Rogue Leveling

Rogues, like hunters, have a really easy time leveling; you could even say it’s in the classes, pixilated, blood. Running through monsters like a meat-grinder and hitting with enough force to bash even warriors down, the combat rogue poses the greatest leveling threat of all.

However, it’s not only pure burst-DPS, also known as smashing power, that gives combat rogues or even rogues in general their immense advantage over all others, it’s cooldowns. Cooldowns that include everything from vanish, blind, cloak of shadows and much more.

So, read on and find what I consider the greatest Rogue leveling build. 2.0 – Talents

20/41/0 To start off our combat rogue we’ll actually be picking up an assassination talent, malice. However, given how useful this talent in particular happens to be, any reasonable build of rogue likely picks it up at some point or another.

Secondly comes both Improved Sinister strike followed by improved gouge, neither seem too great on the surface, but in reality both allow you quite a bit more freedom than one would expect. Improved sinister strike gives you an extra sinister strike in the opening burst and improved gouge helps in all situations.

Precision and Deflection are two straight-up passive increases that dramatically aid the combat rogues style of play in general. Deflection is a clear 5% melee mitigation, always helpful and especially so given that you’ll be in leather all the time.

Precision on the other hand is an increase of 5% white damage, meaning simple attacks, as well as negating the chances of any special attacks, yellow damage, from missing on pretty much any occasion – dodges, parries, etc. all still apply.

Next up dual wield specialization boosts off-hand damage by an ever helpful amount, another flat damage increase that really shines when considering total session/overtime DPS as opposed to looking for returns in a single fight or two.

Sword Specialization really marks the start of the awesome-tastic burst damage phase for combat rogues. Not only is it a straight increase of overall damage, it just looks amazing when it triggers multiple times in a row and can help pull out a seemingly lost fight.

Blade Flurry is another surprisingly useful talent. For a single point to pick it up initially, I was quite surprised at
how often I ended up using this ability to either save myself from unintended multi-mob fights or simply to boost XP per hour by pulling a group of monsters every two minutes.

Weapon Specialization, Aggression – Both of these represent even more flat increases in damage output, weapon specialization reducing the enemies chances of parrying, dodging, etc. while aggression quite obviously boosts your own damage with sinister strike and eviscerate.

Adrenaline rush is, much like Blade Flurry, a surprisingly good talent to pick up, offering yet another survivability cooldown for boss/group fights or simply boosting your XP per hour by popping the ability every 5 minutes for a few quicker kills.

Vitality, Combat Potency, well vitality is a rather un-noticed yet definitely helpful increase to both survivability(health) and damage(agility.) Not much else to say about that one, however with combat potency we get a massive increase in energy depending on your luck with procs.

Finally, surprise attacks rounds out the tree with a flat 10% increase to Sinister strike as well as a few other abilities, gouge being the most useless of them all and backstab almost as much due to your wielding of non-dagger type weaponry most likely.

10 – 14 Malice
15 – 16 Improved Sinister Strike
17 – 19 Improved Gouge
20 – 24 Precision
25 – 29 Deflection
30 – 34 Dual Wield Specialization
35 – 39 Sword Specialization
40 – Blade Flurry
41 – 43 Aggression
44 – Weapon Expertise 1/2
45 – Adrenaline Rush
46 – 47 Vitality
48 – Riposte
49 –Weapon Expertise 2/2
50 – 54 Combat Potency
55 – Surprise Attacks
56 - 58 Improved Envisccerate
59 - 61 ruthlessness
62 - 66 lethality
67 - 69 relentless attacks
70 Murder

To start off our combat rogue we’ll actually be picking up an assassination talent, malice. However, given how useful this talent in particular happens to be, any reasonable build of rogue likely picks it up at some point or another.

Secondly comes both Improved Sinister strike followed by improved gouge, neither seem too great on the surface, but in reality both allow you quite a bit more freedom than one would expect. Improved sinister strike gives you an extra sinister strike in the opening burst and improved gouge helps in all situations.

Precision and Deflection are two straight-up passive increases that dramatically aid the combat rogues style of play in general. Deflection is a clear 5% melee mitigation, always helpful and especially so given that you’ll be in leather all the time.

