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    TwinStar team

Rogue Levelling your Rogue, a short guide

A lot of it is good but I disagree with some of it. Primarily the fact you tell them to go early assassination since this realistically only outperforms combat until 20. Once you gain Riposte it's smooth sailing. Unless you're incredibly wealthy and care about saving yourself a small amount of time then in which case Assassination until 20 IS doable.

Also for Horde at roughly 22, BFD is nice because the strange water globe from the stone under the water which gives Outlaw Sabre. Does more damage than the Wingblade, doesn't have agility but does have 15 attack power. Though this sword also has a 2.7 swing timer but that's all irrelevant due to SS mechanics of being instant attack. However 35-67 damage? fuck yeah.

Edit - Reread the stats of Outlaw Sabre.
 
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Combat is insane in the early levels. Honestly around level 14-15 or so is when combat rogues really kick off
getting ripost first is debatable, im not saying you are wrong it is just debatable. Hit is the most important stat for rogues, where as parry is not something rogues go for, ripost is the best energy to damage ability in the game but you still have to parry first. A personal preference of mine is to boost passive performance rather than go for proc/situational abilities so I went for precision before ripost and i did very well.

Also going imp gouge rather than lightning reflexes is debatable for leveling. Imp gouge is an insane pvp talent but for leveling 3% more dodge is going to take you a lot farther when it gets to the point you are chain pulling mobs and wanting to minimize downtime. the extra time you get from imp gouge is really only good for an extra bandage tick or two in pve. That is very situational.

Realistically i would say combat is the "best" spec from 10-60 for leveling. Rogues should be saving up money from 1-10 so they can get sword training at 10 then spec combat. At level 15 you will be killing mobs so fast when another class will come up beside you and start killing the same mobs as you, you will realize they are killing stuff half as fast as you if that and that they also have to rest more between fighting, you will be thinking "WoW! i am glad i picked a rogue!"

combat is also great because you dont have to waste time stealthing around so you can quickly chain pull mobs. When you are killing a load of mobs all in one area that time really adds up.
Also as combat you will dominate rogues of other specs in 1v1. Sure they could ambush you and nearly kill you in 1-2 hits but if their opener doesn't crit, or you are able to get a blind off to heal or drink a potion then you should win every time.

Pretty good guide here though, just thought id add my preference.
 
Just some thoughts on the entire topic of leveling rogue in this game version - my comments are for the leveling game, PVE> IF you want to low-level PvP as primarly use of toon, that is an entirely different matter.

1) My first 4 points are 2 in SS imp and 2 in Remorseless attacks. These two collectively have a huge impact on time-to-kill.

More generally, through level 27, I think 16/2/0 is likely to be the best spec. just not enough in combat and subt. gimps itself both in time (more time in stealth for outdoor mobs that die anyway) and use of daggers for SS. beyond that it is hard to see clear advantage of combat over assassination even once you could theoretically get blade fury - , you give up a lot of damage upside just to get to the 4th and 5th tiers of combat if you go that route. Blade fury is nice if you are in an instance, but outdoors, who cares? Ditto adrenaline rush. Very situational, versus what are for the most part static or constantly used dps boosts in the assassination tree, even low tiers.

1) mace/sword vs daggers, early. I see no reason to use daggers past level 9. As soon as you hit level 10, I would suggest having a >2.0 speed mace or sword ready to use/craft (bs has one I believe) and go train it. Note that this can be a hassle for night elves., BUT night elves can get a 3.0 speed 1h sword from a quest in teldrassil. the difference in time-to-death for mobs is high, which directly translates into more uptime for you, as you take less damage and far less damage that won't regenerate between pulls.

to be clear (there is confusion above), sinister strike is a fixed bonus on top of you actual weapon damage, so given equal ilvl, a 2.9 mace/sword SS dmg is more than double a 1.4 dagger, yet uses the same energy. I have wondered how many leveling rogues wondered why they were having more and more trouble killing stuff with their 1.4 mh's as they got into the mid and upper teens.

There are some very slow maces/swords that may be craftable and/or show up in AH (gnoll skull basher comes to mind for lvl 14) that literally make killing mobs trivial. I have considered mining/bs on a server that had a very sparse AH just to make sure I could get relatively slow weapons.

