How to Rogue - WotLK Edition

[Morfiend]

Hey guys,

So I recently resubbed my WoW account, and I think I am going to start playing my Rogue again. He is currently level 70, with a full set of t5 and lots of other good gear. He was my main since release up until WotLK. Anyway, it seems like they have changed a lot since I last played and was hoping for some leveling spec and rotation advice.

I have found a bunch of end game info, so I am ok with using EJ and AJ for that stuff, but its hard to find leveling info.

I prefer to use Swords for leveling, but I am not against using daggers if vastly superior. I have swords and daggers of equal quality (SSC / BT).

My current talents are Muti, but I am not feeling it flow with HfB and having to use DoTs and stuff, so I am thinking about repspeccing. My current build is here.

Thinking about something like this HERE.

What do you guys think? Should I stick with muti or can I go combat?

[Cadaverine]

I did 70 to 80 with a Mutilate spec, and daggers, and it went by plenty quick, other than disliking leveling of any sort.  I just had quest gear, and a few instance drops, nothing fancy.

[Rendakor]

I'd stick with mutilate; this is the spec i'd go with:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#f0ecoexoVbkIuVo0xZhb:TI

Made a few minor adjustments: the 1p in Imp Evis is useless, just use Envenom; Imp Kidney and FF are also less than ideal; 5p in DW Spec is pretty mandatory too.

[Sheepherder]

Rendakor, FF is quite good for level grinding, and if your on a pvp server Deadly Brew is a must.

[Rendakor]

Fair enough; drop the 1p in Deadened Nerves and 1p from Focused Attacks for FF. Drop FA entirely if you want Deadly Brew as well; I deliberately left out most of these PVP talents as he didn't specify server type.

[Morfiend]

I think that having Camo and FF will probably improve my leveling speed more than a tad more DPS. Now when building for a raid, of course you want the most possible DPS. I am honestly not sure why I put one in Imp Eviscerate. It was late when I did it.

Was going to put my next 5 points in to DW Spec. Was just trying to cover the core talents from what I remember in BC.

The way I usually play is:

CS > Muti > KS > Muti > Evis. Mob dead.

[Teleku]

So how are rogues these days?  Can you still obliterate non tank'ish chars with a good gank spec?  Or where they nerfed badly?

[Rendakor]

The way I usually play is:

CS > Muti > KS > Muti > Evis. Mob dead.

Envenom > Eviscerate. If you're not running deadly, start.

If you're not using Rupture, drop HfB (or open with Garrotte).

[Merusk]

I only have problems with Warlocks and their damn blueberry shields and Druids with that fucking hot spam.  Well.. I really only have problems with druids if I miss the CS or KS.  

I'm only 49, though.  Workin' my way up and I've only noticed I'm getting stronger, unlike my other classes that seemed to have dips and preferred ranges. (Fuck you level 19 hunters)

[Fordel]

So how are rogues these days?  Can you still obliterate non tank'ish chars with a good gank spec?  Or where they nerfed badly?

Rogues are still Rogues. Anything that isn't protection spec is meat 1v1 and they have many, many potential Arena Team/Comps to play on.

[Shrike]

Rogues are rogues. Combat seems to be in the resurgance in my guild. Friend of mine plays an assassination build. Seems ok, though really squishy if my paladin isn't there to tank for him. Still, he seems to do fine. Damage output is very good.

In the BGs, my twink arms warrior pretty much used rogues as chew toys through the 29 and 39 brackets. I really don't want to be them in the 49 bracket, since I actually get some useful talents by 45. It's gonna be ugly and I'm going to enjoy it immensely. 

[Merusk]

Funny, wars are meat for my rogue.. unless they're carrying a shield, then I run away.    They DO get pissy when you sap, cheapshot, blind/vanish, cheapshot, and disassemble them, tho.

[Sheepherder]

The first time I saw myself replenish a five stack of deadly in the span of three seconds after an Envenom I was in love.  Apparently it's changed now though.

[Rendakor]

Envenom doesn't even consume your Deadly stacks anymore, assuming you have Master Poisoner.

[Draegan]

I never played a rogue past level 6 (same with druids) and this makes me want to give it a shot.  I still have a day or two left on my free 7 days WOW gave me.  I think I'll make one tonight.

Don't rogues start with dual wield these days?  I thought I read that somewhere.

[Morfiend]

Don't rogues start with dual wield these days?  I thought I read that somewhere.

Yeah, they do. Cause these days its so hard to get to level 10. 

[Draegan]

It is when you play for 15 minutes like I do and then you get bored!