Precision on the other hand is an increase of 5% white damage, meaning simple attacks, as well as negating the chances of any special attacks, yellow damage, from missing on pretty much any occasion – dodges, parries, etc. all still apply.

Next up dual wield specialization boosts off-hand damage by an ever helpful amount, another flat damage increase that really shines when considering total session/overtime DPS as opposed to looking for returns in a single fight or two.

Sword Specialization really marks the start of the awesome-tastic burst damage phase for combat rogues. Not only is it a straight increase of overall damage, it just looks amazing when it triggers multiple times in a row and can help pull out a seemingly lost fight.

Blade Flurry is another surprisingly useful talent. For a single point to pick it up initially, I was quite surprised at
how often I ended up using this ability to either save myself from unintended multi-mob fights or simply to boost XP per hour by pulling a group of monsters every two minutes.

Weapon Specialization, Aggression – Both of these represent even more flat increases in damage output, weapon specialization reducing the enemies chances of parrying, dodging, etc. while aggression quite obviously boosts your own damage with sinister strike and eviscerate.

Adrenaline rush is, much like Blade Flurry, a surprisingly good talent to pick up, offering yet another survivability cooldown for boss/group fights or simply boosting your XP per hour by popping the ability every 5 minutes for a few quicker kills.

Vitality, Combat Potency, well vitality is a rather un-noticed yet definitely helpful increase to both survivability(health) and damage(agility.) Not much else to say about that one, however with combat potency we get a massive increase in energy depending on your luck with procs.

Finally, surprise attacks rounds out the tree with a flat 10% increase to Sinister strike as well as a few other abilities, gouge being the most useless of them all and backstab almost as much due to your wielding of non-dagger type weaponry most likely.

10 – 14 Malice
15 – 16 Improved Sinister Strike
17 – 19 Improved Gouge
20 – 24 Precision
25 – 29 Deflection
30 – 34 Dual Wield Specialization
35 – 39 Sword Specialization
40 – Blade Flurry
41 – 43 Aggression
44 – Weapon Expertise 1/2
45 – Adrenaline Rush
46 – 47 Vitality
48 – Riposte
49 –Weapon Expertise 2/2
50 – 54 Combat Potency
55 – Surprise Attacks

3.0 – Gear & Progression Gearing a rogue is, like with most other melee classes during the leveling process, all about maximizing damage while leaving just enough stamina for a reasonable health. In this case your primary statistics will be +critical, agility, +hit, and attack power.

What comes first is agility, it combines all the damage stats and improvements desired rolled up into a single stat choice, and even shows up on 90% of leather armor to boot. Increasing +critical, dodge, and attack power.

Second comes individual stats such as +attack power and +critical, often you’ll find these in greater amounts on items with higher numbers of stamina or other single stats – Whether this makes them worthwhile to equip or not is up to you.

Finally, +hit becomes much more prevalent post-60 and venturing around Outland, picking this up will obviously increase your overall damage by a reasonable amount.
Talents/gear
This was encouraged, and I find it a good idea as it may help some people… I have tried about every build a rogue can try, those that make sense anyway, and found this the most effective at grinding… Everyone that has tried this build while grinding haven’t regret it. First off, swords are best for grinding, you can’t backstab a mob if you have aggro from it, so you would have to stun it every time to do a new backstab, and that is not viable… Use swords! Agility, +crit% and attack power, those are the 3 stats you will want to have on your gear when grinding… Stamina is nice, but the other stats have priority.

