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THE WAY OF THE CHAINSAW:
A Guide for Pre-70 Combat Rogues
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Hi, folks. I wrote the following rogue guide for my guild, and I thought I might submit it to the public forums. The purpose of this document is simply to put some information together that I have learned over the past two years of playing this class so that we can all improve, and so that you won’t have to spend hundreds of gold respeccing trying to figure all this out for yourself (like I did…grrrr…). None of this information is new or originally mine; it can all be found elsewhere simply by searching through various old forum posts by dozens of other rogues who are probably more skilled than I. I simply hope that younger rogues learn from this post and become better at playing this class that I, personally, love no matter how much everyone whines about nerfs and such.

Disclaimer: The way I am presenting here is not the only way to play a rogue. I won’t even claim that it is the best way… the “best” way is the way that you most enjoy playing. In fact I would ask other 60+ rogues to post replies below offering their counterpoints or other ideas. However I will claim that my way is very efficient and powerful, combining both survivability and tons of DPS. It is also a way that most of the good rogues out there have used while leveling, and again you can find them saying the same things in other posts in the forum archives.

I hope this guide helps you in any way with your rogue. Here we go:


----- TOPICS -----
I. Weapons and Gear
II. Talent Points
III. Technique
IV. Miscellaneous
V. Web Links for Rogue

I. WEAPONS AND GEAR

First thing’s first: lose the dagger. Yep, your mainhand weapon needs to be a sword or mace with speed of 2.40 - 3.00 and the highest max damage possible (this is not DPS, but rather max damage amount). Your offhand weapon needs to be either a very fast sword or a dagger, with speed 1.00 – 1.70.

I will explain, but first let me explain why the backstab dagger method is not a good idea until at least level 45 (I wouldn’t do it until 55 personally).

Backstab dagger rogue is very inefficient, especially in early levels. Yes it’s cool to see those big numbers pop up from your backstab crits every once in a while, but meanwhile you have taken a lot of damage and you’re in trouble if your gouge misses. If you want to spend all your time eating food after every one or two kills because you’re almost dead, if you want an approach that in my experience (I leveled my first rogue to 60 with backstab because I didn’t know any better) is only efficient if you never miss, then go backstab early. The other problem is that you need a ton of talent points in the assassination and subtlety trees to really make backstab powerful (opportunity, malice, lethality, imp backstab), which is why I wouldn’t do it until at least 45. And finally the backstab dagger approach does not generate many combo points so you are very limited in terms of what abilities you can use.

With a big mainhand sword, every single hit deals a pretty good amount of damage. And your sinister strikes are twice as powerful. Why? Because sinister strike is based on your max weapon damage. [Edit: may actually be based on your average weapon damage, which would be min dmg + max dmg divided by 2, but either way the point stands.] So especially in levels 5-29, your sinister strike can be almost as powerful as a backstab, but it will cost half as much energy and you can do it about 5 times more often per fight. You also don’t have to worry about being behind the target, so you don’t have to worry about your gouge anymore.

And trust me, after your backstab misses a few times (how the heck do you miss stabbing someone in the back?) but your energy bar is still drained, you'll be ready to find an alternative to backstab. Your Riposte attack from the combat talent tree is also based on your max [or average?] weapon damage, and becomes much more powerful with a sword / mace instead of a dagger.

You want a fast offhand weapon because your offhand misses 50% of the time normally. Therefore you want to swing more often to compensate. Your offhand weapon should be fast and have good stats.

Horde trains for swords in Undercity, and maces in Thunderbluff. Alliance trains swords in Stormwind... not sure about maces, sorry.

Your armor needs to have stats in agility and stamina. Strength helps too but not much. 1 point of strength adds about 1 attack power. 1 point of agility adds about 1 attack power, more % chance to dodge, and more % chance to critical strike, and more armor. 1 point of stamina adds 10 health (as of patch 2.0). Spirit and intellect don’t do much for you. Note that many rogues make the mistake of overlooking stamina. Agility does not replace stamina! Yes agility makes you dodge more often… but that doesn’t help you against casters at all and doesn’t help you nearly as much as stamina. This is especially true in pvp / battlegrounds. Find a balance of agility and stamina.

In Outlands you can get gear called “_________ of the Bandit” which offers stamina, agility, and attack power. This is the best stuff you can get once you hit 58. Attack power is literally damage per second, which is what rogues are all about. For the sword / mace / fist rogue, attack power matters at least as much as % crit.

Also, in the expansion, fist weapons are easier to find than they used to be, and are another option of you can't find a sword or mace. Just remember if you use fist weapons but don't have the fist weapon specialization talent from the Combat tree, you're gimpping yourself a little bit.

