon drop and another is a drop from Gruul the Dragonkiller!

Feet: Fel Leather Boots are definitely worse than Edgewalker Longboots – they should only be considered as a backup if you can’t get the Edgewalkers!

Ring: Ring of Reciprocity is definitely worse than both Garona’s Signet Ring and Ring of a Thousand Marks, but it is the next best option.

Trinket: If you’re up against a demon or undead target, Mark of the Champion is very close to Bloodlust Brooch – the difference comes down to fight duration. You’ll do fine with either. Abacus of Violent Odds is the next best, but is a bit worse than Bloodlust Brooch for sure.

What is the best weapon for rogue during phase 1?

Main hand

There are actually 5 different weapon choices for your mainhand weapon, with the best choice only 0.5% ahead of the worst of these 5! In order they are Dragonmaw, Gladiator’s Slicer, Blinkstrike, Spiteblade, and Hope Ender. These are all exceptional main hand weapons and you won’t go wrong with any of them.

Dragonmaw is slightly ahead for sustained attacking where you don’t have to move or swap targets, but is slightly worse when you have to change targets frequently.

The other weapons do not suffer from having to change targets. The biggest difference between these weapons is how they are acquired – pick whichever one suits you the best!

To get more information on this topic, check this Rogue Life’s article: Top 5 Rogue Weapon Choices for the Phase 1

Offhand

You can get Latro’s Shifting Sword from Black Morass or you can get Gladiator’s Quickblade – there is not a meaningful difference between these two offhand options. Depending on your particular gear setup, you may find one or the other to be very marginally ahead.

Ranged

Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix, Veteran’s Musket (Alliance), Marksman’s Bow (Horde), and Barrel-Blade Longrifle are essentially identical in terms of performance – no meaningful difference. Pick whichever one is easiest for you to get!

Gear optimization (Gems…)

This setup aims for only the level 72 hit cap of 25%, and gems for agility with extra gem slots. This means it is 3% under the level 73 hit cap.
It is a very small loss against level 73 targets, ~3 DPS or about 0.2% damage loss against level 73 targets.
It is a huge advantage against level 72 targets to gem this way – a gain of about 35.5 DPS or 2% (not 0.2%) against level 72 targets.

If you look for more in-depth information to optimize your stats (gem, enchant, EP values etc), you must check our Stat & optimizations page

Rogue Best In Slot Gear

Thank you for reading this guide! We hope it was informative and helps you plan your rogue’s gear in early TBC. If you have any questions, be sure to contact Simon or Ferrus on Silent Shadows’ discord!