Classic Rogue DPS Guide
Welcome to our Rogue DPS guide for WoW Classic, tailored for PvE content. Here, you will learn how all you need to know to play the Rogue class as DPS. Click the links #below to navigate the guide or read this page for a short introduction.
If you were looking for TBC Classic content, please refer to our TBC Classic Rogue DPS guide.
Introduction
Rogue has access to a lot of CC abilities such as 
Gouge, 
Sap,
Kidney Shot, and 
Blind, as well as 
Crippling Poison
and 
Mind-numbing Poison, which makes them incredibly useful in groups,
especially dungeons. Rogues also have an ability called 
Expose Armor,
which is very useful in a group where either your Warrior tank is not using
Sunder Armor or your group does not have a Warrior tank at all.
If you are talented into Improved Expose Armor, then Expose Armor will
reduce more armor than Sunder Armor.
Strengths
Has Lockpicking, which is a fantastic way to make gold without worrying about combat or survivability.
- Very powerful burst in PvP thanks to Stealth, allowing you to open on a target at your own discretion.
- Amazing crowd control abilities (
Blind, 
Sap, 
Kidney Shot).
- High base damage on moves such as
Eviscerate makes them strong even when undergeared.
- Stealth allows safer exploration of areas.
Weaknesses
Can be very difficult to level due to lack of self healing.
- Rogue is not able to do much AoE damage beyond
Blade Flurry's cleave effect.
- Rogue abilities have long cooldowns that are very impactful, such as
Vanish, 
Evasion, and 
Sprint.
- Some abilities require reagents, which also take up inventory slots, such as Blind, Vanish and poisons.
Rogue Viability
Rogues are an incredible addition to any group, but especially in a scenario where your enemy
is susceptible to crowd controlling abilities like in PvP or dungeons. While not the strongest
melee damage dealer, Rogue is still capable of dealing a ton of damage in both PvE and PvP. Rogues are
second only to Warrior when it comes to Physical damage output, but are unmatched when it comes to their
ability to crowd control for short periods of time thanks to powerful abilities like 
Cheap Shot,
Kidney Shot, and even Gouge. Rogues have the ability to either completely avoid
unwanted encounters thanks to their 
Stealth ability or quickly exit from combat by taking advantage
of their 
Vanish ability, allowing you to pick and choose your fights as a Rogue.
How Do Poisons Work and Where To Get Them?
Poisons are incredibly powerful and one of the biggest class-specific things
Rogue has available. You will get access to poisons at Level 20, after you complete
the quest Mathias and the Defias (for Alliance) or Mission: Possible But Not Probable
(for Horde). This quest will also give you access to the
consumable recipe 
Recipe: Thistle Tea. Poison has its own skill rating that
starts at Level 100 and increases by 5 for each level, up to a maximum of 300. You can
purchase all the reagents for poisons from the Poison Supplies vendor in any capital
city, normally near the Rogue trainer. For more information about Rogue quests, please
refer to our dedicated guide.
List of Poisons
Instant Poison is the main raiding and PvE poison. As Alliance, you will use
this on both your weapons, and as Horde, you will only use it on your Off-Hand to benefit
from 
Windfury Totem, granted by Shamans.
Deadly Poison provides more DPS than Instant Poison, but takes up a debuff
slot, meaning you need to coordinate this with your Raid leader.
Wound Poison is very effective when you are dealing with a Healer.
Mind-numbing Poison is a fantastic poison for combat against Mages, Warlocks,
and Priests.- Crippling Poison should be on both your Main Hand and Off-Hand, which will
help you slow your target, thereby preventing an escape.
Best Races for Rogue in Classic
The following is a list of best to worst race choices for Rogue when engaging in PvE content.
The following is a list of best to worst race choices for Rogue when engaging in PvP content.
Human
Humans are the best race for Alliance PvE and raiding, mainly because of the racial
passive 
Sword Specialization with the Combat Swords build. This will
allow you to go over the 300 Weapon Skill cap at Level 60, which will further reduce
your chance to miss an attack or get blocked, dodged, or parried. You will also
gain the Racial cooldown 
Perception, which is great against other Rogues
that are Stealthed, or Druids that are stealthed with 
Prowl.
You will also gain 
Diplomacy, which helps with reputation grinds by
increasing your reputation gain substantially. 
