Class Guide Rogues

Rogue Class Guide:

Index:
1.0 - Rogues are cool
2.0 - Annoying things to do as a Rogue
3.0 - Leveling as a Rogue
4.0 - Rogue, not Rouge
5.0 - Raiding
6.0 - PvP
7.0 - Gear Guide

1.0 - Rogues are cool

Seriously, I think the title of this says it all, rogues are one of the most fun classes in the game. Rogues possess a whole slew of abilities such as sap, blind, stealth, vanish, poisons, etc. that make the entire class extremely fun to play. As one might think, rogues are all about stealth, well at least most of the time, excluding combat rogues you're going to find pretty much any other rogue build based around using stealth, it's a fun thing to.

Rogues not only possess great killing speed, they also have what you might as well call invisibility, especially if you happen to be subtlety, and an arsenal of abilities to back it up as I listed above. I would highly recommend the class to anyone looking for an easy, and fun, run to level 70, but one thing remains to be considered, the amount of fun one can enjoy as a rogue is only matched and perhaps supassed by the number of rogues on any given server. Thus, overpopulation.

Thats about the only problem for rogues though, beyond that slight(huge) problem about finding open guild spots/raiding and such at 70+ your only going to have to worry about warriors. Honestly a good warrior tears apart rogues like they're made of paper, it's a painful experience unless you somehow get lucky or happen to be fighting a horrible warrior.

Ignoring that however Rogues do excel at assassinating pretty much anything with leather or less armor, examples of an easy kill would be priests, mages, and a druid outside of bear/moonkin form. The most fun I've had playing the class would have to be stealthing about stealing flag points and taking out helpless caster classes.

2.0 - Annoying things to do as a Rogue

You might be wondering why I'd devote an entire section to this, well it's for a number of reasons, chiefly because of how many tricks/abilities we can use on other players without fear of retaliation, at least not much. Stealth truly opens the class to a number of things un-doable by anyone else except for a cat druid, and even then we easily surpass druids in how effective our stealth truly is.

Number one annoying thing to pull on someone? Quite obviously the easily done and especially annoying, dreaded, hated, impossibly evil, chain sapping. Seriously I hate this, either use your head or perhaps an ingame mod and you can easily sap right around the point the diminishing returns fade, re-apply and enjoy as the opponent loses control of their character for as long as you whim.

Secondly, messing around with distract. Even if you don't actually feel like PvPing right at the moment you can easily throw up a red alert on another play by dropping a distract on them, turn them any-way you like and almost anyone immediately either spams an AoE stealth removing ability or hops on a mount and runs, it's quite enjoyable.

Thirdly, destroying someones durability. Moreso than anyone else rogues can quite easily interfere in a fight, say jumping out with a cheapshot or one quick backstab, before retreating and allowing said player to die from monsters, it's quite annoying and painful to watch. Even better however is blinding/stunning someone running from a pack of angered mobs, double points if you happen to sit around and watch the pain be inflicted.

I'll leave the rest to your imagination, be creative, inventive, and of course have fun.

3.0 - Leveling as a Rogue

Leveling as a rogue has to be the easiest out of all the classes, a combination of stealth, stuns, insane DPS, and a variety of escape abilities, allows rogues to level practically unharmed and quite easily solo quests that otherwise require teams. Full usage of ones abilties should allow you to also level rather death free, except for the occasional bored high level you're not going to encounter much that can take out a careful rogue.

The most common build and perhaps fastest would be the straight up combat rogue, pour everything you have into the combat tree after picking up the 5% crit talent out of assassination and you'll soon be speeding along the leveling grind. Sad thing about combat rogues is that you don't feel very "rogueish" until you start branching out into assassination/subtlety, the idea of beating things to death head on isn't exactly why I rolled a rogue.

As for a choice of weaponry, I'd recommend just using swords, when going for speed leveling maintaining a single weapon skill is often the best choice, swords happen to also be the most plentiful of the weapon types as well and thus I would personally just use whatever swords I happened to pick up until I hit 70, from that point on you'll want to branch out.

The leveling process itself is quite simple, target mob, run/stealth towards mob, proceed to spam sinister strike until 3 or more combo points, then eviscerate, repeat ad infinitum.

