A Rogue Guide

by Paul E. Web

Cunning, deceptive, secretive and deadly: Rogue. An deadly killer that can devastate single targets in seconds. In this guide, you will become educated on the many aspects of playing a Rogue, their talent trees, and their unique play style.

Rogues are damage-dealers, and that is their group role. You are in a group solely to take down single mobs and provide some limited crowd control (as well as pick locked chests and boxes).

Rogues have the fastest (and arguably the most exciting) combat pace the game has to offer. Rogues attack the fastest because they dual wielded and always use fast-swinging weapons (1-handed swords and maces and daggers). Rogues have to be versatile, patient and smart.

Basic Rogue Information

Allowed races: Human, Dwarf, Gnome, Night Elf, Orc, Troll, Undead

Standard Bars: Health/Energy

Equipment: Cloth, Leather

Weapons: Daggers, Thrown, Bows, Crossbows, Guns, 1-handed Swords, 1-Handed Maces and Fist Weapons

Strengths

• Stealth allows Rogues to sneak around undetected
• Great Lock Picking and poison abilities (without the use of tradeskills)
• Great DPS and solo capabilities.

Weaknesses

• Can only wear Cloth and Leather Armor
• Are only allowed to use 1-handed weapons, daggers or fist weapons
• Certain abilities require a dagger in the main-hand, sometimes forcing you to use the weaker dagger as opposed to a sword etc, in order to make certain abilities effective (Backstab, Ambush)

Combo Points

Blizzard has incorporated a very unique system to their version of the Rogue class. Fighting as a Rogue requires you to build up combo points on your target. A single target can have up to 5 combo points on it, no more. Rogues have a variety of finishing moves that vary in effectiveness depending on the number of combo points you've accumulated on the target. For example, the most common finishing move is ‘Eviscerate’, a powerful finishing move that deals more damage with each combo point. Eviscerate can be a waste to use if you only have 1 or 2 combo points on your target, but can be quite devastating with 4-5 combo points. There are many skills that give combo points to your target, as well as certain talents that can tack on additional combo points to your abilities. - Blizzard


Energy

Rogues have a special bar that they draw power from to use their abilities called energy. Rogues have 100 energy which does not change (unless they get a talent that increases their energy capacity by 10, but is hard to obtain), moves energy cost does not change from rank to rank unless reduced through talents. At standard, your energy rests at full (100) and regenerates both in and out of combat. Rogues can also use ‘Thistle Tea’, a drink that restores 100 energy instantly. The recipe to create Thistle Tea is obtained through a low-level Rogue quest, and requires Swiftthistle (an herb) and Refreshing Spring Water (drop or vendor) to make. You'll need herbalism to collect the herb and cooking (level 80) to make the tea.


Stealth

Another unique ability to rogues (mirrored by a Druid’s cat form) is Stealth. When a Rogue enters Stealth it allows him/her to sneak around without being seen. This does not mean you are "invisible" depending on the situation the enemy has many ways to pull you back into the world of the visible, do not become overconfident. Many Rogue abilities require you to be in stealth, and sometimes behind the target. When in stealth, your movement speed is cut down to about 75% (which can be brought back up a bit by talents and higher levels). If you are much higher level then the enemies around you, you have a smaller radius to be discovered, but if the enemies are higher level, then it becomes tougher to stealth around them as they will detect you quickly.

Stealth is great for sneaking by mobs without aggroing them. A Rogue can stealth up to 2 monsters, sap one of them (Sap is a crowd control ability only available in stealth) and proceed to fight the other. This way, the Rogue becomes an effective soloer against humanoid monsters and can continually handle groups of 2 and only fight them 1 at a time. You'll also find many a Rogue stealth past the minions to get to the big boss without fighting along the way. A good Rogue will of course pick any humanoids' pockets on the way.


Lock Picking 

Rogues have been given the class-unique ability to be able to pick locks. In the World of Warcraft, locked doors, chests and lock-boxes are abundant. Blacksmiths can create destructible keys that open locks, engineers can make explosives, but Rogues are the only class that can pick as many locks as he/she wants without penalties.

Locked things, such as chests and lock-boxes, have a skill level associated with opening them, just like mining has a skill level associated with the different type of ores. With the new content patch, Blizzard has added new ‘lockers’ stationed at different points in the world that can help Rogues practice their skill in Lock Picking. In addition, some Rogue quests will require you to pick a lock or level up your Lock Picking skill.

Forgetting to up your lockpicking really messes you up in the end, but there are usually rogues who will open lockboxes for free in most major cities.

Attributes

Every class has five attributes that determine their. Each attribute helps each class differently. Let’s look at how each of these stats affects Rogues: