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Rogue [Rogue] Talent specialization when leveling

Soyoen

Authorized
Joined
Sep 28, 2014
When leveling a rogue you will have a set of certain specs available to you depending on which race you decide to play. As there is sure alot who loves to pvp during their leveling, I'll leave their pvp specs out of this topic of thought and focus on what for me is the most effective "pure" leveling spec. For weapon of choice there are mostly two kings during the leveling aspect: Swords and Maces.

Important talents:
a. Riposte
b. Precision > Dual Wield Specialization
c. Blade Flurry
d. Weapon Expertise
e. Relentless Strikes
f. Adrenaline Rush

Important skills:
A. Slice and Dice
B. Sinister Strike
C. Utility skills (aka Vanish, Sprint, Evasion and likewise)
D. Poisons
E. Eviscerate

The generic opener leveling spec
Level 20: http://www.wowprovider.com/?talent=11215875_4_8p32c5001zd
2/2 Sinister Strike
3/3 Improved Gouge
5/5 Deflection
1/1 Riposte

The improved Gouge can be discussed and I feel that is may be of personal nature to favor it in front of 3% dodge. The positive aspects of picking up the Gouge instead of the dodge is that in case of emergencies you can gouge and get off a few good bandage ticks in close quarters, which to me is worth alot more than a flat 3% dodge when leveling.

Precision is a high tier talent when leveling, it's absolutely super not to miss to many yellow hits. Yet it falls short in comparison to Riposte which is a low energy cost, highly effective weapon strike, that may or may not be off the GCD depending on scripting. In any case, riposte is a great pickup early on as you will quickly get talent points in the early levels to put into Precision and likewise.

Level 31: http://www.wowprovider.com/?talent=11215875_4_8p32c5501d501w
5/5 Precision
5/5 Dual Wield Specialization
1/1 Blade Flurry

After the Riposte pickup you'll go straight into Precision, Dual Wield, and Blade Flurry to counteract your lack of hit during the lower levels, boosting your offhand weapon attack, and getting access to the possibility of soloing more mobs than 1-2 at a time.

The race complication
For Alliance players who was fortunate enough to roll Human you stand for a choice; Either you'll collect the talent points required and go straight for Relentless Strikes in Assassination, or you'll pickup Sword Specialization with Weapon Expertise like everyone else. Humans already have +Weapon skill to Swords which will mainly be the weapon used on later leveling levels, and hence could utilize this into picking up an earlier utility talent.

The generic leveling spec
Level 40: http://www.wowprovider.com/?talent=11215875_4_8p32c5501d50150211r
5/5 Sword Specialization
2/2 Weapon Expertise
1/3 Aggression
1/1 Adrenaline Rush

Start off with 3/5 in Sword Specialization, and follow up with 2/2 Weapon Expertise to get that weapon skill sorted out. Complete the Sword Specialization, and move on with 1/3 Aggression into Adrenaline Rush. I will personally diverge when picking up 2/2 Weapon Expertise to go for Relentless Strikes if I'm playing anything else but Human, but this is strictly a personal preference. Adrenaline Rush opens up a lot of possibilities when it comes to bashing mobs above your own level and likewise, it's well worth the pick up.

Level 51: http://www.wowprovider.com/?talent=11215875_4_8c52031i32005501d50150211r
5/5 Malice
2/3 Improved Slice and Dice
3/3 Ruthlessness
1/1 Relentless Strikes

Malice is a granted pickup after the pickups in the Combat talent tree, followed by 2/3 Slice and Dice to make you able to use abilities other than Slice and Dice when leveling without popping AR/Thistle tea(aka. Eviscerate). Follow up by taking 3/3 Ruthlessness for the utility combo point, Murder is a legit choice but can just as well be picked up lateron. Finish the cake by selecting Relentless Strikes and you are in heaven.

