This is a general guide to the WoW Rogue, oriented more towards
leveling, but with some PvP and Raid info. For more detail on specific Rogue talent builds,
take a look at our Assassination, Combat,
and Subtlety Rogue
guides . Our Rogue
leveling guide has more info on leveling faster, as well.
This page is simply intended to provide a general overview of the Rogue class. For a more in-depth and highly detailed resource on Rogues, whether leveling, PvPing, Raiding, or whatever, fully updated for Wrath of the Lich King, check out the Killer Guides Rogue Guide.
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1.0 - The Rogue
Rogues
are a group that I find hard to describe – Not because the class
is so very complicated, although they do have their fair share of
tactical and situational abilities, but rather because it’s so
very much fun, it’s almost hard to find a good place to start.
Rolling a rogue is the discovery of an entirely different world than
that experienced by any other class save druid, the world of stealth,
mystery, and most importantly, awesome PvE and PvP. The sheer
magnitude of what stealth grants our class is what sets us apart from
a simple DPS class and makes us one of the top Arena, Battlegrounds,
and Raiding classes.
Rogues are famed for mayhem and slaughter with a side-dish of being
nigh unbeatable when we choose to be, that is why you might choose
to roll a rogue. That is of course if you haven’t already
done so. The population of rogues per server is a clear indicator
of the class’s popularity, but that doesn’t mean you can’t
set yourself apart from the masses, all it takes is a little bit of
dedication and some gaming skills.
Rogues popularity is in direct proportions to how easy the class is
to play, but what this doesn’t reveal is how hard it is to play right. The
difference between a rogue who chose his class for speed leveling and
ease of use to those who truly master the class is astounding, allowing
for rogues to truly come in all shapes in sizes as skill factors greatly
into respective success or failure.
Overpowered?
The difference is clearly illustrated by game chat. Various people complain about how
other classes have passed the Rogue by for DPS, etc., and the next group, probably slaughtered
by a Rogue in their last PvP match, complains about their being way oveerpowered. Played
right, the Rogue is deadly.
3.2 patch notes:
Here's the 3.2 stuff that's interesting for Rogues:
- Agility - All classes will need 15% more agility per point
of Dodge.
- Dodge rating - All classes will need more rating per point of Dodge.
- For PvPers - The amount of resilience needed to decrease crit damage
and chance will increase.
- Blood Elf Rogues - Arcane Torrent will apply a 3 second
interrupt to non-player controlled targets.
- Axes! - Rogues will be able to use Axes, which is perfect for Orc
Rogues.
- Sword Specialization - will be called Hack and Slash and
applies to axes.
- Mining- provides more Stamina
- Skinning- provides more crit rating
- Glyph of Tricks of the Trade: Will increase
the duration of the damage bonus effect instead of increasing the damage bonus.
3.2.2 Patch Notes
Rogues got a nice little nerf this time around. Users of Envenom will
be happy and it looks like Blizzard was unhappy with Fan of Knives. Fan is great
for clearing out low level instances, as well as adding some AoE damage in the End Game.
It also looks like the devs found an idea to solve the HaT issue.
- Envenom's scaling has been increased from 7% to 9% of attack
power per combo point.
- Fan of Knives: The damage done by this ability has been
reduced by 30%.
- Talents
- Assassination
- Master Poisoner: No longer increases the Deadly Poison
application rate following a successful Envenom and instead now provides a 33/66/100%
chance of preventing Envenom from consuming Deadly Poison.
- Combat
- Throwing Specialization: This talent no longer causes
Fan of Knives to interrupt spellcasting.
- Subtlety
- Honor Among Thieves: A 1-second cooldown is now enforced
on how often a rogue can gain combo points from his party via this talent
Current
Patch notes are here
Rogue Races
However, let us return to step one, as before you lead daring attempts at capturing the
flag or can even think about topping the DPS charts, you have to start from the beginning.
You have one rather large decision to make – What race of rogue should you roll,
and what benefits does each provide?
Alliance Races
Humans: First of the alliance races we’ll be covering is the human, a race composed
entirely of either bulky amazingly muscular males or stupendously disproportionate
females, either way they don’t quite look the part – but that’s
not why we care anyway now is it?
- First off is an incredibly worthless 10% spirit increase passive racial, as a
rogue you will absolutely never notice the effects of this.
- Next up, Diplomacy, is quite a step up from the previous
ability, offering yet another 10% bonus, however this time it’s to faction/reputation
gains, and with the entirety of Outland and Northrend being one massive faction grind it can’t
hurt to have it. This will also let you gain Battleground faction just that much faster and gain access to the nice gear offered by the quartermasters there.