4.0 - Rogue, not Rouge

Honestly, it's an easy thing to spell.

5.0 - Raiding

Raiding as a rogue is generally quite simple, put out awesome DPS, receive phat lewtz. Rogues are the primary melee DPS in the game as of this moment, and should remain so in my opinion, but are sometimes contested by the likes of feral druids and fury warriors. Sadly given the general overpopulation of rogues and the somewhat growing popularity of fury warriors you may find yourself quite hard pressed to actually achieve a raid slot at this time, don't sweat it.

Rogues quite luckily have the alternative to gaining epic lewt in PvP, unlike warriors who require PvE loot to continue PvE progression and such, rogues can quite easily top the damage meters decked out in PvP/Arena gear, and given how much more fun doing PvP can be than waiting to see if you beat the other rogues in your raid for that new epic sword, I rather like this alternative.

On a general note I find that assassination spec's are often the best DPS output as well, this is due to a number of things such as the fact that bosses are focused on the tank, leaving you to quite easily utilize your abilities requiring you be behind the target. Also you might find yourself far easier to replace as a combat rogue as opposed to an assassination, the rogues true heart and soul is in ambushing, sneaking, attacking from behind, etc. and thus those uninformed about combat DPS may simply expect you to be assassination.

Combat is a viable tree, most rogues that successfully use combat builds are decked out in either blacksmithing or gladiator weaponry, weapons such as dragonmaw being very popular for mace specialized rogues. Additionally some people simply find it more enjoyable to smash faces head on rather than assassinate/backstab and so on, I'm not one of them but it's a firm possible path to follow.

6.0 - PvP

PvP with a rogue is quite simple really, avoid warriors, avoid good hunters, and avoid paladins like the plague. Beyond that everyone else is pretty much fair game, some feral druids can be quite annoying however due to bear form's huge HP/armor increase, frost mages are equally annoying due to iceblock negating all your stuns and poisons, any other class is pretty much a sure win if you open correctly and proceed as planned.

As a rogue you're either going to want to stun-lock, as most do, or attempt to kill your target before they can respond, thus removing the need to stun-lock. Stun-lock is performed with a combination of Cheap shot, kidney shot, gouge, and perhaps a blind/vanish thrown in if needed, it's not too hard to perform and is usually quite effective, even perhaps on warriors.

The main nemesis of the rogue, besides the obvious one that is the hunter due to a combination of flare/frost trap, is the paladin really. Warriors do annihilate us but paladins completely negate us, blessing of freedom makes crippling poison useless, divine shield makes our opener/stuns worthless, and finally they wear plate making us do practically no worthwhile damage to them. This plus the added bonus of heals makes paladins nearly impossible to kill.

Finally I'd suggest experimenting a bit between heavy subtlety and heavy assassination, both possess some awesome 20+ talent point choices, both also provide enhancements to our stealthing aspect such as improved openers and such. Combat is a much easier to test build overall, it requires good equipment, especially weapons, but does perform admirably at times, doing far better than assassination or subtlety versus warriors and other higher armor classes.

7.0 Gear Guide

This is oriented towards assassination rogues, almost all of it pre-raid/heroic gear.

Helm:

Helm of the Claw - Quest Reward
The Night Watchman - World Drop BoE

Neck:

Traitor's Noose - Drop(Heroic Slavepens)
Jagged Bark Pendant - Drop(Botanica)

Back:

Cloak of Malice - Drop(Shattered Halls)
Delicate Green Poncho - Quest Reward
Cloak of the Inciter - Drop(Shadow Labyrinth)

Shoulders:

Sun-Gilded Shouldercaps - Drop(Black Morass)
Shoulderpads of Assassination - Drop(Sethekk Halls)

Chest:

Chestguard of the Dark Stalker - World Drop BoE
Hauberk of Karabor - Quest Reward

Wrist:

Shackles of Quagmirran - Drop(Heroic Slave Pens)
Armwraps of Disdain - Drop(Heroic Underbog)
Blade Dancer's Wristguards - World Drop BoE

Hands:

Handgrips of Assassination - Drop(Black Morass)
Gloves of the Unbound - Drop(Arcatraz)

