thanks for all the advice everyone!

First off, I love to see these kind of civil and helpful conversations going on in these comments. It warms my blackened little rogue heart.

As far as Expertise is concerned I think it is important to note that it is much more important for Mutilate than for Combat simply due to the pain that can be caused from a dodged envenom and perhaps a broken cycle because of it.

Myself, I gem for AGI. Being Combat with my current gear it seems to give me the most benefit, though as my gear improve I can actually see myself switching to Armor Pen, but that tends to only be effective in the highest level of gear that already has a lot of ArP. More discussion on that to come on the future.

Well, on a fundamental level, expertise does match up on Agility on a 1:1 level, assuming that you’re starting at zero. But, if you’re familiar with graphical relationships, Agility maintains a straight slope while expertise has the characteristics of a logarithmic graph. In other words, once you reach a certain point, stacking Expertise is useless because it gives no benefit (simply because boss mobs have a fixed percentage to dodge).
As for the relationship between AP versus Agility, AP is a “stronger” stat in the sense that it makes your hits go harder. The hidden facet of Agility is that it not only increases your AP, but it also increases your critical strike percentage. In essence, Agility, when buffed more with kings, gives a larger marginal benefit in terms of DPS because it not only increases how harder you hit when you crit (and regular swing), but how often these effects happen.

The work on Elitist Jerks is phenomenal work, but keep in mind that these are guidelines.

The strategy I used regarding my gemming and so forth has benefited me, and I have no issue pulling 6k DPS on a fight like XT-002.

Do you use the spreadsheets? I know that they aren’t 100% accurate, but based on their spreadsheets and forums of elitest jerks…it seems that agility is worth more than expertise on a 1:1 EP rating. Meaning 1 agility increases ur DPS more than 1 expertise. It also says that 2 AP is worth more than 1 expertise…what do u think about this?

And while the servers are down? Spreadsheeting.

Cat’s last blog post..OS25 0D down

1) Ignis the Furnace Maker is indeed a huge tanking fight. As for what the tank should be doing, I can’t tell you. What I can tell you is what our MT does. We arrange a triangle (basically) where the tank basically moves Ignis the three respective corners while keeping the ranged right in the middle. This triangle is also off the right pool and the add tanks picks up the adds and moves them into the water. He calls out when he needs DPS on the add. Other than that, melee DPS just poke away at the bosses butt.

2) As for your question regarding EXP vs. AGI; getting your Expertise to soft-cap is a MUST in my opinion. If you look at a Recount breakdown for any fight, a majority of your DPS comes from your melee swings. Ensuring that these aren’t being needlessly dodged/parried/blocked is extremely important. Now, mind you, you’re still going to get misses, because Rogue hit cap is some ridiculously high number.

As you make the transition into Ulduar 25s gear, you’ll find that a lot of the non-set epics stack the hell out of expertise, and gemming for it becomes a waste. Given that you’re familiar with Elitist Jerks and the Rogue Guide to WotLK, become familiar with the hit rating table as well. If you’re an Alli like myself, then having that Draenai is immensely important for being able to appropriately balance your gear.

Before I jump too far off into stat theory, I’ll curtly stop here. Hopefully, this is gentle suggestion in the correct direction.

Thanks for answering my questions the other week. I’ve been pretty much running my guild through NAX 25. I really want to get my guild fully ready for 25 Ulduar soon…we’re getting close. Its not the best indicator but i use wow-heroes to see what my guild’s current gear status is…and Im hoping that most of my members can break into the 2200s and then jump into ulduar. Id say we’re like 2 weeks away.

In ulduar 10, we’re 3 bosses in, still having issues with ignis, its a huge tanking fight…if you have any tips for the tanks id appreciate it.

and lastly ive been doing some spreadsheeting. I know that the spreadsheets aren’t the end all be all, but what are your feelings on expertise? I’ve always believed that a rogue should be hit capped, then expertise capped and then start stacking Agility and if not agility then attack power…seems like the spreadsheets favor agility a lot more espeically when it comes to gem and we all know that gemming is the only way to really get near that expertise cap. What are your thoughts?

O and ive been doing some 3v3 and 2v2 action. My 2v2 comp unfortunately is with a hunter…he’s my long time friend so i dun really have a choice…im hoping he levels his paladin very quickly. 3v3 we’re running a RMP comp and its been going ok. we’re having some major issues with a 2 heal/DK comp though. we can’t down the DK fast enough cuz of the double heals and the DK destroys our priest rather quickly. Let me know what you think. Thanks.