- Perception one-ups even the reputation gains should you be an avid PvPer, the
increase to stealth detection allows you to detect those pesky Rogues and Druids just before they attack. This comes into play more often than not when Arena teams are running with
at least one rogue, which is often, even if we aren't at our PvP peak these days. If you are not on a PvP server and you don't PvP then this ability is fairly useless.
- Finally we gain an increase to swords and maces skills, five points, useful in
raiding I suppose for absolute min-maxers but then again I don’t raid on a human rogue
so I can’t exactly tell my tales of how great or unnoticed this improvement
is. Either way it can’t hurt now can it?
- Breaking Free - Very useful for PvP this ability allows the human Rogue to break free from roots and snares every two minutes. Much less useful outside of PvP.
Night Elves, likely the most popular alliance race for rogues despite the fact that
it possesses the absolute worst rogue racials possible, other than a Spirit increase, namely a Free stealth of
inferior quality.
- The meld ability adds to the Rogue's stealth skill, but requires immobility. Good for lurking in ambush or going afk, but not much else.
- All in all I’d say that if you’re playing your rogue right you won’t
need the increase to ghost run speed, we’re stealth assassins, made for
tactical and skillful play, not constant corpse runs unlike other classes.
- The best Night Elf racial is a +1% dodge increase. Hardly wonderful since we're not
tanks.
Dwarves have stoneform as the only notable racial, and it can be
especially in crucial PvP situations, although funnily enough this is largely a
defensive racial for fighting other rogues. Fortunately this happens a lot
so Stoneform does come in handy to the wary and prepared dwarf rogue, all one of
them in existence. In the 3.1 patch this was changed to being something that will wipe poisons, disease, and bleeds. Very useful Vs. Rogues and Death Knights.
- Increased critical chance with guns. If you would rather use guns rather than throwing weapons this might be an intereting racial bonus.
- Increased resistance to Frost... Ummm.... Why bother? Better than nothing.
- Treasure finding - useless in PvP and raiding, nice while leveling. Makes leveling your lockpicking skill easier as the boxes you need to pick show up along with other treasures.
Gnomes can easily be said to be the greatest alliance PvP
race (along with humans) due to the usage of a single racial, escape artist, the
woe of all classes (that use snares, roots, and stuns) bundled up into one root/snare
breaking ability with a 1 minute 45 seconds cooldown. How cool is that?
Not so useful if you don't PvP.
- The Increased Int is useless for Rogues, since Rogues have no use for brains.
- Resistance to Arcane damage has some minor PvP utility.
- Increased engineering skill is ok if you choose to level that profession as there are a number of Engie trinkets that Rogues will find useful .
Horde Races
Trolls. Blech. (Just referring to racials, here.) Unfortunately they
still have likely the worst racials in the game for anything other than leveling, an old
throwback to beta times when regeneration was turned into the abomination it is today.
- Regeneration now grants a completely worthless and pathetic boost to health regeneration. Use a bandage, it's much better.
- Secondly you have Berserking, an ability that costs us energy to
improve attack speed, in theory not all that useless when considering raid scenarios,
but I’ve
seldom used it otherwise except when testing my DPS on random trash mobs. It's a 10% increase,
but if you're severely wounded it can go as high as 30%. A 10% speed increase is quite
nice for raiding and so-so for PvP and leveling, where you're focusing more on burst
damage than sustained DPS.
- Beast Slaying is a straight up 5% bonus to all damage dealt when
fighting beasts, quite nice given how many animals there are in the World of Warcraft
leveling grind, not so hot for PvP and most raids.
- Oh, and you gain a 1% increase to throwing weapons (and bows) critical chance, this might
sort of yet probably not help if you use deadly throw more often than you really
should. Since you're not a Hunter this isn't so useful.
- A Reduced duration of snares/roots is nice for PvP, though not nearly so useful as
the break free that Humans and Gnomes get. If you PvP then it's useful.
Orcs on the other hand get far more of the good horde racial abilities, namely blood fury and hardiness, both of situational brilliance for rogues.
- Blood
fury is a good, almost great, talent for improving your DPS when you have no
fear of taking damage, or at least not to the point of requiring heals.
- Hardiness on the other hand is a useful partial counter to any class that uses stuns. It doesn't sound like much until you note the number of people complaining about Orc stun resistance.
- Axe expertise - this became useful with the 3.2 patch, since
all Rogues can now use axes.
