Mists of Pandaria Classic Combat Rogue Leveling
On this page, you will find our level-by-level Combat Rogue leveling guide for WoW Mists of Pandaria Classic.
Combat Rogue Leveling in Mists of Pandaria Classic
Combat Rogue remains one of the strongest leveling classes in the game. As a Combat
Rogue your focus is on maximizing your damage output to quickly deal with enemeis and minimze your own incoming damage. In Mists
of Pandaria there have been significant changes to
Bandit's Guile which makes leveling as Combat even better as you will no longer
have to worry about losing your progress into
Deep Insight while swapping targets as your current target dies while leveling. The single biggest
increase to quality of life while leveling your Rogue in Mists of Pandaria is
Glyph of Deadly Momentum that causes your
Slice and Dice and
Recuperate to be refreshed to their original duration any time you land a killing blow that
yields experience.
Combat Rogue Leveling Spec

Below also includes a breakdown of each of your options talent wise while leveling. In Mists of Pandaria you will unlock a new row of talent selections every 15 levels, starting at level 15. The goal of our talents recommended is to maximize your up time and damage so you can quickly progress through each zone.
Level 15 Talents
This tier of talents is focuses on maximizing the benefit of your Stealth ability and augments
some of your abilities while Stealthed.
Shadow Focus reduces the Energycost of all of your abilities by 75% while
Stealthed. While leveling this should be your default choice. Your largest limiting factor while dealing damage while leveling will be the availability of Energy so any chance to make your abilities cheaper should be taken.
Subterfuge causes your
Stealth to break 3 seconds after dealing or taking damage as opposed to breaking instantly. As mentioned above the largest limiting factor while leveling your Rogue will be energy, while it would be great to be able to
Cheap Shot your target and then quickly
Ambush them this will end up slowing us down in the long run.
Nightstalker increases your movement speed by 20% while
Stealthed and increases your damage done by 50% while Stealthed. The increased movement speed while stealthed is incredible and the bonus damage can help you quickly dispatch your enemies but again the availability of Energy is key while leveling and the majority of our damage done while leveling will be outside of Stealth.
Level 30 Talents
This tier of talents focuses on ways to mitigate incoming damage in very different ways.
Nerve Strike causes the target of your
Cheap Shot and
Kidney Shot to deal 50% less damage for 6 seconds after the stun fades. While leveling this is an incredible talent that will greatly reduce your damage taken. You will often be using
Kidney Shot when fighting against an Elite or any monster dealing more damage than you are comfortable dealing with so the added damage reduction for the 6 seconds following this can help keep you alive until your next stun is available.
Combat Readiness reduces incoming damage by 10% each time you are hit stacking up to 5 times. While this is a great talent especially when fighting groups of multiple enemies its rare that we will ever gain the full benefit of this, giving
Nerve Strike the slight edge. It also synergizes poorly with
Evasion which we will be aiming to use often while leveling.
Deadly Throw consumes Combo Point to deal damage, slow and interrupt the target. This can be a great tool to slow or kill a fleeing enemy while leveling but its uses are far too niche to consider while leveling unless you are constantly finding yourself in PvP scenarios or are leveling via battlegrounds, and even in those situations
Nerve Strike will likely be a stronger choice.
Level 45 Talents
This tier offers a few different ways to increase personal survivability.
Cheat Death causes an otherwise fatal attack to reduce you to 10% of your maximum health and reduces damage taken by 85% for 3 seconds. The majority of your deaths while leveling will come at a surprise, this allows for a buffer that can let you quickly
Vanish or even
Sprint away from your enemy.
Leeching Poison can be used as a non-lethal poison causing your attacks to have a 50% chance to heal you for 10% of the damage dealt to the target. The healing received from Leeching is definitely a bonus while leveling but due to the nature of leveling it is rare we will be able to benefit much from this healing as mobs will often die after just a few hits. Assuming
Recuperate is active this can also lead to some unnecessary overhealing.
Elusiveness causes your
Feint ability to reduce all incoming damage by 30% while it is active. This is a great choice in a situation where you find yourself constantly fighting enemies dealing a considerable amount of damage but most of your time leveling will be spent dealing with low health enemies where your Energy and global cooldowns are better spent dealing damage.
Level 60 Talents
This tier of talents is centered around mobility and maximizing our uptime on the target through a few different options.
Burst of Speed increases your movement speed by 70% for 4 seconds and removes any slowing effects. While leveling this should be your default option, the ability to move quickly between groups of enemies is often times your largest limiting factor as a Rogue and if you can burst from group to group instead of having to mount up this can quickly shave time off your levels. This is also incredibly strong when paired with
Shadow Focus which makes it nearly free.
Shadowstep instantly teleports you behind your target and increases your movement speed by 70% for 2 seconds. This is a great ability to maximize your uptime on a target but while leveling it is rare that we will need to be hitting the same target for more than a few seconds so maximizing our uptime is not a major concern.
Cloak and Dagger causes your
Ambush,
Garrote, and
Cheap Shot to teleport you behind your target. We will be entering and exiting
Stealth countless times throughout the leveling process but similarly to
Shadowstep the ability to gain a 70% movement speed increase for a small amount of Energy is just too good to pass up.
Level 75 Talents
This tier of talents increases the effectiveness of your crowd controlling abilities and allows you an entirely new way
to stun your enemies with Paralytic Poison.
