Here’s my in-depth rogue phase 6 pve bis list and gear guide for Naxxramas.
Video version of this guide:
Rogue P6 BIS Cheatsheet + Trinkets:
Alright, so if you’re just here for a quick bis list, here it is (but I recommend reading the rest of this guide if you want to understand what order to pick these items and how the gearing actually works in P6 .
These are going to be your rough rogue bis list options for Phase 6 – Naxxramas.
Trinket combinations can get a little complicated, so I covered that separately further down.
Alliance dagger rogues are the most crit capped out of all the rogues. Not only do you get 5% extra crit from dagger spec, but ZG + Paladin stat buff pushes you even higher in crit. This means you actually benefit from breaking 8 piece Bonescythe and putting more +hit pieces in when world buffed.
If you’re just looking for the absolute bis PvE combination while world buffed, you’ll be using the above set with:
- Striker’s Mark
- QEB
- Cloak of Concentrated Hatred.
This keeps you just below crit cap while maximizing your +dps with world buffs.
Horde dagger rogues suffer from crit cap issues in full bis. Thankfully you’re not quite as badly crit capped as alliance dagger rogues, so you’re able to keep your 8/8 Bonescythe in some scenarios.
If you’re just looking for the absolute bis PvE combination while world buffed, you’ll be using the above set with:
- Cloak of Concentrated Hatred
- Bonescythe Bracers
- Striker’s Mark
This set will put you roughly at crit cap with the maximum possible +dps with world buffs.
Alliance sword rogues mostly avoid crit cap issues, but as they reach full bis they might need to look at substituting out 1 item for more hit.
Be aware that ‘The Hungering Cold’ will be insanely tough to pick up, as many warriors will be looking to pick it up as well.
If you’re just looking for the absolute bis PvE combination while world buffed, you’ll be using the above set with:
- Cloak of the Fallen God
- Striker’s Mark
I found the above combination to slightly outsim the next alternative which was using Cloak of Concentrated Hatred + Nerubian Slavemaker.
Congrats – as a horde sword rogue you don’t have to worry too much about crit cap. You mostly don’t need alternative +hit pieces like the other rogues.
That said, you should still have the weakaura recommended earlier anyway, just in case you happen to go on an odd gearing path that puts you over crit cap before you reach full bis.
Once you reach full bis you shouldn’t have to worry about crit cap (unless maybe you have a feral druid in your group).
Rogue P6 BIS Trinket Combinations
The trinkets you want to use will change a lot depending on the fight length. The one constant is you’ll almost always want to use a Slayer’s Crest or Kiss of the Spider in one of your trinket slots if you have one of them.
There’s A TON of combinations that work and can be very close depending on the fight duration and boss type, so if you actually want to optimize your trinket use in Naxxramas you’ll need to pay attention to your guild’s kill times as well.
Take these recommendations as a general guide but not a hard rule – there are a lot of things that can push one trinket ahead of another depending on the boss fight/length/type.
Here are the common combinations that most rogues will be using. Don’t forget that you’ll still be swapping out your active trinket for another trinket when it’s on CD in a lot of scenarios.
Slayer’s Crest/Kiss of the Spider + Mark of the Champion
Just a very good easy to execute and strong trinket combination vs. undead type mobs in Naxxramas.
Slayer’s Crest/Kiss of the Spider + DFT
If the mob/boss isn’t undead this combination works great. It’s just an upgraded version of the popular Earthstrike + DFT combo that a lot of rogues are running in P5.
Slayer’s Crest/Kiss of the Spider + Badge of the Swarmguard
Badge works amazing on high armor targets and it doesn’t share a cooldown with any other active trinkets, so you can use it together with slayer’s or kiss.
If your guild isn’t doing improved expose armor there will be normal boss fights (sub 1 min kill times usually) where Badge of the Swarmguard is actually on par or better than any other trinket too.
Slayer’s Crest + Kiss of the Spider
This is more of a fantasy scenario since you’re not really getting both these trinkets unless classic is about to end or your guild had insane luck with trinket drops.
