Gear Check: Gearing your Rogue for Heroics and Raiding in Cataclysm, Part 2

Get the right gear and you'll be able to take on Mathias Shaw.

Last time, we broke down all the gear you can get via reputation rewards and dungeon/heroic drops. Let’s run the delicious gear rogues can get from crafting, Justice and Valor points.

For Engineers, you’ll definitely want to pick up your Agile Bio-Optic Killshades. They are better than anything you’ll see in heroics and well beyond. The materials aren’t cheap and you’ll need to run heroics to get a Chaos Orb, but hey, nothing is free.

All Assassination rogues should seriously consider getting Belt of Nefarious Whispers. It’s one of the only leather items with hit and mastery, a golden combination that you don’t even need to reforge unless you are really overboard on hit (unlikely at this point). It got sockets in patch 4.0.6, making it even worthier. You’ll need quite a few mats and pay a Leatherworker well for their 2 Chaos Orbs.

Assassin’s Chestpiece has an unfortunate amount of crit on it, though the hit is nice. If you really want to squeeze out a little more DPS you can pick it up, but again, it ain’t cheap, especially with three (!) Chaos Orbs required.

If you run a bunch of dungeons, you’ll probably get lots of Justice Points. You can buy iLvl 346 gear with them, on par with heroic drops. Here are your options:

If you do your daily heroic or raid, you can pick up some Valor items as well.

Assassination will probably want to get hands/legs for the 2 piece bonus, while Combat will probably want hands/chest.

Crafted items got a little change in patch 4.0.6 with some slightly changed mats and new sockets. However, there is a a known bug where the change did not actually get applied. The socket makes the items better for rogues, but the items are still good regardless:

  • Chest: Assassin’s Chestplate: Hit/Crit is pretty common. This is great item for Assassination after reforging. The new socket is red with an agility bonus, so even better!
  • Waist: Belt of Nefarious Whispers: This is the perfect itemization for Assassination rogues. Hit/Mastery are the two best secondary stats. Definitely pick this up if you are Assassination. The incoming socket is red and adds agility making the deal even sweeter.

Once you’ve outfitted yourself with a majority of this gear you can be sure that your character should be capable of smashing any DPS meter.