Rogue Class Overview

Rogue can be played as many races on either faction including the new race,the Skyborne, each offering unique benefits to help bolster your experience across Azeroth. Tauren is the only Classic race that can not be a Rogue.

• Dwarf — Dwarf has seen some massive changes in WoW forever, specifically in the addition of Mace Specialization and Big Game Hunter. Mace Specialization increases your Critical Strike chance by 1% anytime you have a mace equipped, making it much easier to decide between weapons if you find yourself in a situation with weapons of different types but extremely similar stats. Big Game Hunter is easily the largest change and addition for Dwarves, the added 5% damage against Beasts while not always useful will be incredibly powerful if you find yourself grinding out monsters in the world or if you happen into a dungeon or raid where the encounter has a boss who is a Beast, who are historically quite prominent in World of Warcraft. Dwarf also retains Stoneform allowing for immediate removal and 8 seconds of immunity of Bleeds, Poisons, and Disease effects while also reducing incoming physical damage by 10% for its duration.
• Human — In WoW Forever Human gains the Will to Survive racial which acts as a way to immediately remove any kind of stun effect, which will be incredibly useful in PvP and niche PvE situations. Sword Specialization also increases your chance to critically strike by 2% anytime a Sword is equipped allowing for a nice bonus while using what is likely to be the most common weapon type during your adventures through this reforged Azeroth.
• Gnome — Gnome continues to offer an incredible way to remove roots and snares, is granted a short period of immunity to it with the powerful racial Escape Artist but the most exciting new racial by far is Eureka. Eureka increases the damage of your next three abilities by 10% on your next 3 damaging abilities adding a significant increase to any kind of window of burst damage you are trying to deal. The new and improved Engineering Specialization also reduces the chance of your engineering toys fizzling, which can sometimes be the reason you either survive an encounter or not.
• Night Elf — Night Elf has also gained an incredible new racial in the form of Elune's Light which increases the Critical Strike chance by 10% for the next 15 seconds, making it incredibly powerful especially when paired with abilities like Adrenaline Rush. Quickness also now grants an additional 2% run speed as well as 1% dodge helping you close the gap and navigate the world just a bit quicker.
• High Order Skyborne — Skyborne has some interesting racials, the most important in a combat setting however are the Elemental Insight and Wind Blessed racials. Elemental Insight increases your damage done to Elementals by 5%, making any encounter you have with an Elemental much easier to deal with. Wind Blessed increases your Haste by 1%, increasing the frequency of your attacks resulting in more chances to proc your poisons and just generally deal more damage. Skyborne also have Walk on Air which will allow you to slow fall for 10 seconds, making it much easier to traverse this new world. The only difference between Skyborne if you choose Alliance or Horde is their fourth racial ability, as an Alliance Skyborne you gained Read Ley Line which increases health regeneration by 100% for a short period.

• Orc — Orc retains one of the games most iconic and powerful DPS CD's in Blood Fury which increases your Attack Power by 10% for 15 seconds, making it incredible to pair with abilities like Adrenaline Rush to maximize the benefit of both. Every Orc Racial is actually incredibly powerful in both PvP and PvE situations, with the new addition of 1-handed Axes being usable for Rogues the Axe Specialization racial increases your Critical Strike chance with an Axe equipped by 1% making it a bit easier to make gear choices. Shatter Curse grants immunity to Curses and Banes and reduces incoming Magical damage for 8 seconds allowing to greatly protect yourselves against spell casters. And Hardiness reduces the duration of Stuns by 20%, greatly removing a lot of randomness from one of the games most historically frustrating racials.
• Troll — Troll shares the same benefit as Dwarves when fighting beasts in the form of Beast Slaying which increases all damage dealt to beasts by 5%, while this can be niche it is a massive increase should you find yourself fighting any beast especially in a dungeon or raid. Berserking has been made much more consistent, giving a static 10% Attack Speed for 10 seconds, making it much easier to use and much easier to optimize especially when pairing it with cooldowns or just abilities that focus on emphasizing a burst window like Venom. Rogue also struggles at times when it comes to self sustain, so the abilities Regeneration that allows you to continue to continue 10% of your out of combat health regeneration while in combat and the new Rapid Regeneration that heals you for 50% of your maximum health over a short period of time.
• Undead — Undead has also recieved some incredible changes in WoW Forever with the largest being the addition of Touch of the Grave this ability causes your spells and attacks to have a 5% chance to drain up to 5% of your maximum health from the target, adding a nice passive damage and self-sustain boost. Will of the Forsaken has also recieved some slight reworks, instantly allowing you to remove charm, fear, and sleep effects but no longer providing the short window of immunity. Cannibalize is also a great way to restore health, allowing you to regenerate 7% of your health every 2 seconds for 10 seconds if you are around a corpse of a humanoid or undead. Any damage taken or movement will interrupt this effect unfortunately, but it is usable in combat.
• Windshaper Skyborne — Skyborne has some interesting racials, the most important in a combat setting however are the Elemental Insight and Wind Blessed racials. Elemental Insight increases your damage done to Elementals by 5%, making any encounter you have with an Elemental much easier to deal with. Wind Blessed increases your Haste by 1%, increasing the frequency of your attacks resulting in more chances to proc your poisons and just generally deal more damage. Skyborne also have Walk on Air which will allow you to slow fall for 10 seconds, making it much easier to traverse this new world. The only difference between Skyborne if you choose Alliance or Horde is their fourth racial ability, as an Horde Skyborne you gained Skysight which grants you a buff increasing your run speed specifically by 10% for a short period of time.

