Rogue Class Overview

Rogue a pure melee DPS class with three Specializations that all offer different ways to deal damage. While you are limited to only the DPS role as a Rogue it is important to understand how each of these specializations differs so you can better determine which you would like to play, or which will be the best for the specific content you find yourself currently participating in. Rogue operates off of two resource systems, Energy and Combo Points. Energy is a passively regenerating resource that allows you to cast abilities to generate Combo Points. The more Haste rating you have the quicker your Energy regenerates, there are also many tools like Adrenaline Rush that can impact how quickly you are able to generate Energy.Combo Points can be used to cast powerful finishing abilities like Slice and Dice or Envenom. In Mists of Pandaria there are a ton of tools that will allow you to store and transfer your Combo Points like Anticipation and Redirect which make managing your Combo Points even easier.

Rogue has three different specializations: Assassination, Combat, and Subtlety.

• Assassination — Assassination is a master of deception and focuses primarily on doing as much of its damage as possible by increasing the potency of your Poison and Bleed effects. Abilities like Envenom will greatly impact the amount of damage you are dealing with your Poisons while Venomous Wounds makes our bleeds like Rupture even more deadly. Assassination also has the unique cooldown Vendetta which greatly increases your damage done to a single target for its duration, allowing you to deal a ton of damage to bosses and other enemies.
• Combat — Combat offers a unique play style focused entirely around maximizing the amount of Combo Points you spend to benefit from Restless Blades. Restless Blades allows us to use our Killing Spree, Adrenaline Rush and Shadow Blades abilities more often allowing for near constant cooldown usage and consistent damage throughout an encounter of any length.
• Subtlety — Subtlety is often regarded as the highest damage output of the DPS specializations for Rogue in Mists of Pandaria. Subtlety focused on casting as many Ambushs as possible to maximize the amount of time we spend in Find Weakness. This is accomplished by taking advantage of our Shadow Dance and Vanish abilities which allow us to continue to cast Stealth abilities even in the heat of combat.

All three specialization for Rogue are viable in Mists of Pandaria though Subtlety will often be the strongest choice for personal damage done. The most important thing to consider is what you will enjoy the most. Each of the three Specializations has a unique play style and forcing yourself to play a spec because it results in slightly more damage is rarely worth it. It is important to note that regardless of the specialization you choose you will still provide the important Swiftblade's Cunning and Master Poisoner buffs to your group.

Assassination has gone through some changes in Mists of Pandaria but for the most part remains the same. Your primary focus as an Assassination Rogue is to maximize your up time of Slice and Dice and Rupture while spending any excess Combo Points on Envenom. You will primarily generate Combo Points by using Mutilate/ Dispatch. The single largest factor on maximizing your damage as an Assassination rogue is timing your Vendetta, pairing this with powerful raid cooldowns like Bloodlust or an increased damage phase on the boss you are fighting can be a major factor in how much or how little damage you are able to deal.

Combat similar to previous expansions Combat scales incredibly with gear. Combat focuses primarily on cycling through your Combo Points as quickly as possible to benefit from Restless Blades. Your rotation as a Combat rogue is quite simple, the focus is on keeping Slice and Dice and Revealing Strike active while using Sinister Strike to generate Combo Points and cycle through Bandit's Guile to reach Deep Insight as quickly as possible while spending any excess Combo Points on Eviscerate.

Subtlety is often regarded the most consistently high performing specialization of the three Rogue specializations in Mists of Pandaria. Subtlety offers a unique play style centered around maximizing your Find Weakness buff uptime by utilizing cooldowns like Shadow Dance to cast as many Ambushs as possible. Like the other two specs you will have a relatively standard rotation that involves keeping Slice and Dice, Hemorrhage, and Rupture active but this spec will also task you with planning ahead and pooling Energy in order to take full advantage of your Find Weakness windows.

Rogue remains one of the best melee DPS in the game not only because of their ability to deal damage but the incredible amount of utility and crowd control they bring to the table. Smoke Bomb is an incredible tool with many unique interactions that can help mitigate incoming damage and in some cases completely ignore mechanics. Rogue is also one of if not the tankiest melee DPS in the game with abilities like Cloak of Shadows which can completely nullify entire boss mechanics and Feint which when paired with Elusiveness results in nearly unmatched levels of damage reduction. Rogue also provides on demand crowd control with abilities like Blind or Kidney Shot.

Rogue is able to be played as any race but Tauren and Draenei, listed below is a breakdown of each race and how it will benefit you as a Rogue.