- The increased damage by pets is something that you will never use, so Zzzzz....
Undead are a staple PvP Class.
- Will of the Forsaken, a racial granting
temporary immunity to fear, sleep, and charm as well as breaking any already
present effects of these types. Quite useful for fighting Warlocks, Priests,
etc. Not so useful outside of PvP.
- Cannibalize is fairly gnarly to rub it in whenever you kill someone, also
a great leveling regeneration talent. Why bother with /spit after you've killed another
player when you can eat that player?
- Finally, underwater breathing is cool because
it saved my life when I went AFK underwater to grab a drink while doing a quest,
nothing better than avoiding a corpse run. Also I suppose you could use
it to pull off Rambo imitations via lurking in the water waiting for unsuspecting
Alliance. Otherwise? Well, there are some underwater quests (and lockboxes to be picked) where this ability would be useful, but a potion of water breathing is a least as worthwhile.
- Resistance to Shadow Damage. Yawn. Ok, every little bit helps.
The final race to cover on the horde side is Blood Elves, gaining...
- Arcane Torrent, the real gem, which silences nearby casters for two seconds and restores a small amount of energy
- The increase to Enchanting skill has no direct usefulness,
- A bit of magic resistance is occasionally nice to have, but will rarely be noticed.
Tradeskills
Basically, our recommendation is to skip the crafting skills and to go with the Herbalism
and Skinning gathering skills. Engineering, leatherworking, and alchemy might be the most
generally useful crafting professions, for Rogues, if you have to take one.
Primary skills - Generally the crafting skills are too expensive to be
worthwhile for leveling, unless you have plenty of cash and don't mind taking the time
to work them up.
- Leatherworking has a lot of nice items that you can create and use.
Skinning is a natural match
- Alchemy has a number of useful potions.
- Inscription also
has a very nice shoulder enchant and is cheaper to level up than many profession. Higher
level glyphs sell very well in many cases, making this profession a potential
cash cow. You'll still have to gather (or buy) a ton of herbs.
- Engineering has a number of useful gadgets and may be worth the expense.
- Blacksmithing has a couple of useful weapons, but is a very expensive
profession to level if you want those. It's easier to buy the mats and hire a Blacksmith
to make your item.
- Jewelcrafting & Enchanting have little value while leveling. If
you need gems or enchants it's much easier just to buy them from a crafter or off the
AH.
- Tailoring is of very little use to a Rogue.
First Aid and potions are the only methods we possess for healing and they both can
serve to boost your leveling speeds dramatically. Never underestimate the Gouge and First
aid combo whether it’s a PvP or PvE situation. This macro works just fine even when
you don't have a target. Just bind it to a key and hit that key whenever you need to bandage
yourself.
1st Aid Macro
(change the bandage type to whatever bandage
you are using:)
/cast Gouge
/stopcasting
/use [target=player] Heavy Netherweave Bandage
Secondly
Cooking combined with Fishing can ease the price of food while leveling should
you feel like picking them up, Certain fish and some cooked foods sell well, so there's gold potential here. Neither of these skills take up a profession slot
making it easy enough to pick both up.
Out of the true profession skills, I personally like picking up
gathering types (herbalism and skinning) as Rogues are probably the
best hunter/gatherer class in the game, making it an easy method of
building up massive stores of excess cash for Raiding materials, epic
flying mounts, etc. Also...
- High level Herbalism will give you a decent heal, topping out at 3600 points, over
5 seconds, at the 450 skill mark. This is the most useful of the abilities gained from
the gathering skills. Also, herbs sell quite well for good prices.
- Skining will increase your crit rating , providing a 1-3% increased chance to crit,
depending on your skinning skill and your level.
- Mining will increase your Stamina to a max of +60 at the 450 skill mark.
Inscription also has a very nice shoulder enchant and is cheaper to level up than many profession. Higher level glyphs sell very well in many cases, making this profession a potential cash cow.
For information on leveling your Rogue's lockpicking abilities check out this Rogue Lockpicking guide
3.0 - Rogue Abilities
Rogue skill and talent trees
are quite fun to play around with, made all the more so by the fact
that whether you choose to specialize in any given tree or not, all
the abilities will likely remain in common use due to the simple requirement
of variety to remain viable as a rogue.
Combat rogues may find themselves using assassination, assassination
rogues use sinister strike/eviscerate, and of course all rogues utilize
the subtlety skills such as stealth, pick pocket, distraction, etc.
This sheer variety means you’ll have to section out what exactly
you need in any given fight, then add on whatever abilities you think
you might need to use, and final preparations demand
you find some room for all the obscure yet still potentially required
abilities that fill up our skill trees.
