Table of Contents

About the Rogue 3

Defining a Leveling Style: Solo Versus Group Leveling

Disadvantages 3
Advantages 4
Which Classes Make Good Leveling Partners? 4

How the Rogue Works

Energy and Combo Points (CP) 5
Gear, Stats and Key Bindings 5
Addons 5

Talents, Abilities and Playstyle – Level by Level

Levels 1-9 6
Levels 10-19 11
Levels 20-29 15
Levels 30-39 17
Levels 40-49 18
Levels 50-59 19
Levels 60-69 20
Levels 70-80 26

Final Notes
Common Macros 28
Rogue Glossary 28
Quick Overview of Gear 28

Professions 29

General Tips
Mob Colors and Their Meanings 30
Abilities 30
Saving Money on Gear 30
Rested Bonus in Inns 30
Music 31
Keybinding and Turning With Your Mouse 31
How to Keybind Abilities 32
How to Unbind Keyboard Turning Keys and Use Your Mouse to Turn 33

Guilds 34
Addons Hexigames Recommends 34
Great Guides to Help Even More 35
A Final Word 36

ROGUE 
 A Rogue’s Guide to Leveling 1-80

Rogues are the masters of the shadows, the thieves and the tricksters or World of Warcraft. They can
sneak by unnoticed and then launch a barrage of devastating melee attacks, stuns, poisons, and even
bleeds on their foes.

Rogues have been known as the highest damage-dealing class in WoW for a long time, and that still stands
true. They are kings of melee combat, masters of subtlety, and any enemy’s worst nightmare. If that
sounds like something that’s fun, then the Rogue is probably the class for you!

About the Rogue

The Rogue is a melee damage-dealing class in World of Warcraft. Rogues are known best for their ability
to enter Stealth and be invisible to their enemies, and a wide assortment of stuns, poisons and other inca-
pacitating effects. Rogues can specialize in dual wielding weapons including one-handed axes, daggers,
swords, fist weapons or maces.

Rogues only wear leather armor, so they take a moderate amount of damage. This is offset, however, by
the Rogue’s high dodge rate and defensive abilities like Evasion. Throughout this guide I will cover in-
depth strategies involved in successful Rogue leveling and teach you how to be an awesome Rogue.

Defining a Leveling Style

Solo Versus Group Leveling

If you’re considering leveling a Rogue in World of Warcraft, you need to decide if you want to level solo or
with a leveling partner. Both strategies have their advantages and disadvantages.

Disadvantages
Leveling with a partner can be faster or slower, depending on whom you level with. For example, if you’re
leveling with an experienced player, you could find yourself blowing through quests much faster than you

ROGUE 
could alone. Most of the time, though, leveling with a partner can hold you back, since you have to wait for
your leveling buddy to finish gathering or collection quests.

Another drawback when leveling with a partner is the fact that all gold and items that mobs drop are split
between you and your partner. This can really hurt your pocketbook, especially when saving up for new
skills, mounts, and armor from the auction house.

Advantages
A huge advantage to leveling with a partner, however, is the fact that having a partner will mean you’ll
rarely die by making common leveling mistakes like pulling too many enemies (or “mobs”). Leveling part-
ners can really speed up “kill quests” and the recovery time between pulling mobs.

Finally, a leveling partner can make it easier to complete group quests or find instancing groups at lower
levels. When I leveled my Rogue, I chose to level with a leveling partner. Although it was substantially
slower than I normally could level alone, we were able to move through 3-person and even 4-person
group quests with no trouble.

It all really depends on you and your partner’s degree of skill, and if you’re going for speed or if you’re
more concerned with seeing game content.

Which Classes Make Good Leveling Partners?

You can level with any other class — even another Rogue. If you’re leveling with a caster (like a Mage or
Warlock), it can get annoying because the caster will often pull the mob’s attention on himself and cause
you to have to chase it down.

Tanks don’t do much damage and will suck up experience, gold, and items more than they help.

Healers are much the same as tanks and will pull aggro often, just like casters.

The two fastest classes to partner-level with a Rogue are:

• Druid (Feral) – Feral druids are great leveling partners because when they hit Level 40, they get
an ability called Leader of the Pack. This gives anyone in their party or raid 5% extra chance to
crit with melee attacks and each time you crit, it heals you. They can also come out of bear or
cat form and heal and/or resurrect you if things go bad.

• Paladin (Retribution) – Retribution paladins are great to level with your Rogue because of the
many buffs and auras they’ll give you while leveling and because like Druids, they can also heal
and/or resurrect you if things go sour.

ROGUE 
How the Rogue Works
Energy and Combo Points (CP)
A Rogue uses Energy, a power shown on the small bar below your health bar at the top left of your screen
next to your picture (where the mana bar of a caster, the runic power bar of a Death Knight, and the rage
bar of a Warrior appear). Energy regenerates quickly and permits a Rogue to perform combo abilities that
give combo points (CP). You can collect up to five CP and then use them to execute finishing abilities
(or “finishers”). Finishers usually deal much more damage than combos, or have some other added effect.

Rogues have a range of abilities that allow them to stun, stealth, pick locks, and even poison a mob. We’ll
go over these more in depth as you learn them. You’ll also learn when each ability is good to use and
when it might not be so good to use.

Gear, Stats and Key Bindings

The best stats for a Rogue, in order of importance, are:
• Agility
• Stamina
• Attack Power
• Hit Rating
• Critical Strike Rating
• Strength

Since Rogues generally wear leather armor, they take a moderate amount of damage, so you always have
to be prepared. Rogues require constant button-pushing to be effective; that’s why I’m going to suggest
some common key bindings that you’ll want to use to be more efficient and better at playing your class as
we go along.

*Note: A key binding is simply setting a certain keyboard key to perform a certain action.
For example, the default key bindings for moving around are W, A, S, D, Q and E.

Addons
I love addons, but this is a personal preference. I will suggest some addons that I find useful and you can
use them if you choose.

I use three main addons with my Rogue:

1. Poisoner – This nifty little addon makes it really easy to apply whichever poison you choose to your
weapons simply by right-clicking for your off-hand weapon and left-clicking for your main hand weapon.

ROGUE 
2. Recap – I find Recap to be incredibly useful in both instances and leveling. It breaks down all the dam-
age you deal and shows how much percent comes from each source. It also has a built in damage meter.

3. Slice Commander - I love this addon for monitoring my energy and my Slice and Dice (SnD) timer. This
really helps to maximize the time I can let Energy collect and still get the most out of SnD. It also moni-
tors the Hunger for Blood (HfB) timer if you are Assassination spec.

Talents, Abilities and Playstyle —

Level by Level

Levels 1-9
Your first nine levels will be spent in your race’s starting zone. WoW’s starting zones are gentle and pa-
trolling mobs won’t aggro unless you attack them — they are non-aggressive. Non-aggressive mobs can
be identified with a yellow circle around them when you target them, as opposed to a red circle around
them, which denotes an aggressive mob that will aggro if you get too close.