Level 60: http://www.wowprovider.com/?talent=11215875_4_8c5323105g32005501d50150221r
2/2 Murder
3/3 Improved Slice and Dice
5/5 Lethality
2/3 Aggression

Continue by finishing off Improved Slice and Dice to make it 3/3, pick up Murder 2/2 and follow up with Lethality 5/5. Add some toppin on the cake by picking up one point in Aggression at level 60 for 2/3. Congratulations, you are now level 60 with a great PvE dungeon/instance spec that will speed up your gearing. The spec is also extremely viable in raids with only one point in Aggression being the difference in terms of DPS output from the traditional spec.


Ending words
Everyone with input please post in the section below for new and old players thinking about leveling a rogue in general. What skills do you believe are worth picking up, which can be skipped entirely? Are poisons something you feel is worth the time and effort to pick up in comparison to going on without it (in a pure PvE manner)?


Best of Regards
Soyoen
 
ordinary rogue leveling :)
Im mostly using daggers, talented ambush and remorseless atack link. Later seal fate and cold blood. till 40lv mobs you will mostly "oneshot" mobs and enemy players just with ambush and eviscerate. Mobs pass lvl 40 are harder, but you gonna get seal fate and cold blood, which helps alot.

Another way with daggers is ambush and remorseless atacks based too, but with improved gouge and backstab in combnat tree. link . ambush,gouge, backstab, evis. Works fine till 40 too.
 
Has anyone gone Hemo spec while leveling (Once you could pick it up)?
 
Tried and its not worth it. The damage increase from regular offhand and mainhand autohits through talents from Combat is too powerful. Stick to combat.
 
I would personally recommend putting some initial talent points into Master of Deception, from my experience leveling rogues on other private servers (so take it with a grain of salt) MOD makes life so much easier as a rogue.
 
It would help you for quests were you need to kill an NPC at the very end of a cave so you could skip the mobs with stealth. If you are cautious you don't need it though.

Approach mobs from behind and you should have no problem at all.
 
For leveling, main hand dagger is the way to go. Since you will not see crit gear til mara ring.

Lvl 20: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#fMoZGc

Lvl 30: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#fMxZGcVZo

Lvl 40: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#fMxZGcVZi0ho

Lvl 50: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#fMxZGcVb0oZi0usc

Lvl 60: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#fMe00hZGcVb0xZi0usc

This finishes with best farming spec and least gear dependent. Imp sap is added to allow this to be great for 5 mans while you gear. I personally take imp sap much earlier as it helps a lot in questing, but my guide has more damage earlier because for people, damage is more appealing.

On Vanilla retail I leveled combat because I thought I wouldn't be able to backstab at all. Man was I wrong. Just leveled my rogue on another server learned the value of energy watch add-on.

Open ambush, slice n dice right after. Then use ghostly strike, in this order, they will expire at the same time, gouge, - bandage if needed, back stab. Wait till right before your energy tick when you have 35+ energy and Kidney shot, backstab. It should be dead. If not slice n dice again, wait til 55 energy, gouge, right before it wares off, back stab eviscerate.

There are mobs that have very low armor in Vanilla. With this spec you can 2 shot them with ambush, kidney then back stab. Keep relentless going so you have over a 90% plus crit chance with ambush, regardless of gear.

Tip, casters while casting a spell, if you circle around them while they cast you can get a backstab off. Course make sure you will have energy for kick or kidney shot after.

To make this spec best you need CC watch and energy watch add-on. Timing is everything with your energy ticks. You will learn how much energy is needed to save before you can gouge and watch your energy ticks.

Same with your opener, i ambush at 100 energy right before the next tick, so ambush is 60 but as soon as i hit it, i got 20 back, so i open with 60 energy left. Wait one more energy tick and gouge, (before you have ghostly) backstab right before cc ends, kidney shot with 45 or more energy right before next tick. This will allow enough time to get back stab before kidney runs out. This takes patience because you are not attacking all the time and ALWAYS energy watching, but is fun, effective and your cooldowns are available every 3rd fight.
 