Assassination
Assassination fulfills the traditional image of the rogue
to one degree, giving us massive critical strike damage from stealth, a whole slew
of finishing move improvements, and the majority of our useful stuns/disorienting
strikes. This talent tree also makes great use of one of the Rogue's unique abilities, Poisons.
The main combo point builder in the Assasination tree is Mutilate, which requires
daggers, but most of the other talents in this tree don't require daggers. If
you want to be the poison master while using swords or maces then this is a good tree to
take.
Ambush, Eviscerate, Cheap shot, all these rogue staples utilized by each and every
build type of rogue at one point or another, cheap shot seemingly being the combat
rogue opener of choice for PvP and PvE, ambush for straight up assassins, and eviscerate
is something all of us use.
Kidney Shot and Rupture are also used somewhat by those who recognize the need to. Kidney
shot being a powerful and quite useful mid-fight stun via combo points while Rupture
is a finishing move bleed attack keeping the target from re-stealthing/potentially
slaying them should they be low on HP.
For more, see our Rogue Assasination page
Combat
Combat is filled to the brim with basic attacks such as Sinister Strike, Gouge,
and of course Backstab – something all rogues must have used or had used on
them at one time or another. This presents another part of our firepower in
combat, generally working in synergy with assassination abilities to dish out big
numbers quite frequently.
Sinister strike is obviously the primary and likely most spammed/mashed key on any
rogue's keyboard from 1-80, being the primary method of building combo points on a
target outside of specific talents as well as a fairly nice damage increase on its
own.
Gouge and Kick both can be used as interruptions, gouge for emergency bandaging
and both Gouge/Kick for interrupting enemy spellcasters when needed, quite useful
for grinding Mage-type mobs or in PvP.
The Dual Weild Specialization and Precision (which increases your chance to hit) are two skill from this tree that any Rogue should seriously consider taking, regardless of build.
For more on the Combat tree, see our Combat Rogue page
Subtlety
Subtlety comprises all our rogueish abilities, such as the ability to stun targets
from stealth and effectively disable/remove them from a fight, distraction for tough
stealth sections or simply to get the advantage when opening a fight.
Additionally you pick up Vanish quite early on, a major lifesaver for any rogue, something you’ll definitely want
to make the instant it becomes available. Pick pocket is a decent money maker
on top of killing the mobs after you steal what you can.
Finally we come to Blind, an amazingly great mid-fight interruption for anything
you need, whether that be time to re-stealth, bandage yourself, or just run away
and live to fight another day – Yet again this applies to both PvP and PvE
encounters.
Shadowstep is a wonderful talent to play with and is great in combination with Ambush or any other opener. The Shadowdance skill, which hard to get sorted out, is an amazingly brutal skill once you do get it worked out.
Also see our Subtlety Rogue page for more on this spec.
Poisons
Poisons are unique to Rogues and allow you to apply extra damage, DoTs, and other effects.
Once upon a time there was a poison quest needed to learn how to create the poisons that
you will be applying to your weapons. Nowadays you just buy the poisons from a vendor and
the quest isn't needed. Still, if you want to give it a try, here's a poison
quest walkthrough (for Horde and Alliance.)
The Horde poison quest is tougher than the Aliance quest, by quite a bit.
The Alliance quest can be done without killing anything, the Horde quest requires killing
a 23 Elite. Both have a box that you have to open (which just happens to be great for improving
your lockpicking skill) and both will poison you when you open the box. Your 1st Aid anti-venom will
zap the poison, as will completing the quest chain.
- Instant Poison - Use this exclusively while leveling, on both weapons.
Just like the name says, it's an instant burst of damage.
- Crippling poison more useful in PvP it also has use when fighting
mobs that run away. Of course, so does Rupture.
- Deadly Poison applies a DoT (Damage over Time) to the opponent. It
can stack multiple times and so, in theory, can do more damage than instant over
a long fight. So use this when fighting elites in instances, or bosses. Otherwise
the mobs die too fast for it to be useful while leveling.
- Wound Poison Does instant damage and supresses heals. Useful against
mobs (or players) where healing is a significant factor, otherwise use Instant instead.
- Anesthetic Poison - does some instant damage and removed an Enrage effect,
which makes it useful for raids but only rarely for leveling.
- Mind Numbing Poison - Slows the opponent's casting speed. Of some
use against casters, but it falls far behind Instant and Crippling for
general use.