Bear in mind that the Blood Elf and Draenei starting zones have much faster and easier starting quests,
and you can level in those zones even if you’re not playing a Blood Elf or Draenei (which you may not be,
since Blood Elves, at least, cannot be Warriors!). These zones give better overall quest rewards and even
offer nice superior-quality (blue) items in return for simple-to-attain reputation.

ROGUE 
Level 1 Abilities
All Rogues start with Sinister Strike and Eviscerate.

Sinister Strike
Sinister Strike (SS) is one of the most basic combo moves and each successful SS builds one combo point.
You’ll be using SS more than anything while leveling, so I like to go ahead and keybind it to the “1” key.

It’s important to know how Sinister Strike works, in order to know what weapons to use while leveling.
SS damage is based on weapon damage plus a modifier. All weapons have a base damage range.
Take a look at these two weapons:

Notice that both swords have nearly the same damage output per second (or DPS), but one (Malice) has a
much slower speed and therefore a higher damage range (313-582 Damage). Remorse, on the other hand,
has a much faster speed (1.50), but a lower damage range (187-349 Damage).

Since SS is a main hand instant attack that deals weapon damage, it’s best to choose a main hand
weapon that has the highest maximum damage range (not overall DPS). These weapons are usu-
ally slower (2.4-2.6 speed) and are normally swords, maces, axes, or fist weapons. Daggers are generally
fast weapons (1.3-2.0 speed) and shouldn’t be used with Sinister Strike unless you have no other weapons
available. If you choose to use daggers, you’ll be using a spec that focuses on the abilities called Backstab
or Mutilate. We’ll talk about these later.

You do, however, want a fast off-hand weapon. Since no Rogue attacks besides Mutilate and Shiv are
based on off-hand weapon damage, we want faster off-hand weapons for more chances to poison a target
and for other reasons you’ll learn about as you start getting talent points.

In the above two examples Malice would be a great main hand weapon, while Remorse would make a
great off-hand weapon.

Let’s recap:
• Main hand = Slow Weapon (2.40 - 2.80 speed)
• Off-hand = Fast Weapon (1.30 - 1.80 speed)

ROGUE 
If you follow this advice throughout leveling, you’ll maximize the damage you deal and it will be much
easier and faster.

Eviscerate
Eviscerate will be your primary finishing move while leveling. In fact, I believe a Rogue could level with
only Sinister Strike and Eviscerate from 1-80 without a problem. But that would be no fun, since the
Rogue has so many awesome talents and abilities.

Eviscerate is simply a damage-dealing finisher that deals more damage per available CP. It’s worth noting
that Eviscerate is based completely on Attack Power and how many CP you have, unlike SS. There-
fore, Eviscerating with a fast dagger or a slow sword would give the exact same amount of damage. I like to
bind Eviscerate to my “2” key.

Stealth
Finally, you can train in Stealth at Level 1. Stealth allows you to creep through the shadows unnoticed by
your enemies. It costs 10 copper to purchase this ability from your class trainer. I usually don’t bother
buying Stealth until I train my Level 4 skills, though, since we don’t really start using it until later. I like to
bind Stealth to my “~” key.

Rotations
A rotation is a pattern of attacks you use to kill enemies that takes into account cooldowns and abilities
that work well together. Some rotations deal more damage than others.

For the first four levels, your rotation should look like this:

Sinister Strike 3-4

Tim es
Rotation
Level 1-4

Eviscerate No

Is the M ob
Yes
Dead?

M ove O n to the
Next M ob

ROGUE 
At Level 4, you can pick up Backstab and Pick Pocket (and buy Stealth if you haven’t already).

Backstab is a dagger-only attack and you use it much while leveling, because as its name would imply,
you need to be behind an opponent to use it. If you have no weapons besides daggers right now, use this
Backstab rotation instead of the rotation given above:

Approach the Non-

Aggressive M ob
and Backstab
Rotation for
Backstab

Sinister Strike 1-2

Tim es

Eviscerate No

Is the M ob
Yes
Dead?

M ove O n to the
Next M ob

Pick Pocket
Many Rogues never use the Pick Pocket ability, but I can’t stress how important it is for leveling. Not only
can a Rogue pick up a few extra copper and silver from each enemy and become wealthier faster, but you
can steal locked boxes from mobs. These junkboxes can be used to raise the Pick Lock (“lockpicking”)
skill (which you’ll get later). Once you start learning some opening moves, I’ll show you a very useful
macro that allows you to Pick Pocket and attack an enemy at the same time.

Gouge
At Level 6, you get Gouge, which will make it easier to use Backstab. It’s not as effective at higher levels,
but go ahead and pick it up and use it in conjunction with Backstab if you’ve equipped a dagger. Keep in
mind that you’ll want to grab a decent main hand sword, mace or axe as soon as you can to maximize lev-
eling speed.

ROGUE 
By this time you’ll be getting into zones with aggressive mobs. So if you wanted to use Gouge in conjunc-
tion with Backstab, your attack rotation would look like this:

Stealth &
Approach the
Aggressive M ob
Rotation for
Backstab +
Gouge

Backstab

G ouge

W ait for Energy to

G et Back to 60

Backstab

Eviscerate

Is the M ob
Yes No
Dead?

M ove O n to the Sinister Strike Until

Next M ob Dead

Evasion
You get Evasion at Level 8. Evasion is great for sticky situations, because it makes you pretty much invin-
cible for 15 seconds. This is wonderful for elite mobs as well. Don’t be afraid to use Evasion if your health
gets below 50% and it’s not looking hopeful.

Best Zones for Levels 1-9

If this is your first character, I’d advise staying in your race’s starting zone to level. If you’re more experi-
enced or you’re feeling brave, the best starting zones are Azuremyst Isle for Alliance or Eversong Woods

ROGUE 10
for the Horde. Not only are the quest items better in these two zones, but the quests are more linear and
much more relaxing and fun.

Wherever you go, make sure there is a Rogue class trainer nearby so you can train abilities as you level.

Levels 10-19
At Level 10 you gain a whole slew of new things to do.

Talents
Right away at Level 10 you get your first talent point and need to decide which talents to spend those
points in. Each level will grant you another talent point. Rogues have three talent specialization trees or
“specs”: Assassination, Combat, and Subtlety.

• Assassination (also called “Mutilate,” after its strongest ability) deals with daggers and the use
of incapacitation and poison attacks. This spec really isn't very good until Level 50 when you
can begin training in Mutilate, the primary Assassination talent.

• Combat has the highest consistent damage and relies on using a good strong axe, mace, sword,
or fist weapon. It improves energy regeneration rate and lowers energy cost and makes Sin-
ister Strike more powerful. Combat Rogues get very powerful cooldown abilities that can be
used with each other to make you an unstoppable wrecking machine for about 15 seconds.

• Subtlety is the Rogue’s main PvP spec. It gives talents that increase the effectiveness of Stealth
and an ability to get out of sticky situations. The only drawback of Subtlety spec is that it does
not deal much overall damage, compared to Combat or Mutilate specs.

We're going to start off by putting our first 2 talent points into Improved Sinister Strike in the Combat
tree. Our main goal is to fill out the combat tree, since this spec will give the least downtime and the most
damage until higher levels.

