Rogue challenge mode BIS gear.

[Kael]

RogueOlf -

1) Trinkets are valued for CMs based on value/itemlevel (up to 463), and the best "bang for your buck" trinkets we've seen are the ghost iron dragonling, bottle of infinite stars, and the relic of xuen. None of the newer trinkets bring more DPS per ilevel.
2) Mastery was WAY ahead in 463 gear (FOR ASSASSINATION), and should be treated as such if you're optimizing your gear - combat, of course, still favored haste.
3) Absolutely - every time ilevel goes up (specifically on items with sockets) there's a function of the "squish" that allows for a slight upward trend - 549 gear with gem slots will reward you significantly more stats than, say, 476 gear, although in theory they're intended to be equal. Hit the hit cap (and expertise if you're going combat) for level 93s, pump mastery (or haste for combat), and get as many gem-slotted high-ilevel pieces on as possible.

[Polution93]

What spec is currently best for challenge modes (5.3)?

[Starbuck]

Doing challenge modes currently, completed a majority of them tips I can give as a combat rogue is, aim for socket gear, engineer helm is amazing, for trinkets I have found I can use the expertise ToT trinket to expertise cap without ever needing to use expertise other other times too much, legendary cloak 3rd stat counts too.

Since combat is haste anyways, primodius' trinket Talisman of Bloodlust isn't actually bad, uptime is decent and gives you a good energy regen boost, which is what rogues suffer from the most at 464 ilvl

[Merkuri]

Been looking for a post like this, with no luck. I've decided to make a quick spreadsheet showing literally the absolute best possible slot items follow a few guidelines for CM's. Note that all of this gear is regular raid quality, as RF and Heroic both scale down to the exact same level and have the same stat budget in a CM (tested and confirmed). Some heroic pieces are there because of their additional properties, and I've included. Here is a general guideline to follow when gearing in general and what I used to gather this list.

Side note: In 5.3, Blade Flurry was changed, making Combat probably the most competitive spec due to AoE burst, which is the bulk of the difficulty in CM's. As such, for now I'll be talking about gearing as if you were combat. I may make a Sin one too since sin probably is competitive in very large AoE pulls (though not in burst, just consistent damage).

In gear, you should look for:
-Sockets. Probably the most important thing in a piece of gear due to the fact that gems don't scale down (save for the legendary weapon/meta gem, which aren't counted at all). Therefore, you should ideally have as many sockets as humanly possible above all else, even gear stats (usually). Since stat budgets for all items are approximately 300-370ish for all stats, it is okay to forsake an item with haste/crit for mastery/crit, if the mastery/crit has a socket on it. You will be able to get a 320 haste gem in there and be fine (atm 320 haste gems are showing up as better than 120 agi gems. This is because 1 Agi doesn't yet completely double the EP value of 1 haste, making 2 haste > 1 Agi, although someone should double check on that as well). Pieces like the chest from Golden Lotus or the Belt from MSV become very strong for CM's in this case due to the amount of sockets they provide over other pieces that might even be optimized better.
- Haste. Haste is the best stat you can get as a combat rogue, so you want to amass as much of it as possible. Hit caps and Expertise caps also become way more important to get over the cap (as opposed to getting like .05% below it) due to the fact that you well be landing stuns, disarms, silences, as well as damage. While the chance of one of them missing is low, it can be fatal if you are relied on for a stun and the tank dies. The loss of DPS from not being "optimal" DPS wise will never wipe you. It all comes down to solid mechanics and execution. This may change if your group has lots of stuns, and you should sim to see if the dps loss from reaching over the cap would be too detrimental to you.
- Sha touched/ToT weapon. It is good to have one of these (doesn't matter which) due to the legendary Eye gem socket, which does count in CM's, allowing for another 320 haste gem.
- Dragonling/Darkmoon Trinkets. These two trinkets are insanely overpowered, and you should never leave home without at least the dragonling. The darkmoon trinket can get pretty expensive, so if you are looking for alternatives, generally hunt down "chance on hit" trinkets over on use. They can be just as if not more helpful especially using an addon to track their up time.
- Enhancements. Always sim to find what the best enchantments for your gear would be, but never skimp on enchants if you can help it. Every bit of stats you can get will help you in the long run.

So here is the list that I've came up with. Somewhat disappointingly, almost all of the gear is from ToT due to the sockets. A lot of the "best of the best" items are nigh impossible to get, so on some of them I added a close alternative. Note that in no way do you need all of these pieces to get gold, but rank 1 time pursuers might be interested in this material. Note also that it doesn't matter what quality item you get, (RF, normal, heroic) unless the item is only heroic thunderforged. They all scale to the same level and have the same stat budget once you are in the instance. If you want to take a look at yourself, hop into MSP in challenge mode and your stats will be accurate there. Finally, Sim yourself once you are in your final gearset to see if 1 Agi is or isn't > 2 haste so you know what to gem for.

i.imgur.com/FSHBZ1B.png

Edit: on the picture, the gemming area says "60 agi and 120 haste" when I meant to say 80 agi and 160 haste, etc. Dont use the green quality gems.