Lockpicking
Lockpicking is another unique Rogue skill. It's the path to ultimate riches, piles
of Epics.... Well, maybe not. The main use for Lockpicking is to unlock the various boxes
that are found throughout the game, some of which may actually, on occasion, contain something
interesting.
If you're opening a lot of boxes or picking a lot of locks you might want to get a
Glyph
of Pick Lock.
With a couple of differences, the Horde and Alliance lockpicking quests are very similar.
In both cases the trainer will send you to a spot where you have to open a chest. There
just happen to be a lot of other chests there, on a fast respawn, which will allow you
to work your skill up to 100 or so, if you're at least level 20 and have a lot of patience.
(Your Lockpicking skill is limited to 5x your level.) Get to the chest open it, return
and hand it in.
The Alliance quest has higher level mobs along the way, the Horde quest has a certain
level 50 parrot... Don't forget to use your ECAC!
Past that, the box at the end of the poison quest will allow you to work your skill as
high as 170+. Picking the pockets of mobs will provide boxes to practive your skill on.
Also, various areas have boxes scattered around that you can open. Ask you trainer for
details, and if you want more detail then here's
a full lockpicking
guide.
Pickpocketing
3.5 Rogue Stats and Mechanics
As for your basic stats :
- Agility - This is your main stat, by far. It adds to your Attack Power, Dodge, Crit Chance, and Armor. Especially as you level you want gear and enchants that add agility.
- Each point of Ag provide 1 Attack Power
- Each point of Ag provides two armor
- Crit rating and Dodge rating are increased on a sliding scale. This means that as you level increases so does the amount of Ag needed to get 1% of either dodge or crit.
- Stamina - This is your second imprtant stat, though it's well behind Agility in importance for leveling. If your health is too low to survive the damage from what you're fighting then get more Stam on your gear. Stam is much more important for PvP.
- Strength - Strength does add to Attack Power, but gives the Rogue nothing else. Skip Str in favor of more Agility or Stam.
- Intellect - Rogues have no use for Int. (We don't need no stinkin' brains!) We have no mana pools and no other skills or abilities that relate to Int in any way.
- Spirit - As with Int, Rogues have no use for Spirit.
Other stats that are useful and start appearing on gear at higher levels. These are more or less in order of desireability:
- Hit Rating - This number increases your chance to hit the opposition. The Dual Weild skill used by almost all Rogues imposes a large Hit penalty. Not quite so important for leveling, very important for PvP and more so for Raiding.
- Crit Rating - Directly increases your chance to critically hit the opposition. You can never have enough.
- Expertise - Reduces your opponent's chance to avoid your attacks. Very nice, especially for raids.
- Attack Power- Directly increases your damage.
- Haste Rating - Increases the speed of your attacks.
- Armor Penetration - Less useful than it looks at first glance. The amount of armor ignored by this stat is pretty trivial. This stat gets a 25% buff with the 3.1 patch. This may make it a little more useful.
- Resilience - A special stat with less value outside of PvP. This stat reduces your chance to be crit, the damage taken from crits, and reduces the damage take from Damage Over Time attacks (DoTs.)
The table of numbers - here are the amounts of each stat that you need to get to 1% effect.
|
Level 60 |
level 70 |
level 80 |
Cap |
Agility for 1% crit |
29 |
40 |
83.33 |
none |
Hit
(for +1% chance to hit) |
10 |
15.77 |
32.77 |
787 @ 80 |
Crit |
14 |
22 |
45.91 |
none |
Expertise |
10 |
15.77 |
32.79 |
214* |
Attack Power |
14 AP adds +1 DPS (Damage per Second) |
none |
Haste Rating |
10 |
15.7 |
32.79 |
?? |
Armor Penetration Rating (to ignore 1% or opponent armor) |
4.7 |
7.4 |
15.39 |
?? |
Resilience (-1% chance to be crit and -1% dot damage, -2.2% crit damage) |
25 |
39.4 |
|
1230 |
* to prevent opponenet dodges whilke attacking level 80 boss mobs from behind
3.6 - Gems to Equip:
Skip the green level gems, the blues are listed below and they're cheap enough (you do have
a few gold to your name, right?) The Epics can get a bit pricey, though.
Red:
Blue:
Yellow:
Purple:
Green:
Orange:
Meta:
- Chaotic Skyfire Diamond - +21 crit rating and +3% Increased Critical Damage -
requires 2 blue gems
- Relentless Earthsiege
Diamond - +21 Agility & 3% Increased Critical Damage - requires 1 each
of red, yellow, and blue gems
- Swift Skyfire Diamond -
42? Attack Power and minor run speed increase, which does not stack with
the Fleet Footed talent. Requires 2 yellow
and 1 red gem. (The in-game tool-tip says 42 AP, WoWhead.com says 24 AP.)
