Rogue Leveling Guide

World of Warcraft Class Leveling: WoW Rogue Leveling Guide

Introduction

How can you beat the Rogue – the single most powerful, and yet slightest of frame character in the game. These guys and gals stealth around in their leather armor slicing the living heck out of everything they touch. They combine the best of both worlds, allowing you to put up mind-boggling damage numbers while actually staying engaged with your opponent, unlike the ranged DPS bombers like the Mage or Hunter.

Of course, it takes some time to master the Rogue and all of its many intricacies. You’ll be slinking in circles for the first few levels learning how to roll behind your enemies and get the drop on them. You’ll be testing and retesting your poisons and will spend hours trying to get that lockpicking skill up. But, with a Rogue, you know one thing for sure – you’ll be having a load of fun in the process!

Without further ado, I present:

The WoW Authority’s Rogue Leveling Guide

“A Rogue’s DPS? Over Nine Thousand!!!”

Enjoy!

Contents

1. A Basic Introduction to Rogues
   
2. Choosing a Race
3. The Early Levels
4. Gear & Weapons
5. Talent Specs
6. Making Gold
   
7. Top 10 Rogue Leveling Tips & Tricks

1. A Basic Introduction to Rogues

2. Choosing a Race

Rogues are one of those awesome classes that can be played by pretty much anyone. Currently there are 8 classes that fit the Rogue perfectly, with two new ones on the way in the Cataclysm expansion. Of course, having all that selection isn’t always a good thing, choices can be tough. No fear, fortunately, I happen to know which races are the best!

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Alliance Considerations

First up, the Alliance. Alliance characters can choose from Dwarves, Gnomes, Humans, and Night Elves. Pretty much anyone but the Draenei. As for who’s best, I’d say your best bet is either Night Elf with the added stealth boost, or Dwarves with their Stoneform which removes all sorts of unsightly effects from your character.

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Horde Considerations

When it comes to the Horde, if you can play Forsaken, you choose Forsaken. These guys have a super powerful Will of the Forsaken ability that blocks fear, along with their extra cool ability to stay underwater for ungodly amounts of time. Other options include the Orcs with their attack power boost.

3. The Early Levels

Getting started with a Rogue is pretty simple, like any other class. You’ll have one attack alongside your auto attack, and will slowly learn how the combo system works. Every special move or attack you use will give you some number of combo points. When you reach a certain amount, you can unleash those combo points for big damage numbers against the unfortunate target in your sights.

The key to a good Rogue is to figure out your combat mechanics early on. You’re going to have your sneaking abilities and Backstab pretty early, likely well before Level 10, so you’ll want to practice a lot with it before you start taking on higher level mobs. You’re not going to be able to “stun-lock” for a while yet, but for now, if you just focus your energies carefully, you can keep yourself alive a lot better than most other classes.

You don’t have to worry about mana either, so just load up on food and heal between each fight if necessary. Between Level 6 and 11, you’ll probably need to do this quite a bit. After that, the added DPS from the weapon your class quest reward provides, along with the boost from your Talent Points, is going to make leveling a whole lot easier. In terms of Talent Specs, it doesn’t really matter early on, but you’ll probably end up with a Combat build since it is best suited to high damage and survivability.

4. Gear and Weapons

Rogues are going to start out with daggers, but will very quickly gain access to the Dual Wield Specialization at Level 12 – 16. You should snag this one up quickly so that you can use two weapons with your character. Remember, slower weapons are better, so as soon as you can, get two swords instead of daggers and use them to boost your overall damage and attack rating. In terms of the rest of your gear, you’re always going to be wearing leather, so you don’t need to worry about upgrading at Level 40 or storing any gold for later.

The stats you need to be looking out for include Agility first and foremost. This is where your attack power comes from and will also help keep your defenses up. I like to toss in a nice dash of Stamina too, because you’re going to be practically standing on top of your enemies at all times. They’re going to hit you good and you don’t have a shield, so you need enough health to survive the onslaught when you can’t kill them quickly enough. Those are your two primary stats – the rest are pretty meaningless until you reach a high enough level that you can start loading up on things like Hit Rating, Crit Rating, and Attack Power.

To get the best out of your gear, load up on agility since it will be on pretty much all leather pieces. Then look for things like +critical and +attack power which can be found on higher level pieces.

5. Talent Specs

It doesn’t get any easier than speccing a Rogue for leveling, because truth be told, there are very few actual options here. For the most part, just load up on Combat specs until you reach Level 60 or so and then flesh it out with a few points from Assassination. I won’t go into other builds because, frankly, there’s no point.

As for the Combat build, here are some key things to remember. First up, you NEED that Dual Wield spec as early as possible, which is from Level 12 to 16. Secondly, you need to work on your improvement specs for Sinister Strike and Slice and Dice. That’s pure DPS right there, and trust me, it’s going to help you out immensely in the long run!

After that, you’ll work on speeding things up with Precision, Lightning Reflexes and Blade Flurry. From there, just follow the tree to 71 and make sure you have enough of everything to get the job done. This is an easy build and by the time you’re Level 20, you’ll be putting out enough DPS to take care of pretty much anyone in your path. Just be careful not to bite off more than you can chew!

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Feedback and suggestions are always appreciated, and he can be reached at thewowauthority(at)gmail(dot)com, or please use the comments section below.