[-Raer-]

This thread is probably timeless, at least until the next expansion. Challenge Modes are still relevant and guides/helpful tips are still being sought out (I know I did when I was doing them on my alt yesterday).

[Grof]

Plz does anybody know which class times is useed un this video -snipped-

thx and cheers

Please don't clutter a Challenge-Mode Gear thread with UI questions. Thanks.

[Merkuri]

That may be Tell Me When configured a certain way. That or Rogue power bars. Both are very similar to the one in the video.

[Moritsume]

Quick question about spec/gearing for in 5.4. Did the 5.4 changes hurt Combat? I know at the 463 ilvl you don't have much haste, and the increase in energy cost of Sinister Strike seems like it'd make the spec super clunky and slow. I'm leaning towards Assassination with that in mind.

As for gearing, I have a set with as many socketed items as possible and iirc for Mutilate you'd begetting the hit cap but not the expertise cap. With this in mind, would using both the eng helm/trinket be a better choice than a non-eng helm/trinket? Since you can't double up on cogwheels you end up using hit/exp/crit ones which doesn't seem ideal.

Would it be better to favor agil/mastery over just agil gems in red sockets? I think agility was 2x the value of mastery at that ilvl but with the focus on trash dmg being high in most cmodes it seems like agil/mastery might pull ahead.

[Deleted]

I doubt we can theorycraft our way out of that one, but my gut feeling says that combat still comes ahead on overall killing speed - mostly because of Assurance of Consequence. Even at a measly 17% CD reduction, I believe the amount of on-demand AOE burst you get for trash packs will exceed the slight loss of single target damage on bosses. I can't see the SS change will ever get close to making combat slower than assa, but at any rate that's a QoL discussion.

But like I said, I can't back that claim up. If someone from Europe is interested though, I'd be happy to do a joint run and report back with our findings.

[Oggiva]

Quick question about spec/gearing for in 5.4. Did the 5.4 changes hurt Combat? I know at the 463 ilvl you don't have much haste, and the increase in energy cost of Sinister Strike seems like it'd make the spec super clunky and slow. I'm leaning towards Assassination with that in mind.

As for gearing, I have a set with as many socketed items as possible and iirc for Mutilate you'd begetting the hit cap but not the expertise cap. With this in mind, would using both the eng helm/trinket be a better choice than a non-eng helm/trinket? Since you can't double up on cogwheels you end up using hit/exp/crit ones which doesn't seem ideal.

Would it be better to favor agil/mastery over just agil gems in red sockets? I think agility was 2x the value of mastery at that ilvl but with the focus on trash dmg being high in most cmodes it seems like agil/mastery might pull ahead.

My gut feeling tells me that if you are going for massive pulls assassination is going to be better, but if you are going at a "for gold"-pace combat with the new blade flurry might pull ahead. Either way I can confirm that assassination will serve you well.

You are correct about expertise being a stat you don't desire for assassination. Go with the engineering head socketed with mastery and hit/crit. Do not use the engineering trinket. It's bad. If you can, use the alchemy one and Relic of Xuen. (Don't think any of the new ones are better.)

Simulating my challenge mode gear from last tier shows that agility is 2.5 times better than mastery, so I'd stay with agility. If you are going for good times the time spent on bosses are not that far away from the time spent on trash anyway.

But like I said, I can't back that claim up. If someone from Europe is interested though, I'd be happy to do a joint run and report back with our findings.

If you weren't horde I'd join you on that project.

[Coldkil]

When i did mine, the spec didn't count much - with an elemental shaman and a frost mage you basically breeze through any instance, literally.

Combat does shine in generic pulls due to blade flurry being really good; anyway since the cleave was already really good, i stay assassination to deal more damage on bosses - we ended doing best realm time on Siege.

[shadowboy]

For trinkets you definitely want to use bottle of infinite stars (it's very good for the item level). The proc is considerably better than the DMF trinket (the DMF trinket proc has horrible uptime because it has a 65 sec ICD and procs on crit---which will be reduced by item scaling for challenge modes.

[Moritsume]

Hmm, I made the mistake of vendoring my bottle awhile back, and I forgot to grab it when I did item restore. I could get it again in another 30 days but until then I'll just try and do some lfr and see if I can coin one.

So between the eng trinket/dmf/bottle, would the best two be the eng/bottle? I forgot dmf procced from crits =x

[Oggiva]

So between the eng trinket/dmf/bottle, would the best two be the eng/bottle? I forgot dmf procced from crits =x

DMF/bottle for sure. The engineering one is terrible compared to the other two. The uptime on DMF is hardly terrible. It procs consistently for me both in challenge modes and proving grounds.

[Deleted]

Don't forget AoC. It might not be above item budget like DMF/Bottle, but a flat 17% CD reduction can make a big difference depending on the instance/group/tactic.