Enchants:
Head:
Shoulder:
Cloak:
Chest:
Wrists:
Gloves:
Waist:
Legs:
Boots:
Ring:
Weapons:
- Berserking - Enchanting
or Auction House Scroll
- Mongoose - Enchanting
or Auction House Scroll
- Accuracy - Enchanting
or Auction House Scroll
This section is only an overview of Rogue leveling, check
out our Rogue
Leveling Guide for more information.
4.0 - Leveling Up
Leveling as a rogue is actually quite
fun in my opinion, more so than that of likely any other class. One
reason for this is that rogues, alongside Hunters and Death Knights, represent the fastest
leveling classes in the game by leaps and bounds.
Secondly would be the fact that the class simply becomes more fun
as you level, the enjoyment factor increasing as
you pick up each new tactical and intriguing ability, cheap shot, ambush,
etc. Most the the Rogue's strikes play as if they were intended for PvP.
Rogues use energy to drive their special strikes. No energy, no specials, so energy management becomes important. Combo points (CP) drive your finishing strikes and you get CPs from your opening strikes and special strikes (such as Sinister Strike.)
Rogue Focus Classic is a recommended addon that will help you keep track of energy and CPs.
Finally, and everyone who inhabits a PvP server will most likely agree with me on this one, rogues are one of the the ultimate ganking classes in the game. We not only possess the tools to avoid an attempted gank and survive quite easily, but are also the premier PvP class throughout 1-60 with only a small decline on the way to 70 (and a bit more on the way to 80.)
If you're on a PvP server consider maximizing your stealth skills, especially if you're doing the ganking.
Openers
- Cheap shot - Locks up your opponent for a few moments. By the time it wears off you will have likely done 30-50% of the mob's health. You will probably have done more than if you opened with Ambush.
- Ambush - Must be stealthed and behind the opponent, which means you have to position yourself more carefully. With a few talents you will have a very high crit rating on this strike. At high level, with good weapons, Ambush + Sinister Strike/Mutilate + Eviscerate can unload a lot of damage very quickly.
- Garrote - Also must be stealthed and behind the opponent. Causes an 18 second bleed, but the mobs will die too fast for it to do all that much damage. Better for raiding or PvP than leveling.
Finishers
- Eviscerate - Uses up all your CPs in one damage burst.
- Kidney Shot - Much like Cheap Shot, KS locks up your opponents. More CPs = longer stun duration. Great for cancelling your opponent's actions (such as spell-casting.)
- Rupture - Not so useful for leveling, nice for certain PvP situations, very useful in raiding and instances (where things don't die immediately.) Also useful when fighting mobs which run away. Rupture before they run and watch them die over there.
- Envenom - Nice for raiding, but not better than the others, in that it uses up your Deadly Poison on the opponent, for instant damage, then increases the chance (briefly) to reapply poisons. Not so useful for leveling since mobs die too fast.
As you level use Instant Poison on both weapons. You are dual weilding, aren't you? Mobs will die too fast to make Deadly Poison worthwhile and the other poisons are more specialized.
Combat Rogue Leveling
Using daggers, swords, or maces, Combat rogues are the fastest leveling types of an already speedy killer, however they pay for this consistent and immense damage output by being the most boring as well. Despite all my comments on rogues being fun and such, this enjoyment factor evaporates when you spend all your time mashing sinister strike and eviscerate.
Unfortunately for combat rogues, that is the only method of maximizing your potential DPS. However things can be spiced up by pulling multiple mobs at a time and blasting our Adrenaline rush/Blade flurry/Killing Spree to drop groups of five to six monsters at the same time.
Leveling will be both fast and efficient, but don’t expect things to magically become fun at higher levels, expect to be mashing 1,1,1,2 for the rest of your combat rogue life, not very fun in my opinion, but still effective.
For more on this build see our Combat Rogue page or our Rogue Leveling Guide.
Assassination Rogue Leveling
This is currently the spec of choice for raiding and for PvP, and it's no slouch for leveling, either. You will be using daggers, so if you really love your swords you'll have to put them on the shelf. Siniste Strike remains your "bread and butter" attack until level 50, at the earliest, when youi spend your 41st talent point on Mutilate.
