Starting a rogue
From WoWWiki
| Classes: | 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Class races: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| Quests: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| Abilities: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| Trainers: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| Talents: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| Talent builds: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| Tactics: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| Armor sets: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| Starting a: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| PvE guide: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| PvP guide: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| Useful macros: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
So, you're thinking of starting as a Rogue? This page is intended to give a short overview of what to do over the first 10 levels or so, just to get you started on the right path. If you're looking for more of an overview of the class's abilities, see the main rogue page. For more advanced topics, see the Rogue Tactics.
For a more general overview on starting out playing WoW, see the Newbie Guide.
Contents |
Primary Attributes
Agility, Attack Power, Haste, and Hit Rating. Agility and Attack Power are the only stats a rogue needs to worry about at lower levels (1 to about 50), then Hit Rate will become an important stat to consider. Hit Rate reduces the chance that you miss your target, as this attribute's name suggests. Haste Rate reduces the time between attacks at all times, so this attribute is clearly important. You won't worry about haste until you raid, because it's a newer addition and next to zero items below high end content have Haste.
Balance
Your stats must not be overstacked in any fashion if you are to be above standard melee DPS in raids. If you have 320 hit rate and you are raiding ZA, then maybe you should regem, because 320 hit rate is more than Rogues in Black Temple and Sunwell roll with.
Race Selection
If you're a serious player, you'll want to consider the various Racial Traits when choosing your race. You might also consider the racial stats, but after the first 20 levels or so these become largely irrelevant, as the items you've gained will far outstrip any racial bonuses. For more information on these, see here.
For PvP, a dwarf, gnome, undead,night elf or blood elf rogue is usually the best choice. Dwarven Racial Stoneform removes bleed effects, allowing you to escape from a warrior at will, which is a big problem for rogues, and allows you to escape from smarter rogues that use rupture to prevent you from vanishing. Stoneform also removes debuffs like devouring plague and hunter's serpent sting, abilities which also prevent rogues from vanishing (before Cloak of Shadows at level 66). Stoneform has a vast number of uses and is an overlooked ability. Their ability to track treasure is also useful in finding locked chests. Will of the Forsaken and Cannibalize for the Undead is essential in PvP, as you can avoid fear and charm, as well as regenerate health from fallen opponents. Gnomes will also be good because of their small size and Escape Artist, allowing them to get out of snares with ease. Night Elves have Shadowmeld, adding one level of stealth, and that is excellent in PvP, but mostly in Rogue vs Rogue fights, because the first rogue that gets hit will usually lose unless you're smart. Blood elves have an Mana Tap and Arcane Torrent, which allows them to instantly regain a large amount of energy.
When you consider raiding, you want to look at the offensive benefits of your race. Trolls and Orcs have very good racials to boost their overall DPS. A Troll has the ability to attack faster than any race in the entire game, and Orcs can boost their attack power to unmatched levels. A good Troll can be the DPS output of an Undead in far superior gear if they optimize their use of Blade Flurry, Haste Potions, Berserking, and Slice and Dice.
In the end, your race is your own choice. If you're the person that will end up wanting the best race ("best" being in the eye of the beholder), make sure you look into this classes end game expectations, what is expected of you as a rogue in a large raid, and which racials can make you shine on the Recount Report.
Leveling and End Game
The easiest way to progress through the early levels is to simply do any and all of the quests you can find. Not only will you breeze through the first 5 to 10 levels, but you'll get useful gear and precious money. Money is particularly important so you can purchase your Rogue Abilities.
You will spend levels 1 to 5 in your starting town. Make sure you get all the Rogue Abilities you can from your trainer. Between level 5 and 6 you'll find yourself heading off to your second town and a new trainer who can teach you various things. At the second town, repeat the process - do each and every quest you can find. It's important to keep up with your abilities and your gear. Now is also an appropriate time to start training in your chosen professions.
Levels 1-3
Rogues start with Sinister Strike, Eviscerate, and Throw. With 10
, you can purchase Stealth.
If necessary, use Throw to pull a single mob from a crowd.
Levels 4-5
At level 4, you can learn Backstab and Pick Pocket, two skills that require the use of Stealth. Before opening combat, enter Stealth and try to Pick Pocket the target. Afterwards, open with Backstab and continue to spam Sinister Strike. (Backstab does not need to be used from stealth. If you are in a group and someone else has aggro, you can get behind and proceed to use backstab. This move can also be used with Gouge, when learned.)
Levels 6-7
At level 6, you can upgrade Sinister Strike and learn Gouge. Use Gouge to incapacitate your opponents and generate combo points.