Information at this moment in time is rather difficult to verify until the beta becomes available but this section will be quickly adjusted as we learn more about what is to come with WoW Forever.

The Rogue talent tree in WoW Forever seeks to add a bit of a unique play style to reach of the three rogue specializations allowing you to focus more on the way you would like to play the class while trying to lessen what were previously large gaps between DPS output, while many of these talents will likely see significant change before launch listed below are some of the highlights you will find in the new talent trees for Rogues in WoW Forever.

The new talent Puncturing Wounds found in the second tier of the Combat tree will add a lot more flexibility to the weapons you choose to use as a Combat rogue or just improve the effectiveness of what is likely to be your primary combo point generator as Assassination in Mutilate.

Restless Blades reduces the cooldown of your Adrenaline Rush, Blade Flurry, Evasion, Sprint, and Vanish abilities by 2 seconds per combo point spending, allowing you considerable more usage of each of these abilities throughout a dungeon or raid, both increasing personal DPS output and allowing you to use defensive cooldowns more pre-emptively compared to always having to save it for an emergency.

Hack and Slash offers unique and powerful benefits to each and every weapon type available to you as a Rogue. For Swords and Axes it gives a small chance to trigger an extra melee swing. For Daggers and Fist weapons it increases your Critical Strike chance. For Maces it allows your attacks to ignore a percentage of the targets armor.

Improved Expose Armor now reduces the energy cost of Expose Armor AND refunds a Combo Point when cast with 5 Combo Points, making it considerably easier to maintain this debuff without sacrificing a significant amount of DPS.

Cold Blood was moved higher in the talent tree making it accessible much faster and will allow for more unique builds that seek out this guaranteed Critical Strike option.

Mutilate has been added allowing for a new way for Rogues to spend their energy and build Combo Points, this ability deals additional damage to poisoned targets following the theme of the spec and also generates two combo points likely leading to a much faster pace of play than traditional with this specialization due to the increased availability of Combo Points.

Improved Kidney Shot now increases your personal damage done to the target, scaling with the amount of points placed into the talent.

Venom is the new capstone talent in the Assassination tree. This ability offers Rogues a new way to spend Combo Points by increasing the damage of your Poisons by 30% and your chance to apply poisons by 10% while the buff is active. The duration of this buff scales directly with the amount of Combo Points spent on it.

Hemorrhage deals damage to the target, more if a Dagger is equipped and applies a debuff causing the target to take an additional 15% damage from Rupture which the Subtlety talent tree has several talents focused on maximizing the effects of both Rupture and other abilities when Rupture is present on the target.

Quietus While not a true true execute this talent increases your damage dealt to a target below 35% helping Rogues compete with other classes like Warriors who have true execute abilities.

Cutthroat causes your Backstab ability to have a small percentage chance, scaling with the amount of points in the talent to make your next Ambush ability to be usable outside of stealth. Being able to use Ambush outside of Stealth especially paired with any kind of damage bonus will result in massive bursts of damage and will likely result in Backstab being your default Combo Point generator as Subtlety.

Thousand Cuts causes your Rupture abilities damage ticks reduce the energy cost of your Hemorrhage or Backstab ability by 3, stacking up to 5 times, which just massively reduces the cost of your primary Combo Point generating abilities as long as you are able to keep Rupture active on the target.