This is a QQ post.
I’m getting desperate.
My gear is pretty good. Gradually, over the course of many raids, I have accumulated iLvL 213 items in every slot but my chestpiece, trinkets, and main hand dagger.
The chestpiece is not so worrisome. I have already passed on the T7.5 chest because someone else needed it more than I did. I’m sporting the Tunic of Dislocation which is not too shabby.
The dagger is just because Blizzard made the Librarian’s Paper Cutter so powerful that I can’t find an improvement. If I could get an Omen of Ruin or a second Webbed Death I would upgrade, but I haven’t been so lucky.
But those darn trinkets.
I’m still sporting Meteorite Whetstone, and even that took me forever to get. I’ve run Naxx endlessly, OS a ton, and all the heroics, and I can’t get a drop.
Grim Toll drops off of four bosses in Naxx. I’ve seen it drop twice, but didn’t get it either time.
Fury of the Five Flights drops from Sartharion with no drakes. I’ve seen that drop no less than three times. I still don’t have it.
We’ve killed Sapphiron only twice on heroic mode, so its not surprising that I haven’t seen Bandit’s Insignia drop. I’ve been holding out on taking any gear so I’d be in position to pick this up. Alas…
The Incisor Fragment comes from King Dred in heroic DTK. I’ve never seen it drop. Its only iLvL 200, but its still a nice upgrade from what I have.
Even Loatheb’s Shadow (also iLvL 200), which drops in 10-man Naxx, has eluded me. I’ve never seen that one, either.
I’m at the point where I am pugging OS and DTK to try for the trinkets. I never PuG, so this is a measure of my desperation. Ulduar is going to come out and we won’t be running these raids anymore. That means I’ll be competing with the whole raid for the new shinies, reducing my chance to get an upgrade.
I know I’m just a victim of the RNG. But it feels like I’m cursed.
It reminds me of my quest to get the Dragonspine Trophy back in BC. I did finally get it, but it was just before WotLK after we had killed Gruul many, many times. And that was just one item, so by making that my goal I was setting myself up for repeated disappointment. In my current situation, I have several possible drops that would be improvements, and I am still waiting.
Maybe this will be the week. Maybe we’ll kill Malygos and the Mark of Norgannon will come to me. Maybe my PuGs will pay off with FFF or the Incisor Fragment. Maybe I’ll get in on a 10-man Naxx pickup just for Loatheb. Or maybe I’ll just settle for buying an Undeath Deck to get the Darkmoon Card: Death.
Forever a Noob - A WoW Rogue Blog 
I feel your pain! Well, on one hunter anyways. The other one has got most of the good trinkets. (No Fury of the Five Flights). But anyways the good news is the Nobles Deck has been coming down in price a lot! If it gets below 7k I might consider getting it for trinketless-hunter =)
I know what you mean. I was writing just today about the difficulty I’ve had upgrading my trinkets. I’ve been using the Darkmoon Card: Death (by all accounts a crappy trinket) and Sundial of the Exiled for months, swapping out Death for the Rune of Infinite Power–a green quest reward!–for boss fights. I’ve lost so many rolls on trinkets, it’s depressing, and like you say, when Ulduar hits I’ll be competing with the entire guild again for the best upgrades. Ah well, what can you do?
I would suggest Mirror of Truth. Badge purchase…and if you can at all Darkmoon Card: Greatness.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40684
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44253
I’m currently using Mirror of Truth and Fury of the Five Flights….
Also, I was mutilate spec for the longest time. I found that once Naxx geared, if you get a good main hand fist to drop, just respec combat, you will notice at least a 500-1000 dps boost. Believe you me. I struggled for months as mutilate.
Check out elitist jerks for their Roguecraft spreadsheet, input your stats and play with the gear…
Make sure you have highest enchants, and as much attk pwr as you can for combat spec.
Tag me whenever you need a tank or cat to run DTK. I still want the Keystone Greatring off Tharon’ja.
DMC:G and mirror are pretty much as good as it gets (for most fights, sometimes FFF is better) and there’s no RNG involved. There’s a good chance DMC:G will last a fair way into Ulduar, especially since you have two trinket slots and presumably heavy competition for physical dps trinkets. So it’s still a good investment!
@Danglerla – I have Mirror of Truth (doesn’t everyone?). I wish I could buy the DMC:G, but I can’t bring myself to spend 8k gold on an item, no matter how good it is, when I know that I could get one for free with a drop from a boss. For me, a casual player, milking an extra few dps is not worth blowing months worth of gold.
And if you read my blog you’ll know that I always run everything through the DPS spreadsheets.
Also, no way does switching to combat give you a 500-1000 dps boost. Not a chance. If you switched to combat from mutilate and saw that kind of increase, then you weren’t doing mutilate right.
@Chronic – as you pointed out, the DMC in general are appealing because there is no randomness. However, I won’t spend 8k gold on a trinket. That’s why the Undeath card is looking good now. Its not great, but its better than the Meteorite Whetstone and can be bought for 600-700g.
“For me, a casual player, milking an extra few dps is not worth blowing months worth of gold.”
That’s fair enough, but it makes me wonder why you’re worrying about it at all? Meteorite Whetstone isn’t a terrible trinket by any means. If you’re actually casual it’s almost certainly “good enough”.
It’s surprising to me that you wouldn’t even consider paying 8k gold for the best trinket in the game but then you’d write a post about how you *desperately* need one of the average ones. I mean, pugging DTK? Really?
“Also, no way does switching to combat give you a 500-1000 dps boost. Not a chance. If you switched to combat from mutilate and saw that kind of increase, then you weren’t doing mutilate right.”
If you are plugging everything into the DPS spreadsheet, you should take a peek through everything else that is on those forums. There is an increase in DPS if you switch to combat once naxx geared…
I wouldn’t want to tell a casual player how to play his game though.
One thing you should try … if you ever get naxx geared, is to hit the target dummies. I also didn’t expect that posting a reply on this post would require me to read through your entire blog, fabulous as it may be.
Good luck.
Oh..I forgot to say…mutilate is only really good if you have two Webbed Death. For some reason they never dropped for me until I had already swapped to combat with Calamity’s Grasp.
@Dangerla
Wow, that was a bit venomous. Note that as mentioned in the OP, Dinaer is already largely Naxx25 geared, and obviously he knows how to use spreadsheets and target dummies. Dummies are a terrible test of “real life” dps anyway, since a big part of the difference between the specs is the rate which they scale with different buffs. Doing your normal rotation solo on a dummy is pretty meaningless.
The conventional wisdom is that currently Mutilate is the highest DPS spec for most fights. It’s not *only* good if you have WD/WD, though that would be best. And of course if you’re comparing CG/WD combat to mutilate using sub-optimal daggers then you’re going to get skewed results.
Regardless, there’s no possible way combat is 1000 dps ahead of mutilate at equivalent gear levels. If you have anything other than anecdotal evidence to the contrary I would be most interested to see it!
Chronic –
You’re right. Let me clarify.
I would consider buying DMC:G for 8k gold… If I had 8k gold. My reference to being casual didn’t mean that I don’t want good stuff. But I’m not a gold-making machine. To make 8k gold would take more time and effort than I spend raiding.
I should have been more clear in my comment.
@ Chronic
I can say that it could have been a weapon issue when I was in mutilate spec, but from bits I’ve read around the forums, once you are fully naxx geared, the optimal spec for PVE raiding is combat, I’ve also had the misfortune of raiding with a caster heavy guild so I lose on a lot of buffs that make rogues uber, so target dummies are actually pretty accurate for me in terms of raid dps.
I apologize if I came off as “venomous”.