2) sword (or even dagger) specialization vs. not going combat - I think the 5 points, plus the trash points to get to this point in combat, are not worth it vs. going assassination early. Riposte, given that you are fighting turtles and bears and whatever, I just dont see how a disarm is useful, particularly for 6 points.

3) consumables - no excuse for not using sharpening stones/weightstones. easy significant dps boost early on. If you cannot find them in AH, make a toon and MAKE them. doesn't take that long to get up to coarse or heavy stone, for starters.

4) Finally, PICK POCKETS!!

A rogue should never, ever not have money to train or buy needed reagents, and should be able to save enough to buy cheaper items from AH without any external support or selling on AH. Some starting areas (deathknell) have numerous humanoids just waiting to have their pockets picked for silver far in excess of what you can possibly spend there.
 
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Riposte, given that you are fighting turtles and bears and whatever, I just dont see how a disarm is useful, particularly for 6 points.
Riposte is a huge damage burst for just 10 energy. One of the best talents for leveling.
 
Riposte is a huge damage burst for just 10 energy. One of the best talents for leveling.


Lets assume you are putting 2 in to Imp. SS no matter what. You have to put 9 more (3 in tier one) to get riposte, and not a single one increases damage until riposte itself. you will get 5% parry 3% dodge, but I really question whether this is a good trade-off. For arguments sake, assume 2 in remorseless attacks, 2 in imp. ss. now put 9 more points in somewhere.

Lets see what you could do in Assassination with 9 more points - 5% crit with 5, then choose between imp. eviserate, murder, ruthlessness, and (notably) relentless strikes (the 9th point). from there, your NEXT 5 points can be in lethality (which I suspect, given remorseless attacks, is not too far in benefit from the +hit in tier 2 of combat). depending on what % instant poison is of total damage (I don't know, does anywa have a general idea?) Improved poisons might be a competitive dps boost with the dagger spec in combat or off-hand spec if not daggers.

So with 9 points, and remorseless attacks and imp. ss in both

either get 5% parry, 3% dodge (or gouge) and riposte, or

5% crit, and choose some of combo-point adder, energy refresher, imp. eviserate and up to 2% vs most mobs.

the NEXT 10 points in either tree might be 9 between improved poisons, lethality, and whatever else wasn't taken in assassination, with 10th point being Cold Blood. In combat, perhaps 5% hit, then either offhand or dagger spec (if not sword/mace).

I guess the short version is that to me it is far from clear that going for riposte is a better overall damage rate than the more static damage/combo point adds/energy regen buffs you would get from going in assassination for 9 points.
 
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Lets assume you are putting 2 in to Imp. SS no matter what. You have to put 9 more (3 in tier one) to get riposte, and not a single one increases damage until riposte itself. you will get 5% parry 3% dodge, but I really question whether this is a good trade-off. For arguments sake, assume 2 in remorseless attacks, 2 in imp. ss. now put 9 more points in somewhere.

Lets see what you could do in Assassination with 9 more points - 5% crit with 5, then choose between imp. eviserate, murder, ruthlessness, and (notably) relentless strikes (the 9th point). from there, your NEXT 5 points can be in lethality (which I suspect, given remorseless attacks, is not too far in benefit from the +hit in tier 2 of combat). depending on what % instant poison is of total damage (I don't know, does anywa have a general idea?) Improved poisons might be a competitive dps boost with the dagger spec in combat or off-hand spec if not daggers.

So with 9 points, and remorseless attacks and imp. ss in both

either get 5% parry, 3% dodge (or gouge) and riposte, or

5% crit, and choose some of combo-point adder, energy refresher, imp. eviserate and up to 2% vs most mobs.

the NEXT 10 points in either tree might be 9 between improved poisons, lethality, and whatever else wasn't taken in assassination, with 10th point being Cold Blood. In combat, perhaps 5% hit, then either offhand or dagger spec (if not sword/mace).

I guess the short version is that to me it is far from clear that going for riposte is a better overall damage rate than the more static damage/combo point adds/energy regen buffs you would get from going in assassination for 9 points.

Sorry but no its not. Combat is by far the most sufficient leveling specc. I get your point that the early combat tree is very weak and you don't get any noticeable talents. Although you have to consider that even dodge/parry talents make sense when leveling (compared to your go-to raiding spec). In the end (with Blade Flurry / Weapon Spec and ARush) combat outperforms any other specc with ease.
 