Levels 10-70
-Weapon Choice- (Consider Specialization as well)
-Dagger- Burst PvE - Generally Backstab dependent, Burst PvP - Not as common at later levels due to the addition of resillience, making burst crits utterly laughable.
-Sword- Sustained PvE - Very Slice and Dice and attack power dependent due to Sword Proc, Sustained PvP - Hemorrhage or Sinister Strike, each hit hard, and depend on spec.
-Fist- Sustained/Burst PvE - Very Crit Rate dependent, you will rely on Agility much more than a Sword Rogue in raids, Burst/Sustained PvP - Larger crits than normal regardless of position due to Fist Specialization and Malice.
-Mace- Minimal Sustained, Minimal Burst PvE due to the current nature of Mace Specialization, Sustained PvP and Stun Proc with Mace Specialization. Maces are very common amongst Arena Rogues.
-Attention Combat Rogues- Do not mix and match weapons. The waste of talent points is subsantial and something you want to avoid.
Notable Early Quests
The intention is to link into the Quests page here with a few low-level quests once they are added, with particular emphasis on including quests with nice rogue rewards, and any rogue-specific quests. No real need to include the very basic starting quests as everybody will see those easily enough -- Goldark
The following lists are not intended to be comprehensive, but cover a selection of the best quests in the starting areas from levels 1 to 10.
Dwarves/Gnomes
-
Quest 1
- Quest 2
- etc
Humans
- Brotherhood of Thieves - nice early dagger reward
- Seek out SI:7 - magical dagger for level 10 rogues
Night Elves
- Ursal the Mauler- Nice main hand axe or mace
Orcs/Trolls
-
The Shattered Hand - Nice dagger
Undead
- Quest 1
On Soloing and Grouping
Soloing
For the first 10 levels, the Rogue shouldn't have much trouble soloing up to two mobs at a time around your level. You won't be able to Backstab much when soloing, so the main focus will be on Sinister Strike and Eviscerate. Try to find a weapon with high end damage for hitting those big Sinister Strikes, as this will help more than a weapon with high DPS. After level 6, you might start using Gouge to stun your opponent briefly to get behind and do a backstab. This is one of the staple early strategies.
If you're interested in solo grinding your way to level 70, then stick to the Combat Tree and focus on low HP mobs that you can form a route around. This will allow the rogue to excel at what they do best: consistent damage.
Grouping
Grouping isn't all that different from soloing. At these levels any class can pretty much look after itself, but be ready to help out a weaker caster class if you see them under attack - always protect your healer!
Remember to "assist" the Warrior or Paladin if you have one in your group, to ensure you focus your party's firepower on one mob. You can do this by selecting the tank (use the F1-F5 keys to target group members) and then pressing "F". This way, mobs will die faster. If you don't have a tank in the group, agree amongst yourselves whom to assist. Although its not all that important now, its an important habit to get used to for later levels.
Roguecraft
Your Rogue is your character. With talent points, you have to decide how you want to build your Rogue. Assassination, Combat, and Subtlety are the specializations that are available. Many, many rogues decide to invest their points in Subtelty at lower levels. In the beginning, Subtlety is a build that flows well with PvP and PvE Combat. But, if you pick Combat, and get good at it in any situation, you will be a force to be reckoned with in any encounter at any time. Subtelty Rogues won't present a huge threat when they can't get behind the enemy for back stab (assuming they use daggers), or are out of their cooldowns that allow them to escape, and engage again or flee. But a Combat Rogue, with combat-based cooldowns is not dependent on an escape to gain an edge on their opponent.
Useful Professions
The rogue can benefit directly and indirectly from many of the professions available.
Primary Professions
- Herbalism & Alchemy
- Herbalism and Alchemy are somewhat useful for the rogue, and are essentially two Primary Professions that go hand in hand. Herbalism allows the gathering of various herbs, and the Alchemy profession allows the creation of various potions for use. Health potions will often save your life, but there are also potions of defense, agility, regen potions and more. However, keep in mind that healing potions will drop from mobs or be pick-pocketed too so there are other ways to get them. You can even buy some potions from vendors. Additionally, herbalism can be used to acquire Swiftthistle, used in the creation of Thistle Tea. This profession choice is for the people who don't want to take up Cooking and even perhaps First Aid for fast healing potions, this isn't a bad problem, but there are many professions other than these that the rogue can benefit from. As a high level Alchemist, a rogue can brew their own Haste, Agility, Onslaught, and useful potions. You also make the Master Alchemist's Stone, giving you a large edge on trinkets until tier 5 content.
- Mining & Blacksmithing
- You can make your own weapons.
- Mining & Jewelcrafting
- You can make yourself an epic gem, whee.