• Pandaren is a great choice and can in some situations be the highest DPS increase of the Horde Races. Epicurean doubles your stats gained by food buffs resulting in a considerable increase. Bouncy also halves your falling damage taken but this can be a bit of a redundant benefit. Quaking Palm can also act as an impromptu crowd controlling ability, but especially as a Rogue can only be used in very specific situations.
• Goblin continues to be a great choice but Time is Money will often times fall short of other Horde racials. Rocket Jump is a great way to close the gap in a situation where you do not have Sprint or Shadowstep available.
• Blood Elf can be a useful pick for PvP but does not offer much as far as increases to our damage. Arcane Torrent silences all enemies in melee range for 2 seconds and restores a small amount of Energy.
• Orc is still considered to be one of your best choices for a Rogue in Mists of Pandaria thanks to Blood Fury, but will struggle to compete with Troll due to reworks to Berserking.
• Troll is the default choice in Mists of Pandaria due to how well Berserking synergizes with every specializations DPS cooldowns. Beast Slaying will also be quite relevant as there are a number of Beast bosses throughout the expansion.
• Undead is similar to Blood Elf and does not have a ton of in-combat benefits as a Rogue. Will of the Forsaken is a great tool if you are focused primarily on PvPing.

• Pandaren now becomes the default choice for Rogue as Alliance due to the bonus stats gained from Epicurean. The goal while gearing a Rogue is to maximize your Agility and Epicurean does exactly that.
• Worgen is still one of the best races you can choose as Alliance due to Viciousness which increases our Critical Strike chance. Darkflight can also help quickly close the gap to your target in a situation where you do not have Sprint or Shadowstep ready.
• Human is another solid option as you will receive bonus expertise rating with a Sword or Mace equipped thanks to Mace Specialization and Sword Specialization. This benefit will not help us much if you find yourself playing one of the specializations that uses only Daggers so Pandaren or Worgen are both likely to be better choices. Will to Survive has great uses both in PvE and PvP.
• Dwarf comes with Stoneform which instantly removes any Poison, Disease, and Bleed effects allowing us to Vanish without risk of being taken out of Stealth. Mace Specialization also increases our Expertise with Maces which can make gearing at lower item levels much easier.
• Night Elf is another race to consider but can be a bit more difficult to receive its full benefit from compared to Pandaren or Worgen. Their primary racial Shadowmeld will allow for us to use another Stealth ability during combat making it a great choice if you are playing primarily Subtlety.
• Gnome also does little to increase your damage done compared to other Alliance races but Shortblade Specialization can help you reach your Expertise caps especially at lower gear levels. Escape Artist is another great tool to remove any movement impairing abilities but will see limited uses in PvE.

Rogue can only wear Cloth and Leather, but you should only be wearing Leather. Leather Specialization greatly outweighs any possible benefit you may find by wearing a differing piece due to the emphasis put on Primary stats in Mists of Pandaria. Rogue is able to equip one-handed Swords, fist weapons, one-handed Maces, One-handed Axes, Daggers. In Mists of Pandaria Rogues will no longer use Ranged Weapons. The Weapon you use will depend on the specialization you are playing and plays a large part in what abilities you are able to use.

Assassination will use two Daggers. in Mists of Pandaria Daggers have been normalized in a way that weapon speed will not be a factor and you should almost always opt for the highest item level option. Your stat priority as a Assassination Rogue should be as follows: Agility, > Hit Rating (to 7.5%) > Expertise (to 7.5%) > Mastery > Haste > Critical Strike Rating.

Combat will be using a 2.6 speed weapon in your Main-hand and either another 2.6 speed weapon or a Dagger in your off-hand. Your stat priority as a Combat Rogue should be as follows: Agility > Hit Rating (to 7.5%) > Expertise Rating (to 7.5%) > Haste Rating > Mastery Rating > Critical Strike Rating.

Subtlety will use two Daggers. in Mists of Pandaria Daggers have been normalized in a way that weapon speed will not be a factor and you should almost always opt for the highest item level option. Your stat priority as an Subtlety Rogue should be as follows: Agility > Hit Rating (to 7.5%) > Expertise Rating (to 7.5%) > Haste Rating > Critical Strike Rating > Mastery Rating.

Addons and Macros can greatly improve your quality of life in Azeroth and Pandaria. Listed below are some of our recommendations on Addons and Macros to help get the most out of your time playing the game.