This combination performs well on everything, except if the fight is so short that you don’t have time to use both trinkets.
Renataki’s Charm of Trickery
This old trinket still has it’s uses. It’s still good in a cleave scenario or an extremely short fight (sub 25 seconds) where you want to double trinket.
It’s also still a great trash trinket where other active trinkets might waste some uptime.
Okay, let’s start with explaining how tier 3 gear works…
Tier 3 – Bonescythe Armor
Firstly let’s cover tier pieces. Tier 3 for rogues is called Bonescythe Armor and it has some pretty nice set bonuses:
According to mined data, the 8 set bonus seems to be 5% per combo point (25% at 5 combo points), while the confirmed proc rates on the 2 set healing bonus will likely have to wait until Naxx is live.
Note: There are 9 pieces of tier 3, but the set bonus only goes up to 8 pieces. This means you don’t actually need all 9 pieces to reach that tasty 8 set bonus.
Horde rogues actually see a dps increase running 8/9 Tier 3, while swapping in Belt of Never Ending Agony for T3 belt. However, alliance actually see a dps increase using T3 belt when world buffed, due to the zg+paladin buff stack increasing raw stat values.
Alliance sword rogues also have another option for full phase 6 bis, which involves dropping T3 chest and swapping in T2.5 chest when fully buffed. This is because Tier 2.5 chest scales very well with ZG + paladin stat buff and the Tier 3 chest is heavily +atk weighted (which doesn’t scale with zg/pally buff).
Note: Alliance dagger rogues won’t be going this chest swap option in full bis due to running into big crit cap issues. The T3 chest being heavily +atk favoured is actually beneficial for dagger rogues needing to avoid crit cap when world buffed.
Here are the rough dps gains for swapping in belt/chest vs. full 9/9 Tier 3:
- Horde rogue belt swap: +3 to 4 dps using 8/9 t3 + c’thun belt
- Alliance rogue belt swap: -1 to 2 dps using 8/9 t3 + c’thun belt
- Alliance rogue chest swap (sword rogues only): +3 to 4 dps using 8/9 t3 + tier 2.5 chest
Remember when world buffed rogues were running into major crit caps during the pre Blackwing Lair days? Unfortunately, crit cap issues are making a return.
Rogue crit cap for auto attacks change based on how much hit you have. 1% hit = 1% more crit cap. This is a big reason why hit is very important for raiding rogues.
Full tier 3 plus other bis off pieces gives rogues so much added crit that we start reaching the cap for white hit crits again. This makes gearing a little tricky once you start to approach full bis, especially for dagger rogues who get an extra 5% crit from their dagger specialization.
Alliance dagger rogues in particular can potentially crit cap by over 8% over cap if they blindly go full P6 bis pieces and get agi enchants without paying attention to their cap.
Items such as the bow off Kel’Thuzad may seem like a dps upgrade vs. a striker’s mark, but in full bis with world buffs the striker’s mark can be better due to helping add 1% more to your crit cap.
What this means is as you gear towards full bis in phase 6, you need to be aware of your crit cap when world buffed and make necessary swaps in your gear.
If you don’t have one of these 2 crit cap tracking weakauras, I would highly recommend you get one of them:
- Option 1 – Redtuzk’s Classic Rogue Stats (adds crit cap info to character window)
- Option 2 – Redtuzk’s Crit Cap Warning (adds crit cap info in a movable display)
Not really. You can play around with mixing various darkmantle pieces with T3, but on average I saw anywhere from -20 to 50 dps lost when mixing in different Darkmantle sets vs. 8/9 Tier 3 set.
What about when transitioning from P5 Tier 2.5 and breaking 5 set bonus? Does Darkmantle make a return?
Situationally, you could use Darkmantle while transitioning, but the raw stats of 2.5 are great even without the 5/5 set bonus.
This will be more personal preference decision for each rogue on whether they want to gamble for a slightly lucky Darkmantle rng fight or whether they want the consistency and higher hp of running a T2.5/T3 mix.
