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That pretty much defines a rogue. We're the sneaky class that every single casting class hates. To respond directly and give evidence:


Easy. Spec combat up until you can get Mutilate (level 50), and basically you can keep mobs stunned all the time, thus taking no damage.


You can enter stealth when you're not in combat, and worse comes to worse you have Sprint to run away, Evasion to avoid taking damage, and Vanish to re-enter stealth in the middle of combat.


Well we can't lock anything, but we can unlock most stuff, and poisons are essential weapon buffs for us.


We excel in all of those.


Another thing we excel at. I don't know of any other class as hated by casters as rogues.

One thing to keep in mind though, is that Rogues aren't quite as powerful soloers as some other classes during your leveling/PvE goldgrinds and such. You'll kill fast and you'll have little to no downtime, but you're also much less powerful when it comes to sustained fights against overwhelming numbers or one powerful enemy. (Elites).

If you can't do enough dps during your evasion tanking and so on, you'll often find that some elites will kick your *** since you can't lock down some of them. It's hardly a problem, and not something I consider to be a bad thing with the class, but it does mean you're more dependant on gaining some friends to take on some quests.

It's a very small price to pay for one of the most hilarious classes in the game.

(Try inducing paranoia. Just do a stealth 'driveby' on a hostile spellcaster, close enough to have them hear or possibly catch a glimpse of you, then get out of their range while watching them jump around and spam every AoE they got to flush you out. When they finally relax, do it again. I once did that until the lil' gnome mage cried about it on the server forum, then ran off to his closest village. I didn't kill him until he was within spitting range of the guards' aggro range.)

Any and all races. No real difference between them at this point. I personally prefer my Undead Rogue, as they get a fearbreaker. As for speccs... well, it's partly personal taste, and partly about leveling speed as everything in WoW these days is about the end-game at level 80.

Combat specc until level 50, then specc Mutilate and rape some face until level 80. Once there, specc two different types of Mutilate (dualspecc) and keep having fun. You have time. Just play the game and have some fun until you get up to higher levels. Once that's done, you'll have a much better idea what people are talking about.

At this point, I would tell you to take whichever race you fancied. Even if we go into detailed theorycrafting, everything will be changing in cataclysm.

All racials are due to get an overhaul, and as such whatever we say, it will all become a lie in a few months. Racials rarely matter while leveling anyway.

Rogues are a very fun class, and I hope you enjoy your leveling experience. Just make sure you try and keep at least your weapons up to date while leveling, I believe most blue weapons are rather cheap now thanks to heirlooms.

I recently leveled a rogue as Sub.

Ambush opener leaves most mobs almost dead. The Stealth CD is short enough as Sub to have it ready after the mob dies. Once you get ShS it gets even nastier.

My 2 pennies: Therion was my fastest WotLK leveler with a Muti-Prep PvP build (very close to this). He just tore through quest mobs. I tried a few variations of all three trees but Muti-Prep consistently provided the highest XP/hour. Next highest was a Combat/Sub thing but can't remember exactly how I spec'd that one.

In full disclosure, he was in full t6+SWP but I don't think that really had a huge effect on total XP/hour with the low amount of "kill x number of mobs" quests compared to TBC.

If you're going to PvP on Horde, Undead is still the best IMO, though Goblin is a potential contender for the crown.

WotF's 30 sec cooldown after you use a trinket is still better than anything that Orcs have.

Yeah, every time I was Eviscerate X I get nostalgic for how awesome Undead PvP used to be.

Of course Humans always have been and probably will always be completely broken in PvP (i.e. the best race for rogues).

Years of getting sapped out of stealth by humans in arena proves this to be true.

For rogue, definitely human. I've gotten into it a few times in talking about it, but here's the way I rationalize it:

1) In BGs, I can get a better Worgen racial with Engineering (150% speed for 5 secs).
2) I don't have to farm for a PvP trinket as a human. I do as a Worgen.
3) I don't look ******* stupid in my normal form.
4) Diplomacy. 'Nuff said.
5) Mace and sword expertise, while not needed for PvP (especially since PvP looks to be almost all dagger in Cata), is nice if you do PvE.

Oh, and Perception will make you lol. Seriously, the first week my rogue was a human I was astonished at how easy it was to see other rogues and druids. I was literally laughing my head off in BGs as I would see another rogue stealth since I knew I would get the opener.

To be fair...

You'll need to 'farm' for something regardless. Obviously this saves you the honor, and it's more convenient, but it's not like you can now totally ignore your second trinket slot. You're forced into PvE to get a decent one. Assuming you're not going for 2 PvP (battlemaster) trinkets, but I don't even know if that's ever been viable at all.

A DPS or tank trinket from badges of newnamehere would also work for either more pew pew or survivability. Assuming they have them right away of course.

If your the squishy guy in a comp a CSK type trinket could work as crit reduction from resil is dead from what I have heard. But realistically double DPS trinks would be more effective. A tank trink would really only work for humans and then more pew pew would likely be better as CSK style is rare for badge trinks.

CSK is stam plus damage absorb on use. Dodge or other melee damage only proc/use would make it worthless. CSK style was what I was thinking when I said tank trink. All the other ones would have been terrible.

edit: A CSK style would be easier and more profitable to farm is my point I think. At least compared to the battlemaster style with regards to honor.

Edited, Sep 10th 2010 12:34am by Horsemouth

Some of us are lazy.