WoW Classic Rogue Guide: Weapon Skills, Abilities, Trainers, & Gear

Rogues are WoW Classic’s masters of intrigue, utilizing their stealth, poisons, and agility to evade, assassinate, and steal. They are often thought of as the ultimate PvP class, and they are in high demand for raids as well, with their damage output rivaling even that of Warriors.

Rogues are able to Pick Locks and Pick Pockets, which offer some interesting approaches to farming that aren’t available to other classes. Evasion, Sprint, Stealth, and Vanish make them extremely slippery opponents in both PvP and PvE, and their crowd control arsenal is unparalleled with Blind, Cheap Shot, Gouge, Kidney Shot, Kick, and Sap allowing them to keep enemies incapacitated almost indefinitely.

Assassination Rogue

Combat Rogue

Subtlety Rogue

Rogue Tanking

Rogue Talent Calculator

Rogue Leveling Guide

Lockpicking Guide

Poisons Guide

Rogue Pre-Raid & Best in Slot (BiS)

19 Rogue Twink

29 Rogue Twink

39 Rogue Twink

Roles and Specializations

The three talent trees for Rogues are Assassination, Combat, and Subtlety.

• Assassination
  • Focuses on improving poison damage and critical strikes.
  • Played less than Combat due to requiring a lot of critical strike rating to be competitive.
• Combat
  • Offers buffs to survivability and physical damage.
  • The most common choice for raiding, with its strong damage output.
• Subtlety
  • Provides improvements to stealth and utility.
  • Subtlety is an exceptional tree for PvP and solo play, but is not as viable in raids.

View the complete Rogue talent tree in our Rogue Talent Calculator.

Class Feature: Stealth

Stealth is a core mechanic of the Rogue class which is required for some of their abilities. They are able to sneak their way through enemy-infested areas to reach their objective, which can be especially useful for solo play and farming. While Druids are also able to stealth, Rogues are the only class who can Vanish once they have already engaged in combat, offering the ultimate escape when a situation goes bad.

Class Feature: Poisons

Rogues utilize a variety of poisons on their weapons which grant them some unique, useful buffs. These poisons can be crafted by the Rogue or purchased from Poison Vendors found in cities and many quest hubs.

Class Feature: Lockpicking

Rogues are the only class that is capable of opening locked boxes, chests, and doors thanks to their Lockpicking skill. Some doors in the game require a key, but otherwise a Rogue with the appropriate skill can open anything in the game. The only other way to open locked chests and lockboxes is with expensive crafted consumable items. Many Rogues offer up their services in opening locked boxes as a way of earning some extra gold.

Resources

Rogues use Energy as their main ability resource. They also accumulate and spend Combo Points.

Races

Rogues have several Race options for each faction.

Racial Abilities

Starting Stats

Alliance

Stat	Dwarf	Gnome	Human	Night Elf
Stamina	24	20	21	20
Strength	23	16	21	18
Agility	19	26	23	28
Intellect	19	24	20	20
Spirit	19	20	21	20

Horde

Stat	Orc	Troll	Undead
Stamina	23	22	22
Strength	24	22	20
Agility	20	25	21
Intellect	17	16	18
Spirit	23	21	25

Weapon Skills and Armor Proficiencies

Rogues can equip Cloth and Leather armor from the beginning. They can never learn any other armor proficiencies.

Below is a table of weapon types that Rogues can use and where the initial skill can be trained.

Weapon Type	Where to Learn
Bows	Ilyenia Moonfire in Darnassus Hanashi in Orgrimmar Sayoc in Orgrimmar
Crossbows	Bixi Wobblebonk in Ironforge Woo Ping in Stormwind Archibald in Undercity
Daggers	Default Default
Fist Weapons	Ilyenia Moonfire in Darnassus Buliwyf Stonehand in Ironforge Sayoc in Orgrimmar
Guns	Buliwyf Stonehand in Ironforge Ansekhwa in Thunder Bluff
One-Handed Maces	Buliwyf Stonehand in Ironforge Ansekhwa in Thunder Bluff
One-Handed Swords	Woo Ping in Stormwind Archibald in Undercity
Thrown	Default Default

Notable Abilities

Rogues have a lot of useful abilities that will make them a welcome addition to any group.