Now you may say: "How does five energy off Sinister Strike help me?" It may not seem like much, but look
at this:

In an average encounter, you will SS each mob at least 3-4 times. Normally SS costs 45 energy, but Im-
proved SS brings the cost down to 40. 5 x 4 = 20 extra energy saved per mob. Now, say you're killing 10
mobs back-to-back. 20 x 10 = 200 extra energy! That's 5 more SS's worth of energy. So, it does add up.

The next 3 talent points will go into Dual Wield Specialization (we'll finish filling this out later), then 3
into Deflection, and 2 into Improved Slice and Dice.
We want Dual Wield because it boosts overall damage and Deflection because it will allow us to pick up
the Riposte talent at Level 20. At Level 10 you’ll learn Slice and Dice, which you will keep up as much as
possible for a dynamic overall damage boost.

ROGUE 11
By Level 19, your talent tree should look like this: Level 19 Talent Tree

New Abilities
Apart from new ranks of existing abilities, you’ll also get some new and handy abilities to help you along
the way.

At Level 10 you get Sap, Slice and Dice, and Sprint.

As a Combat Rogue, Sap isn’t normally very useful while leveling. It can be handy if you need to control
a mob while you fight another. But keep in mind that any damage done to a Sapped target (including any
damage over time (DoT) applied by a bleed effect or the poison on your weapons!) will wake it up.

Sprint is another great tool for sticky situations, and particularly if Evasion is on cooldown. You can use
Sprint to run away from mobs (which you’ll probably do!) or you can use it to shorten travel time between
quest turn-ins until you can purchase and ride a mount.

Finally, Slice and Dice (SnD) is your second finishing move. It increases attack speed by 20%. SnD’s du-
ration is based on how many combo points you’ve built up. Since a majority of a Rogue’s damage comes
from regular melee attacks (or “white” damage, so called because scrolling combat text displays that dam-
age in white) you want to keep SnD active as often as possible. Your attack rotation should turn into this:

Sinister Strike 4-5

Tim es (m ake sure
not to kill the m ob
until you activate
Com bat Rotation SnD )
using SnD

No
Is Slice and
No Yes
Dice Active?

Activate Slice and

Eviscerate
Dice

Is the M ob
Yes
Dead?

M ove O n to the
Next M ob

ROGUE 12
At Level 12 you get Kick, an attack that interrupts spellcasting. Make sure you understand that interrupt-
ing and silencing a spellcast are two different things. Silence prevents a spell from being cast at all, while
spell interrupts must be used in mid-cast to be effective.

At Level 14 you gain Expose Armor and Garrote.

Expose Armor is a finisher that reduces a target’s armor by 20% for a certain amount of time. You won’t
be using Expose Armor very often while leveling, so don’t keybind it unless you have spare key bindings.

Garrote is your first opening ability (an ability that can only be used in Stealth). Now you have a reason
to use Stealth (if you weren’t already using it). While Garrote itself isn’t that great, take advantage of its
extra damage, since it’s currently your only opener. This makes your attack rotation change into this:

Stealth Behind
M ob

Com bat Rotation

using Garrote

G arrote

Sinister Strike 3-5

Tim es (m ake sure
not to kill the m ob
until you activate
SnD )

No
Is Slice and
No Yes
Dice Active?

Activate Slice and

Eviscerate
Dice

Is the M ob
Yes
Dead?

M ove O n to the
Next M ob

ROGUE 13
You’ll also want to set up this nifty little macro so you can Pick Pocket on enemies right before you Gar-
rote them and only have to press one button to do both:

#showtooltip Garrote
/cast Pick Pocket
/cast Garrote

It’s important that you have the auto-loot feature turned on for this macro to work correctly. I suggest key-
binding this macro to your “1” key on the Stealth action bar, as it will be used quite frequently.

At Level 16 you gain Feint, and at Level 18 you get Ambush. Ambush is your second opener, but won’t be
of any use if you are leveling as a Combat Rogue, because it requires daggers (like Backstab). Since you’re
most likely soloing (and even if not) Feint is equally unimportant at this time. If you’re saving money,
don’t bother spending silver on these two abilities right now.

Pick Lock (“Lockpicking”)

You can learn Pick Lock at Level 16. Speak to your rogue trainer and follow the quest chain to gain the
talent. Remember those junkboxes you were getting from your Garrote/Pick Pocket macro? Hold on to
them and use them to help you level your lockpicking skill. If you need lockpicking points and aren’t sure
where you can find boxes to pick for skill points, ask a Rogue trainer or offer your services to non-rogues
in a major city. Practice locks can be purchased from Engineers or on the Auction House, but have a rela-
tively short window for skill improvement.

Glyphs
At Level 15 you can start using glyphs. You can equip 1 minor and 1 major glyph.

• Major: Glyph of Sinister Strike – This glyph is amazing for any Combat rogue. It allows a 50%
chance to get 2 CP when we crit with SS. You’ll be using this until Level 80.

• Minor: Glyph of Blurred Speed – Either one of these minor glyphs are great. Blurred Speed lets
you run on water when your Sprint is active, which is really fun and can be helpful at times.
-or-
• Minor: Glyph of Pick Lock (Level 16) - This glyph will speed up leveling your lockpicking skill.
Minor glyphs are less important, so pick whichever one you prefer.

Class Quest: Level 10

The final thing you need to make sure you do at Level 10 is get your first rogue class quest. This is differ-
ent for each race, but it’s a small rogue-only quest chain that gives you a really good uncommon (green)
quality dagger. If the dagger is better than your current main hand weapon, use it and take advantage of
BS and Ambush. If it’s not, then use it for an off hand weapon.

Best Zones for Levels 10-19

Much like Levels 1-9, the best zones for Levels 10-19 are Bloodmyst Isle for the Alliance and Ghostlands
for Horde. These quest hubs come right after the Level 1-9 zones I mentioned earlier. The quests are

ROGUE 14
more fun, the upgrades are better, the zones are much less complex, and both have capital cities nearby so
you can train skills as you level.

Levels 20-29
These are the levels when playing a Rogue starts to be more fun. You get new abilities, poisons, and the
riding skill!

Talents
At Level 20, put your first talent point into Riposte. Riposte is an instant attack that activates after you
parry an enemy attack. This works great in conjunction with Deflection and is active pretty frequently
while killing mobs. The great thing about Riposte is its low energy cost and high damage output. On top
of this, it awards 1 CP.

Keybind Riposte to your “3” key. Since it becomes active so often, you want to be ready to use it quickly
before the active timer wears off. Simply work Riposte into your rotation any time it becomes active.

After the point in Riposte, put your next 5 talent points into Precision. Then put 3 talent points into
Lightning Reflexes and the last point in Aggression. The talent tree looks scattered right now, but we’re
picking up our most important talents first.

Precision is a fundamental talent for any Rogue, since we have a 7% miss rate with all special abilities and
a 27% miss rate with normal attacks. Precision lowers both of those percentages by 5%. You will notice
immediately that you don’t see “Miss” as often.

