Rogue Leveling Guide

[Damien 1346]

This thread is for comments about our Rogue leveling guide.

[Guest Kozz]

I think that subterfuge is a better tier 1 talent for assassination. You can cheap shot, ambush, and garrote every time, which leaves mobs with very little health, and for the most part allows you to bypass applying rupture to mobs because you get the energy boost from garrote.

[Guest Soyo]

Rogue combat guide for leveling | Leveled as a combat rogue since closed beta vanilla.

single target mobs

revealing

ss

ss

eviscerate

repeat

keep up with deadly momentum glyph

1. slice n dice

2. recuperate (with leeching you're invincible towards mobs if you dont get jumped by a gank party)

in bigger groups activate blade flurry

Dont bother with rupture unless it's a "boss"

Take shadowstep instead of preparation

Mobility => Cds for pvp

Also you can avoid dropping from high heights by shadowstepping to a target on the ground.

Save vanish, evasion, sprint, blind etc for incoming ganking attempts or if you prefer ganking. Abuse shadowstep as much as you can, if it's not on cooldown then you've failed. (closing the gap between you and new targets saves 2-5 secs, which in the end becomes minutes, hours or days if you need that much time).

[Damien 1346]

I think that subterfuge is a better tier 1 talent for assassination. You can cheap shot, ambush, and garrote every time, which leaves mobs with very little health, and for the most part allows you to bypass applying rupture to mobs because you get the energy boost from garrote.

Rogue combat guide for leveling | Leveled as a combat rogue since closed beta vanilla.

single target mobs

revealing

ss

ss

eviscerate

repeat

keep up with deadly momentum glyph

1. slice n dice

2. recuperate (with leeching you're invincible towards mobs if you dont get jumped by a gank party)

in bigger groups activate blade flurry

Dont bother with rupture unless it's a "boss"

Take shadowstep instead of preparation

Mobility => Cds for pvp

Also you can avoid dropping from high heights by shadowstepping to a target on the ground.

Save vanish, evasion, sprint, blind etc for incoming ganking attempts or if you prefer ganking. Abuse shadowstep as much as you can, if it's not on cooldown then you've failed. (closing the gap between you and new targets saves 2-5 secs, which in the end becomes minutes, hours or days if you need that much time).

Thank you guys for the suggestions, I've added most of them in the guide ;)

[Guest crazybear]

Your subtlety leveling guide suggests using shadowdance as a dps cooldown and to spam ambush, but given that ambush requires you to be behind the target it's useless in that manner unless the AI is stunned or attacking someone else.

[Damien 1346]

Your subtlety leveling guide suggests using shadowdance as a dps cooldown and to spam ambush, but given that ambush requires you to be behind the target it's useless in that manner unless the AI is stunned or attacking someone else.

Thank you for this suggestion. I probably had dungeons in mind when I wrote this section for Subtlety Rogues :P The issue has now been fixed, as you can see ;)

[Guest Madeinyashiro]

What king of weapon to use ? Double Dagger ? One slow weapon and the other one a-quick-one ?

[Guest Bernie]

I find several things wrong with the sub levelling guide. Opening with ambush - garotte is much better, especially if you put premeditation up. This shoud give you 5 combo poits to use on a kidney shot. You can then get behind the target and spam backstab and the target will likely be dead (of course, this is assuming you have slice and dice and recuperate up). If theyre not dead, throw a hemo up, gouge, and backstab again (this works only if you take dirty tricks, which i think is a great talent for levelling, specifically for this reason). I have been getting 68k+ crits on my backstabs, making it the go-to attack whenever possible. Another advantage to throwng a 5 poiny kidney up is then you can shadow dance and spam ambush. You dont want to open with cheap shot because using it will put kidney shot on dimininshing returns (yes, it does this in pve. i have checked.) with kidney shot, making a full kindey only last 3 seconds. I promise, using this rotation makes things die so fast, you'll think you're playing a dk or a warrior.

[Damien 1346]

What king of weapon to use ? Double Dagger ? One slow weapon and the other one a-quick-one ?

For Assassination and Subtlety, you want daggers in both slots (note that all daggers now have the same speed). For Combat Rogues, you want a 2.6 weapon in your main-hand slot and either a dagger or another 2.6 weapon in your off-hand slot.

I find several things wrong with the sub levelling guide. Opening with ambush - garotte is much better, especially if you put premeditation up. This shoud give you 5 combo poits to use on a kidney shot. You can then get behind the target and spam backstab and the target will likely be dead (of course, this is assuming you have slice and dice and recuperate up). If theyre not dead, throw a hemo up, gouge, and backstab again (this works only if you take dirty tricks, which i think is a great talent for levelling, specifically for this reason). I have been getting 68k+ crits on my backstabs, making it the go-to attack whenever possible. Another advantage to throwng a 5 poiny kidney up is then you can shadow dance and spam ambush. You dont want to open with cheap shot because using it will put kidney shot on dimininshing returns (yes, it does this in pve. i have checked.) with kidney shot, making a full kindey only last 3 seconds. I promise, using this rotation makes things die so fast, you'll think you're playing a dk or a warrior.