Belt:

Socrethar's Girdle - Quest Reward
Epoch's Whispering Cinch - Drop(Heroic Durnholde Keep)

Legs:

Oilcloth Breeches - Quest Reward
Leggings of Assassination - Drop(Shadow Laybrinth)

Boots:

Boots of the Unjust - Drop(Heroic Auchenai Crypts)
Felboar Hide Shoes - Quest Reward

Rings:

Lightwarden's Band - Reputation Reward(Aldor, Revered)
Band of the Exorcist - Vendor(50 Spirit Shards)
Ring of Umbral Doom - Drop(Botanica)

Trinkets:

Hourglass of the Unraveller - Drop(Black Morass)
Bladefist's Breadth - Quest Reward
Core of Ar'kelos - Quest Reward

Weapons:

Whispering Blade of Slaying - Drop(Shadow Labyrinth)
Twin-Bladed Ripper - Quest Reward
Borak's Reminder - Quest Reward
Illidari-Bane Dagger - Quest Reward

Ranged:

Emberhawk Crossbow - Drop(Arcatraz)
Wrathfire Hand-Cannon - Drop(Shadow Labyrinth)
Hemet's Elekk Gun - Quest Reward

This is the Combat rogue gear list, generally from sources similar in difficulty to the above list.

Helm:

Darkguard Face Mask - Drop(Auchenai Crypts)
Helm of the Claw - Quest Reward
The Night Watchman - World Drop BoE

Neck:

Talon Lord's Collar - Quest Reward
Traitor's Noose - Drop(Heroic Slavepens)
Jagged Bark Pendant - Drop(Botanica)

Back:

Delicate Green Poncho - Quest Reward
Cloak of Malice - Drop(Shattered Halls)
Cloak of the Inciter - Drop(Shadow Labyrinth)

Shoulders:

Mantle of Perenolde - Drop(Durnholde)
Sun-Gilded Shouldercaps - Drop(Black Morass)
Shoulderpads of Assassination - Drop(Sethekk Halls)

Chest:

Chestguard of the Prowler - Drop(Heroic Ramparts)
Chestguard of the Dark Stalker - World Drop BoE
Hauberk of Karabor - Quest Reward

Wrist:

Shackles of Quagmirran - Drop(Heroic Slave Pens)
Armwraps of Disdain - Drop(Heroic Underbog)
Blade Dancer's Wristguards - World Drop BoE

Hands:

Predatory Gloves - Drop(Heroic Mana-Tombs)
Handgrips of Assassination - Drop(Black Morass)
Gloves of the Unbound - Drop(Arcatraz)

Belt:

Socrethar's Girdle - Quest Reward
Epoch's Whispering Cinch - Drop(Heroic Durnholde Keep)

Legs:

Warpscale Leggings - Drop(Botanica)
Retainer's Leggings - Reputation Rewards(Scryers)
Oilcloth Breeches - Quest Reward
Leggings of Assassination - Drop(Shadow Laybrinth)

Boots:

Boots of the Unjust - Drop(Heroic Auchenai Crypts)
Felboar Hide Shoes - Quest Reward

Rings:

Lightwarden's Band - Reputation Reward(Aldor, Revered)
Longstrider's Loop - Drop(Mana Tombs)
Band of the Exorcist - Vendor(50 Spirit Shards)
Ring of Umbral Doom - Drop(Botanica)

Trinkets:

Hourglass of the Unraveller - Drop(Black Morass)
Bladefist's Breadth - Quest Reward
Core of Ar'kelos - Quest Reward

Weapons:

Blinkstrike - World Drop BoE
The Bladefist - Drop(Heroic Shattered Halls)
Vindicator's Brand - Reputation Reward(Aldor, Exalted)
Latro's Shifting Sword - Drop(Black Morass)
Edge of the Cosmos - Drop(Mechanar)
Revenger - Drop(Botanica)

Ranged:

Emberhawk Crossbow - Drop(Arcatraz)
Needle Shrike - Drop(Underbog)
Skyfire Hawk-Bow - Drop(Shattered Halls)
Hemet's Elekk Gun - Quest Reward