Rogue Leveling Guide

The Rogue is the ultimate lone wolf in World of Warcraft, able to use stealth, crowd control, and evasive techniques to navigate even the most dangerous areas with ease. With three different specializations all focused on dealing damage, the class offers a flavor for every type of melee player: damage-over-time, sustained, and burst. They also retain their useful thieving skills with their Pick Pocket and Pick Lock abilities, the latter of which now levels automatically alongside your character.

This guide will help you select your build, equipment, professions, rotation, and where to go as a Rogue to get from 1 to 90 as efficiently as possible. No one will see you coming – and they probably won’t see you leave either.

Strengths

• Stealth lets you choose when and how you want to fight, or if you’d rather just glide through an area without fighting at all.
• Between Sprint and their new Burst of Speed talent, Rogues can cross the battlefield (or from one quest to the next) in record time.
• Rogues have exceptional crowd control capabilities and can completely lock down their enemies, preventing them from posing much of a threat.
• If you do find yourself in over your head, you’ll have powerful defensive abilities at your disposal, including the ability to just dip out with Vanish.
• Rogues can Pick Pockets and Pick Locks for extra loot.

Weaknesses

• As a pure DPS class, you won’t have the option to tank or heal for faster dungeon queues or a change of pace.
• You don’t have much in the way of healing when you do take damage.
• Many abilities require you to be in stealth or to be positioned behind the target in order to use them, and both are harder to do when you’re solo.

Talent Builds

The Rogue is a pure DPS class with three different specializations that are all focused on dealing damage in melee. The Combat specialization has good survivability and AoE damage and will make for the most straightforward leveling experience. Assassination offers the strongest single-target damage, especially in the higher levels, although its DoTs can feel a bit slow at times. Subtlety has strong burst, but it won’t be the most optimal in solo questing and farming due to Backstab’s positioning requirement.

Talents

Because of the changes to talent trees in this expansion, all of your class’s specializations share the same set of talent options. Our recommendations are the same regardless of spec:

• Level 15: Nightstalker
  Being able to move faster while in Stealth will pay off dividends in solo content. The extra damage you deal when you open on an enemy is good too. The other two options may be better for endgame and group content, but not for leveling.
• Level 30: Nerve Strike
  This talent adds an additional defensive component to your stuns, giving you some good survivability for solo questing and farming. Combat Readiness and Deadly Throw are more situational.
• Level 45: Cheat Death
  This is a powerful defensive ability that you don’t have to think about and which will straight-up save you from death when you need it. Leeching Poison and Elusiveness are more situational.
• Level 60: Burst of Speed
  An extra Sprint that you can use any time you have enough energy is almost too good to be true for leveling in the open world. Cloak and Dagger or Shadowstep are better in group content and at endgame when out-of-combat mobility is less useful.
• Level 75: Prey on the Weak
  Like Nerve Strike, this talent makes your two stuns even more useful. Dirty Tricks is more PvP-oriented and Paralytic Poison is too unpredictable for its stun to be as useful.

Glyphs

Like talents, glyphs have been trimmed down and have a more subtle impact than they did in previous expansions. The glyphs below are our recommendations for leveling, but your mileage may vary based on your own preferences and playstyle (and what cosmetic effects you may want). Our recommendations for Rogues are the same regardless of build.

Major

• Level 25: Glyph of Sprint
  Sprint is awesome while leveling, and this glyph makes it even more awesome.
• Level 50: Glyph of Deadly Momentum
  With this gylph, you won’t have to refresh Slice and Dice if you’re chain pulling, which means you can use your Combo Points for other abilities instead.
• Level 75: Glyph of Kick
  Using Kick correctly and often is a good habit to get into while leveling, but this isn’t a game changer, so feel free to use a different glyph if it suits you better.