Tier 3 Mats List:
- 106 Wartorn Leather Scrap (dropped from Naxx trash)
- 5 Arcanite Bar
- 42 Cured Rugged Hide
- 5 Nexus Crystal
- 275 gold
Tier 3 comes from loot tokens, much like Tier 2.5, and our token is shared with only warriors. However, unlike Tier 2.5, these Naxxramus loot tokens don’t have a guaranteed 1 of each class type token for every kill.
Each boss is guaranteed to drop their assigned armor slot token(s), but the assigned token type is completely random. This means you always get a token drop 100% of the time, but it can be for another class type instead of rogue/warrior.
For example, Loatheb drops 2x legging tokens, however the tokens could be the mage/priest/warlock leg token or the druid/hunter/paladin/shaman leg token.
Here’s a list of who drops which Tier 3 in Naxxramas and in what quantities:
Construct quarter:
- Patchwerk (shoulders)
- Grobbulus (shoulders)
- Gluth (shoulders/belt/wrist/feet)
- Thaddius (head x 2)
Plague quarter:
- Noth the Plaguebringer (belt)
- Heigan the Unclean (belt)
- Loatheb (leggings x 2)
Arachnid quarter:
- Anub’Rekhan (wrist)
- Grand Widow Faerlina (wrist)
- Maexxna (hands x 2)
Military quarter:
- Instructor Razuvious (feet)
- Gothik the Harvester (feet)
- The Four Horsemen (chest x 2)
Final boss:
- Kel’Thuzad (ring x 2)
Basically each boss drops 1 token, except the last boss of each section, who drops 2 tokens.
On top of these tokens you’ll also need some mats to combine with the token.
Yes and no (mostly no). Neither dps warriors or tanks highly value tier 3, although they might eventually pick it up for occasional tanking (dps wars) or sidegrades/niche usage (tank wars). That said, the T3 4 set bonus does reduce the chance to miss taunt by 5% and can be used for ‘The Four Horsemen’ fight in Naxxramas.
BUT – the 4 set bonus is mostly not needed if your guild already has the Nat Pagle reel from ZG.
With the ZG reel + backup wars to taunt if you get misses, the chances of actually wiping due to multiple taunt misses is already extremely low. Combined with faster kill times in Classic WoW, the warrior 4 set bonus is no longer a must have for the fight.
The other potential interest from warriors could be on the T3 bracers, which are not bad for tanking, and possibly some warriors who want to try out the 2 set bonus. Overall while prio may vary from guild to guild, I’d expect most guilds to be prioing Tier 3 to rogues before warriors (unless you didn’t get your warriors the reel from ZG for some reason).
T3 (Bonescythe) DPS Breakdowns vs. Tier 2.5/P5 Gear
Here’s a breakdown of the rough dps gains of all the Tier 3 pieces vs. Tier 2.5.
Note: dps gain/loss is assuming no set bonuses gained/lost (aka. it’s just a 1 to 1 item comparison).
- DPS gain vs. Tier 2.5: +8 to 10 dps
- DPS gain vs. Tier 2.5: +8 to 10 dps
- Alliance DPS gain vs. Tier 2.5: -3 to 4 dps loss
- Horde DPS gain vs. Tier 2.5: +1 dps
Alliance sword rogues will look to use Tier 2.5 chest instead of Tier 3 due to pally + zg buff scaling. Dagger rogues on alliance can also do this, but may opt to stick to Bonescythe due to crit cap issues.
