WoW Classic Era Rogue Leveling Guide (vanilla)

Welcome to our rogue leveling guide for WoW Classic Era (also known as vanilla). The objective of this guide is to give you a clear understanding of the class, its strengths, weaknesses, and how to level it efficiently. If you play rogue in retail/new World of Warcraft, have played a rogue in the past, or you’re just getting started, this guide can assist you in your leveling ventures.

Overview

In WoW Classic, rogue is a very popular class. It boasts some of the best solo PvE abilities, and almost every raid group wants one. It has a lot of utility skills such as: Sap, Blind, multiple poisons, Expose Armor, and more. Dungeon and raid groups usually need rogues because of their multiple CC (crowd control) abilities. You’ll almost always have a spot in a dungeon or raid group. In PvP, rogues excel at 1v1 PvP and have a good rate of survivability.

Races

Races for PvE

Alliance

For Alliance, without debate, humans are the best.  This is due to their passive racial skill: Sword Specialization (+60 skill level to swords) and increases your possibility of damage, blocking, and parrying. The second-best racial option for Alliance is dwarf. Dwarfs have Stoneform which removes all poison, bleeding, and diseases with an increase of armor. Stoneform is not as effective in raids and dungeons due to healers abilities to remove negative buffs.

Horde

For Horde, the best choice is always orc. Orcs boast the passive skill: Hardiness. This gives them a 25% chance to resist stun effects. Orcs also have Blood Fury, which allows them a 25% increase in base melee attack power. Your second-best choice for Horde is troll, they have the Berserking skill which increases your attack speed based on your health. At the highest health you start at a 10% increase, and the lowest health will net you a 30% increase. This is not ideal for rogues since it requires you to almost be dead to be effective.

Races for PvP

Alliance

Gnome wins first place for PvP because they have the racial ability Escape Artist. They can evade any immobilization or movement impairing effects. Gnomes also have a +15 increase to Engineering with the passive skill Engineering Specialization. Dwarfs are a close second place for PVP with the above-mentioned skill Stoneform.

Horde

Orc wins again because of the previously mentioned Blood Fury and Hardiness. If you are looking for an alternative, I would suggest undead as they have Will of The Forsaken. This provides you a way out of charm, fear and sleep effects. This is especially good against warlocks who are using the Succubus minion. It also lasts 5 seconds. Great for PvP, not so great for PVE.

Talent specs/builds

Leveling talent spec

If you plan to PvE or level up, your best choice is to focus on a mix of Combat talents, and Assassination.

Rogue leveling talent spec for WoW Classic.

Sword specialization talent spec

When you level from 1-10, you will start with daggers, but as soon as you get the ability to dual wield, buy swords. Swords for rogues are your best bet for highest DPS (damage per second). When you get far enough down the Combat tree, make sure to opt in Sword Specialization. This will help you proc an extra sword hit which is what will help you kill faster.

If you are Alliance, I would suggest the Sword Specialization Combat build with a human character. You already have an increase in sword skill, coupled with the spec, will give you great DPS. Swords have a higher DPS and swing farther than daggers, which is better for PvE, and solo questing. Keep in mind with this build, eventually while leveling you will dual wield swords, which cancels out your use of Backstab. Until you can afford two swords, I would keep a dagger in the main hand, and a sword in the offhand. In Patch 1.1.0, Blizzard updated the rules to only stop players from changing gear in combat. They did not include weapons. If you like the effects of backstab as an opener, or in the middle of a fight, equip your dagger in main hand and switch it back. Remember that it triggers the global cool down (when you cast a spell and a 2 second timer takes over all your skills). With this build you get:

• Ruthlessness 3/3
• Relentless Strikes 1/1
• Sword Specialization 5/5
• Aggression 3/3

RULE OF THUMB

Dagger specialization talent spec

If you prefer to use daggers, avoid buying swords at level 10. Stay with daggers and spec out your talent tree like the one below. This build is better for Horde as you can make up the damage with increased strength, presuming that you have chosen orc as your race. If you do not have enough gold to buy sword training, stay with daggers. Rogue has been argued to be the second strongest DPS class in WoW Classic so, either way, you’ll be killing.

The highlights of this dagger build include:

• Opportunity 5/5
• Improve Backstab 3/3
• Dagger Specialization 5/5

The main difference with the dagger vs. sword specialization builds is 5% increased critical strike chance with daggers.

Rogue dagger talent build for WoW Classic.