Here's my thought process:
I think I'll make a new character after not playing for months!
Ok I'll start tonight...
This will be slower because I don't have BOA stuff... bah oh well.
This will be slower because I'm not RAFing this time... Ooooh 3x as long.
Why am I doing this all over again?  It's going to take me a month before I get to the fun stuff.
/quitbeforeIlogon

[Jayce]

It is when you play for 15 minutes like I do and then you get bored!

On some fundamental level, ADD and MMO are two TLAs that don't work well together.

[Draegan]

It's not ADD in my case, it's I've fucking done this 100 times already and everything between level 1 and at least 70 is a gigantic journey I don't really feel like taking by myself.

I'll probably play again when Cataclysm comes out since the 1-60 experience will be revamped.

[Fordel]

Rogues will start with DW come 3.3.

[Selby]

While we are on the subject of rogues... how about leveling one?  I made it to 25 on my rogue back when TBC was new.  I haven't touched her since.  Years ago combat + swords was the only way to level and I died more times than I cared to remember or admit.  Have things improved or was I doing it wrong then?  How does one "do it right" now?

[Gobbeldygook]

You will die a lot before you get vanish.  Then at level 22 you get vanish and you will die about as much from 22-80 as you did from 1-22.  Bind it somewhere comfortable, you're going to hit it a lot.

Combat is still by far the best way to level.  I level as muti from about 60-80 because I was willing to buy two BOA daggers.

[Shrike]

I haven't played my rogue much lately (lately being last two years). She's picked up one or two levels in WotLK. She's 58...I think. Yeah, I play her that often.

She doesn't have much trouble killing stuff and very rarely dies. She's combat and does use swords--for a while yet. It's simple. Get in something's face and kill it. Or, if you want a change, sneak up on something, garrote it, then kill hit. Or sap it...wait, then kill it. Or if it has friends, sap, blind, kidney shot, then kill them all with blade flurry. Elite? Adrenaline rush usually handles that, with maybe an evasion if it gets froggy. She's good at killing. I just don't like playing rogues much. I've thought about twinking her for the 59 bracket BGs, but...I don't like playing rogues and their gear costs a mint. Don't have any stashed away, either.

Eh. It's an easy class to play. I just don't care for it. Not sure why, but I don't.

[Nightblade]

It is when you play for 15 minutes like I do and then you get bored!

On some fundamental level, ADD and MMO are two TLAs that don't work well together.

They go about as well together as "Game" and "MMORPG". (Not very)

[Ralence]

Rogues are probably the easiest levelling classes if you're doing it solo.  The ability to pick targets, and not die when overwhelmed is ridiculous.  As for levelling, swords is really the only way to go up until 70, as their just aren't many daggers available until then, after that, I switched back and forth between ass/combat for pve, and really didn't find much of a difference, aside from keeping HfB up constantly, which was just an annoyance.

One thing I would be wary of at this point would be levelling a DPS only class, with dual-spec, every healer and tank is also a dps, so I'd imagine getting groups would be even more difficult as a class that can't be a tank/healer, but then again I'm a tank/healer on both my chars, so maybe I'm just seeing things through different glasses.

[Selby]

One thing I would be wary of at this point would be levelling a DPS only class, with dual-spec, every healer and tank is also a dps, so I'd imagine getting groups would be even more difficult as a class that can't be a tank/healer, but then again I'm a tank/healer on both my chars, so maybe I'm just seeing things through different glasses.

Depending on the server, very much so.  Some groups form and don't mind low DPS, but most people audit gear and will take the most geared person in LFG over someone else with lesser gear.

[Merusk]

Rogues are probably the easiest levelling classes if you're doing it solo.  The ability to pick targets, and not die when overwhelmed is ridiculous.  As for levelling, swords is really the only way to go up until 70, as their just aren't many daggers available until then, after that, I switched back and forth between ass/combat for pve, and really didn't find much of a difference, aside from keeping HfB up constantly, which was just an annoyance.

One thing I would be wary of at this point would be levelling a DPS only class, with dual-spec, every healer and tank is also a dps, so I'd imagine getting groups would be even more difficult as a class that can't be a tank/healer, but then again I'm a tank/healer on both my chars, so maybe I'm just seeing things through different glasses.

On the first: Heirloom items fix the Dagger problem very handily.  They're always as good as a decent blue of your current level, and keep the same DPS as the heirloom swords.  Plus, no need to go dungeon crawling, which is a problem at low levels right now but will be less of one as soon as we get 3.3, I hope.  That hope also extends to really hoping it fixes the dual-dps problem that Mages, Locks and Rogues have.  I don't expect it really will, though.