- Engineering
- This profession is very common, and with good reason. The Deathblow Goggles are amazing. The best things this profession has to offer are mostly fun little gimmicks.
- Skinning & Leatherworking
- Finally, the profession that is perfectly suited for a rogue. As you level, your gear is obviously going to become dated. On your adventures in Azeroth, you will come across opponents that you can skin. You skin them (go figure), and then you make leather gear with agility and stamina on it. Sounds cheap doesn't it? Well, it is. Potentially, a rogue could be wealthy in about an hour of skin farming. Remember, Elemental is the Leatherworking path for rogues. When you reach the profession cap, you can make the Primal Intent, Swiftstrike Shoulders, Boots of Utter Darkness, and more. This profession is probably one of the best choices for a rogue that is planning on putting the effort into it. In Wrath of the Lich King, there are many more perks for Rogue Leatherworkers than there are now. The best leg patches that give the most attack power and crit rate are BoP, or Bind on Pickup (meaning it is bound to you, and not able to be traded, obviously), and you can tack over 100 attack power to your bracers, which binds them to you.
Start your profession early! It's usually not too expensive, and you want to ensure that the gear you create with your skills is applicable to your rogue's level.
Secondary Professions
As a Rogue you have 4 ways to heal: Time, Eating, Potions, and First Aid. Fishing is useful in that it provides you with something to cook, but fishing takes lots of time an is not recommended for those who wish to level up fast. Cooking should be trained up to at least skill 60, so you can make Thistle Tea, a drink which instantly restores your energy in the heat of battle. Cooking also allows you to make better food than may be otherwise available, although in practice you can normally find plenty of food from monsters, doing quests, or asking a friendly mage.
First Aid is indispensable to a rogue, as it can really reduce your down-time between fights when soloing, and can also help reduce the strain on your healers when in a group. In addition, a common tactic is to use gouge during combat. During the opponents down time, you can use your bandages while in combat for a quick life boost. This is easier with the "gouge macro"
Cooking can also be another good profession for the rogue for those "in-between" resting breaks where you can also provide sufficient food for yourself to eat. This is also more reliable and cheaper compared to buying food from vendors. And gives you a little something to do (collect meat then cook) when you're bored!
Lockpicking
Some good info at the official WoW forums:
Early on you might get some Practice Locks from an engineer to increase your lockpicking, but at low levels you won't want or need it much. The best chance to get your skill up to snuff will be around 15th level in a place called Alther's Mill in the Redridge Mountains region. Horde rogues will want to visit one of the pirate ships on the eastern coast of the Barrens, south of Ratchet.
Another excellent place for levelling up Lockpicking is in Angor Fortress in Badlands as well as the gates in Scarlet Monastery
Long-Term Goals
In raids, Rogues generally are not considered crowd control due to the lack of humandoids and/or the risk of sapping. Many mobs have True Sight as well. There are situations where saps are needed, however. As the Primary Melee DPS and more often than not, the Main Assist, you have a pretty tough job to make sure the raid can safely assist off you to the next target. Since you are right there with the tanks and the enemies, you have to be on your toes 110%, making sure Blade Flurry won't hit poorly placed Polymorphs or Seductions and you are attacking the Main Tank's target, or the target your raidmaster has designated aside from the Tank's. Keeping Slice and Dice and Rupture up 100% of the time is the most essential skill of a Combat Rogue. Remember, Hunters want to be just like us, so they will not hesitate to take the trinket you have been farming for the past three months. So when you lose that roll to a Hunter (Oh, yes, it will happen) be prepared to count to ten. Don't stress about not topping DPS, look at Damage Done.
When the Warlock is using Seed of Corruption and the Mage is using all of his nifty AOE Spells, don't freak out about them leaving your single target DPS in the dust.
Heals: You are not a tank, you are not a major form of crowd control and you are squishy. You are not a priority. Accept this fact and move on.
Enchants: Dual Mongoose. It does stack, and it is wonderful. Learn to love your goosey.
When choosing a set of weapons to raid with there are a few basic guidelines. A: For your mainhand, look at the maximum damage the weapon can strike for. Since Sinister Strike is an Instant ability, the DPS isn't applicable. The slower the weapon in your mainhand, the harder your melee swings and Sinister Strikes will land for. B: For your offhand, look at the speed and the DPS. When you get Combat Potency the speed becomes a major stat to look at. A good weapon for a Rogue's offhand is generally going to have a speed of 1.50.
When looking at a new piece that just dropped off the huge boss your guild downed, remember that balancing your stats is key. Ask a fellow rogue, or someone you know won't lead you astray.
Links
| |||||||||||