The Human Spirit
grants you increased Spirit, which does not increase your damage directly, but
instead increases your Health regeneration rate, which will help improve the leveling
experience by decreasing the amount of time you have to wait in between pulling mobs.
Lastly, you will get the Racial passive 
Mace Specialization, which does
not benefit Rogues, since you will be using either Swords or Daggers.
Dwarf
Dwarf is not as strong of a choice for Rogue as Human is for PvE content. For PvP,
Dwarf has access to 
Stoneform, which removes all Poison, Bleed, and
Disease effects, while also increasing your armor for the duration. This is incredibly
powerful, letting you remove Rend from a Warrior, a poison effect from another Rogue,
such as Crippling Poison, or removing other DoT effects in order to safely
Stealth with Vanish without it getting broken shortly after.
You will also gain the other Racials 
Find Treasure,
Frost Resistance (which will be useful in Naxxramas in later phases), and
Gun Specialization.
Night Elf
Night Elves have the Racial cooldown Shadowmeld, which passively
increases your Stealth level. This does not make Night Elves better than the other
available Alliance classes.
Nature Resistance is a slight Nature Resistance buff, which is
great for the Night Elf starting areas, since there are a lot of Nature magic-based
creatures. 
Wisp Spirit allows for faster leveling, since it is
very easy to die as a Rogue when you accidently pull too much, due to Rogue's lack
of self-healing. 
Quickness is a slight Dodge chance increase.
Gnome
Gnome is the best choice for Alliance PvP, due to their Racial Ability
Escape Artist, which helps you get out of any movement impairing
effects, such as 
Entangling Roots or Engineering Net Traps. Rogues also
will usually have access to the talent 
Improved Sprint, which means, as a
Gnome, you can run something other than that talent for something that adds more
DPS. When it comes to PvE, Gnomes are not nearly as strong of a choice as Humans.
Gnomes also have access to Arcane Resistance,
Expansive Mind, and 
Engineering Specialization.
Engineering Specialization will allow you to use higher tier Engineering bombs
and other items than your level bracket will allow.
The following is a list of best to worst race choices for Rogue when engaging in PvE content.
The following is a list of best to worst race choices for Rogue when engaging in PvE content.
Orc
Orcs have access to the Racial passive 
Hardiness, which is
unbelievably powerful in PvP, meaning Orcs have a 30% total chance to resist
stun effects. This is very strong in mirror matchups against other Rogues, since
you will have an increased chance to resist Cheap Shot and Kidney Shot,
as well as Engineering bombs. Orcs also have the cooldown 
Blood Fury,
which is an extremely powerful cooldown and one of the best Racials for PvE
in general. When using this Racial in PvP, make sure to be mindful of the reduction
in your healing effects, which lasts 10 seconds longer than the Attack Power buff.
You also get the Racials 
Command and 
Axe Specialization,
which do not affect Rogues.
Undead
Undead is another very strong choice for PvP, due to the Racial cooldown
Will of the Forsaken, which can not only be used to get out of these
status effects, but also to provide an immunity to them. This is not a useful
cooldown for PvE.
Undead also have access to 
Shadow Resistance, which is useful
against Warlocks, 
Underwater Breathing, and 
Cannibalize.
Troll
Trolls have access to the Racial cooldown 
Berserking, which has
a niche of being most effective at low health. Getting the full 30% requires you
to be fairly low health, which is not something you actively want to do.
Trolls also have 
Regeneration (which is fantastic for leveling,
as you will have to wait less time in between pulling mobs), 
Bow Specialization,
Throwing Specialization, and 
Beast Slaying, which
do not have much impact on Rogue.
Best Professions for Rogue
Professions can offer many unique and powerful benefits both inside and outside of combat and allow you to further optimize your damage output and survivability as a Rogue. As a Rogue, Engineering is far and away our best profession due to the power of many of the gadgets and gizmos you can create. Other professions offer mostly out of combat benefits.
Engineering allows you to craft all kinds of gadgets, gizmos and bombs to aid you in combat. As a Rogue, your AoE capabilities
are incredibly limited so being able to add bombs like 
Goblin Sapper Charge allows you the ability to deal a quick burst
of AoE damage which can help kill a group of hostile players or burn through a trash pack inside of a dungeon or raid. There are
many other powerful gadgets like the 
Goblin Rocket Helmet which adds another tool to our already massive arsenal of crowd
controlling abilities allowing you to likely be able to re-stealth during a PvP encounter. If you decide to take Engineering
consider pairing it with Mining which will allow you to farm your own materials that can otherwise be quite costly.
