Rogue P2 BIS Gear Guide, Talents & Cheatsheet

Looking for dps gain per item? Check out the Rogue DPS Cheatsheets:

Video breakdown of this guide:

Watch Sno’s bonus early boss strategy guide for rogues in SSC.

  • This is an early strategy look at my PTR testing raids in SSC + what I think the general rotations/strategies/cooldown timings are for rogues in each of the SSC boss encounters.

Watch it here on my patreon:

Rogue P2 Talent Specs

Here are the talent choices and swaps you’ll be making going from P1 into P2 raiding.

Murder is back. A lot of rogues opted out of murder for P1 because it wasn’t effective vs. all the undead/demon bosses, but P2 brings us more humanoid bosses and trash mobs.

  • Swap your 2 points in improved eviscerate to murder for P2

Imp eviscerate still isn’t bad, since there are still a few bosses that are immune to murder, but overall I would still prefer murder for phase 2.

TL;DR – If you run 1 rogue per raid, then IEA spec is far and ahead the best raid spec in p2

Improved expose armor will be your go-to spec for P2. From the data and math we’ve seen so far, combat hemo is only useful in very niche and situational scenarios.

These are the only times I would consider combat hemo:

  1. You have 2+ rogues AND you want the 2nd rogue to play support spec (your alternative is to just have him go full dps while other rogue does IEA)
  2. Your rogue doing IEA is bad at his class and can’t keep IEA up
  3. The boss mechanics aren’t friendly to IEA (doesn’t apply in P2 – only very few bosses in P2 can’t be learnt to IEA better and you wouldn’t swap to combat hemo mid raid just for 1 boss in an instance)

Combat hemo does perform better on trash BUT the problem is you need roughly 80%+ of the total damage in a raid to be trash damage before combat hemo comes close to the damage gained from IEA on bosses. This is unlikely to ever happen in TBC, unless you run an almost full caster raid.

Note: For pure personal dps performance – full combat with no IEA and no hemo still outperforms other specs by a mile. It’s not even close. Combat hemo IS NOT a personal dps increase over just dpsing.

  • The 2 points into improved expose armor talents barely affects your dps, so just keep them even if you’re not doing expose armor – it can be handy to have for a ‘just in case’ scenario

Note: Swap 5/5 fist to 5/5 mace if using a mace in mainhand

  • This will be your standard talent spec in P2 if using a mace or fist weapon in mainhand with sword offhand
  • I don’t recommend ever using a non-sword in offhand because sword spec procs and latro’s shifting sword beats every ‘non sword’ alternative in P2 (including s2 gladiator dagger offhand)

Day 1 P2 BIS Gear

Transitioning to P2 BIS is extremely awkward. You’re relying on 2 set bonus from both wastewalker and T4, which means you should always replace 2 pieces at the same time if it means you’re breaking wastewalker or t4 set bonus.

If you have extra off-pieces of wastewalker/t4 and engy goggles, it gives you more flex room for swaps – but overall they are temporary and you end up swapping both sets out eventually anyway.

  • This option is a sidegrade/small dps increase depending on fight length/settings, so all you really gain is the goggles for spotting clouds/fashion
  • Personally I’m skipping doing this because for my settings it’s only equal to P1 BIS and I have to enchant another pair of legs with nethercobra
  • Engy goggles are a very minor benefit in pve, so I wouldn’t worry about them too much overall – but you should still craft them just in case it helps you swap something in earlier

Endgame P2 BIS Gear

There are 2 main options for absolute bis, as well as a couple items that are ‘sidegrades’ depending on what stats you prefer.

You can still choose a different offset or even go full 5/5 T5 which is within ~10 dps of BIS, but I highly recommend option 1 because it’s less contested and easier on our loot prio.