Put 2 pts into Remorseless Attacks and then all the rest into combat. Its the best for leveling.

With Remorseless and Riposte, nuking down mobs in 1 energy bar is a regular occurence. Try it out and you'll see what I mean.
Additionally the passive defenses from combat tree are lowering your downtimes.
 
Sorry but no its not. Combat is by far the most sufficient leveling specc. I get your point that the early combat tree is very weak and you don't get any noticeable talents. Although you have to consider that even dodge/parry talents make sense when leveling (compared to your go-to raiding spec). In the end (with Blade Flurry / Weapon Spec and ARush) combat outperforms any other specc with ease.

thanks, so once level 22? (2 in ass, 11 in combat) combat would outperform, by this premise. Prior to 22 I suspect it wouldn't, and first respec is quite cheap.

As I understand it, the premise is that,. in fights you get a parry in, the riposte saving 30 energy vs a SS (3 seconds of recharge) , plus 8% combined dodge/parry and on select targets a disarm, is greater than the various things listed in the hypothetical 9 points of assassination? (5% crit plus 4 more points in some of the options available, including one with an energy recharge)? how many riposte attacks might you get vs. an avg. outdoor mob if you are alraedy killing it in 10 sec or less? assume you have 10% parry, and this is only vs non-casters (most mobs in game are non-casters, of course). On the other hand, if you pull a few mobs or more, you may proc riposte continuously. I will experiment, at some point too many mobs kill you even if you hit riposte ever gcd. taking multiple mobs on in order to get more ripostes had not occured to me until now.

Does this assume use of slow 1h or dagger?
(my assassination premise was for slowest 1h possible). What do you assume yhou are opening with? (if ambush, do you account for the slow stealth time (60% speed) and time to position for the opener? with slow 1h/assassination approach, I found it more efficient to just run at and engage unstealthed with SS or throw to pull rather than do that as often as not, if it was 2.7 speed or slower.

I will give it a try next time I go through 22 with a rogue. If I remember I will actually do some timed tests with both trees, enough to try to offer a valid sample, and enough to try to build an estimate of how many attacks vs a variety of mobs will be parried. that seems to be the key point - some mobs you wont use riposte vs. at all because you never parry.

more generally, my perspective on the entire leveling spec issue is avg time from start attack on one mob, to start attack on next, trying to factor in any variance in how often bandage/eat. if using proper weapon, mobs die fast no matter what, so issue is what will make that time between openers as slow as possible.

The riposte idea here is interesting. Going to level a rogue up and try it at 22.
 
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I hardly ever used openers while leveling as they cost too much energy. Mobs were almost always dead before Garrote did much damage, 2 CPs from CS for 60 energy aren't good either unless you need to avoid beeing damaged by your target. I just ran arround out of stealth and made best use of my Remorseless Attacks/Riposte procs.

You focus too much on maths when you can simply log in and see :p
I tried multiple speccs for leveling and in the end, stuck with combat. Although hemo with all + bleeds was quite fun too, but not as powerful as combat. Not even close.
 
I hardly ever used openers while leveling as they cost too much energy. Mobs were almost always dead before Garrote did much damage, 2 CPs from CS for 60 energy aren't good either unless you need to avoid beeing damaged by your target. I just ran arround out of stealth and made best use of my Remorseless Attacks/Riposte procs.

You focus too much on maths when you can simply log in and see :p
I tried multiple speccs for leveling and in the end, stuck with combat. Although hemo with all + bleeds was quite fun too, but not as powerful as combat. Not even close.

am working on trying it now, need to find time to get a rogue to 22 :)

subt for me is a LOT of fun, but only if going to be some pvp. no low-bracket bg,s minimal outdoor leveling pvp contact with similar levels, a lot of the utility in the tree is lost.
 
Do you have any other good talents for combat but at bigger levels like 23? And other question should I lvl up my rogue with combat or assassination wich is better for lvling?

- - - Updated - - -

And should I use swords or maces?
 
I haven't seen anyone talk about the strafe+backstab strategy for leveling, which has the highest potential dps. You can strafe through a mob and backstab it in the instant you move past the halfway point. When you get the hang of it, you can effectively spam backstabs along with your white attacks as easily as sinister strikes. The talents are a similar combat build (combat is best for sure), but the +damage and +crit for backstabs and later ambush.
 
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