II. TALENT POINTS
**Online talent calculator:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=f

Ok so you have your weapons and your gear. Assuming you are still using my method of big mainhand sword / mace, here is the best way to set up your talents. I am listing these in the order you should get them.

- [combat tree] Improved Sinister Strike 2/2: since this is your main attack, you want greater energy efficiency so you can use it more often.
- [assassination tree] Improved Eviscerate 3/3: this will be your big finishing move and you want it to be as powerful as possible. For levels 10-19 this is probably the damage increase per talent point that you can get.
- [assassination tree] Malice 2/5: more crits. nuf said. Yes, only two points here for now.
- [assassination tree] Ruthlessness 3/3: absolutely necessary. Doubles your combo point generation, and you will need combo points to really control your opponent and maximize your damage. More on that later.
- [assassination tree] Malice 4/5: two more points here so you can get the next talent…
- [assassination tree] Relentless Strikes 1/1: dramatically increases your damage per second by giving you an energy boost after your finishing moves. With Ruthlessness, you can deal damage twice as fast now.
- [assassination tree] Malice 5/5: go ahead and finish this off.
Resist the urge to put points in Lethality, we have to do other stuff first. Remember that sword rogue is not based on crits as much as sustained high damage over time, so lethality is not a wise choice at this point.
- [combat tree] Imp Gouge 3/3: this is a very useful stun. More on this later. (some people think gouge is a waste of time with a sword build and insist on putting 3 points in dodge here instead. do what you want.)
- [combat tree] Deflection 5/5: good defensive talent, plus you need it to get Riposte.
- [combat tree] Riposte 1/1: this attack kicks $%#!. It disarms the target and deals a whole lot of damage because it is based on your mainhand weapon damage. See why you want that big slow sword in the main hand?
- [combat tree] Precision 5/5: you deal more damage when you hit more often. Duh. Also you need this talent to get…
- [combat tree] Duel Wield Spec 5/5: Very, very important. Especially for running instances where the fights are longer. This makes your normal “white” damage much higher. Your slice n dice becomes much more powerful as a result.
- [combat tree] Blade Flurry 1/1: you can attack two guys at once and you swing more often. Holy crap. You are now a walking chainsaw.
- [combat tree] Sword Spec 5/5: better than mace spec for pve damage, but obviously you need to be using a mainhand sword at this point. A fast sword in the offhand would be ideal, but a fast dagger is better than a slow sword in the offhand, even with this spec.

At this point you can go in any way you want, depending on what you want to do, but you should stay in the combat tree until you pick up Adrenaline Rush.
Adrenaline Rush + Blade Flurry = sick, sick, sick. This has gotten my butt out of a jam more times than I can count.

The good news is that as of patch 2.10 , every rogue will automatically have what used to be a talent called Improved Sap, so you don’t need to worry about that. Weapon Expertise is pretty good since in questing you sometimes have to attack guys who are a level or two above you. Weapon Expertise also adds to your chance to hit, which increases your dps and is very important in long fights against elites. Aggression makes your sinister strike and eviscerate more powerful, so that’s good. You may want to get Lethality in the assassination tree some time, but for swords it is not as important as you may think. Neither is Cold Blood. Combat Potency and Surprise Attacks are much more powerful for our purposes. If you get fist weapons in Burning Crusade, just switch sword spec for fist spec. If you want to do battlegrounds, imp sprint is great for getting out of traps and ice.

I strongly recommend putting about 2 or 3 points in [subtlety tree] Master of Deception when you start questing in the Outlands. The trash mobs saw me all the time even though I was stealthed until I did this. Very annoying.

If you were to continue to 70 with this build / playstyle, it could look like this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=ihe0oxZGcVobVzxMGoth
Yes I dropped Riposte to pick up some other things that are more significant for running group instances or raids. If you really want Riposte or anything else, adjust the talents as you like. Again, I am not presenting the ONLY way to play this class, just the way that seems to be the best for me after spending hundreds of gold in respeccs (sad, I know). Please put away your flamethrowers, trolls.


EDIT: Another way of allocating your talent points as you are starting out is to put them all in the Combat tree all the way down to Adrenaline Rush before you touch the Assassination tree. This will result in more immediate dps but less combo point / energy generation at early levels. This is a very popular way to use talent points, especially since you get Duel Wield Spec, Riposte, and Blade Flurry earlier.

III. TECHNIQUE

In levels 1-10, well, just don’t die. Train for swords in Undercity / Stormwind or maces as soon as possible.

You get Gouge at level 6. If you are still using daggers, you can use this to stun the guy and run behind him for a backstab. Make sure you have at least 80% energy before you do this.