- Alliance DPS gain vs. QEB: +4 to 6 dps gain
- Horde DPS gain vs. QEB: +3 to 5 dps gain
- Alliance DPS gain vs. Gloves of Enforcement: +3 to 4 dps gain
- Horde DPS gain vs. Gloves of Enforcement: +7 to 8 dps gain
- Alliance DPS gain vs. C’Thun belt: +1 to 2 dps gain
- Horde DPS loss vs. C’Thun belt: -3 to 4 dps loss
- DPS gain vs. Tier 2.5: +8 to 10 dps
- Alliance DPS gain vs. Tier 2.5: +3 to 4 dps gain
- Horde DPS gain vs. Tier 2.5: +6 to 8 dps gain
- Alliance DPS gain vs. Band of Accuria: +5 to 6 dps gain
- Horde DPS gain vs. Band of Accuria: +2 to 4 dps gain
Here’s a rough ranking of the tier pieces ranked from best to worst dps gains. Note that the ranks change based on faction, since ally benefits from raw stats more than horde side.
Horde rogues:
- Highest dps gains: Helmet, shoulders, legs
- Medium dps gains: Hands, feet, bracers
- Lowest dps gains: Ring, chest
- Negative dps gains: Belt
Alliance rogues:
- Highest dps gains: Helmet, shoulders, legs
- Medium dps gains: Bracers, gloves, feet, ring
- Low dps gains: Belt
- Negative dps gains: Chest
Non-tier Naxxramas drops
Note: I usually sim fights for 90 sec and full world buffs + consumables.
- DPS loss vs. Prestor’s: -4 to 5 dps
No reason to take this if you have Prestor’s from BWL, especially since it’s so crit focused and puts you in danger of crit capping with buffs.
- Alliance rogue dps loss vs. Cloak of the Fallen God: -0 to 1 dps loss
- Horde rogue dps gain vs. Cloak of Concentrated Hatred: +1 to 2 dps gain
This back is in a weird spot. It’s worse than Cloak of the Fallen God for alliance when buffed (due to ZG+pally buff stack), and it’s only barely better than Cloak of Concentrated Hatred for horde rogues. Cloak of the Fallen God will also get easier to pick up as your casters/healers finish up their C’Thun eyes as well.
The biggest problem with this back is it raises your crit again, which if you’re world buffed becomes a real issue for rogues in P6. As you reach full bis you won’t really want to use this cloak due to this issue.
As a Horde rogue I’d much rather get a Cloak of Concentrated Hatred from AQ, which gives me 1% hit to help my crit cap and is almost the same dps gain.
- DPS gain vs. Band of Accuria: +7 to 10 dps gain
This ring is great! One of the better pickups you can make in Naxxramas as far as raw dps gain per item.
PS – If you’re looking for Bonescythe ring info, check the tier 3 section above
Trinkets get a little trickier to compare, so let’s cover them one-by-one then I’ll talk about situational usage.
Note: I use Simonize spreadsheet instead of Garcia when doing my trinket sims, as Simonize tends to group/sim atks better for the purpose of active trinket testing in my opinion.
Kiss of the Spider
- DPS gain vs. Earthstrike in 90 sec fight: +30ish dps gain
The best active trinket in Naxxramas. The problem here is you’ll be fighting every warrior for this trinket as atk speed buffs are insanely good for them.
Warriors do take advantage of +atk speed better than rogues and I could see hardcore guilds prio-ing this to wars first over rogues.
However, in less hardcore guilds it’s common for rogues to perform on-par or better than warriors who aren’t min/maxing properly, meaning I’d personally award this more on a performance basis than anything else if your rogues are outperforming your warriors.
Slayer’s Crest
- DPS gain vs. Earthstrike in 90 sec fight: +20 to 23 dps gain
A great active trinket, although about +10 or so dps below the Kiss of the Spider trinket. That said, it’d personally value this higher for people who do pvp as well, as the burst from +atk can be quite nice.
I could see a lot of hardcore guilds dividing these trinkets into Kiss going to warriors first and Slayer’s going to rogues first. That said, as I mentioned earlier, in less hardcore guilds the individual performance of the rogue/warrior matters a lot more than just ‘this is better for this class’.
Mark of the Champion
- DPS gain vs. Earthstrike in 90 sec fight: +25 to 30 dps
Amazing trinket vs. undead mobs (which are most mobs in Naxxramas). In a 90+ second fight it performs on par with a kiss of the spider/slayer’s crest. If the kill is faster than this it tends to start performing below a kiss/slayer’s though.