PvE Daggers vs Swords

PvP talent spec

Rogue PvP talent build for WoW Classic.

For battlegrounds, world fighting, and general PvP, the hemorrhage build is popular and works the best. This is a mix of Subtlety and Assassination, with 3 points in combat. Rogue PvP builds generally have most of their talent points in subtlety as this affords them better stealth openers, no cooldown for Stealth, increased chance for extra combo point generation, a 90% chance to return to stealth while sapping, and instant cooldown removal.

Build-specific skills

This build affords you three new skills that are essential for PVP.

• Cold Blood 3/3 Sinister Strike, Backstab, Ambush, or Eviscerate gets a 100% critical hit chance.
• Hemorrhage 1/1 Up to +10 increase in physical damage taken, 30 charges/15 seconds.
• Preparation 1/1 When activated, immediately resets your rogue skills.

PvP tips

• Use Cold Blood with Eviscerate and 5 combo points. This will cause massive damage.
• Relentless Strikes will give you 20% chance per combo point to give you 25 energy after the kill. Try to finish off the target with as many combo points as possible. This will keep you in the game longer.
• Use Preparation in conjunction with your Cold Blood/Eviscerate combo. You can get two of these burst combos if you use Preparation.

Professions

Having a profession can greatly increase your progress in leveling any class, for rogue a good option is to pair herbalism with alchemy.  Since rogues naturally don’t come with a way to heal during combat, these two professions go hand in hand in filling that missing skill in your bag of tricks.  Not only will you have healing potions, but you also have the ability to gather Swiftthistle for Thistle Tea, and create potions to sell for gold.

If plants and chemistry aren’t your thing, then pairing engineering with mining is a great but expensive alternative. Prepare to spend a lot of gold to craft most items. Engineering can be a hole in the bank, but the addition of gadgets can go a long way during combat.

For an equal opportunity to make gold and enhance your armor, leatherworking and skinning are a reasonable pair for more paced leveling.

Poisons

Poisons play an important role in every aspect of the game. They can provide DPS, burst, slow enemies down, and slow spell casting. Each of the poisons you can craft lasts 30 minutes. You will receive a quest at level 20 that unlocks the ability to craft poisons. At level 24, you receive another quest for a poison vendor.

Types of poisons

• Deadly Poison – Gives a 30% chance to poison your target for 15 seconds.
• Wound Poison – Reduces healing effects.
• Instant Poison – Gives a chance to inflict damage on an enemy up to 100 times (burst).
• Mind-numbing Poison – Gives a chance to slow enemy casting speed up to 60%.
• Crippling Poison – Slows enemy for up to 70%.

Deadly Poison or Instant Poison are all around choices to use when leveling. Use wound poisons on healers so you can out-DPS their self-heals. Mind-numbing Poison is applicable for all casters, and any situation when you know someone will cast a spell. Crippling Poison is great for crowd control. A good example is when a monster runs away in fear and aggros another monster. Nobody loves that long run back to your body in WoW Classic.

Leveling tips

1. Until you have the Garrote skill (level 1-14), avoid using stealth as it slows down the leveling process. A good way to build combo points in the beginning is Garrote → Backstab → Sinister strike → Eviscerate.
2. Before level 14, try to only use Stealth to Pickpocket enemies, sneak past large mobs, and sneak behind to steal boss kills.
3. Always make a bank character and park them in Orgrimmar/Stormwind to accept all loot that can be sold on the auction house. This also gives you more time to focus on leveling and less time worried about traveling to the bank or auction house. This also helps save for a mount as early as possible as rogues do not have any class mounts.
4. First aid is key for rogues as they don’t have many healing skills by nature. You can supplement this with alchemy/herbalism as well.
5. Aim to kill mobs that are your level or one level higher if you’re worried about speed leveling. If you are leveling for the fun and enjoyment kill whatever you’d like.
6. Don’t be afraid to buy a vendor weapon or gear here and there. As a rogue, you tank your own targets when solo playing. You also are only wearing leather which makes rogues somewhat squishy. Getting a new weapon or piece of armor from a dungeon not only helps your survival but makes for more varied gameplay.
7. If you want to save on gold for your mount you can skip the purchasing of these skills until later: Detect Traps (level 24), Disarm Trap (level 30) & Slice and Dice (buy it at level 40 Rank 2).
8. If you have the gold from another character you have already leveled, buy some Thistle Tea from the auction house as early as you can. This fully replenishes your energy and can be a life saver mid battle. No one likes walking back to their corpse in WoW Classic.