When you get swords / maces, Gouge can be used to stun the guy and back away so that your energy can recharge or so that you can use bandages. It can also be used to interrupt a spell caster (although Kick is more efficient for this). Note that you do not want to use Garrote or Deadly Poison if you are going to use Gouge because they will break the stun. Use Instant Poison instead for questing. Deadly Poison is great for instances when the fights are longer.

If you read the responses to this post, you'll see that many good rogues out there think that using gouge as a stun to control the opponent and build energy is a waste of time. They may be right. Try it for yourself and find what works for you.

Garrote is great for instances, especially against mobs with a lot of armor. Why? It does the same amount of damage whether the opponent is wearing cloth or plate armor, unlike your melee attacks. All damage over time stuff is like this, keep that in mind. You can use it for questing / solo stuff, but you will lose the ability to control your opponent with gouge.

In levels 10-19, you get Slice n Dice. This increases your sustained damage per second (DPS), which is what the combat swords rogue is all about. Basically it makes you do more damage in between sinister strikes. This is essential in instances when fights last longer. Most rogues also use it when questing / solo fighting trash mobs.

Expose Armor is ok but it does not stack with Sunder Armor when you are grouped with a warrior, so use Rupture (obtained at level 20) instead at that point if you want. Again, the damage from Rupture is not affected by the armor of the opponent so it is particularly useful against plate-wearing opponents. While Rupture does not seem to do a lot of damage, every little bit counts. It is better in longer fights against elites—it really doesn’t do a lot in a fight that only lasts 6 seconds.

So basically at level 1-19 you just start with a Sinister Strike, hit Slice n Dice, and keep hitting Sinister Strike until your energy runs out. Then hit Gouge as soon as you can and back away. You should have several combo points on him and almost a full energy bar by the time his stun wears off. When you have 4 combo points, hit Eviscerate. Then just Sinister Strike and slice n dice until he’s dead.

At level 26 you get Cheap Shot. Use this to open from stealth from now on. Two combo points and a 2 second stun are huge. So now your routine is cheap shot, sinister strike, gouge, back away, sinister strike, eviscerate. If you can fit a slice n dice in there, great, but don’t spend more than 1 combo point on it. Then you can vanish if you want to start totally over, or just do the sinister strike, slice n dice, gouge cycle again.

At level 30 one of my favorite rogue abilities, Kidney Shot. When I finally figured out that I needed to use this, questing / soloing became so much easier because I could CONTROL the enemy. In terms of survivability, the greatest strength for a combat sword rogue while solo fighting is not his damage output, it is his ability to stun the opponent. Hunters and locks have pets, warriors and pallys have plate armor, we have stuns. If you can get good at stuns, you will go days without dying. This is why you need to have your talents set up to generate combo points quickly. Remember that you have plenty of stuns / disorients to use: cheap shot, gouge, kidney shot, and blind. Use them.

Quick note here: do not use Kidney Shot or other stuns when you are in a group with a tank, unless for some reason you have to. It really hurts the tank's ability to generate threat.

Here is a basic routine that I use as a sword rogue because it minimizes the amount of damage I take, although it does take longer to kill an opponent. Cheap shot, sinister strike, gouge, back away (if you use Crippling Poison you will have even more time here to regenerate energy), sinister strike (now you have 5 combo points), kidney shot. Then lay into him with sinister strike, slice n dice, and gouge if necessary. You’ll notice that the mob is stunned for almost all of the fight. You can use this technique through level 70. You can throw in Blade Flurry, Riposte, and Adrenaline Rush too as needed.

Plenty of rogues who have responded to this post believe this routine takes too long. They insist that the stuns waste time and "reduce your damage per energy ratio." And you know what? That's ok. I never said I am presenting the BEST way to play this class. If you don't mind eating food more often, you don't have to use your stuns, just burn through mobs with dps abilities (slice n dice, rupture, etc.) and heal after every 4-6 mobs. There is nothing wrong with that. I would, however, submit that you need to become adept with your stuns if you want to pvp some time in the future.

IV. MISCELLANEOUS

Blind is primarily for pvp / battlegrounds. It can be used as an “oh crap!” button, along with Vanish. However it can also be used as part of your planned attack, especially in pvp.

Pickpocket every mob you fight before you attack. The lockboxes you get from pickpocket usually contain blinding powder. (edit: in patch 2.3, Blind will no longer require powder.)

Lockpicking. Just do it. Level it as you go along and it won’t be that big of a deal. Here is a pretty good guide for lockpicking, I think:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=11872172&sid=1

Kick is very useful against casters, especially when they are about to heal themselves. Put it somewhere on your keyboard so you can get to it quickly.

When in a group instance, you have to not get the tank pissed off at you. This means don’t steal agro from him. How do you steal agro? Big bursts of damage and critical strikes. Don’t do that. Rather, just stick to a few sinister strikes and slice n dice until about 15% into the fight. Then start to unload. Your Feint ability will help, keep it handy.

