Encrypted Text: Emblem of Heroism rewards for Rogues

Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we'll be talking about Heroic gear available in Northrend.

So, I have been hearing that many of you have put in the time and effort to level your Rogues to 80. Congratulations to all of you who have the perseverance and dedication to stick it out and focus on the goal! You do us Rogues proud. It takes a special kind of player to pull those all-nighters on the road to Icecrown. Unfortunately, I'm not one of those players.

I've been leveling casually through Northrend, exhausting every single quest in a given zone before moving on to the next. In addition, I've been focusing on leveling my tradeskills to 450 and also helping my friends and family as they quest as well, with a little bit of World PvP mixed in when the opportunity presents itself.

However, that hasn't stopped me from looking ahead at all of the "badge reward" gear available for us in Dalaran. I guess we should start calling it "emblem gear" or something, but it just doesn't roll of the tongue. Whatever you call it, I've compiled a list of the 5/10 man loot that is of interest to us subtle shadows. Read on for the details.

If you played much of TBC, you'll be used to the sort of items that are available from the emblem vendors in Dalaran. Trinkets, off hand weapons, necklaces, and a few random pieces of off set leather make up the core of the emblem offerings. There are two new additions amongst this fairly standard first wave of iLVL 200 rewards; the first of these being the very epic Tier 7 Chest and Glove tokens.

That's right, the Heroes' Bonescythe Breastplate and Gauntlets are purchasable via Emblems of Heroism from vendors in Dalaran. This will allow Rogues to pick up the key 2 piece T7 set bonus (10% more Rupture damage) without ever stepping foot out of a 5 man instance. This level of gear intermingling between 5, 10, and 25 man raids really allows for new Rogues to gear up quicker than ever. I will be taking full advantage of this, allowing me to start preparing my raiding set while still casually running heroics with my casual guildmates.

The second new feature of the Heroism Emblems allows a Rogue to purchase the entire Savage Gladiator's set (the blue tier of S5 PvP gear). Each piece ranges in price from 30 to 45 Emblems, and they have no rating requirements for any piece. There is no better way for a newly dinged 80 to become PvP viable than picking up this set ASAP, especially if you don't have any carryover PvP gear from your level 70 days. Expect to see quite a few Rogues sporting this set very soon!

There are a total of 4 weapons available to Rogues from the Emblem vendors, and only two of them are particularly good. The new off hand Sword of choice for Heroic running Rogues has become the Grasscutter, I've seen over a dozen on my server already. It's very easy to acquire at only 50 emblems, and will likely be my second purchase at 80 (read on for my first choice). Although I'll be sporting the Harpoon I mentioned last week, other Rogues may prefer Lillehoff's Winged Blades for their obviously superior stats. At the mere cost of 15 badges, these babies can be yours in one afternoon of instancing. If your ranged slot is hurting, look here first.

The other two off hand weapons are of lesser interest to Rogues, the off hand fist Pride being the absolute worst. No Rogue wants a 2.0+ weapon in the off hand, regardless of spec. Leave this very hot looking Fist weapon to the Enhancement Shamans in your life. For you Mutilate Rogues out there, Rolfsen's Ripper provides a medium speed dagger, but with stats in all the wrong places. For PvE Mutilate, haste is fantastic, and quick daggers trump all else. For PvP Mutilate, a slow offhand can be beneficial, but haste provides almost no benefit in this context. A Mutilate Rogue with any other options will be looking into more specific daggers for a more specialized purpose. While this dagger is not bad for Combat and Subtlety specializations, the standard "quicker is better" OH rule still applies.

The only piece of non-set leather gear currently available for Emblems is Jorach's Crocolisk Skin Belt. This is a very solid belt for level 80, and may be the piece that I decide to attach my Belt-Clipped Spynoculars. You have all been hearing how much I love Expertise, and with enough Critical Strike Rating for a full 1% crit at 80, this will help turn around the stat decay we've all been experiencing as our levels soar. For those of you looking for a necklace, the Pendant of the Outcast Hero (obviously referring to Griftah) is a very, very good neck piece that only costs 25 emblems. This should be on your list of items to snag with your first few emblem hauls.

Finally, on to the star piece of the EoH reward lineup. I mentioned it briefly in the comments of last week's post, and I will give it a proper introduction here today. Ladies and gentlemen, Rogues and those who wish they were playing Rogues, I present to you the Mirror of Truth. Take a second to examine the stats. No, it's not a typo. No, WoWHead didn't get a bad data parse. This trinket literally gives ONE THOUSAND Attack Power on proc.

For those of you not up on your AP calculations, that's a 71.4 DPS from white damage alone – it's like swinging 210+ DPS weapons for the duration. Factor in the bonuses to Rogue specials like Rupture, Eviscerate, and Envenom; we're looking at the must-have trinket of 3.0 and the near future. At 40 badges, this must be your first purchase unless another slot on your character is literally empty. And we're not even talking about the nearly 2% chance to crit that it provides at 80! I've theorycrafted the proc to be worth (as well as a few other Rogues I've talked to) between 150 and 250 AP as a passive bonus, depending on your gear. So for comparison purposes, this trinket has 2% chance to crit and 250 AP full-time. Get this trinket first.

Next week I hope to cover the 25 man Emblem of Valor rewards, as well as answering any questions you brothers and sisters of the shadows may have. Leave your questions in the comments and I will try to work in a Q&A session next week. So until then, start finding those PuGs and guild heroic runs, and plan out your gear timeline and upgrade choices!