Minor

• Level 25: Glyph of Blurred Speed
  You’ll be able to make use of this when you get Sprint at level 26, and it makes the ability even more useful.
• Level 50: Glyph of Safe Fall
  Being able to safely jump down from high places is especially useful in navigating zones where you can’t fly. Beyond that, it can save you from a lot of accidental deaths.
• Level 75: Glyph of Poisons
  If you realize you need to reapply your poisons mid-combat, this will make it less of a pain to do so. You could also opt to take Glyph of Pick Pocket or Glyph of Pick Lock if you find yourself using either of those abilities often. Or just go for your favorite cosmetic glyph otherwise.

Stat Priority

Always try to stack your main stat above all. For all Rogues, that will be Agility.

Equipment

Rogues are able to equip Bows and Crossbows as well as One-Handed weapons, including Daggers, Fist Weapons, Axes, Maces, and Swords. They can’t use any Two-Handed weapons, but they can Dual Wield One-Handed weapons. Weapon upgrades will often be the biggest damage increase while leveling. If you’re using an Heirloom weapon, it will upgrade automatically each time you level.

Rogues are able to equip Cloth as well as Leather armor, but you will always want to wear Leather Armor due to your Leather Specialization passive ability, which gives a 5% buff to your most important stat. Rogues can’t equip shields.

Heirlooms

Heirlooms can considerably speed up the leveling process by granting you increased experience gains and making your character a lot stronger. They’re also a lot more convenient than having to replace your gear every few levels. To get heirloom equipment for your Rogue, you’ll have to buy it on another character who has enough of an appropriate currency.

Any heirloom gear is better than nothing. If you happen to have some lying around after leveling another character, feel free to use them rather than buying new ones (as long as the stats are good for you). But these are the best pieces if you’re looking to purchase some Heirlooms specifically for leveling your Rogue:

Professions

You can approach professions while leveling in one of two ways: you can either start working on the skills you want to use at level 90 or you can pick up some professions to help you along the way. It’s more efficient in the long run to level your endgame professions at the same time that you level your character, but most professions will significantly slow down the leveling process if you do this. So if you just want to make it to level 90 as quickly as possible, it might make sense to grab something else for the time being.

As far as professions that specifically make leveling easier, gathering skills are the best choice. Herbalism and Mining have been changed in Mists of Pandaria to allow you to gather materials from any node in the game with a level 1 skill. These two professions, along with Archaeology, also give you character experience as you gain skill. On top of that, all three gathering professions – Herbalism, Mining, and Skinning – each offer useful passive bonuses that can help you in your journey, even if you don’t bother to level them at all. Rogues have an additional advantage with gathering skills due to Stealth, which allows you to sneak around and gather without having to fight every mob in your path.

Crafting professions require a lot more work (or a lot of gold to buy the materials on the Auction House). Many professions will allow you to craft items that you can use while leveling, with Leatherworking and Engineering being particularly useful. It’s not really worth leveling them just for that, though. If you pick up a crafting profession, it should either be in preparation for endgame or as a means of supporting your other characters.

Finally, Lockpicking is no longer a skill that you have to level as a Rogue. It will automatically level with your character. It remains Rogue-exclusive and very useful. You also have access to Pick Pocket, which can net you some extra loot from humanoid mobs. You can even macro it to your opener to automatically pick the pockets of each target you attack from Stealth:

#showtooltip Ambush
/Cast Pick Pocket
/stopcasting
/Cast Ambush

Rotation

Now that you’re all set up, here are what buttons you should push and in what order! The rotation for each of the three builds are pretty similar, with a few significant differences.

Starting out, you’ll be using Sinister Strike, weaving in Eviscerate when it becomes available. When you learn Stealth and Ambush, you’ll want to start using them to open up on mobs. From there you can gradually start to work the rest of your build’s rotation.

