Rogue Classic Guide

Rogue is the class for people who like control. You pick every fight on your terms because you are invisible until you decide otherwise. See a pack you cannot handle? Sneak around it. See a caster you want dead? Sap it, then open on its friend. Bad pull about to wipe you? Vanish and walk away. Nothing else in the game has this much say over when and how a fight happens.

At 60 the Rogue is one of the best melee DPS specs in the game, and a well played Combat Sword or Combat Dagger Rogue lives near the top of the meter. The class is a points and timing puzzle: build combo points with Sinister Strike or Backstab, spend them on Slice and Dice and Eviscerate, manage your energy so you never sit at full and waste regen, and keep your poisons rolling.

In PvP the Rogue is a different animal entirely. Cheap Shot into a full stunlock can kill a clothie before they get a single action off. Add Blind, Gouge, Kidney Shot, and Vanish and you have more control over a one on one fight than any other class. People hate fighting Rogues for a reason.

Combat is the leveling spec because it keeps your energy and damage flowing without needing to be behind the target. Sinister Strike, Slice and Dice, and the Combat weapon talents let you grind mob after mob with minimal downtime. You can level as Subtlety or Assassination, but Combat is the smoothest by a wide margin.

The Rogue leveling loop is glorious once it clicks. Stealth up, open with Cheap Shot or Ambush, build points, Slice and Dice, and finish with Eviscerate. Use Sap to peel one mob off a pair so you fight them one at a time. Stealth past anything you do not want to fight, and Vanish or Evasion when a pull goes bad.

• Keep poisons applied. Instant Poison or Deadly Poison adds free damage to every fight.
• Sap is your friend. Pick off patrols and casters cleanly instead of pulling two at once.
• Pickpocket humanoids before you kill them for extra coin and the occasional junkbox with lockboxes.
• Use stealth to skip whole stretches of dangerous zones. Few classes travel as safely as a Rogue.

Lockpicking is a Rogue only perk. Level it up and you can open lockboxes for yourself and everyone else on the server, which is a steady side income and a reason people will always have a Rogue friend.

Everything a Rogue does runs on two resources: energy, which regenerates over time, and combo points, which you build with strikes and spend with finishers. The whole skill of the class is never wasting either. Sitting at full energy means you are losing regen, and letting Slice and Dice drop means you are losing your biggest damage buff.

The priority is simple to say and hard to perfect. Slice and Dice goes up first and never falls off. Build combo points with Sinister Strike (swords) or Backstab (daggers), refresh Slice and Dice as it runs low, and spend extra points on Eviscerate. Pop Adrenaline Rush, Blade Flurry, and your trinkets together with Thistle Tea for a burst window. Keep your poisons applied and reapplied as they run out.

Positioning matters even as swords. Stay behind the boss when you can so you cannot be parried or blocked, which would otherwise eat your specials. As daggers it is mandatory. Watch your threat, because a Rogue who out paces the tank and pulls aggro is a dead Rogue with no way to shed it except Vanish or Feint, so manage your opener and let the tank build first.

Agility is your core stat, giving attack power, crit, and a bit of armor and dodge. Hit rating is just as important, because as a dual wielder you have a steep miss penalty on your white swings and a missed special is a wasted global. You want to push toward the hit cap for specials (around 9 percent) before you over invest in anything else, then stack crit and attack power.

Weapons make or break a Rogue. For swords you want fast, hard hitting blades to maximize Sword Specialization procs and Windfury. For daggers you want a slow main hand for big Backstabs and a fast offhand. Chase weapon upgrades above almost everything, because they scale every point of your damage.

Pre raid you are looking at dungeon sets, agility leather, and key trinkets. Do not raid without consumables: Elixir of the Mongoose, Juju Power, Juju Might, a sharpening stone or weightstone on each weapon, the right poisons, and the world buffs. A buffed Rogue with Crusader on both swords and full consumables is a completely different character from a fresh dinged one.

This is where the Rogue is scary. Your opener decides most fights. Stealth up, Cheap Shot to stun, build combo points during the stun, Kidney Shot to extend the lockdown, and burst the target down before they ever get to act. Against a clothie, a clean stunlock is often a kill with no counterplay.

Your control kit is the deepest in the game. Sap to open or to peel a second enemy, Blind to reset or to set up, Gouge to create a gap, Kidney Shot for the hard stun, and Vanish to escape and re open. Preparation resets all of it, so a Subtlety PvP Rogue gets two Vanishes, two Blinds, and two Evasions in a single fight. Evasion plus a healing potion can win fights you have no business winning.

Your weaknesses are anything that removes your control or sees you coming. Will of the Forsaken, Stoneform, and trinkets break your stuns. Druids and Hunters can root and kite you. Other Rogues can stunlock you first. The mirror match comes down to who opens, who trinkets, and who has cooldowns left.

Engineering is the standout for any PvP Rogue. Bombs, the Net o Matic, sapper charges, and trinkets like the goblin gear give you burst, control, and an oh no button the class does not have on its own. Pair it with Mining for materials. For PvE the explosives still add damage on cooldown, so it is never a wasted pick.

For pure money and crafting, Leatherworking plus Skinning lets you make agility leather and the famous Devilsaur set, though casters and Hunters compete for those mats. Two gathering professions are always a safe choice if you just want gold to fund the heavy Rogue consumable habit.

Whatever you choose, max Lockpicking (it is free and pure profit) and keep a stock of poisons, sharpening stones, and thistle tea. The little consumables are part of playing the class well.

• Slice and Dice is your biggest damage button, not Eviscerate. Keep it up at all times. A Rogue who lets Slice and Dice drop is throwing away free damage every second it is down.
• Never sit at full energy. Energy regenerates over time, so capping out means you wasted regen. Spend it as it comes and keep the bar moving.
• Preparation doubles your scary cooldowns. One press resets Vanish, Blind, Sprint, Evasion, and more. Plan your fight knowing you get them twice.
• Vanish breaks combat and breaks effects. It drops DoTs, escapes a losing fight, and lets you re open from stealth. Save it, do not panic press it.
• Stay behind the target. Even as swords, attacking from behind means you cannot be parried or blocked, which would eat your specials. As daggers it is mandatory for Backstab.
• Pickpocket before you kill. Humanoids carry coin and junkboxes with lockboxes. It is free gold you walk past if you forget to do it.