Thank you for this comment. I have amended the guide to reflect what you said :)

[Guest Guest]

For Assassination and Subtlety, you want daggers in both slots (note that all daggers now have the same speed). For Combat Rogues, you want a 2.6 weapon in your main-hand slot and either a dagger or another 2.6 weapon in your off-hand slot.

Thank you for this comment. I have amended the guide to reflect what you said

Just need to amend the opener...the ambush/garotte only works if they take subterfuge. If they dont, opening with garotte is preferrable as it applies find weakness

[Damien 1346]

Just need to amend the opener...the ambush/garotte only works if they take subterfuge. If they dont, opening with garotte is preferrable as it applies find weakness

When it comes to leveling up as a Subtlety Rogue, I'm not certain there is any point taking anything else than Subterfuge as a Tier 1 talent.

[Guest Bob]

Is there a mention of required or sugested percent of hit needed for rogues.I prefer combat but seem to have a terible time getting enough hit at level 85-88. And havent found a trinket even though most of my gear has hit ?

[Damien 1346]

While leveling up, you really shouldn't bother with Hit Rating. Even at level 90, you will still miss a lot of melee attacks because it simply is not worth it to stack Hit Rating beyond a certain cap.

[Guest Roo the Hunter]

First, I wanted to thank not only you Damien, but also the other folks who wrote in on the forums with their insights. I played a combat rogue since TBC (as a distraction from playing my BM hunter) and enjoy him immensely. But with MoP, I haven't been able to figure out all the changes, and enjoyment of playing a rouge went the way of the doo-doo bird - extinct. Poor Wee Willy became a citizen of Storm Wind serving as a mail/bank toon. No more! Tonight, I am going back home, re=spec him to the thoughts and ideas here, and start his epic climb back to 90 and to pvp and to raiding. Thank you folks!

[Guest Alex]

While the talent choices presented are great for killing mobs. However, most quests require a lot of movement around. I really believe taking Nightstalker and Burst of Speed give much more benefit overall, especially in quests that involve "indoor" places like caves.

[briala 5]

I'm not sure how much, if any, of this guide will survive past 6.0, but just in case: the guide text assumes the player will have the Deadly Momentum glyph, but the linked talents & glyphs section chooses 3 different ones.

Edited October 18, 2014 by briala

[Damien 1346]

I'm not sure how much, if any, of this guide will survive past 6.0, but just in case: the guide text assumes the player will have the Deadly Momentum glyph, but the linked talents & glyphs section chooses 3 different ones.

That shouldn't be the case. I'll take a look today.

[Guest Gervi Ataca Bro]

First of all, thank you Damien and all people on this comment section. I really don't have preferences between specs, I like them all, but at the end of the day I just want to pick the faster to level up and I’m not sure which one to pick. I have one dagger and 2 maces as Heirlooms but it's not a problem to farm another dagger. So which spec should I pick?

[Damien 1346]

First of all, thank you Damien and all people on this comment section. I really don't have preferences between specs, I like them all, but at the end of the day I just want to pick the faster to level up and I’m not sure which one to pick. I have one dagger and 2 maces as Heirlooms but it's not a problem to farm another dagger. So which spec should I pick?

Just go for Combat, then.

[briala 5]

When it comes to leveling up as a Subtlety Rogue, I'm not certain there is any point taking anything else than Subterfuge as a Tier 1 talent.

You're taking Nightstalker in the linked talents/glyphs. Maybe an inadvertent copy/paste error, since the rotation still has both Ambush + Garrote on the opener. 

[briala 5]

re: combat rogue perks, I don't understand why gaining Improved Slice & Dice would mean a change to using Instant Poison? Wasn't S&D already up most of the time before the perk anyway?

[Sameight 0]

Good work with updating the guides but i have a question?

 

"When you engage a target, you should always be in Stealth, so that you benefit from  Nightstalker. Open with  Cheap Shot (to stun the target),  Garrote (to benefit from  Venomous Wounds), and  Ambush.

"

can you explain me how this is work with nightstalker how i can garrote and ambush with out leaving the stealth?

is there an mistake should i use the Subterfuge as tier 1 talent?

[Guest Enu]

This is just wrong. Garrote doesn't proc Venomous Wounds anymore in wod. You can check it in patch notes http://www.wowhead.com/guide=2289/warlords-of-draenor-rogue-changes#patch-notes

[Damien 1346]

This is just wrong. Garrote doesn't proc Venomous Wounds anymore in wod. You can check it in patch notes http://www.wowhead.com/guide=2289/warlords-of-draenor-rogue-changes#patch-notes

Thanks, fixed!

[Guest Arriay]

For the Combat section under Perks, you linked to Improved Slice and Dice instead of Swift Poison.