Assassination

• Always have Deadly Poison and Leeching Poison active.
• Start from Stealth if possible.
• Open with Fan of Knives for 4 or more targets (level 66+).
• Open with Mutilate for 3 or fewer targets.
• Use Slice and Dice to apply and maintain its its buff (level 14+).
  • Avoid wasting more than 1 Combo Point on this ability.
• Use Rupture to apply and maintain its debuff (level 46+). Rotate between targets if you are fighting multiple enemies so you keep it up on as many of them as possible.
  • Typical enemies will die too fast for it to be worth waiting for more than 3 Combo Points.
• Use Envenom if you have 5 Combo Points (level 20+).
  • Again, most enemies will die too fast for this, but keep it in mind for stronger mobs.
• Use Fan of Knives if fighting 4 or more targets (level 66+).
• Use Dispatch if it’s available (level 40+).
• Use Mutilate otherwise. If fighting more than 1 target, rotate between them to maintain your poison on as many targets as possible.

Combat

• Always have Deadly Poison and Leeching Poison active.
• Have Blade Flurry active if you will be fighting more than 1 target.
• Open with Ambush from Stealth. (It’s not as vital to start from Stealth for Combat Rogues as it is for Assassination or Subtlety.)
• Open with Revealing Strike if not in Stealth (level 20+).
• Use Slice and Dice to apply and maintain its buff (level 14+).
  • This ability will be stronger with more Combo Points, but most enemies will die too fast for it to be worth waiting.
• Use Eviscerate if you have 5 Combo Points.
  • Most enemies will die too fast for this, but keep it in mind for stronger mobs.
• Use Fan of Knives to apply and maintain your Deadly Poison if you are fighting more than 1 target (level 66+).
• Use Sinister Strike otherwise.

Subtlety

• Always have Deadly Poison and Leeching Poison active.
• Start from Stealth if possible.
• Open with Ambush from Stealth.
• Use Hemorrhage to apply and maintain its debuff. Don’t refresh it before it expires.
• Use Slice and Dice to apply and maintain its buff (level 14+).
  • This ability will be stronger with more Combo Points, but most enemies will die too fast for it to be worth waiting.
• Use Rupture to apply and maintain its debuff (level 46+). Rotate between targets if you are fighting multiple enemies so you keep it up on as many of them as possible.
  • Typical enemies will die too fast for it to be worth waiting for more than 3 Combo Points.
• Use Eviscerate if you have 5 Combo Points.
  • Again, most enemies will die too fast for this, but keep it in mind for stronger mobs.
• Use Backstab if you can get behind your target.
• Use Hemorrhage otherwise.

Where To Level

Getting Started

Like all classes except for Death Knights, you’ll begin in the starting zone for your character’s race. Completing your starting zone should get you through the first dozen or so levels. After that, you can head to your faction’s capital city to train professions, use the Auction House, and decide where to go next. A good place to start is the Hero’s Call Board in the center of The Trade District in Stormwind City or the Warchief’s Command Board in front of Grommash Hold at The Valley of Strength in Orgrimmar. This board will always have a couple of quests directing you to a zone in your level range.

Leveling Beyond Your Starting Zone

Level 20 is when you’ll be able to get your first mount. After that, you should train new riding skills as soon as they become available to help you get around more quickly. Don’t forget to also train your professions, upgrade your gear, and pick up glyphs when you have new slots available. At level 30, you can learn Dual Specialization from your class trainer, which will allow you to have an alternate build that you can swap to when you feel the need.

For the first 58 levels, you’ll be questing or dungeon grinding in Classic zones and instances on the continents of Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. When you get into the higher levels, you should head to the next expansion’s zones as soon as you’re able to: Outland at level 58, Northrend at 68, Cataclysm at 78, and Pandaria at 85. There’s a big jump in loot and experience for each expansion that makes it well worth abandoning whatever you were doing before and moving on.

If you’re not worried about taking the fastest, most direct path to level 90, feel free to break up your leveling process by trying out different activities. There are plenty of things to do in World of Warcraft that grant experience besides questing and killing mobs. You can get a little bit of experience from gathering with Archaeology, Herbalism, or Mining. You can run dungeons with other players, or compete against them in PvP battlegrounds. The new pet battle system also gives experience.