This guide is simply intended to provide a general overview of the Rogue class. For a more in-depth and highly detailed resource check out this killer Rogue guide, here.

Click here for our Rogue Class Guide, also we have pages for specific Rogue builds: Assassination, Combat, and Subtlety.

• 1.0 - Introduction
• 2.0 - Talents
• 3.0 - Gear & Progression
• 4.0 - Leveling 1-80

Introduction

Rogues, like hunters, have a really easy time leveling; you could even say it’s in the class's pixilated blood.   Running through monsters like a meat-grinder and hitting with enough force to bash even warriors down, the Combat Rogue poses one of the greatest leveling threats of all.

However, it’s not only pure burst-DPS, also known as smashing power, that gives Combat Rogues or even Rogues in general their immense advantage over all others, it’s cooldowns.  Cooldowns that include everything from vanish, blind, cloak of shadows and much more.

While no longer the premier ganking machines in the game, a well-played Rogue can do very well in PvP and in Raids and they're a blast to play.

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.

Current Patch notes are here

2.0 – Talents

• If you want to use daggers instead of sword/axe, swap out the Hack and Slash talent and take Close Quarters Combat instead.
• Assassination talents are in Red
• Subtlety talents are in blue

Note: You'll get better effect sticking with dagger/dagger or sword/sword builds. Don't mix dagger/sword(axe) since you'll lose out on useful talent points.

Build #1:

• Open with Cheap Shot or Ambush, Sinister Strike until 5 combo points (CP) are reached, then Eviscerate.

Build #2:

• Open with Garrote, then Sinister Strike until 5 CP, then Rupture or Eviscerate.

In Build #1 we pick up an Assassination talent, Malice, early on. Given how useful this talent in particular happens to be (more critical hits,) any reasonable build of Rogue picks it up at some point or another.

Also early on comes dual-wield specialization. Not only does this allow more damage, but more chances to apply poisons. DW does take a penalty to the "to hit" chance, but the overall damage increase is moe than worth it.

Precision is a passive increase that dramatically aids the combat rogues style of play in general.  You'll land a few more hits overall which is useful in leveling and very important in raiding. Precision is an increase of 5% white damage, meaning simple attacks, as well as negating the chances of any special attacks, yellow damage, from missing on pretty much any occasion (dodges, parries, etc. all still apply.)

Hack and Slash provides an overall 5% increase to your white damage through extra sword swings. .

Blade Flurry is another surprisingly useful talent.  For a single point to pick it up initially, I was quite surprised at how often I ended up using this ability to either save myself from unintended multi-mob fights or simply to boost XP per hour by pulling a group of monsters every two minutes. It stacks with Slice and Dice to give an even faster attack speed. Blade Flurry + Slice and Dice + Adrenaline Rush makes for some serious hacking and slicing.

Weapon Expertise reduces the enemy's chances of parrying, dodging, etc.

Adrenaline rush is, much like Blade Flurry, a surprisingly good talent to pick up, offering yet another survivability cooldown for boss/group fights or simply boosting your XP per hour by popping the ability every 5 minutes for a few quicker kills.

Vitality & Combat Potency: well, vitality is a rather un-noticed yet definitely helpful increase to energy regeneration, not much else to say about that one, however with combat potency we get a massive increase in energy depending on your luck with procs. In general, Rogues are starved for energy and Vitality is a solid help.

Surprise attacks rounds out the tree with a flat 10% increase to Sinister strike as well as a few other abilities.

Killing Spree is a fun little talent that adds a nice amount to your damage.

Relentless Strikes really helps with energy regeneration and Ruthlessness is a nice little combo point builder

PVP - If you're on a PvP server then the Master of Deception talent, from the Subtlety tree can be a lifesaver. They can't gank you if they don't see you. Lifewise, it will make it easier for you to gank them. Stealth is your lifeblood, especially in PvP. Drop 3 points from something and get into M of D.