Gold is incredibly important in WoW Classic for a number of reasons and will be quite hard to come by, especially at the start. Check out the Rogue Goldmaking section for more information on other potential professions for making gold.
Season of Discovery
Find our new guides for Rogue in WoW Classic Season of Discovery below! The new game mode will have players find and utilize Runes that can then be engraved onto their gear to provide them special bonuses that augment already existing abilities or allow the class to use entirely new spells.
With the introduction of new Runes in Season of Discovery, not only will old builds be increased in power, but Rogue now has the option of being played as a Tank.
Changelog
- 04 Jan. 2025 (this page): Updated for Phase 2 of Classic Anniversary.
- 04 Jan. 2025 (this page): Updated for Phase 3 of Classic Anniversary.
- 17 Nov. 2024 (stats page): Reviewed for Classic re-release.
- 16 Nov. 2024 (rotation page): Updated for Classic re-release.
- 16 Nov. 2024 (talents page): Updated for Classic re-release.
- 11 Nov. 2024 (gear page): Updated for Vanilla re-release.
- 11 Nov. 2024 (enchants page): Updated for Vanilla re-release.
- 11 Nov. 2024 (this page): Added viability section.
- 30 Oct. 2024 (this page): Modernized page, combined several relevant pages together, and added Season of Discovery links.
- 02 Dec. 2020 (gear page): Updated for Phase 6, added Naxrammas BiS Gear.
- 02 Dec. 2020 (enchants page): Updated for the release of Phase 6, added new enchants from Naxxramas.
- 02 Dec. 2020 (stats page): Updated for Phase 6.
- 02 Dec. 2020 (rotation page): Updated for Phase 6, improved the Rotation section to be more optimized.
- 02 Dec. 2020 (talents page): Changed notes on Seal Fate build's viability with release of Phase 6.
- 06 Aug. 2020 (gear page): Guide updated for Phase 5.
- 21 Jul. 2020 (gear page): Guide added.
- 15 Apr. 2020 (enchants page): Updated for the release of Phase 4.
- 27 Feb. 2020 (gear page): Updated recommended gear.
- 11 Feb. 2020 (gear page): Revamped for Phase 3.
- 10 Dec. 2019 (gear page): Added link to PvP BiS page.
- 17 Nov. 2019 (gear page): Fixed drop source for Hand of Justice and location for The Unforgiving.
- 15 Nov. 2019 (gear page): Updated for Phase 2.
- 15 Oct. 2019 (gear page): Updated for the release of Dire Maul.
- 14 Oct. 2019 (gear page): Added a Raid BiS list.
- 29 Sep. 2019 (talents page): Fixed Ruthlessness' explanation.
- 28 Sep. 2019 (talents page): Clarified description of Ruthlessness.
- 14 Sep. 2019 (gear page): Updated Ring recommendations.
- 09 Sep. 2019 (gear page): Updated some choices.
- 05 Sep. 2019 (gear page): Updated some choices.
- 26 Aug. 2019 (enchants page): Added a note about Grilled Squid.
- 16 Aug. 2019 (rotation page): Improved rotation.
- 13 Aug. 2019 (enchants page): Added Winterfall Firewater to consumables list.
- 13 Aug. 2019 (stats page): Added much more detail about the stats.
- 13 Aug. 2019 (talents page): Added the Seal Fate Dagger build guide.
- 13 Aug. 2019 (spells page): Added more info about Lockpicking and Pickpocketing.
- 13 Aug. 2019 (this page): Added more detail to the races and poisons sections.
- 20 Jun. 2019 (gear page): Page added.
- 20 Jun. 2019 (enchants page): Page added.
- 20 Jun. 2019 (stats page): Page added.
- 20 Jun. 2019 (rotation page): Page added.
- 20 Jun. 2019 (talents page): Page added.
- 20 Jun. 2019 (spells page): Page added.
- 20 Jun. 2019 (this page): Page added.
More Classic Rogue Guides
More Classic Guides from Other Classes
Classic Dungeon Guides
Classic Profession Guides
Classic Reputation Guides
This guide has been written by Sellin, a former top 10 US raider and current season and several time Gladiator, long time WoW Player and passionate about all things Warcraft and Theorycrafting. You can follow him on Twitter and watch him on Twitch.
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