The reason you should go ahead and snag Lightning Reflexes is because it works hand in hand with SnD
to increase damage output (by giving haste) and it also gives you more avoidance, by adding a 6% higher
chance to dodge attacks. Since you’ll be stacking Agility as a stat, this talent will add to your already-high
dodge rate, making it less likely you’ll have to stop to bandage or eat between mobs.

By Level 29 your talent tree needs to look like this: Level 29 Talent Tree

New Abilities
At Level 20 you get Dismantle and Rupture. Rupture is a finisher attack that puts a bleed effect on a tar-
get. Again, this is another ability primarily used by raiding rogues and you probably won’t find much use
for it until you hit Level 80.

Dismantle is a situational ability. It’s mostly for PvP use, but you can (and should) use it in leveling to
disarm an enemy so it does less damage. This is especially good if you find yourself in a bleak situation.
Keep in mind that Dismantle only works on humanoid mobs with equipped weapons.

Level 22 gives you Distract and Vanish. You’ll use both these tools while leveling.

ROGUE 15
Distract really helps when approaching an enemy for an opener, since you’re less likely to be noticed
when an enemy isn’t facing you.

Vanish is one of our strongest abilities. It is the Rogue’s ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card. On a 3-minute
cooldown, you can use Vanish any time you pull too many mobs or get low on health. If you have a mouse
with extra buttons, bind Vanish to one of the unused side buttons.

At Level 24 you get Disarm Traps, a passive ability rarely used even by Level 80 Rogues. If you’re saving
gold, I wouldn’t even bother training this right now.

Finally, at Level 26 you get Cheap Shot. This will be the only opener you’ll use from here on out. It not
only stuns a target for 4 seconds, but also instantly gives 2 CP. So now, instead of opening with Garrote,
open with Cheap Shot. Other than this substitution, you’ll be following the exact same rotation (and will
be following this new Cheap Shot rotation from now on). Make a macro to keep the Pick Pocket ability
alive:

#showtooltip Cheap Shot

/cast Pick Pocket
/cast Cheap Shot

Make sure you update your key binding from the Garrote macro you were using before to your “1” key in
the Stealth action bar.

Poisons
At Level 20 you get your Rogue poison quest. Completing this quest allows you to start using poisons on
your weapons. Poisons are a necessity for a Rogue and provide a good bit of extra damage while leveling.

However, many Rogues feel that the poison quest is too difficult to solo at Level 20 and wait until Levels
22-24 to finish it, since you have to kill an elite to finish the quest. If you’re leveling with a partner, now
would be the perfect time to take advantage of him/her. If you’re solo, don’t worry. Just wait until Level
24 to finish the quest up.

Once you get your poison skill, you can apply poisons to each weapon. Each application of poison lasts for
1 hour. Poisons can be purchased at Shady Dealers or Poison Dealers. Keep a stack of around 20 of each
type of poison in case you find yourself needing that specific poison.

At Level 20 you can use both Instant Poison I and Crippling Poison. Right now, you should use Instant
Poison on both weapons.

Don’t forget to check in with a poison vendor when you train new skills. He’ll offer upgraded and new
poisons as you level.

ROGUE 16
Mount
Finally, at Level 20 you can learn Apprentice Riding. This will allow you to purchase a 60% speed mount
and drastically speed leveling. The skill costs 4 gold and the mount will be another gold, for 5 gold total.

Best Zones for Levels 20-29

If you’re leveling as Alliance, you’ll do best as a Rogue in the Wetlands, since there are plenty of easy-to-
kill mobs there. If you’re Horde, start in the Barrens and then head to Hillsbrad Foothills around Level 24.

Levels 30-39
At or around Level 30, if I haven’t already found a superior quality (or blue) sword, mace, or axe, I try to
buy one on the auction house. One of my favorites is the Pronged Reaver. This axe is a great main hand
weapon and will last 10 or more levels before needing to be upgraded.

Talents
The main reason to equip a good main hand weapon at Level 30 is because you can now start putting
points into a specific weapon specialization.

By far, the best weapon specialization for a Rogue is Hack and Slash. It gives both swords and axes a
5% chance to get an extra attack on each swing. Just like SnD and Lightning Reflexes, Hack and Slash
adds to a Rogue’s overall damage and will speed up your ability to kill mobs significantly. This works out
great because you can have a main hand sword and an off-hand axe or vice versa — and usually axes and
swords have good top-end damage to get the most out of SS.

The first thing I do at Level 30 is put my talent point into Blade Flurry. This cooldown talent lets you pull
two mobs, yet be able to deal damage to both of them for 15 seconds. It’s great to couple Blade Flurry
with Evasion.

If you have a good sword or axe, put your next 5 talent points into Hack and Slash. If not, don’t worry.
Put 4 talent points into Aggression first and then put the next 5 talent points into Hack and Slash. Either
way, by Level 39, your talent tree should look like this: Level 39 Talent Tree

New Abilities
At Level 30, you get two new abilities: Disarm Trap and Kidney Shot.

Disarm Trap is much like Detect Traps and you won’t find much use for it until later. I often don’t even
bother buying it until I hit level 70 or 80.

Kidney Shot, however, can be a very useful finisher. It stuns its target — and the length of the stun is
based on how many CP you have built up. Although you won’t be using this regularly when leveling, key-
bind Kidney Shot to your “5” key. You will find use for it. Much like Vanish and Evasion, it can be used

ROGUE 17
when you’re low on health. Remember when a mob is stunned it can’t attack you, but also keep in mind…
not all mobs can be stunned.

As you level, you’ll find more and more uses for such “situational” abilities.

At Level 32, you can buy your first Wound Poison. While you’re a Combat Rogue, you need to start using
this poison on both weapons. Unless you are Assassination spec, Wound Poison will trigger more fre-
quently and deal more damage over time.

Level 34 gives you the new ability called Blind. Blind disorients your target for 10 seconds. Use this if
your other cooldowns aren’t available and use those 10 seconds to quickly bandage or run away. Blind
finds much more usefulness in PvP but can still be helpful while leveling.

Glyphs
At Level 30 you can use another Major Glyph.

• Major: Glyph of Slice and Dice – This glyph is handy because it makes Slice and Dice last a bit
longer and stacks with the Improved Slice and Dice talent. It’ll make it easier to keep SnD up.

Best Zones for Levels 30-39

You’ll have the best luck leveling in two different places from Levels 30-39. Start out in Stranglethorn Vale
(STV) until you can’t do any more of the quests. Next, move to Arathi Highlands. Once you can’t do any
more quests there, head back to STV and finish up.

Levels 40-49
Level 40 brings about two notable things: you get your 31 point capstone talent and you can purchase
your 100% speed mount.

Talents
At Level 40, you should put your first talent point into Adrenaline Rush (AR). This is a Combat rogue’s
most powerful cooldown ability. It doubles the speed of your energy regeneration rate. Use AR with
Blade Flurry and Evasion and you can take on groups of mobs or even solo many elites. You’ll get the most
effect out of AR if you use it when energy is low, not when it’s nearly full.

You also might choose to replace your Major Glyph of Slice and Dice Glyph with a Glyph of Adrenaline
Rush, which makes it last 5 seconds longer.

