Rogue Darkmantle (Tier 0.5) & P5 BiS Gear Guide

Looking for the phase 5 bis list? Jump straight to it here.

Psst… I made a video guide which covers everything here and explains the gear choices and set choices in more detail:

A lot of people are already preparing for Phase 5. There’s a good reason why… shadowcraft is making a comeback under a new name – Darkmantle!

What is Darkmantle (tier 0.5) and why do I want it?

Back in Phase 1 and 2 a lot of rogues discovered the amazing power of our blue dungeon set, known as the Shadowcraft set. Shadowcraft was powerful for 1 simple reason, it had an overpowered 6 piece bonus proc effect.

Energy is dps to a rogue and Shadowcraft has the amazing 6 piece bonus of giving you +35 energy every time it procs. The Shadowcraft 6 piece proc is so good that it takes almost a full set of tier 1 Nightslayer gear to beat it in average dps gained.

Darkmantle is Shadowcraft upgraded. It takes your shadowcraft pieces, gives it better stats and lowers the amazing +35 energy proc requirement from 6 pieces down to 4 pieces instead:

If you’re a rogue heading into P5, you will want to look at picking up the Darkmantle set not only because it’s an upgrade over Phase 4 BiS, but also because it gives you a ton of flexibility in your gearing as you transition to Anh’Qiraj raid gear in phase 5.

How do I get Darkmantle?

Here’s where it kind of sucks. Ideally you’ll want to collect a full set of Shadowcraft armor because Darkmantle is made through quests that require your Shadowcraft armor as well as certain materials.

This means if you don’t have all 8/8 pieces of shadowcraft, it’s time to revisit those dungeons again. You’ll have to head back to UBRS/LBRS/Stratholme/Scholomance and start praying to the RNG gods to be kind.

Wait Sno, why do I want all 8 pieces? Didn’t you say I only need 4 pieces for the proc?

Unfortunately, the Darkmantle pieces are given in a series of quests that need to be done in order. You can’t move on to the next pieces until you finish the quest leading up to it. Darkmantle is quested in this order:

• Quest 1: Wrists
• Quest 2: Belt and Gloves
• Quest 3: Pants, Shoulders, and Boots
• Quest 4: Helm and Chest

The best pieces of Darkmantle come towards the end, particularly the helmet and the chest. There’s no skipping to the last quests without doing the first quests.

TL;DR – Start farming your shadowcraft now if you don’t have all 8 pieces and want to min/max your gear

Darkmantle quest materials cheatsheet

Start collecting these items so you’re ready to go when P5 starts:

• 220g
• 1x Delicate Arcanite Converter
• 10x Stonescale Oil
• 4x Greater Eternal Essence
• 10x Goblin Rocket Fuel
• 3x Dark Iron Bar
• 3x Mooncloth
• 20x Enchanted Leather
• 4x Cured Rugged Hide
• 9x Large Brilliant Shard
• 4x Dark Rune
• 1x Flask of Supreme Power
• 3x Abyssal Crest
• 1x Twilight cultist robe
• 1x Twilight cultist mantle
• 1x Twilight cultist cowl
• 1x Signet of Beckoning: Fire (optional, but recommended as you will need to summon dukes until you get the fire duke if you do not have this signet to guarantee the fire duke. It’s also likely you only need 1 signet per group/raid as well)

You’ll also want to make sure you have these 2 reputation levels ready (required to get some mats/quest items):

• Honored with Argent Dawn
• Friendly with Cenarian Circle (silithus)

How good is Darkmantle vs current P4 BiS?

I ran spreadsheet sims to compare all the main gear combinations for p4 bis vs Darkmantle vs p5 tier 2.5.

You will roughly see a 12-14ish dps increase as daggers and a 25-26ish dps increase as swords going from p4 to p5 darkmantle set.

These sims were done as undead rogue, 90 sec fight, bis enchants, full world buffs + consumables (no Darkmoon Fair) and standard combat daggers. I also added in some sims as alliance human (same sim settings) to check if the 3 piece Bloodfang poison bonus changed any results.

Keep in mind that you don’t have to use the absolute bis Darkmantle 4 combination that I list. I list the dps losses per piece of Darkmantle so you can pick and choose yourself if you want to sub in different pieces.

Sno, I’m too lazy to look through the sims, just tell me the bis gear I need…

Again, please keep in mind the below lists are absolute min/max bis in a 90 second fight. There are still many viable combinations that may be within a few dps of the following lists, so don’t feel you HAVE to get the Darkmantle combinations listed.

The beauty of Darkmantle 4 set is it’s very flexible and you can swap a lot of pieces around as you gear up and get your AQ bis.

Dagger rogues transitioning from P4 to P5 gear:

Best Darkmantle combination is a 12-13 dps increase over P4 BiS by using Darkmantle cap, tunic, shoulders, boots + Bloodfang bracer, pants and belt. You should also swap in the new Earthstrike trinket from Cenarian Hold exalted reputation as your new 1st choice active dps trinket.

This applies to both horde and alliance. The only major differences between the sims is alliance suffer bigger dps losses if they lose their 3 piece Bloodfang poison proc bonus.

Dagger Rogue P5 BiS:

Use either mixed darkmantle 4 piece set with tier 2.5 pieces or full tier 2.5. Both options sim within 1-3 dps of each other depending on weapons. Full tier 2.5 does have the advantage of gaining roughly 400 hp over the Darkmantle mixed set and it would be my recommendation.

Even if you are aiming for full tier 2.5, most rogues will still want to be using Darkmantle as they work their way towards getting all the AQ bis drops.

Sword rogues transitioning from P4 to P5 gear:

Best Darkmantle combination is a 25-27 dps increase over P4 BiS by using Darkmantle gloves, cap, boots, tunic + 3 piece bloodfang belt, pants, bracers + 2 piece zg from shoulders + renataki trinket.

If you don’t have Renataki’s trinket you can use earthstrike trinket instead with T1/ZG shoulders. Keep in mind active trinkets will perform better in short fights (as always).

Note: If you’re a super min/max raider you may even consider swapping to entire different sets of Darkmantle when Renataki’s trinket is on CD and swapped out (due to missing 2 piece 20 atk ZG bonus when you swap out Renataki’s).

Sword Rogue P5 BiS:

Full tier 2.5 is bis, although mixed darkmantle set is viable still (less than 5 dps behind full tier 2.5). If you choose to use Darkmantle set then the best performing 4 piece is bracers, gloves, tunic, cap.

If given a choice/decent loot rng you should go Tier 2.5 set though, as it’s both a tad bit more dps and a decent chunk of extra hp.