Beyond directly making your character stronger through talents, equipment, enchants, etc, there are 2 more things you can use to improve your performance as a player: addons & macros. It cannot be understated how much of an impact they can have on your gameplay — increasing your DPS or healing by a large percentage, preventing you from dying, etc. You will need the best addons & macros to be the best Combat Rogue you can be!
Addons
Addons are direct quality-of-life improvements to the existing game features. They can range from User Interface modifications to simple tools such as a Damage Meter or Threat Meter. Addons can also be used to generate text notifications or even in-game vocal notifications to keep better track of your buffs and procs. They can also be used to display boss tactics and notify you of impending threats.
- DeadlyBossMods – Allows you to track boss abilities. A must-have for raiding.
- Details – Shows you how much damage, healing, etc everyone in your raid is doing. Flex on your friends!
- WeakAuras – Extremely versatile addon that can be used to track buffs, debuffs, or create audio notifications.
Macros
Combat Rogues don’t have many macros that they must use, aside from targeting macros and general essential macros such as macros for cooldowns or for maintaining their auto-attacks.
Startattack Macro
It is optimal to have the /startattack command on all of your abilities as a melee DPS character. Doing so allows your character to begin auto-attacking your target right away, even if you aren’t currently in range to attack them, that ability is on cooldown, etc.
#showtooltip
/startattack
/cast Sinister Strike
Cooldown Macro
This macro uses all of your cooldowns at once, so you don’t have to use them individually. Includes trinkets, potions, and engineering enchants
#showtooltip
/cast Adrenaline Rush
/use 10
/use 14
/use Potion of the Tol'vir
Targeting Macro
This macro will be useful for casting abilities such as Tricks of the Trade without having to manually select your target or losing your current target.
#showtooltip
/target "Player Name"
/cast Tricks of the Trade
/TargetLastTarget