Personally it would be my go-to trinket for any undead fights in that 90 to 140ish second fight range, particularly since it’s basically a freebie item and it’s passive use, meaning there’s no special usage requirements to use the trinket optimally.
Check further down this guide if you want my extra notes on when you use which trinkets and how these trinkets stack up vs. all the P5 trinkets.
Kingsfall
- DPS gain vs. Death’s Sting (you’d never just swap 1:1 like this though): +10 to 11 dps
- DPS gain vs. Death’s Sting + Pugio (swapping Kingsfall into MH and moving Death’s Sting to OH): +40 to 45 dps
- DPS gain vs. Pugio: +60ish dps
No brainer – this should be your biggest prio if you are a dagger rogue. Doesn’t matter if you’re a Death’s Sting + Pugio or a Pugio x 2 user, it’ll be a big upgrade regardless.
Maexxna’s Fang
- DPS gain vs. Pugio MH: +18 to 25 dps
- DPS gain vs. Pugio OH: +3 to 4 dps
- DPS gain vs. R14 OH: +10 to 15 dps
This is more of a temporary pickup for those using double pugio still. It’s a fairly nice dps increase for the MH over Pugio, and a minor upgrade in offhand.
Harbinger of Doom
- DPS gain vs. Pugio MH: +13 dps
- DPS gain vs. Pugio OH: +9 to 10 dps
- DPS gain vs. R14 OH: +19 to 20 dps
A very nice temporary upgrade while you wait to get the Kingsfall + Death’s Sting combo. Works great to swap in for either hand vs. Pugio.
The nicest thing about this dagger is it’s a trash drop and farmable in trash farm groups.
Gressil, Dawn of Ruin
- DPS Gain vs. AQR: +50 to 60 dps
- DPS Gain vs. R14 MH: +40 to 45 dps
A big no brainer for sword rogues. You want this for your mainhand. It’s the biggest single item dps upgrade you’re going to get in the game.
The Hungering Cold (non humans)
- DPS gain vs. Maladath OH: +45 to 50 dps
- DPS gain vs. R14 OH: +50 to 55 dps
An amazing offhand weapon… but this is going to be even more hard fought after than the Gressil, particularly against a lot of warriors who want this as well.
Be prepared to fight for it against every warrior in existence if you want a THC.
Iblis, Blade of the Seraph (humans)
Humans:
- DPS gain vs. CTS OH: +35 dps
- DPS gain vs. AQR OH: +38 dps
- DPS gain vs. Thunderfury OH: +10 dps
- DPS gain vs. Ravencrest OH: +36 dps
- DPS gain vs. Warblade of the Hakkari OH: +44 dps
- DPS gain vs. R14 OH: +19 to 20 dps
A very nice pickup for any human rogue who isn’t using a Thunderfury. It’s still an upgrade if you’re using a TF offhand, but a much smaller upgrade there.
Non-humans:
- DPS gain vs. Maladath OH: +14 to 15 dps
- DPS gain vs. R14 OH: +18 to 22 dps
This is actually a DPS upgrade over Maladath for even non-humans, although of course it would be prio to those who get a bigger upgrade from it first, such as human rogues missing TF.
Claw of the Frost Wyrm
Non-humans:
- DPS gain vs. Maladath OH (non humans): +5 dps
- DPS gain vs. Warblade of the Hakkari OH (non humans): +35 dps
- DPS gain vs. R14 Sword OH (non humans): +10 to 12 dps
Humans:
- DPS gain vs. Ravencrest’ Legacy (humans): +10 to 11 dps
- DPS gain vs. Warblade of the Hakkari OH (humans): +19 dps
- DPS gain vs. CTS OH (humans): +9 to 10 dps
- DPS loss vs. R14 Sword OH (humans): -4 to 5 dps
An interesting item that can be a quite solid dps upgrade in particular for people who haven’t been able to pick up previous phase bis weapons.