Assassination is a slightly slower leveling experience, but much more interactive, this can count as either a pro or a con depending on what you’re looking for from 1-80. Many players would rather blast the music and watch a movie when grinding, others would rather have all attention focused on the game, this is for the latter as the former will be more suited to Combat’s style.
Assassination is all about poisons and the set-up, beyond that everything should die quite easily if you’ve properly prepared and opened the fight as you should be doing. The preparation part is largely due to a specific assassination talent (Remorseless Attacks) that increases critical chance massively for a short duration after each kill, making it paramount to swift killing that you get to the next Mob and open with Ambush before it wears off.
As you progress through the tree you’ll pick up a number of improved finisher talents and eventually cold blood, all of this improving your burst DPS to insane amounts for the brief amount of time required to kill a given mob, but no more than that – lengthy fights will put the odds against your survival.
With proper set-up and usage of the abilities given you by assassination you’ll be capable of killing mobs before they break stun or have time to retaliate, an easily enjoyable leveling style. At high levels you will likely be killing mobs before your stealth cooldown is finished.
For more on this tree see our Assassination (Mutilate) Rogue page.
Subtlety Rogue Leveling
Subtlety leveling is an odd mixture between Assassination and combat without truly matching either them in speed, but then again it represents amazing utility and freedom as to how you wish to combat any given opponent –a real king of the thieves style tree. While you won't be chopping down the mobs as fast as the other trees you will definitely feel more Rogue-like. Mutilate builds hit harder, but Subtlety is more fun.
Almost every talent improves our ability to both control and escape fights if need be, giving us amazing combo-point generation, stealth capabilities, and eventually the ability to even reset the entirety of our cooldowns.
Hemorrhage becomes your primary strike in your 30s. It's more energy efficient than Sinister Strike and is likely a bit better in overall effectiveness.
Shadowstep is a fun, short range, teleport than puts you behind the opponent for a quick Ambush or ...
Shadowdance has a steep learning curve and requires careful button set up, but when used right can be brutal.
Subtlety is not my recommended leveling build, being a little slower than the others, but also that it’d be a pain for anyone new to rogues to master and make efficient. But pretty much any style of rogue will level fast, regardless or the build, so pick this if it seems to fit your playstyle desires.
5.0 - PvP
41/15/25 Mutilate PvP
This is a very popular PvP build. Since it's a Mutilate build you are looking at daggers here. You main hand dagger should have the highest damage range possible (to get better damage from yor specials.) All things being equal this is usually the slowest dagger you can find at your level. The off-hand weapon should be the fastest one you can find, for more poison procs.
While some other classes may have passed Rogues in PvP effectiveness a well played Rogue will still get a lot of kills. The secret to your survival lies in a good understanding of your stuns, blind, dismantle, and good Energy and Combo Point management.
See our Mutilate Rogue page for more details.
6.0 - Raiding
Level 70 gear oriented towards assassination rogues, but usable by all Rogues, and almost all of it pre-raid/heroic gear. For the combat rogue gear list check further below. Level 80 gear is along the same lines. You can find some good pieces on the Auction house if you have the cash. Honor and Arena gear is also a good start until you get the better raid gear.
See above for gems
Helm:
Helm of the Claw - Quest Reward
The Night Watchman - World Drop BoE
Neck:
Traitor's Noose - Drop(Heroic Slavepens)
Jagged Bark Pendant - Drop(Botanica)
Back:
Cloak of Malice - Drop(Shattered Halls)
Delicate Green Poncho - Quest Reward
Cloak of the Inciter - Drop(Shadow Labyrinth)
Shoulders:
Sun-Gilded Shouldercaps - Drop(Black Morass)
Shoulderpads of Assassination - Drop(Sethekk Halls)
Chest:
Chestguard of the Dark Stalker - World Drop BoE
Hauberk of Karabor - Quest Reward
Wrist:
Shackles of Quagmirran - Drop(Heroic Slave Pens)
Armwraps of Disdain - Drop(Heroic Underbog)
Blade Dancer's Wristguards - World Drop BoE
Hands:
Handgrips of Assassination - Drop(Black Morass)
Gloves of the Unbound - Drop(Arcatraz)
Belt:
Socrethar's Girdle - Quest Reward
Epoch's Whispering Cinch - Drop(Heroic Durnholde Keep)
Legs:
Oilcloth Breeches - Quest Reward
Leggings of Assassination - Drop(Shadow Laybrinth)
Boots:
Boots of the Unjust - Drop(Heroic Auchenai Crypts)
Felboar Hide Shoes - Quest Reward
Rings:
Lightwarden's Band - Reputation Reward(Aldor, Revered)
Band of the Exorcist - Vendor(50 Spirit Shards)
Ring of Umbral Doom - Drop(Botanica)
Trinkets:
Hourglass of the Unraveller - Drop(Black Morass)
Bladefist's Breadth - Quest Reward
Core of Ar'kelos - Quest Reward
Weapons:
Whispering Blade of Slaying - Drop(Shadow Labyrinth)
Twin-Bladed Ripper - Quest Reward
Borak's Reminder - Quest Reward
Illidari-Bane Dagger - Quest Reward
Ranged:
Emberhawk Crossbow - Drop(Arcatraz)
Wrathfire Hand-Cannon - Drop(Shadow Labyrinth)
Hemet's Elekk Gun - Quest Reward
This is the Combat rogue gear list, generally from sources similar in difficulty to the above list.
