Rogue guide for WoW Forever

The rogue is leather melee damage with energy that regenerates at a fixed pace and combo points that build on the target and are spent on finishers. Add stealth, poisons, stuns and the best ability in the game to pick its fights: a rogue decides when combat starts and, with Vanish, when it ends. It does not heal or tank and all three trees are damage, so the choice is one of style.

Assassination (damage)

The poisons and crit tree: Seal Fate gives crits from abilities that add combo points a chance to add an extra one, and Backstab demands a dagger in the main hand. It scales the most with crit and hit and is the most gear-demanding.

Combat (damage)

The Sinister Strike and swords tree: a slow main hand to hit hard, a fast off hand for procs and poisons, and talents that improve dual wielding and survival. It is the leveling and dungeon spec, because it depends on neither position nor weapon type.

Subtlety (damage)

The stealth tree: Ambush, Opportunity and everything that rewards striking from behind while invisible. It is the most fun in PvP and in the open world against a single mob, and the worst at multi-mob pulls.

On October 7 Blizzard published its Forever class deep dive for the rogue and the warlock. These are the changes you will notice most as a rogue, in our own words. Blizzard warned that abilities and talents could keep changing during the beta.

• Poisons: they all have more charges and now share the weapon with temporary enchantments such as sharpening stones or weightstones.
• Control from stealth: Sap no longer breaks Stealth, and Distract also lowers the affected enemies' stealth detection for 10 seconds, but it tells enemy players that a rogue is nearby. Feint reduces twice as much threat.
• Expose Armor removes as much armour as 5 applications of Sunder Armor and no longer stops a warrior from applying Sunder Armor to the same target.
• Axes: rogues can learn to use one-handed axes.
• Assassination: Mutilate costs 60 energy, strikes with both weapons, which must be daggers, deals more damage to poisoned targets and awards 2 combo points; at launch it deals 90% of weapon damage plus a larger extra amount and sits in row 7. Venom, the new 31-point milestone, is a 25-energy finisher that raises your poison damage by 30% and your chance to apply poisons by 10%; Blizzard expects you to spend your finishers keeping it up alongside Slice and Dice, ahead of Rupture and Eviscerate. Cold Blood drops to the 16-point milestone, Seal Fate no longer requires it and Improved Poisons gives poisons a high chance not to spend a charge.
• Combat: Hack and Slash (row 5) merges the dagger, mace, sword and fist weapon specializations, which are gone, and adds axes, which get the same as swords: a chance for an extra attack. Flawless Execution, the new 16-point milestone, takes 15 energy off Eviscerate. Combat now also works with Backstab: Puncturing Wounds (formerly Improved Backstab) gives it a chance to add an extra combo point. Aggression raises the damage of Sinister Strike and Eviscerate by 5/10/15%, and Coup de Grace (formerly Improved Eviscerate) also raises the damage of Eviscerate and Death Mark. Weapon Expertise lowers the chance for your attacks to be dodged or parried, and Precision applies to all spells and attacks, poisons included.
• Subtlety: Premeditation moves to row 3 and lasts 20 seconds. Hemorrhage also raises your Rupture and Garrote damage by 15%, Initiative reaches 100% with 3 points and Setup drops to a 15/30/45% chance. New talents include Dirty Tricks (formerly Improved Sap), which makes Sap and Blind much cheaper; Quick Getaway, which lets you Sap one more target and speeds you up after sapping; Boot Knife, which gives Shank a chance to add 2 combo points; and Death Mark, a 25-energy finisher that marks the target and stores part of your damage to deal it 6 seconds later. Ghostly Strike also makes your next Ambush or Garrote within 7 seconds not require Stealth.

Blizzard still sees the rogue as the master of stealth and the only class with poisons: Assassination focuses on daggers and on empowering itself with finishers, Combat on direct damage with a little multi-target damage, and Subtlety on combat tricks and bleeds. Talents, Legacy talents included, are changed at your class trainer in a capital city, and dual specialization arrives at level 40. Read our summary of the deep dive or Blizzard's official article.

New in Blizzard's November 2 development notes:

• Poised (passive, level 18): out of combat with full Energy, your next Energy ability costs 10 less.
• Shank (level 24; rank 2 at level 44): 5 Energy, 10 second cooldown; strikes with your off-hand for 50% weapon damage, cannot miss and generates 15 Energy (25 at rank 2).
• Death Mark (Subtlety, row 7): a 25-Energy finisher that marks the target and stores part of the damage you deal per combo point; after 6 seconds the stored damage is dealt.
• New talents: Blood Splatter (Assassination), Composure and Flash of Steel (Combat), Quick Getaway and Boot Knife (Subtlety). Murder, Quietus, Cutthroat and Thousand Cuts are gone.

All the changes, talent by talent, are in the rogue changes.