Non human rogues without a maladath can see a really nice dps upgrade from this, but I could also see any non r14 rogues grabbing this as a temporary pick-up (or permanent if they don’t think they’ll get an Iblis or THC).
Misplaced Servo Arm
Non humans:
- DPS loss vs. AQR: -30 to 35 dps
- DPS loss vs. AQR MH + Maladath OH: -30 to 35 dps
Humans:
- DPS loss vs. AQR: -25 to 30 dps
- DPS loss vs. Warblade of the Hakkari OH: -14 dps
- DPS loss vs. AQR MH + Ravencrest OH: -15 dps
PvP fun weapons or possible pickup for a fresh rogue missing raid weapons still because these maces are trash farmable.
This is actually not a horrible pickup for a newer Human rogue if you get 2 of these and swap sword to mace spec.
The Castigator
Human:
- DPS loss with Misplaced Servo Arm MH + Castigator OH vs. AQR MH + Ravencrest OH: -4 to 5 dps
Non-human:
- DPS loss with Misplaced Servo Arm MH + Castigator OH vs. AQR MH + Maladath OH: -20 to 25 dps
This mace is in a similar situation to the MSA mace above. It’s actually not a horrible combination to put this in OH for a human rogue looking to catch up on gearing if you picked up a Misplaced Servo Arm as well.
Nerubian Slavemaker
- DPS gain vs. Striker’s Mark: +3 to 5 dps
- DPS gain vs. Lavae of the Great Worm: +2 to 3 dps
- DPS gain vs. Crossbow of Imminent Doom: +3 to 5 dps
An upgrade to all previous phase ranged weapons if you look at this purely 1 to 1. However, you need to keep in mind your crit cap when gearing for full bis.
All dagger rogues (and some alliance sword rogues) will be running into crit cap issues in full bis. As a dagger rogue you’re better off skipping this and sticking with Striker’s Mark for the hit % and even some bis sets for buffed ally sword rogues will prefer Striker’s Mark.
I’d mostly give this crossbow a miss since Hunter’s want this anyway and our bis sets actually prefer Striker’s Mark in a lot of cases.
Soulstring
This bow is roughly within 1~ dps of Striker’s Mark, Larvae of the Great Worm and Crossbow of Imminent Doom. You would only look to pick this up if you don’t have one of them already.
Just be aware of the rogue crit cap issues as you start to reach full bis.
My top P6 rogue prio picks:
Alright so to wrap things up let’s cover what the best pickups are for Phase 6.
Personally I’m not valuing any Tier 3 gear highly on prio since our competition for those is generally very low and all your rogues should be able to get their set done eventually (unless your guild has the worst rng on rogue/war tokens, but that’s up to fate).
1: Weapons (ofc)
Gressil, Iblis, The Hungering Cold and Kingsfall are the obvious no brainer pickups depending on your spec/race. Be warned that The Hungering Cold in particular is going to be absurdly contested in a lot of guilds.
All of these weapons are gigantic dps increases.
2: Kiss of the Spider/Slayer’s Crest
You’ll want at least one of these 2 trinkets (or both if you’re a baller, but that’s insanely unlikely to happen). Kiss of the Spider is the better pve trinket as I explained earlier, but it’s also much more highly contested with warriors.
3: Band of Unnatural Forces
Amazing ring and one of the highest dps increases you can get after weapons and trinkets.
4: Bonescythe Ring
There’s not a lot of amazing pickups beyond the weapons, trinkets, rings, so I’d actually put Bonescythe Ring as the next best pickup even though all the Tier 3 gear isn’t that rare.
This isn’t the highest dps piece, but it’s the rarest out of all the Bonescythe pieces because KT drops 2 random rings, and there is 1 ring for each class, meaning 8 types of rings can drop. The other T3 pieces only have 3 possible token types, meaning these rings are technically the lowest drop rate of the Bonescythe set.
5: Other T3 tokens
I’d looks to prio the other t3 tokens after this, starting with helmet, shoulders and legs since those are the 3 highest dps increases out of the tier 3 pieces.