Your next 2 points go into Blade Twisting, and then put 3 into Vitality. Finally, you’ll put your last 4 tal-
ent points into Combat Potency. Vitality and Combat Potency dynamically increase your passive energy

ROGUE 18
regeneration rate and will create a noticeable damage increase. By Level 49, your talent tree should look
like this: Level 49 Talent Tree

New Abilities
Levels 40-49 don’t give very many new abilities, besides upgrades to abilities you already have.

You do, however, get the passive Safe Fall at Level 40. This ability is great, because it makes you take
much less damage from falling than you normally would. It’s definitely worth spending your gold on, and
I’d also recommend grabbing a Glyph of Safe Fall, a Minor Glyph that increases the distance you can fall
without taking damage. You can replace your Glyph of Pick Lock with this.

Until Level 60, when I’ll recommend that you switch to a Mutilate spec, your rotation will be the same as
it’s been since Level 26. And if you don’t choose to go Mutilate (which is fine), it’ll be the same up until
Level 80.

New Mount
Last thing on your list to do at Level 40 is get your 100% speed mount. You’ll love this mount: it’s nearly
twice as fast as your regular mount. The skill will cost 50 gold and the mount another 10, for a total of 60
gold to learn Journeyman Riding.

Best Zones for Levels 40-49

The first place I like to go at Level 40 as a Rogue is Tanaris. The quests here are fun and you can start do-
ing Zul’Farrak instance runs if you choose. Once you run out of quests in Tanaris, head up to the Hinter-
lands to finish the bracket.

If you’re Alliance, you can go to the Blasted Lands instead of the Hinterlands. Both make great leveling
zones for a Rogue; the mobs are easy to kill and the quests are enjoyable.

Levels 50-59
This is what I like to call the homeward stretch, since you’ll be getting out of the old world (Azeroth) and
heading into the first expansion content (Outland). The gear upgrades from Outland quests are much
better than anything you’ll get in Azeroth, and you’ll find the quest hubs offering many more quests, so
there’s less moving from hub to hub.

Don’t forget you can start leveling in Outland at Level 58. Make it through these levels and you’re golden!

Also, try to start collecting daggers if you plan on switching to Mutilate spec at Level 60.

ROGUE 19
Talents
Put your first point into Combat Potency and fill it out. With this talent, faster off-hand weapons become
even better, since they’ll have a much more frequent chance to give you 15 energy. Put your next talent
point into Surprise Attacks. Surprise Attacks isn’t as great of a capstone talent as Adrenaline Rush, but
will increase overall damage on mobs.

The next 2 points go into Unfair Advantage. This talent is perfect for leveling. Every time you dodge, you
strike back, which is frequently if you’re following my recommendations in this guide and have Lightning
Reflexes and are stacking Agility.

Now backtrack (I didn’t forget) and put 2 more points into Dual Wield Specialization.

The next 4 points will be put into Prey on the Weak. It might not look like it, but this is a very powerful
talent. It increases all critical strike damage (from special or normal attacks) by 20% when maxed out.

By Level 59, your talent tree should look like this: Level 59 Talent Tree

New Abilities
Much like the previous bracket, Levels 50-59 don’t offer anything new besides upgrades to abilities you’re
already using.

Glyphs
At Level 50 you can use another Minor Glyph. Minor glyphs aren’t necessary, but can be fun to help boost
minor attributes for your rogue. Have a look on the Auction House and find something you like.

Best Zones for Levels 50-59

Until Level 58, I like to quest in Un’Goro Crater (since it’s near Tanaris, or I begin questing there and move
to Western Plaguelands around Level 55. The quests here are nice and linear and easy and if you should
somehow run out of Western Plaguelands quests before you hit Level 58 (which is unlikely), you can start
questing in the Eastern Plaguelands. At Level 58, head to Outland.

Levels 60-69
Level 60 is a big accomplishment. Good job!

From here on, your Rogue will only be even more fun to play, as you get new abilities, the opportunity to
switch into a more diverse talent spec, and the ability to use flying mounts.

ROGUE 20
Talents: Stay Combat or Go Mutilate?
We’ve finally reached the point where you can choose to continue as a Combat Rogue or change your spec
to Assassination (Mutilate). You may realize that you could have changed to Mutilate at Level 50, but I
don’t advise making the switch until Level 60. The reason being, although Mutilate is a powerful spec, it
relies on talents out of the Subtlety and Combat trees to make it that way, and you won’t have access to
them until Level 60.

If you enjoy Combat, stick with it! You’ll use the same rotation as you’ve been using the past 35 levels.
But if you’re ready for a change, you’ll enjoy Mutilate. If you’re not sure which spec to go with, stay with
Combat. Mutilate can be fast and require just as little downtime as Combat, but no other spec has the po-
tential burst damage and control that Combat does for leveling.

Combat Spec Talents

If you’re staying with Combat, put your Level 60 talent point into Killing Spree (KS). This is your third
main cooldown ability and can be used with Blade Flurry to produce amazingly powerful results. Kill-
ing Spree is best used in conjunction with Blade Flurry so that each attack also hits a nearby opponent.
It’s also best to pop KS and Blade Flurry when your energy is low, so that during the duration you’re doing
more damage and when the effect wears off, your energy will be back to full.

*Note: While Adrenaline Rush works great with Blade Flurry, AR is worthless when used at the
same time as KS.

The next talent point goes into Prey on the Weak, to finish it up. After that we’re going to backtrack and
put 2 points into Weapon Expertise and then 2 into Savage Combat. Make sure you’re using Wound
Poison like I mentioned before, or Savage Combat loses half of its effectiveness.

At last, we’re done with the Combat Tree. It’s time to move on to Assassination, where you’ll put 4 points
into Malice so your talent tree looks like this: Level 69 Combat Talent Tree

Mutilate Spec Talents

If you choose to switch over to a Mutilate spec at Level 60, make sure you have a pair of daggers, since
Mutilate requires daggers in both hands.

Keep in mind it’s going to take time to get adjusted to this new spec, but you’ll quickly find it enjoyable.
You’ll have plenty of CP and find yourself dealing critical strikes right and left.

The first thing you need to do is put 5 points into Malice, then 3 into Puncturing Wounds. Assassination
relies heavily on critical strikes to make the most out of Seal Fate.

Next, place 3 points into Ruthlessness and 5 into Lethality.

ROGUE 21
Put another 5 points into Improved Poisons and then one into Cold Blood. Cold Blood is not a powerful
cooldown (like the ones you had in the Combat Tree), but can be used to guarantee a critical strike. I pre-
fer to use it with a 5 CP Eviscerate or a 5 CP Envenom (which you’ll get later).

Now put 3 points into Vile Poisons and 5 into Seal Fate. If you’ve noticed, we’re buffing up our Poisons a
lot. In fact, a majority of your damage will now come from poisons alone, a nice bonus with this spec.

Now you will put 2 points into Murder and 2 points into Fleet Footed. I prefer Fleet Footed, as it tends to
make questing faster.

Fill out both Focused Attacks (3 points) and Find Weakness (3 points), and then snag Mutilate. Don’t
forget to train upgraded ranks of Mutilate from your class trainer from here on out. Bind Mutilate to your
previous SS key. If you’re following this guide, it should be “1.”

