Main Hand Dagger

For assassination and subtlety specs you’ll be wanting a slow, hard hitting dagger in your main hand. There aren’t really that many great daggers to choose from for PVP – Season8 and IC25 daggers are better than the majority of what’s on offer from Cataclysm right now. The following daggers do offer a marked improvement.

When Gold is no Object – Elementium Shank

If you have gold to burn (and believe me this will cost a lot of gold at the moment), this Blacksmith-crafted dagger is the way to go. To craft one of these daggers you will need – 60 Volatile Air, 60 Volatile Fire, 60 Volatile Water, 16 Volatile Earth, 40 Elementium Bars and 18 Pyrium Bars. Ouch!

The Cheaper Alternative – Dagger of Restless Nights

A very worthy alternative, this will need revered reputation with a Tol Barad faction – Baradin’s Wardens for Alliance or Hellscream’s Reach for Horde.

For the Poor and Unloved – Windwalker Blade or Dimension Spike

The Windwalker Blade is a drop from Drahga Shadowburner in the new Grim Batol dungeon (on heroic difficulty). Fingers crossed it drops for you!

Alternatives – Lockbreaker Shank

Whilst not as good as Season 8 or IC25 daggers, this reward from the Deepholm quest ‘Question the Slaves’ is about as good as you can get for a Cataclysm green dagger.

Offhand Weapon

There is currently a ~horrible~ selection of decent fast weapons in Cataclym, with ilvl258 weapons from WotLK content being more viable than the pitiful selection we have been offered. Damage output seems higher with the 1.8 speed daggers listed above than from most of the 1.4 weapons that are available. If you don’t fancy playing as 1.8/1.8 and you have no decent daggers from WotLK, you could fall back on the following choices.

BOE Specials – Trek’s Shiv & Lhakaz’s Swiftblade

Lhakaz’s Swiftblade looks pretty good (and will help with reaching the hit cap) but currently seems to be selling for 2k-3k gold. Considering the short amount of time you’ll (hopefully) using this for, you may want to give it a miss!

For Those Who Slept through WotLK – Toxidunk Dagger

This random BOE drop from BRC isn’t too shabby – I’ve ran BRC once so far and saw it drop from one of the first packs of mobs.

For The Unlucky Looter – Gilnean/Goblin Slicer

If the Toxidunk dagger doesn’t drop (or if it’s need-rolled by a hunter from Skullcrusher), this quest reward is about as good as it gets. You will need to finish the ‘Prisoners’ quest in Abyssal Depths to receive it.

Main Hand Sword/Axe/Mace

I don’t intend to touch the combat tree for PVP this season unless things drastically change, but the following slow main hand weapons would be suitable for any rogue wanting to PVP with a combat spec. If you really don’t want to use mutilate or backstab, you can try these;

When Gold is no Object – Elementium Bonesplitter

Another blacksmith-crafted item of which I dread to imagine the cost.

The Cheaper Alternative – Ravening Slicer

Baradin’s Wardens and Hellscream’s Reach come to the rescue once again with this axe (requires revered reputation).

For the Poor and Unloved – Dragonsaw Boneblade

This bearable sword is awarded for completing the Deepholm quest ‘Resonating Blow’.

*UPDATE*

I’ve just noticed The Perforator. This level 83 BOE is a crafted item from Jewel Crafting which requires six blue-level gems.

Also, thanks to Majunor for pointing out these two decent daggers. Throat Slasher can be purchased for 950 Justice Points and The Twilight Blade is a lucky drop from lock boxes. I’d like to run tests on the Twilight Blade to see whether or not the proc is enough to make up for the lack of stats.

Warning, pre-cataclysm content detected!

This article was written before patch 4 went live and will contain information that may no longer be relevant.

I made a similar post back at the end of Season 6, but due to all of the new gear added in raids/heroics, it’s looking a bit out of date. The following is a list of gear that’s worth considering for a rogue fresh to PVP and unable to gear up from 25man content (mouse-over the links for item stats).

Mainhand Daggers

For the freshly dinged 80

Blood Weeper (Heroic Forge of Souls) Heartshiver (Normal Forge of Souls) Black Knight’s Rondel (Heroic Trial of the Champion) The Fleshshaper (Heroic Halls of Lightning) Traditional Flensing Knife (Kalu’ak reputation – revered)

For the 10-man Raider

Bloodsipper (ICC10 – Queen Lanathel) Icefall/Nemesis Blade (ToC10 – Twin Valkyrs)

Offhand Daggers for Envenom Spec

For non-mutilate spec, any of the mainhand daggers are suitable.

For the freshly dinged 80

Unsharpened Ice Razor (Trash drop in the ICC 5mans) Krick’s Beetle Stabber (Normal Pit of Saron) Balanced Heartseeker (Hierloom Weapon) Lightblade Rivener (Kirin Tor reputation – honored)

For the 10man Raider

Flesh Carving Scalpel (ICC10 – Putricide) Orcish Deathblade/Dirk of the Nightwatch (ToC10 – Jaraxxus)

The general rule of thumb for envenom rogues is to use a 1.8 speed dagger in your mainhand, with a 1.4-1.5 speed dagger in your offhand. Very high level 1.4 daggers work fine for your mainhand, but you would need an equal level offhand to make it work. If you’re not playing with the Master Poisoner talent, two 1.8 daggers are preferable.

The first is a BoE mace from Brewfest, Tankard o’ Terror. Judging by the amount of them in the AH the drop rate isn’t too harsh. While Combat-Mace spec isn’t as strong as Swords/Close-Quarters-Combat, this is still a hard-hitting lvl226 weapon. So, if you fancy giving combat a try without raiding Ulduar/ToC for high damage mainhanders, (and if you don’t mind missing out on selling this mace for a couple of thousand gold), you might want to give this a try.

Secondly we have a new drop from The Black Knight in Trial of the Champion Heroic, Black Knight’s Rondel. The drop rate isn’t too horrid and the dagger isn’t unique – it has nice stats and http://shadowpanther.net has calculated it to be almost on a par with Sinister Revenge, without the hastle of clearing Nax25. For a 41/5/25* or HfB build, these daggers would be an excellent starting point if you’re unable (or uninclined) to raid.

* The new Master Poisoner spec (44/2/25) is looking like it needs a fast offhand dagger to really shine.