Time to be honest: the beta notes document very few rogue changes, and almost all of them are bug fixes. Build 1.60.1.70009 had just one: Sap now correctly flags the rogue for PvP when used on flagged targets. Build 1.60.1.70170, from October 1, adds two more: if Expose Armor misses, you no longer lose all your combo points, and Setup (Subtlety) only adds combo points to your current target if it is the enemy whose attack you dodged or whose spell you resisted. That same build makes the Cooldown Manager support the rogue and gives the combo points on the target frame and the Personal Resource Display new art. The November 2 launch notes change that: they add new abilities and talents and rebalance the three trees (see what is new at launch).

That does not mean the Forever rogue is identical to Classic's: from the systems we know talent trees keep the Classic structure and add a 16-point milestone and that there are two class presets for leveling. And Blizzard has explained that in Forever hit is one stat for spells, melee and ranged, and so is crit. The November 2 launch notes detail which talents changed inside the three trees (see what is new at launch), and Blizzard's October 7 class deep dive explains the larger redesign (summary above): for example, Mutilate and Venom are new, and Hack and Slash replaces the weapon specializations.

Changes also come from outside the class: Eureka, the gnomes' new active racial, gives every class the same 10%. On a rogue, your next 3 non-periodic damaging abilities cost 10% less energy and deal 10% more damage, and since October 1 it does not affect any periodic effect, such as bleeds.

Recommendation: Combat from 10 to 60. It is the tree that best handles leveling with whatever drops: Sinister Strike works with any weapon from any angle, its dual-wield talents make two green weapons perform, and its survival talents let you chain mobs without eating between each one. Assassination needs daggers and crit you do not have at low levels; Subtlety is a delight against one mob and a nightmare against three.

Recommended talent order, broadly:

• From 10 to 20, the Combat talents that raise Sinister Strike damage and energy. The 16-point milestone arrives around 25-26; if you would rather not think, use one of Forever's two class presets.
• Then dual wielding and Hack and Slash, which gives a benefit depending on the weapon you use: swords if you will pick up quest rewards, daggers if you own good ones. Do not marry a weapon type until you own two blues.
• From 40, with the mount (it comes with the riding skill), spread into Assassination for Seal Fate if you already carry daggers and crit. A reset cost 1 silver in the beta; at launch, check what it costs at your trainer.

Pacing:

• No level scaling: the rogue is among the classes that handle orange mobs worst: you miss more and have no armour. Yellow, always.
• Poisons from the moment you learn them: they are free damage and do not depend on your gear.
• Use stealth to skip trash, not to hit from behind: the time you save is experience.
• Campsite before every dungeon to sell greys, repair and take the three one-hour buffs. Wailing Caverns, the Deadmines, Blackfathom Deeps and Shadowfang Keep hold your level-20 BiS pieces, and at level 30 Razorfen Kraul and, above all, the Scarlet Monastery await.
• Dungeon quests: since October 1 they give half the extra experience they used to give on top of a normal quest. Go in for the loot and the mobs, not just the quests.
• Legacy Points: each character spends them across three trees (Professions, Adventure and Resourcefulness). The only perk shown so far is Well Rested, more rested experience; we will not guess what the rest do.

Agility ahead of everything (1 agility = 1 attack power plus crit and dodge), and hit with a huge weight because dual wielding adds an extra 19% miss chance and poisons miss too. Crit is worth more for Assassination thanks to Seal Fate. For weapons, Assassination and Subtlety want a dagger in the main hand for Backstab and Ambush; Combat wants a slow main hand (more damage per Sinister Strike) and a fast off hand for procs. Strength is worth half as much as agility and stamina just enough for dungeons. In Forever hit is one stat for spells, melee and ranged, and so is crit (Blizzard's Deep Dive Panel Recap): Blizzard uses poisons as an example, since the hit on your gear makes them more reliable, and hit or crit on a caster piece counts for you too.

At level 30, the beta's last cap, Leatherworking gains weight: Assassination and Combat equip four recipes (the brawler's helm and legguards, the Dusky Leather Armor and the Skulker's Leather Belt) and Subtlety three. The Scarlet Monastery is the key stop: the Ebon Vise and Ironspine's Eye go in all three trees, the Ghostshard Talisman in Assassination and Combat, and Combat also takes both its weapons, Ironspine's Fist and the Bloody Brass Knuckles. Assassination and Subtlety carry a dagger from Razorfen Kraul in the main hand, the Swinetusk Shank. The trinkets, and depending on the tree an off-hand weapon or the necklace, come from the battleground supply officers; our list mixes both factions' versions, so get the one for yours.

On the way, at level 20, all three trees equipped five dungeon items: the Glowing Lizardscale Cloak and Gloves of the Fang from Wailing Caverns, the Blackened Defias Belt from the Deadmines, Doomspike from Blackfathom Deeps and, from Shadowfang Keep, the Assassin's Blade for Assassination and Subtlety or Shadowfang for Combat.