Some interesting things about Mutilate:

• You deal increased damage to poisoned targets. This is done best by having Deadly Poison on
one of your daggers (preferably the off-hand). Put Instant Poison on your main hand dagger.

• Unlike Combat, where you're mostly using SS to build steady CP, Mutilate can build anywhere
from 2-3 CP per attack (and definitely 3, if it crits). On top of Ruthlessness, CP generation is
sporadic in this spec and can make your rotation vary a bit. Sometimes you'll have to Mutilate
twice in between finishers and sometimes you'll only have to Mutilate once.

• Although slower daggers take more advantage of Mutilate, faster daggers still work well for con-
sistently high white damage and in the end give you about the same total damage output.

• The biggest factor in weapon choices for Mutilate is overall weapon DPS.

Now you need to go over to the Combat Tree and put 5 points into Dual Wield Specialization. Mutilate
attacks with both weapons at once, therefore Dual Wield Spec directly increases the damage done by your
off-hand Mutilate by 50%! This is a very important talent to get the most out of this spec.

Next, bounce over to the Subtlety tree and put 2 points into Opportunity. This increases the overall dam-
age of Mutilate by 20%.

The last 2 points go back into Assassination to pick up 2 ranks of Master Poisoner (I prefer this talent
since it will allow you to have Deadly Poison on a mob at all times, which will help when we start using
Envenom at Level 62).

At Level 60, your talent tree should look like this: Level 60 Assassination Talent Tree

And your rotation will be:

ROGUE 22
 Stealth up to Mob

Mutilate Rotation
using Eviscerate
Cheap Shot

Mutilate Until You

Have 4-5 CP

Is Slice and
No Yes
Dice Active?

No Activate Slice and

Eviscerate
Dice

Is the Mob
Yes
Dead?

Move On to the
Next Mob

This will change slightly at Level 62 when you get Envenom. Once you get Envenom, you’ll simply use it in
place of Eviscerate.

From Levels 61-69, do this with your talent points:

Finish up Master Poisoner by putting 1 point into it. Next put 5 into Cut To The Chase. This is a won-
derful talent that makes it so you rarely have to use SnD, since your Envenom will refresh it automatically.

Lastly we’re going to put 1 point into Hunger for Blood and then 2 points into Precision.

Hunger for Blood (HfB) is a neat semi-passive ability that dynamically increases damage output. Since
it requires a bleed on the target to activate it, you’ll occasionally have to open with a Garrote instead of a
Cheap Shot. That will make your rotation look like this:

ROGUE 23
 Stealth up to M ob
Rotation for
M utilate + HfB

No Is HfB Active? Yes

G arrote Cheap Shot

Activate HFB
M utilate Until You
Have 4-5 CP

M utilate Until You

Have 4-5 CP

Is Slice and
No Yes
Dice Active?

Activate Slice and

Envenom
Dice No

Is the M ob
Yes
Dead?

M ove O n to the
Next M ob

Your talent tree should look like this: Level 69 Assassination Talent Tree

*Note: Don’t forget to change out your Major Glyphs for your new spec. You’ll want to use the Glyph
of Mutilate (which lowers its energy cost by 5) and the Glyph of Hunger for Blood (which increases the
damage bonus HfB gives by 3%).

Both these glyphs will lead to an overall damage increase and you’ll notice a huge difference between a 60
energy-cost Mutilate and a 55 energy-cost Mutilate.

ROGUE 24
New Abilities
Between Levels 60 and 69 you get 4 new abilities: Envenom at 62, Deadly Throw at 64, Cloak of Shadows
at 66 and Shiv at 70.

If you decided to switch to a Mutilate spec, Envenom will quickly take Eviscerate’s place. The reason for
this is because your Vile Poisons talent increases the damage done by Envenom by 20%, and on top of
that Envenom ignores enemy armor and will deal much higher damage than Eviscerate can. If you decide
to stay as a Combat Rogue, continue using Eviscerate.

Deadly Throw is mostly used for PvP and requires you to have a throwing weapon equipped to even use
it. I wouldn’t bother key binding it for leveling.

Cloak of Shadows (CoS) and Shiv can both be used pretty frequently. CoS makes you practically immune
to all spellcasting for 5 seconds. It can be used in sticky situations if the mob you’re fighting is a caster. If
you decide to do any PvP, you’ll find this ability a life saver.

Shiv is an ability that was once very overpowered (it applied poisons and permitted them to crit a target,
causing insane amounts of damage) and was eventually scaled down by the developers to be more or less
situational. Neither Shiv nor the poison applied by it can crit now; all Shiv does is attack with your off-
hand and apply that weapon’s poison if it wasn’t already applied.

You probably won’t be using Shiv much, unless for some reason there’s no poison on your target when
it comes time to Envenom in your rotation. I wouldn’t bother keybinding it, however, since it’s more en-
ergy/damage efficient to simply Mutilate again instead of working Shiv into your rotation.

Flying Mount
The last thing to do when you hit Level 60 is to get your Expert flying mount. If you don’t have the gold
(600 for the skill and another 50 for the mount), don’t stress. Just work on saving up, because it makes
questing much easier and faster in Outland. You’ll be able to skip over mobs, hop from hub to hub, and
will be able to use it in Northrend at Level 77 (once you can purchase Cold Weather Flying).

Unless you have the extra gold, don’t worry about getting Artisan Flying Skill until after you purchase Cold
Weather Flying at Level 77.

Best Zones for Levels 60-69

You’ll always start out in Hellfire Peninsula at Level 60 (and if you’re following this guide, you went to
Hellfire at Level 58!). Follow your faction’s quest lines.

I prefer spending as much time in Hellfire as possible, doing all the quests I can before I have to move on.
Then I like to go to Nagrand. The quests are relatively easy and there are a lot of kill quests, which are
cake for a Rogue.

ROGUE 25
If you should somehow run out of quests in Nagrand before you’re Level 68, head to Shadowmoon Valley
or Netherstorm and start doing quests there. I prefer Shadowmoon, since most of the beginning quests
are relatively close together. Once you hit Level 68, it’s off to Northrend.

Levels 70-80
This is your final home stretch. You’ll be doing these last 10 levels in Northrend, which is a really well put
together and fun expansion.

Combat Spec Talents

If you’re still a Combat Rogue when you hit Level 70, put your first talent point into finishing out Malice.

Next, go over to the Subtlety tree and put 5 points into Relentless Strikes. The next 3 go into Ruthless-
ness. You now have extremely efficient energy regeneration and will find yourself having to SS less and
able to execute finishers more frequently. The last 2 points can go wherever you prefer, because you’ll be
changing your spec at Level 80 depending on what you want to do with your Rogue after max level.

If you want to PvP at Level 80, you can spec into Subtlety or Assassination/Mutilate. If you want to stick
with Combat to do instances or raid, you’ll be using a build like this: Level 80 Combat Raiding/Instance
Talent Tree (you can substitute Hack and Slash for any weapon spec, based on the weapons you have).

