If you prefer to use daggers, avoid buying swords at level 10. Stay with daggers and spec out your talent tree like this one as found on wowhead. This build is better for horde heavy metal cowboy hat as you can make up the damage with increased strength, presuming that you have chosen Orc as your race. If you do not have enough gold to buy sword training, stay with daggers.
Another very useful profession that will increase the Rogues survivability is Mining, which rewards players with the Toughness passive ability. This ability gives the player bonus stamina at exponential rates, increasing as the players mining ability increases, which can increase the amount of hit points the Rogue is able to take before dying. This can be a very useful profession to take, as it will make the Rogue much harder to kill. Questing is also a better option for solo levelers, as you only rely on your own performance and accord when running quests, and do not experience as much downtime as opposed to running dungeons.
This Guide should help you to prepare yourself for that legendary Vanilla Experience and allow you to progress through levels efficiently and with a good amount of fun. Your rotation will greatly depend on your level and will get gradually more complex as you progress through content and get access to more tools. While Rogue’s basic rotation remains very simple throughout the whole leveling journey, the abilities that he gets on the way allow him to react and adapt to a wide range of PvE and PvP situations. Rogue is a very Weapon-Dependant Class, as the Damage dealt by almost every single one of his abilities is affected by his Weapon . Because of the way that Rogue’s ability Damage is calculated (% Weapon Damage + X, and so on), the slower the Main Hand Weapon, the better. Off-Hand Weapon, on the other hand, should be fast to maximize the rate at which Poisons are applied to a Target, but this is much less important than a slow Main Hand Weapon .
This is caused by the inability to mitigate incoming Damage efficiently, the lack of Healing abilities, and low overall mobility. A lot of time that has to be invested into leveling a Rogue is spent for eating to regain Health or simply for traveling between locations. Moreover, while their Single Target DPS is very respectable throughout all Level ranges, they have close to zero AoE capabilities, which makes them struggle in 1vX PvE fights most of the time. Prioritize slow, heavy hitting weapons in your main-hand. Abilities like Sinister Strike are based on your main-hand weapon damage, not DPS, meaning a weapon with a higher damage range will hit for more.
Combat Potency at level 45, giving your off-hand attacks a chance to restore 15 energy. The Rogue rotation revolves around builders and spenders. You build Combo Points using attacks like Sinister Strike and then spend them with abilities like Eviscerate.
Rogues also have a bit of crowd control in disabling a few adds when pulling group, but are mostly limited to Sap and Blind. Note that without specializing in the Improved Sap talent for a chance to remain in stealth when using Sap, you’ll run the risk of drawing too much attention when trying to pull a group by sapping. Depending on your build, you may find that working in groups can bring out more of your skills. In particular, Dagger Rogues can take advantage of better positioning with Backstab and Ambush (so long as you don’t gain too much threat away from the tank in charge). For tougher enemies like bosses, having Slice and Dice constantly up will improve your overall DPS dramatically . Dagger Rogues follow a similar beat, but you’ll want to try to open with Ambush or Backstab whenever possible.
Gives you a 15% chance to add a combo point to your target after dodging their attack or fully resisting one of their spells. Gives you a 75% chance to add an additional combo point to your target when using your Ambush, Garrote, or Cheap Shot ability. Gives you a 50% chance to add an additional combo point to your target when using your Ambush, Garrote, or Cheap Shot ability. Gives you a 25% chance to add an additional combo point to your target when using your Ambush, Garrote, or Cheap Shot ability.
If you decide to stay still, you can mitigate some damage with Uncanny Dodge but remember that you only get one Reaction per round so creatures with multiple attacks may be a problem. For your starting equipment, take a shortsword, a short bow, any of the pack options, leather armor, two daggers, and theives’ tools. For Expertise, I recommend Perception and Stealth. Other skills are appealing, but you’re more likely to die because of a failed Perception or Stealth check than for failed Persuasion check. At 6th level you’ll get Expertise in two more skills, at which point you should consider skills which fit your campaign. If you’re doing a lot of stealing, consider Sleight of Hand and Thieves’ Tools.
Racial feats are discussed in the Races section, above. You gain 1% critical chance increased for each 29 points of agility. Increases attack power with both melee and ranged weapons by 1 for each point of Agility. Gives you a 90% chance to return to stealth mode after using your Sap ability. Gives you a 60% chance to return to stealth mode after using your Sap ability.
