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Encrypted Text: Shadowcraft, a raiding rogue's best friend
Every week or two, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Scott Helfand (@sveltekumquat) will be your shadow on this treacherous journey; try not to keep your back turned for too long, and make sure your valuables are stashed somewhere safe. "Should I reforge for mastery or haste?" If you're a rogue player who raids, reading that question probably generated one of two emotional reactions: Curiosity, because you wonder that yourself. A seething, bubbling cauldron of hatred and violent fury, because questions like these are asked endlessly -- even though, for a long time now, the answer has consisted of two words. Shadowcraft it. What Shadowcraft Is Shadowcraft is a modeling tool for rogues. It takes a snapshot of your armory -- your gear, enchants, gems, talents, glyphs and everything else that affects the damage you deal -- and then it allows you to modify that snapshot in a host of different ways. As you tweak the snapshot -- for instance, swapping out one piece of gear for another, changing your reforges, turning on or off certain buffs -- Shadowcraft keeps track of each change you make, and assesses whether those changes will theoretically increase or decrease your DPS. You do the experimenting, it does the math. Two things in particular make Shadowcraft truly special as a resource.