Mutilate Spec Talents

As a Mutilate Rogue at Level 70, you should begin by putting 5 points into Relentless Strikes in the Sub-
tlety tree. You’ll then put 3 more into Precision and your last 3 into Close Quarters Combat.

The interesting thing about this build is that it is nearly the same as the raiding/instancing version of Mu-
tilate. If that’s what you choose to do when you hit Level 80, respec to make your talent tree look like this:
Level 80 Mutilate Raiding/Instance Talent Tree

New Abilities
During your trek from Level 70 to 80 you’ll get two new abilities: Tricks of the Trade and Fan of Knives.

You get Tricks of the Trade (ToT) at Level 75. Although you won’t be using ToT very much while leveling
unless you’re with a partner or in an instance, it’s great because when you cast it on another player all of
your threat and aggro go to that player for 6 seconds. This can allow you to “open up” on an enemy with-
out worrying about that enemy attacking you and helping the tank or your partner get aggro from you.

On top of that, ToT increases the other player’s damage by 15% during its duration! A neat little trick many
rogues like to do in instances is to ToT the tank, then blow powerful cooldowns right at the beginning of a
pull to help the tank establish a lot of initial aggro.

ROGUE 26
Here’s a macro that allows you to cast ToT on a tank without losing your current target. All you have to do
is have the tank set as your focus target and bind this to a key of your choice:

#showtooltip Tricks of the Trade

/cast [target=focus] Tricks of the Trade

Fan of Knives is also a wonderful ability you get at Level 80. I like to bind this to my “6” key. This ability
gives rogues some nice area of effect (AoE) damage. It does 100% weapon damage from both weapons to
all targets within a certain radius with axes, swords, maces, and fist weapons equipped and 150% addi-
tional weapon damage with daggers equipped.

Using Fan of Knives in conjunction with ToT can be great to help a tank gather lots of little mobs and hold
aggro on all of them.

Cold Weather Flying

Finally, make sure you save 1,000 gold for your Cold Weather Flying skill at Level 77. If you already have
another Level 80, you can buy a Tome of Cold Weather Flying from a vendor in Dalaran that allows you to
gain Cold Weather Flying at Level 68 so you can start using your flying mount much earlier. The Tome
also costs 1,000 gold.

Best Zones for Levels 70-80

Borean Tundra is the overall best questing zone for a Rogue from Level 70 to Level 72 or 73. There are
some great daggers, fist weapons, and/or swords you can acquire as quest rewards. Take advantage of
the expansion and join instance groups for the Nexus as well.

After Borean Tundra, head to the Dragonblight and then the Grizzly Hills. Grizzly Hills is filled with hu-
manoid mobs.

At Level 76, go to the Sholazar Basin. It plays a lot like Nagrand and is full of kill quests, which are great
for a Rogue.

Lastly, finish out in the Storm Peaks. The quests here are a bit scattered, but there is a rare flying proto-
drake that patrols this zone called the Time Lost Proto-Drake. You never know…you just might happen to
find him (if you kill him, there is 100% chance he will drop a version of himself as a flying mount!).

ROGUE 27
Final Notes
Common Macros
Garrote/Pick Pocket Macro
#showtooltip Garrote
/cast Pick Pocket
/cast Garrote

Cheap Shot/Pick Pocket Macro

#showtooltip Garrote
/cast Pick Pocket
/cast Garrote

Tricks of the Trade Macro

#showtooltip Tricks of the Trade
/cast [target=focus] Tricks of the Trade

Rogue Glossary
Adrenaline Rush AR
Assassination Assas
Backstab BS
Blade Flurry BF
Cloak of Shadows CoS
Combo Points CP
Envenom Env
Eviscerate Evis
Fan of Knives FoK
Hunger For Blood HFB
Killing Spree KS
Mutilate Mut
Preparation Prep
Shadow Step ShS
Sinister Strike SS
Slice and Dice SnD
Subtlety Sub
Tricks of the Trade ToT

ROGUE 28
Quick Overview of Gear
To recap, Rogues get the most benefit from Agility. This is because we get armor value, attack power,
dodge, and critical strike rating with Agility. This makes Agility the number one stat you want to look for
on gear.

The level of importance of stats is as follows:

• Agility
• Stamina
• Attack Power
• Hit Rating
• Critical Strike Rating
• Strength

The best way to find this type of gear while leveling is to look for any gear with “of the Monkey” on it.
This has both Agility and Stamina (your two best stats).

Like Warriors, Rogues are very gear-dependent. Our weapons determine over half of our damage poten-
tial, so make sure you use the right weapons.

It is better to equip slower weapons in your main hand and faster weapons in your off-hand.

Professions
If you want to make money, consider two gathering professions, such as Herbalism, Skinning or Mining.
Mining and Herbalism are generally considered the most profitable gathering professions. Production
professions generally cost money to level while you can easily sell the materials from your gathering pro-
fession, helping your leveling process. Some Rogues like to specialize in Blacksmithing or Leatherworking
so that they can create better weapons or armor for themselves; others become Jewelcrafters or Inscrip-
tors; still others specialize in Alchemy, Engineering or Enchanting. If you decide you want to do a profes-
sion for fun rather than profit, choose one that you enjoy and be aware that certain professions have no
personal benefit as you will not be using the gear you create with them, such as Tailoring.

ROGUE 29
General Leveling Tips
When leveling in World of Warcraft here are a few general tips to help you. They are not class specific and
can be used leveling practically any WoW class.

Mob Colors and Their Meanings

Mobs in WoW are color-coded based on their level relative to yours.

• Gray – Gray mobs are typically much lower level than you. They don’t give experience when you
kill them and usually won’t pose a threat.

• Green – Green mobs are any mobs that are usually a few levels below you. You should have no
problem with these, unless you just pull too many. These give minimum experience.

• Yellow – Yellow mobs are best when leveling. They are appropriate for or equal to your level, give
good experience and won’t deal out too much damage.

• Orange – Orange mobs can usually be killed by ROgues, but are harder to deal with than Yellow
ones. You’ll want to give them your full attention and avoid pulling more than one. They are
generally 3-4 levels above you.

• Red – Red mobs spell nothing but trouble. They are 5-9 levels above you and will be especially
hard to kill since they can crit you easier and since you have a higher chance to miss them with
your melee attacks.

• Skull – If there’s a skull where the level number should be, avoid these mobs at all cost. These are
10 levels and above and you won’t be able to kill them at your current level at all.

Abilities
You will unlock new abilities to learn every two levels, starting at Level 6. For example, you will learn
new abilities at level 6, 8, 10, and so forth, but won't have any new abilities available at 7, 9, 11, etc. This
changes at Level 60, where you will receive abilities at each single level until Level 80.

Saving Money on Gear

Save your gold! Don't waste it buying gear off the auction house every few levels. Chances are, you'll end
up replacing it shortly and you'll need the money to train new abilities, learn your riding skill, and level
your trade skills.

Rested Bonus in Inns

Always log out in an inn. In doing so, you gain a rested bonus that increases the amount of experience you
get from killing all mobs.