T I did not find grinding to be very useful up until these lvls, there’re tons of quests all over the place which lvls you quite fast… I may be wrong on this, but I just don’t think it is fast enough to grind for 2 hours to get a lvl at lower lvls, it can be done faster with quests. I apologise for the lack of spots from 20-28, however it has been so long since I’ve been low lvl that I can’t remember the good spots, other than those I have written.
18-20: Bristlebacks just north of Camp Taurajo in Barrens, there’s so many of them you can’t run dry, and they die quick… If your horde you will have a couple of quests here as well, and if your alliance, Well, you don’t wanna be here if your alliance.
21-23: Duskwood, cemetery, south of Darkshire, half casters half warriors, an alright grinding spot with good drops… I always find my first blue item here on all of my chars. Wool and silk cloth are also a nice addition at this lvl. This place is mainly for Alliance though…
22-24: Dunhold keep, in Hillsbrad foothills, not a very known place, rogues and horde have a quest there, but that's it... they are humanoids, die really fast, drop a nice amount of cloth and there's tons of them. 28-32: Centaurs, in thousand Needles, a little north of Freewind post. There’s 28-30 centaurs outside the cave, and
30-32 centaurs inside the cave, a very nice place, they die really quick and drop nice silk cloth. Although this is a horde dominated area, it work for alliance as well, there isn’t as many horde as you would think. 29-31: The underground of raven hill cemetery, in Duskwood, there are 2 areas of underground, one with skeletons and one with zombies, and they are connected through a small and hidden path at the end. This is a very good place to grind, start from one end and go to the other, then back again. It’s an alliance area so if you do it at primetime, you will have some problems if you’re Horde. I did it with my shammy though, and it still works, usually if you leave them alone they will leave you alone as well.
32-34: Beasts, and lots of them, do the hunter quests from Nesinwary’s camp in Stranglethorn Vale, and then keep grinding those beasts after you have done the quests… Especially the Mistvale gorillas, these are probably the only beasts in Stranglethorn Vale that you don’t get a quest to kill, and funny thing, they are the best ones to grind.
34-36 Kurzens compound, all these fellows are really good to grind, specially once you get the sword from Scarlet monestary. They also drop fadeleaf from time to time which is always appriciated. A chest spawns every 15 minutes, can contain blue items, overall a very good spot!
34-37: Basilisks, yes, you heard me, basilisks, the shimmering flats in Thousand needles. Go the ruins all the way down south of the shimmering flats, those are the ones you want! They are pretty good to grind at these lvls, you’ll never run dry cause there’s just so many of them, they don’t have much life and drop some decent vendortrash.
37-38: The water elementals on the haunted island in stranglethorn vale is very good grinding at these lvls, the only downside at these are the drops, they really suck, but u don’t grind for loot, u grind for xp. ---
39-41: Earth elementals down south in the badlands are awesome here, so easy to kill, despite the fact that there’s no casters amongst them, and the stones they drop will make u rich by the vendors. There’s also lesser elementals a little east of Kargath, which are a little lower in lvls, but doesn’t drop quite as good, and there’s usually people on those… 42-43: Nagas at the southern beach on the island of the feathermoon fortress, we all love nagas, and these are quite good, many casters among them, only bad thing is the disarm they sometimes do, but considering their low armor/health it's still a very good place! 44-47: Nagas are simply the best thing to grind, here u move on to the cave on the isle of dread also in Feralas, it's the fastest grinding I've ever done there, so awesome... Only very rarely do other players come, and those that do come, come to do a fast quest then they leave again!
44-45: Ogres down south in Badlands, next to the earth elementals, they drop a bit of mageweave and silver, but as all other ogres they die really fast, so they are nice to grind. A lot of casters amoung them which is always nice. Mithril spawn in the cave often and a chest every 15 minutes.
45-47: Ghosts at Azshara lvl 45-46, Good at that lvl, half casters, half warriors, none of them have any special attacks so it’s very easy and u won’t get surprised by some high damaging spell. Should u decide to want to grind these at an even higher lvl, u should keep in mine that there aren’t a lot of them, so u’ll have to combine it with the satyrs just north of there… But at 45-46 there should be plenty to keep u going on them alone! Good mageweave drops, some silver and an occational rare mob. 46-49: Feralas, ogres down south at the big ruin. 45-47 is their lvls, drop decent mageweave, and if u go down to the cave all the way down at the bottom, u will almost only see casters inside. Because of the packs u may get, I suggest not going here til the stated lvls, instead of when ur the same lvl as the mobs which would usually be my suggested lvl range to grind them. Also the warlords call for help when they get low, attracting other ogres that are near.