  • This option is preferred mainly because it keeps you away from the super contested offset shoulders and is basically same-ish total +dps as option 2 further down
  • You get a bit more hit from this set, which gives a bit more flexibility in your gemming too
  • Bloodsea chest allows us to avoid the highly contested T5 chest token that most Shaman want
  • I don’t like this option because you’re fighting fury wars and enhancement shaman for the shoulders – but if your guild doesn’t have those for some reason then it’s a viable option
  • You’ll have to fight over T5 chest token with all the shaman, which makes this option even more annoying

Sidegrade 1: Drape of Dark Reavers vs. Thalassian Wildercloak

  • This is an alternative pick to Drape of Dark Reavers for those who got unlucky in P1. The DPS gain is basically the same (within 1 dps), but you swap hit for more atk and stamina
  • It’s also a nice option for a pvper who wants to stack sta and atk instead of hit

Sidegrade 2: Latro’s Shifting Sword vs. Merciless Gladiator’s Quickblade

  • Latro’s is actually a DPS gain (about +3 dps) if you are expose armoring in your rotation. This is because the 0.1 speed makes your expose armor rotation smoother with more combat potency procs
  • Merciless Gladiator’s Quickblade is still a good pickup through because it beats Latro’s by 10-15 dps when not expose armoring
  • Sweaty players will have both. Latro’s for bosses w/ expose armor and Merciless Glad Quickblade for non expose/trash fights

Sidegrade 3: Warp Spring Coil vs. Bloodlust Brooch (only for sweatlords)

  • Brooch over Warp Spring Coil is ONLY a choice you make if your guild is insanely sweaty and doing the mind control trash mob strat to lower boss armor
  • If your guild is using the trash mob to cast armor debuff on bosses (very annoying to do), then use Bloodlust Brooch instead of Warp-Spring Coil because the mob will be at 0 armor without needing your warp-spring coil proc

Where is rod of the sun king?

Rod of the Sun King unfortunately only has a 1 proc per minute base (baseline proc means it increases with haste etc), which means it’s DPS is not that good for PvE. It’s still PvP bis – but Talon of Azshara is much better in PvE.

Are the dual wield phoenix fist weapons good?

Nope. Not having sword spec and a good offhand sword kills it’s dps too much unfortunately. Even if you get the MH fist, you’re better with using Latro’s in offhand with hybrid sword/fist talents.

What items should you loot prio?

Here are my rough recommendations for loot prio.

  • +28 DPS increase, our single biggest dps increase outside of MH weapon
  • Most contested item (rogues, tanks, ret paladins, fury wars, enhance shamans all want this)
  • Both these rings are a solid +7 to 8 DPS increase
  • Ring of Lethality is slightly more useful if you PvP and don’t have Mag ring in particular to pair with your Garona’s
  • Pvpers may want to pass on Band of the Ranger-General because Garona’s Signet Ring is very close/similar to it for PvP

These items are ‘freebie’ pickups if you are the only rogue and your guild is doing loot in a logical way (your milage may vary of course).

I wouldn’t really put heavy prio on them unless you have other rogues or classes specifically contesting them.

1. Talon of Azshara

  • This should be auto rogue prio because fury warriors have other options for OH (glad weapon, rod of the sun king in particular)
  • It’s our single biggest upgrade though (+50ish DPS), so if you do have some competition then you should put some prio on this

2. Bloodsea Brigand’s Vest

  • Really great offset piece, but basically no one else should be wanting this besides rogues
  • Solid +16 DPS increase and really useful to allow you to swap out T4 Chest eventually

3. Arcanite Steam-Pistol

  • Kind of a freebie item assuming your hunters all have Kara gear already (although this item isn’t really a big prio honestly)

4. Warp-Spring Coil

  • It’s rogue only, so this should really be a free pickup for your rogues
  • Not the largest dps upgrade if you have DST + Bloodlust Brooch, but still great item to pickup and has more value on bosses with more armor
  • T5 4 set is potential a large dps increase, but we have to wait for more proc data before we can confirm the dps gained from 4 set bonus
  • If replacing T4 or Wastewalker you need to swap in 1 other P2 BIS-ish level item with it to make up the dps loss of the 2 set bonus
  • Keep in mind that tier tokens were doubled by Blizzard, so each boss now drops double tokens, which should make tier a lot easier to pick up for everyone

Who else wants T5 pieces?

  • Most shaman/pally only want 1-ish piece of tier that we also want (especially if you avoid T5 chest by taking Bloodsea chest)
  • Tank paladin and enhancement shaman share more pieces but with double tier drops that backlog should clear quick (hopefully)

Which pieces should you prio first?

  • Helm + legs tokens are our most contested tier pieces so those would be my prio if you were wanting to contest the harder pieces first
  • Chest is also potentially contested with some Shaman, but we can avoid that piece with the Bloodsea chest anyway