ROGUE 30
Music
Finally, put some music on and enjoy playing! It’s proven that music can help you enjoy what some con-
sider a tedious grind, and while the WoW music is good it can get repetitive after an hour or two in a zone.
I highly recommend Pandora since you can choose music you like and it picks songs similar to what you
choose. Best of all, it’s free.

Key Bindings and Turning With Your Mouse

One of the most important things you can do to become an excellent player in World of Warcraft is to key-
bind your abilities instead of clicking icons with your mouse. The second most important thing to do is
to unbind your “turn” keys, and only turn your character with your mouse. The reason to do this is
that you can respond to changing situations much faster. When you are a lower level character and DPSing
a single target, clicking a few buttons is fine, but when you are managing five or more mobs at a time in
Northrend it is simply not as effective as keybinding.

Due to the ability of Death Knights to juggle many mobs at once, we will use a death knight’s typical rota-
tion as a universal example of why it is important to keybind:

I begin by casting Death and Decay on a group of melee mobs. The AoE damage tags them all and they
attack. My ghoul begins attacking the mob closest to me. I begin my standard rotation by pressing 1,
2, then 3 in that sequence because I have keybound abilities to those keys. While you can use cast se-
quence macros and bind multiple abilities to a single key, this is not recommended as it gives no flexibil-
ity, nor does it teach the skills you need to manage your abilities for any given situation.

Everything is going fine until I notice I am taking more damage than usual. A patrol group containing
some casters has attacked me from behind! I am now trying to DPS six mobs at once. Instinctively, I
hit my Anti-Magic Shell keybinding to lower the damage I am taking, and cast Strangulate on another
caster from a different keybinding. I hit Pestilence from yet another keybind to spread my diseases to
all mobs and increase total DPS, and then cast Blood Boil from another keybinding for more AoE DPS.
Finally I cast Death Pact from a different keybinding to sacrifice my ghoul because I need the health.

The above narrative was not to be a “how to get out of trouble with a Death Knight” text, but a universal
example illustrating two main points. One is that you need to be familiar with your abilities and how
to apply them in both standard and emergency situations. This comes from practice and help from
places such as this guide or experienced guild members. The second point is that all the above abilities
had to be cast within seconds of each other. I would not have had time to mouse over all of my different
bars and try to find the buttons I needed to click. Additionally, I could not have turned and faced the patrol
mobs fast enough by using my keyboard to turn. I needed to use my mouse.

ROGUE 31
How to Keybind Abilities
Notice the action bar on your screen. Note the gold number beside it between the up & down arrow but-
tons. This number indicates the action bar number. In the example below, Action Bar 1 is pictured, with
Blood Boil in slot 5. The number 5 that appears on the Blood Boil icon indicates that the 5 key is key-
bound to that slot.

If you click the down arrow to change the active bar to bar 2, the ability in slot 5 is also keybound to the-
number 5. You can change which row is active at any time by pressing (shift + bar #). Action Bar 2 is pic-
tured below. Notice that Pestilence, in slot 5, is keybound to number 5 on Action Bar 2.

If you want to change your keybindings follow the steps below:

1. Press Escape to bring up the Options menu.

2. Press the Key Bindings button pictured to the right.

3. Left-click the button of the slot you wish to change for your active ac-
tion bar, as shown below for slot 5.

4. Press the button you wish to keybind to this slot.

5. Press Okay.

Note that you can create “abso-

lute” keybindings for abilities
or macros by placing them in
the non-scrolling, or “multi” ac-
tion bars, as illustrated below.
For example, Blood Strike is in
slot 5 of the bottom left action
bar as shown below. To keybind

ROGUE 32
these action bars simply follow the same steps as above. To turn on these Multiaction Bars if they are not
already displayed, bring up the Options menu (escape), click Interface, then Action Bars at the left of the
menu, and make sure all the “bar” boxes are checked. Then press Okay.

How to Unbind Keyboard Turning Keys and Use Your Mouse to Turn

1. Bring up the Options menu (escape)

2. Press Key Bindings
3. Click the “Turn Left” button in the key 1 column.
4. Press the “Unbind Key” button at the bottom of the menu.
5. Repeat this until you see “Not Bound” in both columns for turn left and turn right.

ROGUE 33
You can no longer keyboard turn and must turn with your mouse, forcing you to be a better player. This
will not only make you better at PvE but will immensely help your performance in PvP, especially in Are-
nas. To turn your character, simply hold the right mouse button down and move the mouse in the direc-
tion you want to look. This will change the direction your character is facing. If you want to change the
way the camera is facing temporarily, hold the left mouse button down and move the mouse to change the
camera viewpoint. Holding both mouse buttons down at the same time will cause your character to move
and you can turn your character while moving.

Guilds
A large part of playing World of Warcraft is the social interaction amongst players, and a great way to
meet friends is to join a guild. You can often find guilds advertising on the community forums or in the
guild recruitment or Trade channels of major cities. There are few things you should keep in mind when
looking for a guild.

First, find a guild that matches your playstyle. Do not try to join a hardcore raiding guild if you are new
to the game or do not have the time to commit to it. Second, find a stable and low drama guild. A guild
that is constantly in a flame war on the community forums or whose members are complained about
frequently is probably not a good idea. Find a solid group of people that you can depend on for help and
advice. Finally, do not “guild hop.” As with everything in life, your reputation precedes you. Although it’s
easier to get away with it on larger servers, a reputation for constantly changing guilds will catch up with
you, and no one will want to take you in. Guilds are a great resource. Put in a little bit of effort and you will
almost always be rewarded with help when you need it.

Addons Hexigames Recommends

General Addons
Auctioneer
This addon allows you to scan the auction house and record values of items over time, building a useful
database. This suite contains many useful components such as item compare elements and addons to
make all of your professions easier. See our Auction House Gold Guide featuring Auctioneer Here.

Bartender
Clean up and organize your action bars. This addon allows you to move and resize your action bars at will,
significantly reducing the clutter on your screen.

Decursive
With the click of a button, remove a malady from yourself or your allies. Multiple modifiers make it easy
to manage different buffing and de-buffing abilities.

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Raiding Only
Omen Threat Meter
Tells you how close you are on threat to the tank and whether you need to back off your DPS or healing.

Deadly Boss Mods

Gives your warnings when a new phase or ability of a raid boss is about to occur. If you guild uses this ad-
don, it will save you many wipes. Most raiding guilds require that you use Deadly Boss Mods.

Recount
This addon will provide you the statistics for all the members of your party on a raid attempt. It is very
valuable for diagnostic purposes.

Great Guides To Help Even More

To get more guides to help you out with more specific things, head right on over to Hexigames!

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A Final Word

I’ve leveled many classes in WoW, but none have been as fun or challenging as playing my Rogue.

If you feel like you’re dying too frequently, re-evaluate how you are using your cooldown abilities. These
are what make the rogue the class it is. You have many of them that you can use to save your life: Blind,
Vanish, Evasion (make sure the mobs are in front of you or this skill becomes worthless), and even Gouge.

Be creative when playing your Rogue. Remember this is just a guide, so if you find a talent that you think
is better, use it. What’s important is that you enjoy playing your Rogue. I’m sure you will.

Wishing you luck in Azeroth!

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