[Gobbeldygook]

Depending on the server, very much so.  Some groups form and don't mind low DPS, but most people audit gear and will take the most geared person in LFG over someone else with lesser gear.

For heroics, I seriously just take whoever responds first.  It takes forever even just do to a /who on everyone in the queue, much less armory them.  Even someone in full 245 or better will only do about double the DPS of a scrub in blues.  Whatever gain in clear time you gain from having someone really good will be lost by time spent in the LFG queue looking for them.  The only exception are unguilded DKs.  I simply do not group with them.

[Draegan]

So I played a rogue up to level 10 last night.  Undead.

I was using Zygor's tourguide since I like to watch movies and barely play the game.  It dumped me off at level 10 and said I should be level 11 after completeing 3 quests and I had to grind 60% of a level.  I thought this was WOW.

Anyway, leveling to 10 took forever it seemed.  Compared to RAFing anyway.

Yeesh.

Anyone feel like giving me a quick and dirty leveling talent guide for combat?

[Zetor]

I'd give a combat rogue guide, but I haven't really touched my rogue since WOTLK. Still, just by glancing at the tree I'd say you should put all your points in combat until you get the 51-pointer, which is awesome-on-a-stick. Combat rogues can also kill 2-3 enemies at a time easily with the "adrenaline rush + evasion + blade flurry + /yell over 9000!111" macro.  Use instant poisons to start, switch to deadly later. Probably not worth to pick a weapon specialization while you level (unless you have heirlooms). Improved SS is a must, after that DW spec, riposte, the parry talent are probably good followups.


It's kind of a tangent, but I just leveled a druid from level 1 to 80 in the last few months (off-and-on play) and literally never had to grind at all. In fact, I found myself doing green quests all the time and had to skip entire areas because I was outleveling them just by doing the aforementioned green quests.

That said, I did use two heirlooms for the xp bonus, but even without that, I don't think you ever need to grind when leveling. You might need to change leveling zones if you run out, but you do that anyway as you level.

[Draegan]

Oh I'm pretty sure there are quests out there, actually I know there are, it's just that my guide sucked.

[Rasix]

Here's my rogue. Built to survive, built to level.

I did a few levels using a mutilate build.  It was really hard to pull off with the equipment I took into WOLK with this character. I mainly just leveled him to 68 toward the end of TBC with the thought that he'd just be an alchemy/transmute mule.  His gear was terrible, so WOLK early on was a struggle with very low HP and low DPS weapons.  Mutilate is fun, but there are a few things that somewhat annoyed me for leveling: HfB is a pain (I'd leave it out), there's absolutely NO AE (am I missing something here?), and there's a defnite lack of "ohh shit" buttons beyond your normal rogue toolset.  

That being said, I haven't leveled with him that much, but a combat build with the killing spree glyph has been easier.  If Borderlands and Dragon Age hadn't come out, he'd be 80 right now with likely 2 different mutilate specs.  I think mutilate is more fun and definitely has some nice PVP stuff, but it doesn't seem to be as handy for solo quest grinding.  

Goal is to get the rogue to 80 and then maybe the druid.  That way when the xpac hits I can choose a new main from warlock, shaman, dk, rogue or druid, all while leveling a new goblin hunter (most likely).   I tend to pick a new main twice an xpac.  

edit: Am I mistaken or is SND a requirement for doing anything with a rogue nowadays?  I even find it's necessary to have up and running even while just killing mobs for quests.

[Draegan]

At level 10 I was using SND after 2 combo points, then getting 2 more then using the other finishing ability.

[Nebu]

edit: Am I mistaken or is SND a requirement for doing anything with a rogue nowadays?  I even find it's necessary to have up and running even while just killing mobs for quests.

To be honest, a combat spec rogue will kill things so fast that it's almost not worth using SND.  When I'm mindlessly grinding quests, I just spam my normal attack sequence and only pay attention if I pull more than 3.  Even then, with multi pulls it's more about using cc than it is about maximizing attack speed.  Sure, using SND will aid in your efficiency, but even con mobs will die so fast that you'll hardly notice a difference unless you pull multiple mobs or you're fighting an elite. 

Edit: My rogue was an alchemist, so my downtime was near zero. 

[Shrike]

SnD is useful on elites. Otherwise, generally not worth the trouble. If you have blue weapons (heirloom), stuff is going to die FAST. Really fast.

If you're combat and like picking on elites, talent it. If not, don't bother. It's not much good in PvP either. Better things to do with those combo points. You will want it if you're raiding.