On the way up, the Scarlet Monastery has five BiS pieces for the class, Maraudon three and Blackrock Depths two, among them the Doomforged Straightedge. Forever's new dungeons that are already playable (Hall of Thanes, Ruins of Lordaeron and Excavation Site) have no BiS-marked loot for the rogue in our data yet. The BiS per level and slot, with alternatives, is on the rogue BiS page.

What it can wield. In Classic the rogue uses daggers, fist weapons, one-handed maces and one-handed swords, with no two-handers and no shield, and learns dual wield at level 10. At range it carries bows, crossbows, guns and thrown weapons, which are only for pulling. In Forever, according to Blizzard's class deep dive, the rogue can also learn to use one-handed axes. As in Classic, every weapon type has its own skill, which rises with use up to 5 points per character level: with a newly learned type you will miss more for a while.

What our lists score. The types our rogue lists score are one-handed maces and swords, fist weapons and daggers, and at range bows, guns, crossbows and thrown weapons. All three trees carry two one-handers; Assassination and Subtlety only accept a dagger in the main hand, for Backstab and Ambush, and Combat takes any. The weapon skill points some items carry add nothing to our score.

What changes in Forever. According to Blizzard's Deep Dive Panel Recap, weapon skill works as it always has, but items that grant it give less per piece so they are not always the obvious pick, and some items now reduce the chance for your attacks to be parried or dodged. In the beta's Combat tree, Hack and Slash takes the place of Classic's Sword Specialization and also covers daggers, maces and fist weapons, whose specializations are gone from the tree: with its five ranks, axes and swords have a 5% chance to grant an extra attack, daggers and fist weapons give 5% crit and maces ignore 15% of the target's armour. The talent covers axes, which rogues can learn to use in Forever, but our lists do not score them yet. Dual Wield Specialization changes too: at launch it is a 2-point talent (row 5) granting 25/50% more off-hand damage.

Racials. In Classic, weapon racials were 5 points of skill with that weapon type; in Forever they are critical strike chance while you have it equipped, and they count for spells too:

• Human: Sword Specialization gives 2% crit with all spells and attacks while a one- or two-handed sword is equipped, useful for Combat with swords. Humans lose Mace Specialization.
• Dwarf: gains Mace Specialization, 1% crit with a mace equipped, and loses Gun Specialization.
• Orc: Axe Specialization gives 1% crit with an axe equipped; it helps if you wield one-handed axes, which rogues can learn to use in Forever.
• Troll: loses Bow Specialization and Throwing Specialization.

Night elves, gnomes, undead and the Skyborne have no weapon racial. The full comparison is in the best race for a rogue.

The rogue gains no new combination among the Classic races (humans, dwarves, night elves and gnomes for the Alliance; orcs, undead and trolls for the Horde), but it does gain the Skyborne of both factions, with their starting adventure on Zephras Isle and two active and two passive racials not yet detailed; since October 1, Shenthul in Orgrimmar also trains Windshaper Skyborne. Among the racials changed in the beta, it is affected by the weapon racials of humans, dwarves and trolls (the orcs' one if you use axes), covered in Weapons and weapon skill, and by Eureka, the gnomes' new active racial: your next 3 non-periodic damaging abilities cost 10% less energy and deal 10% more damage. Beyond that, choose by faction and looks; Classic's racial differences remain small.

Skinning + Leatherworking crafts the two recipe pieces of the level-20 BiS and three or four of the level-30 one, the beta cap, and uses everything you kill from stealth along the way. Forever adds more than 600 new recipes and a passive bonus per profession, so Leatherworking performs better than in Classic. If you want gold, Skinning + Mining: the rogue passes through places nobody else reaches and can gather without fighting.

First Aid is mandatory: you have no heals and bandages are used between pulls. Cooking for the small experience bonus of crafted food and because the campsite sets up a workbench. Each profession's leveling path is in the profession guides.

• Leveling with daggers and no dagger talents. With Combat and swords you level just as fast without depending on position.
• Forgetting poisons. They are free damage; keep them on both weapons and carry spares.
• Going for orange mobs. Without level scaling you miss more and leather armour does not forgive. Yellow and green.
• Opening every fight with Ambush. Unless you are Subtlety, opening with a stun and chaining Sinister Strike performs better and leaves you energy.
• Spending energy without combo points. Always finish with points; a five-point finisher is worth more than two loose hits.
• Skipping Wailing Caverns and the Deadmines. Your best level-20 pieces are there, and in Forever you can walk in with the three campsite buffs. At level 30, the place to be is the Scarlet Monastery.
• Sapping nervously in PvP. It now flags you correctly; use it knowing it flags you.
• Standing too close behind the enemy. Among the known issues of the October 1 build, enemies can parry and block from behind if you are very close; Blizzard advises not standing that close until it is fixed.