Rogue Itemization and DPS: Or Why There Needs to be More Pointy Things in Game

I currently have:
1 Ulduar10, ilvl 219 OH fist
1 Malygos10, ilvl 213 OH sword
1 Naxx25, ilvl 213 OH dagger

But the only non heroics main hand is a Naxx25, ilvl 213 dagger.

Now, I've been combat for 2 years, I know combat inside and out, I like the rotation, I like the cooldowns, I like how the spec plays, and I like the feeling of being a swashbuckler rather than a sneaky assassin.

Too bad I don't have a main hand to be able to do that.

After resisting it for literally months now, losing KT's grasp a number of occasions, downing Razorscale far too many times, and going into one too many Naxx25 pug that invariably fails before we get to KT trying to get some sort of decent main hand drop, I had no choice but to switch to Mutilate, because combat with Naxx10 level weapons in Ulduar, and the poor DPS (400 less than if I switched from Crimson Steel and Kinetic Ripper combat to Twilight Mist and Webbed Death mutilate, according to spreadsheets) plain disgusted me.

With a bit of practice, my DPS did go up, but even still, I'm not quite sure 400 DPS is worth completely switching my playstyle.


Thanks to Hack n Slash, Close Quarter Combat, and Mace Specialization, with the possible exception of arms warriors, no other class is so weapon dependent. Our specs are so weapon based, that RNG with gear drops easily outweighs skill factor in determining DPS. And the worst part is, we need 2 weapons of the same type, whereas arms warriors need only one.


Not only that, our weapons have to have just the right speeds, as well. Not only does this make us unhappy when a weapon of the right type, but wrong speed, or right speed and wrong type drops, it makes DKs and Shammys unhappy when a fast weapon or dagger drops and the rogue doesn't want it because what he really needs is a slow weapon. Though, the fact that DKs and Shammys don't have to match weapon types gives them a big enough offset to this problem that I don't feel the least bit sorry for them.

For a rogue like me, who's stuck doing Ulduar 10 normal modes, there are literally a total of 2 main hand weapons I can use, one of which is from Yogg. And in all of Naxx25, there's also only 2 main hand weapons I could use, one of which drops from KT, and the other is a rare trash drop. Even counting KT's reach from Naxx 10, that's a grand total of 5 main hand weapons throughout 2 instances, 3 of which drops only from the end boss, and another only from trash, and is inferior to the others. Compare this to the total of 8 2-handers throughout the exact same instances. And the classes that use them only use 1! It would seem that shamans also got shafted here, but now, with 3.2, they can just run ToC-H until their eyes bleed for 2 of Aledar's Battlestars, and they're good to go. No such luck for rogues, as we still have to find a off hand to go along with it, of which there are only 2, 1 of which is a rare trash drop.

I don't know what Blizz's reasoning for only having so few weapons for rogues to use, without going into hard mode or 25 man Ulduar or beyond, and maybe their reasoning is that it's balanced by the fact that fast weapons and daggers are defaulted to us, I don't know, but that doesn't make the fact that pure, random luck has relegated me to play the game in a way that I don't want any more tolerable.

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