Prey on the Weak causes the target of your
Kidney Shot,
Cheap Shot,
Gouge,
Blind, or
Sap to take 10% more damage for the duration of the effect. This acts as an essentially free increase to our damage against targets we will be stunning. While leveling the easiest way to mitigate incoming damage is a well timed Kidney Shot so the ability to deal even more damage to this target can help killing the target before they are able to resume attacking you.
Paralytic Poison is a utility poison that causes you to stun your target upon reaching 4 stacks. The added stun here can be helpful when fighting against Elite mobs but you will rarely be fighting a mob long enough to receive the benefit of this, and the randomness of it makes it difficult to interrupt enemy spell casting.
Dirty Tricks causes your
Gouge and
Blind to now be free and no longer break from your periodic damage dealt by bleeds like
Rupture or your poisons like
Deadly Poison. This is a great way to immediately crowd control an enemy you are actively engaged with, but it is rare that this will be of any use as often times Blind will be used on an off target and Gouge is usually just an impromptu interrupt.
Glyphs
Glyphs in Mists of Pandaria are still a major part of the leveling process but not quite as much as previous expansions. In Mists of Pandaria Prime Glyphs have been entirely removed, Major Glyphs are often situational benefits in combat and Minor Glyphs are exclusively cosmetic or quality of life benefits, but understanding how each of these works can help your leveling process tremendously.
Major Glyphs
As any Rogue specialization there are two Glyphs you should pretty much always be running, Glyph of Deadly Momentum, and
Glyph of Recuperate. Deadly Momentum refreshes our
Recuperate and
Slice and Dice back to their original duration
any time you kill an enemy yielding experience. As Combat we lack abilities like
Cut to the Chase so Deadly Momentum is even
more valuable while leveling as Combat. Glyph of Recuperate increases the potency of the heal-over-time effect. The single largest way
to increase your leveling speed is by constantly being gaining experience and any time spent out of combat healing will slow this down.
Listed below are some other options to consider while leveling.
Glyph of Cloak of Shadows causes your
Cloak of Shadows ability to reduce incoming physical damage by 40% while Cloak is active. While leveling you will constantly be dealing with both types of damage so this can help us mitigate Physical damage in a situation where you are not encountering much incoming Magic damage.
Glyph of Expose Armor causes your
Expose Armor ability to instantly apply all 3 stacks to the target granting you the full effect of
Weakened Armor. It is rare we will be using Expose while leveling but this greatly increases the potency of it per cast.
Glyph of Feint increases the duration of your
Feint ability by 2 seconds. In any situation where you are constantly using
Feint this is a great option.
Glyph of Sharpened Knives causes your
Fan of Knives to apply 1 stack of
Weakened Armor to any target hit. If you find yourself leveling in dungeons or grouping up consistently with other Physical damage dealers this is a great way to increase their damage.
Glyph of Evasion increases the duration of our
Evasion by 5 seconds. Evasion is one of our best tools when dealing with multiple enemies or just one heavy hitting physical damage dealer, so the added duration makes us even tankier.
Minor Glyphs
Minor Glyphs as mentioned above will only offer you quality of life or cosmetic benefits in Mists of Pandaria. While their in combat effects can be limited these Glyphs can make it considerably easier to traverse the map and get to your next quest even quicker.
Glyph of Blurred Speed causes your
Sprint ability to let you walk on water while it is active.
Glyph of Safe Fall greatly increases the effectiveness of
Safe Fall.
Glyph of Poisons increases the speed you apply Poisons to your weapons by 50%.
Leveling Rotation
While leveling as a Combat Rogue your primary focus will be on keeping your Recuperate and
Slice and Dice buffs
active while generating as many Combo Points as possible with
Sinister Strike/
Revealing Strike.
Any excess Combo Points you have should be spent on
Eviscerate but again only when Recuperate and Slice
and Dice are already active. Spending Combo Points will also help cycle through out cooldowns with
Restless Blades
which gives us increased access to some of our largest damaging abilities like
Killing Spree.
Rotation
Highlighted below is a rough priority order of things to consider while you are leveling and how to optimally deal damage.
The priority order is as follows:
- Keep
Deadly Poison active;
- When exiting from
Stealth open with
Cheap Shot;
- Maintain
Slice and Dice and
Recuperate, these will be refreshed by
Glyph of Deadly Momentum but if you find yourself without one or the other make sure to reapply it as quickly as possible;
- If you find yourself taking more damage than you are comfortable consider casting
Kidney Shot to stun your enemy and allow
Recuperate to heal you up;
- Remember you can always use
Vanish to exit combat if you find yourself at risk of dying;
- Use
Killing Spree and
Adrenaline Rush early and often, it is better to have them on cooldown than waiting for the perfect moment to use it and potentially missing out on uses;
- Keep
Revealing Strike active;
- Use
Sinister Strike to generate Combo Points if
Revealing Strike is active;
- With 4-5 Combo Points cast
Eviscerate if
Recuperate and
Slice and Dice are already active;
- If you are fighting 2-5 enemies continue to follow the highlighted priorities above but with
Blade Flurry active;
- If you are fighting 6+ enemies spend your make sure to keep
Blade Flurry active but switch to casting
Fan of Knives to generate Combo Points and use
Crimson Tempest to spend any excess Combo Points if
Slice and Dice and
Recuperate are active.
Changelog
- 14 Jun. 2025: Guide created.