Helm:
Darkguard Face Mask - Drop(Auchenai Crypts)
Helm of the Claw - Quest Reward
The Night Watchman - World Drop BoE
Neck:
Talon Lord's Collar - Quest Reward
Traitor's Noose - Drop(Heroic Slavepens)
Jagged Bark Pendant - Drop(Botanica)
Back:
Delicate Green Poncho - Quest Reward
Cloak of Malice - Drop(Shattered Halls)
Cloak of the Inciter - Drop(Shadow Labyrinth)
Shoulders:
Mantle of Perenolde - Drop(Durnholde)
Sun-Gilded Shouldercaps - Drop(Black Morass)
Shoulderpads of Assassination - Drop(Sethekk Halls)
Chest:
Chestguard of the Prowler - Drop(Heroic Ramparts)
Chestguard of the Dark Stalker - World Drop BoE
Hauberk of Karabor - Quest Reward
Wrist:
Shackles of Quagmirran - Drop(Heroic Slave Pens)
Armwraps of Disdain - Drop(Heroic Underbog)
Blade Dancer's Wristguards - World Drop BoE
Hands:
Predatory Gloves - Drop(Heroic Mana-Tombs)
Handgrips of Assassination - Drop(Black Morass)
Gloves of the Unbound - Drop(Arcatraz)
Belt:
Socrethar's Girdle - Quest Reward
Epoch's Whispering Cinch - Drop(Heroic Durnholde Keep)
Legs:
Warpscale Leggings - Drop(Botanica)
Retainer's Leggings - Reputation Rewards(Scryers)
Oilcloth Breeches - Quest Reward
Leggings of Assassination - Drop(Shadow Laybrinth)
Boots:
Boots of the Unjust - Drop(Heroic Auchenai Crypts)
Felboar Hide Shoes - Quest Reward
Rings:
Lightwarden's Band - Reputation Reward(Aldor, Revered)
Longstrider's Loop - Drop(Mana Tombs)
Band of the Exorcist - Vendor(50 Spirit Shards)
Ring of Umbral Doom - Drop(Botanica)
Trinkets:
Hourglass of the Unraveller - Drop(Black Morass)
Bladefist's Breadth - Quest Reward
Core of Ar'kelos - Quest Reward
Weapons:
Blinkstrike - World Drop BoE
The Bladefist - Drop(Heroic Shattered Halls)
Vindicator's Brand - Reputation Reward(Aldor, Exalted)
Latro's Shifting Sword - Drop(Black Morass)
Edge of the Cosmos - Drop(Mechanar)
Revenger - Drop(Botanica)
Ranged:
Emberhawk Crossbow - Drop(Arcatraz)
Needle Shrike - Drop(Underbog)
Skyfire Hawk-Bow - Drop(Shattered Halls)
Hemet's Elekk Gun - Quest Reward
7.0 - 1-80 Rogue Leveling Guide
Regardless of which build you shoose you will find leveling to be relatively easy. Still, there are thousands of quests and a bazillion mobs to kill (not to mention other players, but they don't count here.) Sorting out which quests are best and which series of quests will get you to 80 the fastest is another game, which is why we highly recommend a full-blown 1-80 leveling guide.
Zygor's
Guide is the one we use and recommend. Zygor's is an in-game guide and it nearly automates the whole leveling process: you just pick your starting point
and the guide tracks which quest you're on, tracks the quest objectives, and automatically advances and updates as you complete your tasks and quests. In addition, a waypoint arrow is set automatically, so you never have to wonder where to go. All of the important quest
info is included in the guide so you never have to wonder what to do.
You will probably never need to look at your quest log again, much
less browse Thottbot.
Grab your copy here or read
our review. |