48: Quests in Searing gorge, u should gain an entire lvl if u do them all, very fast, can be done in a matter of a few hours! And ofc the trinket reward "Luffa" u get from one of the quests is not to be underestimated when u as a rogue fight a warrior (Or farm gold at Deadwind pass ;), damn that rend they got)!
49-51: the cactus-guys way down southwest of Tanaris, those die so fast it's hardly believable... very good grinding here! If ur a fan of Un'goro u can always combine with some questing there, it's right next to it, and is good at that lvl. The deadwood village in Felwood is also very good at these lvls, but it's always filled with both horde and alliance, so no point in going there unless it's at some hour where the server is almost empty ;) --- One thing you should keep in mind after hitting lvl 50, is that reputation with Argent dawn can be a pain to get, so it might be a good idea to start grinding a bit in western/eastern plague lands, the latter at a higher lvl since it is a tough place to grind. Make sure you do not turn in the stones you get before reaching 6000/12000 honored reputation, because after you reach that point you will no longer get reputation for killing mobs, only by killing bosses and turning in stones… So you’ll get more out of it if you save your stones until you reach that point!
50-53: Nagas at the beach in Azshara, they die relatively quick due to their low armor/hp, just as any other naga in the world. Unfortunately they also drop as bad as all the other nagas, the silver is alright, but that’s about it, Unless ur lucky enough to find a golden pearl in one of the clams they drop. A good place to go if the satyrs are taken and u don’t feel like wasting your trip to Azshara.
50-53: Another option is satyrs in Ashaera, these are 51-53, but die so quick they can easily be grinded at lvl 50. I did this, combined with searing gorge and the cactus guys, just because some lvl 60 is always on the satyrs, and there isn't enough for 2! The fact that they drop Felcloth and traveller’s backpacks and cards for the faire is just a nice bonus.
51-53: Sorrow hill in western plague lands, some people like this place although I don’t hink it’s very good, due to the fact that there’s no casters. It’s all melee mobs, and they don’t drop very fast. If u want rep with Argent dawn however, this may be a good place to start. Good runecloth/silver drops and Librams have a decent chance of dropping here as well.
52-53: If u haven’t done them at an earlier state, the quests in Un’goro would be excellent here… Even if u did do some quests earlier, u can’t have done them all cause there’s a lot of 52-55 quests which are almost impossible at lower lvls unless u go with a group ? 53-55: The blood elves in Ashaera die really fast… They’re the same lvl as the satyrs, however they all do this nasty AoE which can get a bit too much if ur not high enough lvl… And they’re placed kind of tight some places, which inevitable makes u aggro one too many… However still very good to grind, they drop a lot of runecloth and silver as well, being humanoids and all.
54-57: Ghosts by the lake in Winterspring, these are a little tricky for a 54, due to the DoT the give u, which prevents u in bandaging, but still good to grind! These can be grinded all the way to 60, I’ve seen it done and it works fine… Although there are better places after 57…
55-57: Furlbogs just south of the entrance to winterspring. Decent amount of hp/armor and throw faerie fire on u, but there’s good things aboiut them as well… Good silver drops, good chance of blue drops, a chest with guaranteed green item (And often healing potions) and everyones favourite potion: Winterfall firewater drop pretty often from them, although this should change in patch 1.9 according to the patchnotes. Give reputation with the timbermaw faction as well each time you kill one, if you’re interested in that.
56-60: The birds in Deadwind pass, These are very good to grind, they die relatively fast, and drop very good vendortrash… The only downside is that they hit rather hard and put rend on u all the time which makes it almost impossible to start with an ambush… But if u use swords that won’t be a problem. There are also very often other people grinding on these, and to be honest there’s just not enough for 2…
57-60: Yetis in Winterspring are very popular to grind, there’re tons of them and can be skinned for thick/rugged leather, they also drop silver… They do however have a lot of health points, which makes them a bit harder to kill, but if ur saving for ur epic mount, this will be a good place to get some good xp and some steady gold flowing…
58-60: The ogres in Deadwind pass, very good, just like all other ogres they die pretty fast… The amount of runecloth they drop is just unbelievable.