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Make friends with a blacksmith. In desolace, STV and ungoro you will get disarmed a lot on some of your quest. Weapon chain any time you get a new dagger (not often). My off hand I usually stick to the sword from SM boss quest, because of the stats and fast speed for poision, until about 50.
 
Noone in their right mind would use a dagger spec to level. Not if you are going solo.
 
Noone in their right mind would use a dagger spec to level. Not if you are going solo.

I must be crazy then. Crit crazy. Grinding rest exp on my rogue on Valkyrie today, lvl 56 (still rocking crappy green lvl 42 dagger) on blood elves, with relentless 40% crit, imp ambush, 45% crit and my base 15% crit, My ambushes are 100% crit, gives 2 combo points, can through talents, can kidney shot right after and csn then backstab. They are very low armor casters only in this came and kills take 3 seconds. Exp is crasy fast. I can solo an elite every 3 min, starting with stun lock, then when stuns are on cd pop evasion with ghostly strike, over 70% dodge not counting parry and miss chances.

Must be in my left mind.
 
his post is prolly about lazy people these days. Alot of people (including me last 5 years) leveling rogues with ss/facebook spam. I understand they are bored by jumping around every single mob :wink:
 
Can be great at certain points - if you can nab:

https://vanilla-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?item=6220
https://vanilla-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?item=4446

early on then you can dagger your way through the 20s quite happily.

Chance on hit poison is terrible for dagger rogues. If it procs, it will break the mob out of gouge, causing you to not backstab, and you will not have waited long enough to have then energy for your next set of abilities which results in you taking more damage from the mob, and not getting your high crit % backstab off.

Maybe combat daggers lol.
I honestly would be fucking myself if I'd level assassination spec'd.

Such a drag to kill mobs.
I stand by combat swords.

The leveling spec provided is a mix of all 3 specs, dont tnnel vision the post. This is coupled with rotation, reason, and not being gear dependant on crit (which is rare even through the 40s, 50s). Your arrguement "such a drag to kill mobs"... Have you tested said spec? Or is the drag that you have to time your abilities with energy ticks and use rogue abilities (gouge n kidney) to do strong rogue moves (backstab).

SS spam for 100+ hours while lvling doesnt seem as appealing. Especially since you only do more damage when popping AR and BF, and take more damage overall due to using less CC.

For people who are lazy or are clickers, sword combat is bessed. But if utilize your cc to get 2-3 backstabs a fight, my hybrid spec is best for lvling.

- - - Updated - - -

Combat swords/daggers is where i go when time to raid, but that has nothing to do with leveling.
 
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I updated my Dagger Rogue Leveling guide due to links to specs per 10 levels being broken.

Thank you all that brought that to my attention.
 
Sub is the best rogue spec.
Read 'best' as 'best' not as 'highest dps'.

1) Sub brings stealth utility which is super fun (harder to detect, faster speed, improved sap). It is really fun !

2) One hit of ambush takes mob the same level down to 50% HP AT LEAST !!!!! Given you have a good weapon with +3 damage enchant. After ambush use ghostly strike + SnD, wait for energy with high dodge from ghostly striken then gouge + backstab. One full cycle and most mobs your level or even one or two above are dead and your HP sits at more than 80% for most of the cases. Takes 5 to 10 seconds to kill anything usually.

3) Very good PvP utility. Garrote is a monster if you go Sub.

4) Pretty high damage in dungeons, as you will be free to spam backstab which with 8 points in combat and the improvements from Sub crits easily for a very fair chunk of the mobs HP.

Of course the biggest down point is that you will not be able to properly fight more than 1 mob at once. But you kill single targets so quickly, and improved sap takes care of packs quite reasonably.

If you want the fastest leveling possible, go combat yes, as has been proven by the years.
If you are happy with slightly less kill speed, but much more fun and PvP capable, I strongly recommend sub. It feels like a rogue, not a fury war :p

It requires more skill than combat though. As you have to actually move usually after gouge to hit your backstabs. Not for the mindless mouse clicker or AFKish gaming !
 
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