Encrypted Text: Emblem of Triumph 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 talk about the upcoming Emblem of Triumph gear, analyzing each piece's stats and bonuses.

Due to the tireless work of Boubouille of MMO-Champion and many others, we've been able to discover many of the new items coming our way in patch 3.2. There's a wide variety of gear planned for Rogues, as there are three separate ilvl tiers of gear being distributed. In addition, Blizzard has included two copies of nearly every piece of gear: one for the Alliance, and one for the Horde; each piece possesses its own art and design.

We'll be able to pick up our new Emblems of Triumph from the Daily Dungeon quests and the new Crusader's Coliseum. You can trade the EoTs for a few very attractive pieces of gear, especially for those few slots that you could never find the gear to fill. When planning your gear migration path in patch 3.2, remember to include these items in your spreadsheets. They're guaranteed items that you can plan to acquire within a well-defined timeline.

I'll be talking about both the Horde and Alliance version of the gear, though I'll refer to the Horde pieces by name when necessary. The Alliance pieces are a perfect mirror (statistically), the only difference is aesthetics. Miscellaneous items are typically the same for both factions, while display items such as Helmets have the two separate versions. The Emblem gear is all ilvl 245, which is the 10 man Heroic / 25 man Normal quality gear (right in the middle of patch 3.2's quality spectrum). It's going to be stronger than even Ulduar 25's best gear, and so you'll be able to immediately upgrade to the newest tier of gear.

Trinkets: Mark of Supremacy, Shard of the Crystal Heart
Blizzard included two very potent +hit trinkets in 3.2, mirroring items such as the Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood or the Pyrite Infuser. They stack a very high amount of hit (they cover the Yellow Hit Cap by themselves), and both possess a Use: effect that we can coordinate with our other cooldowns to maximize their potency. The Mark of Supremacy's Attack Power is clearly superior to the Shard's Haste, but if you're hurting for trinkets, there are two options available to you.

Ring: Dexterous Brightstone Ring
The Dexterous Brightstone Ring may be ilvl 245, but unfortunately it's not ideally itemized for a Rogue. Agility, AP, and Armor Penetration are all great stats to have, but spending all of those item budget points on Haste make the ring less than perfect. If that had been crit or hit rating, I would consider it higher, but it's still not a bad ring when compared to a Naxxramas or Ulduar 10 level alternative.

Throwing Weapon: Crimson Star
The Crimson Star throwing weapon is a better example of what Blizzard can achieve when they purposely make the perfectly balanced item. This mirrors the other Throwing Weapons available to us, especially the Emblem of Heroism vendor's Lillehoff's Winged Blades: they're all itemized very well. This is to keep us sticking to Throwing Weapons instead of taking Guns and Bows from our Hunter rivals. They've even started implementing Throwing Weapons for tanks!

Helm: Mask of Lethal Intent (Horde), Hood of Lethal Intent (Alliance)
The Mask of Lethal Intent is a very strong option for helms, blowing away any helmet currently available. This is partly due to there being no hard-mode helmets available for Rogues, we're stuck with simple Ulduar 25 quality headpieces. I see this as one of the first pieces being picked up by Rogues, as with the new slot-agnostic tokens (the Rogue token buys ANY of our 5 slots), you can pick and choose which pieces of T9 to acquire, and in what order.

Shoulder: Duskstalker Pauldrons (Horde), Duskstalker Shoulderpads (Alliance)
These Shoulders are another solid option for Rogues, and they even stack up quite nicely against their T9 counterparts. However, the Shoulders are 30 Emblems cheaper to purchase, and so perhaps we'll see more Rogues sporting some flavor of Duskstalker instead of purchasing the previously mentioned helmets. It will take some time to acquire Triumph badges, as we will only have access to a couple of bosses for the first weeks of the Coliseum's release. This means that maximizing your benefit per Emblem is very important.

Tier 9: Garona's Battlegear (Horde), VanCleef's (Alliance)
The new Tier 9 sets comes in 3 flavors, as I mentioned previously: 10 man normal, 10 man Heroic / 25 man Normal, and 25 man Heroic. Each of these tiers get progressively stronger, but more importantly, they allow a talented 10 man raider to achieve the same level of gear as a basic 25 man raider.

Our 4 piece bonus is fairly vanilla, simply providing 5% crit to some of our basic attacks. Our 2 piece bonus, on the other hand, has the theorycrafting world trying to figure out its value and where it will fall in our spreadsheets. Its proc rate, and the resultant DPS cycles, will determine its worth in the long term, and so we're eagerly awaiting patch 3.2's release to discover exactly how potent it is.

Idol: Idol of Mutilation
Okay, you've got me, it's not actually a Rogue item. However, I saw the name and figured I had to bring it up. Our Feral Druid cousins are picking up a brand new toy, and it looks to be quite the bonus for them. After the nerf to a Bear Druid's dodge, this 200 dodge rating proc may make up for the difference. It almost has me wishing we had Idols!

Conclusion:
We've got a lot of great stuff on the way, here's to hoping the rest of the Crusader's Coliseum gear look this good!

Are you a Rogue looking to up your game? Check back every Wednesday for the latest strategies in Encrypted Text! And for the raiding Rogue, get ready for Ulduar with Ready Check and our Ulduar guide for Rogues, parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.