3.0 – Gear & Progression

Stats:

• Agility is the all important stat. It adds to your damage and your defenses. It's by far the most important stat for Rogues.
• Stamina is very important. Since you will be face to face (or back) to the opposition 100% of the time, and since you have no heals, you need to have enough health to survive.
• Strength adds to your Attack Power, so has some small utility
• Intelligence and Spirit are absolutely useless to a Rogue.

Other Stats:

• Hit Rating - Precision will help a lot here. While leveling you don't need much additional Hit Rating. Once you start in PvP and Raiding you will need more.
• Crit Rating - The more the merrier. Always.
• Attack Power - A straight add to damage. Good stuff.
• Haste Rating - Better for long term fights, such as in Raiding. Mobs die to fast while leveling for this to be a lot of use.
• Armor Penetration - Used to be a yawner. A little better since the 3.1 patch, but not great, especially while leveling.

Gearing a rogue is, like with most other melee classes during the leveling process, all about maximizing damage while leaving just enough stamina for a reasonable health.  In this case your primary statistics will be agility, +critical, +hit, and attack power.

What comes first is agility, it combines all the damage stats and improvements desired rolled up into a single stat choice, and even shows up on 90% of leather armor to boot.  Increasing +critical, dodge, and attack power are second to agility.

Second comes individual stats such as +attack power and +critical, often you’ll find these in greater amounts on items with higher numbers of stamina or other single stats – Whether this makes them worthwhile to equip or not is up to you.

Enchants - Unless you have lots of extra gold don't worry about enchants. They more useful, even necessary, in raiding and PvP, but they are an expensive luxury while leveling. If youi have the gold then look for Agility, Crit rating, Hit Rating, and Stamina, more or less in that order.

Gems - You won't find too many pieces of gear that require gems while leveling, but there are a few. If you can afford it look for Agility, Crit rating, Hit Rating, and Stamina.

Gear - You look good in leather, remember that, since it's the only armor you'll ever wear. Look for the above stats and skip anything with Int or Spirit. Rogues aren't as gear dependent as some classes, but nice gear always helps. Every once in awhile check the Auction House for upgrades and grab what you can afford. Every few leveles is fine.

Fast or slow weapons? You will want the hardest hitting weapon you can find for the main hand (which will usually be the slowest weapon you can find) and a fast off-hand weapon. The slow weapon will provide bigger hits from your specials (such as Sinister Strike) and the faster weapon will allow poisons to be applied more often. Use two dagger or two swords. There are exceptions, but generally you'll gimp yourself by using (specializing in) two different weapon types.

Professions - While leveling, unless you already have a ton of cash, skip all of the crafting professions.They are way too expensive. Yeah, there is some nice gear to be had with leatherworking and tailoring is the only one that's useless (since you don't use cloth armor,) but they're all expensive to level up. So unless you're rich I suggest you stick with mining, herbalism, and skinning (pick any two.) Work those hard, sell your stacks of ore/herbs/skins on the Auction House, and you will have enough gold to buy your mounts and some decent items.

4.0 - The 1-80 Leveling Blast

As you probably know, there are thousands of quests in the World of Warcraft and a few zillion monsters to slay (not even including other players.) Keeping track of all those quests, looking up the details (perhaps on thottbot.com,) and figuring out where to go and what to do can become a drag, at times.

To keep track of it all, and level quickly and easily, we've been using Zygor's Guide. Zygor's automates the whole leveling process, for any class. Not by playing the game for you, but by keeping track of everything, telling you where to go and what to do, and including all the info you need to complete each quest.

Pick your starting point and the guide automatically updates and advances as you complete quests, sets a waypoint arrow automatically, and includes the important quest info. You will probably never need to look at your quest log again, much less browse Thottbot. Hitting level 80 in well under 10 days (in game time) is easy and, if you're fast and efficient, and playing a Rogue, you might be able to hit Zygor's advertised time of 7 days.

Grab your copy here or read the review.