Use Sap for crowd control. Remember, we are more squishy than you think and we can’t handle too many guys hitting us at once. Use distract before you sap so you don't get spotted.

Sending gold to Dirtydeeds increases your attack power. …ok, I tried……

V. WEB LINKS FOR ROGUE

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=f
Talent tree calculator.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?forumId=10020&sid=1
Rogue forums on the official WoW website. It is hard to sift through the bull#*@@ in these posts but there is some good information there.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=11872172&sid=1
Guide to lockpicking. Honestly I haven’t read this in great detail but it looks pretty good.

http://www.wow-loot.com/rogue.htm
Detailed list of gear for rogues, well-organized.

http://www.thottbot.com/?c=Rogue
List of rogue abilities and spells, organized by level.

http://wow-en.curse-gaming.com/downloads/details/4979/stunwatch-for-patch-2-0/
Addon called StunWatch that puts a little timer bar on your screen for your stuns like sap, cheap shot, gouge, etc. I find it very helpful.

reserved

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I'd like to say good luck on the guide and I agree with the fact that swords or another slow weapon are better for their SS damage. Not that it's going to make a big difference, but it might in some cases: SS does not go off of max weapon damage, it's the average damage....I think..

Take a look at this example:

DPS: Speed: Dmg (min-max): average damage:

32 2.5 70-90 80.0

35 2.2 67-90 78.5

40 1.9 57-95 76


The swords would be even in SS damage if it were only the top-end that counted, but since the 2nd one has a wider range of damage, then the first sword will be more useful. This probably doesn't happen often, but just in case....By the way, the third one is a pretty slow dagger. See why it's not great for SS? And that thing had a whole 5 dps higher than the next -best sword, and an amazing 8 dps higher than the best SS sword. This is only for Sinister strke damage, not overall damage. These numbers are completely made up.

Great guide. Lots of useful information.

I just have to say Thanks.!!

Being a new player to WoW my first character was a rogue, and i ran around with my daggers taking dirt naps everywhere i went. So i moved to a warrior class got bored. then tryed a hunter and was still bored . But as much as i loved the rogue it was just so frustrating spending more time as a corpse then on two feet.

After taking these suggestions i respec'd and changed my weapons around and all i can say is OMGush!

Npc's fall in their death throes around my feet in record number's now !

Sexy bump

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Q u o t e:
I'd like to say good luck on the guide and I agree with the fact that swords or another slow weapon are better for their SS damage. Not that it's going to make a big difference, but it might in some cases: SS does not go off of max weapon damage, it's the average damage....I think..

Take a look at this example:

DPS: Speed: Dmg (min-max): average damage:

32 2.5 70-90 80.0

35 2.2 67-90 78.5

40 1.9 57-95 76


The swords would be even in SS damage if it were only the top-end that counted, but since the 2nd one has a wider range of damage, then the first sword will be more useful. This probably doesn't happen often, but just in case....By the way, the third one is a pretty slow dagger. See why it's not great for SS? And that thing had a whole 5 dps higher than the next -best sword, and an amazing 8 dps higher than the best SS sword. This is only for Sinister strke damage, not overall damage. These numbers are completely made up.

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Thank you for this contribution. Will correct it in the original post.

Hi Dirtydeeds i have a question about your great Article,
Why do you change your talents from Combat to Assasination?
Do you found some weakness in combat spec?

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Q u o t e:
Hi Dirtydeeds i have a question about your great Article,
Why do you change your talents from Combat to Assasination?
Do you found some weakness in combat spec?

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A full-on combat spec will only take you so far. If you look at raiding rogues at 70 or most rogues that are still levelling (and not mutilate), you'll see that they have supplemented Combat with Assassination talents. You will need to branch into a second tree at sompoint, 61 talents in one tree is actually a waste; Dirty here is just advocating doing it earlier for maximum damage.

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Q u o t e:
Hi Dirtydeeds i have a question about your great Article,
Why do you change your talents from Combat to Assasination?
Do you found some weakness in combat spec?

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I assume you're asking this because you clicked on my armory. For the past few days I've been doing some pvp and I enjoy doing the mutilate thing with pvp. It's not as powerful as combat builds for pve though.... although some feel it is.

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Q u o t e:


A full-on combat spec will only take you so far. If you look at raiding rogues at 70 or most rogues that are still levelling (and not mutilate), you'll see that they have supplemented Combat with Assassination talents. You will need to branch into a second tree at sompoint, 61 talents in one tree is actually a waste; Dirty here is just advocating doing it earlier for maximum damage.

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I agree completely. But actually you'll notice in the section on Talents, I do suggest a combination of assassination and combat trees, with most points being in combat. Yes, 61 points in combat is really, really dumb.

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