Utility

• Detect Traps
• Disarm Trap
• Evasion
• Pick Pocket
• Pick Lock
• Stealth

Movement

• Crippling Poison
• Mind-numbing Poison
• Sprint

Dispels

• None

Crowd Control

• Blind
• Cheap Shot
• Gouge
• Kidney Shot
• Kick
• Sap

Threat

• Distract
• Feint
• Vanish

Buffs

• None

Debuffs

• Expose Armor
• Wound Poison

Rogue Trainer Locations

Rogue class trainers can be found in starting zones and major cities.

Trainer	Faction	Location	Coordinates
Anishar	Alliance	Darnassus – Cenarion Enclave	38.8, 21.2
Erion Shadewhisper	Alliance	Darnassus – Cenarion Enclave	35.2, 25.2
Syurna	Alliance	Darnassus – Cenarion Enclave	36.8, 21.8
Solm Hargrin*	Alliance	Dun Morogh – Coldridge Valley	28.4, 67.6
Hogral Bakkan	Alliance	Dun Morogh – Kharanos	47.6, 52.6
Rwag*	Horde	Durotar – Valley of Trials	41.2, 68.0
Kaplak	Horde	Durotar – Razor Hill	52.0, 43.6
Jorik Kerridan*	Alliance	Elwynn Forest – Northshire	50.6, 40.0
Keryn Sylvius	Alliance	Elwynn Forest – Goldshire	43.8, 65.8
Fenthwick	Alliance	Ironforge – Forlorn Cavern	52.0, 13.6
Hulfdan Blackbeard	Alliance	Ironforge – Forlorn Cavern	51.6, 14.8
Ormyr Flinteye	Alliance	Ironforge – Forlorn Cavern	52.6, 14.8
Gest	Horde	Orgrimmar – Cleft of Shadow	42.8, 51.6
Ormok	Horde	Orgrimmar – Cleft of Shadow	44.0, 54.6
Shenthul	Horde	Orgrimmar – Cleft of Shadow	43.0, 53.6
Lord Tony Romano	Alliance	Stormwind – Old Town	78.2, 58.0
Osborne the Night Man	Alliance	Stormwind – Old Town	74.6, 52.8
Ian Strom	Neutral	Stranglethorn Vale – Booty Bay	26.8, 77.2
Frahun Shadewhisper*	Alliance	Teldrassil – Shadowglen	59.6, 38.6
Jannok Breezesong	Alliance	Teldrassil – Dolanaar	56.2, 60.0
David Trias	Horde	Tirisfal Glades – Deathknell	32.6, 65.6
Marion Call	Horde	Tirisfal Glades – Brill	61.6, 52.0
Carolyn Ward	Horde	Undercity – Rogues’ Quarter	83.8, 71.6
Gregory Charles	Horde	Undercity – Rogues’ Quarter	85.2, 72.2
Miles Dexter	Horde	Undercity – Rogues’ Quarter	85.0, 71.2

Gear Sets

Here are all of the equipment sets for Rogues in Classic WoW, including dungeon sets, raid tier sets, and PvP sets.

• Shadowcraft Armor (Dungeon Set 1 or Tier 0)
• Darkmantle Armor (Dungeon Set 2 or Tier 0.5)
• Nightslayer Armor (Tier 1 – Molten Core)
• Madcap’s Outfit (Tier 1.5 – Zul’Gurub)
• Bloodfang Armor (Tier 2 – Blackwing Lair)
• Emblems of Veiled Shadows (Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj)
• Deathdealer’s Embrace (Tier 2.5 – Temple of Ahn’Qiraj)
• Bonescythe Armor (Tier 3 – Naxxramas)
• The Highlander’s Purpose/ The Defiler’s Purpose (Arathi Basin)
• The Highlander’s Will/ The Defiler’s Will (Arathi Basin)
• Lieutenant Commander’s Vestments/ Champion’s Vestments (Rare PvP)
• Field Marshal’s Vestments/ Warlord’s Vestments (Epic PvP)

Notable Items

• Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker: The most iconic weapon in all of World of Warcraft can be yours as a Rogue. (Thunderfury Guide)

Skill Books

Below are all of the skill books that are available for Rogues in WoW Classic. These books teach new abilities or ability ranks that cannot be learned from trainers. The books are not Soulbound and can therefore be traded or purchased from the Auction House.