You can find all our Pocket Guides for other World of Warcraft classes right here: Best WoW Builds
Spec Overview
Assassination rogues focus on Poisoning and Bleeding their victims to death. They specialize in dealing high amounts of sustained damage from a melee range and are known for their unmatched defensive abilities which let them survive even the most deadly encounters.
Pros | Cons |
Good sustained Cleave Damage | Single Target DPS is heavily cooldown oriented |
Good sustained Single Target Damage | Mediocre burst AoE damage |
Unmatched Defensive Cooldowns | |
Quite easy to play |
Nov 18, 2018 Hi, I've been playing WoW since Vanilla & although I've just recently returned after a very very long break, I have definitely become familiar with the current state of the rogue class, the current state of healing, & how the rogue class compares (damage sustained/burst wise) to other classes. I have watched the Rogue class wax & wane over the years, & while I definitely agree Rogue's. Rogues have multiple different weapon specializations they can spec into in their combat talent tree, but the best one of them is. With that said, swords are a rogue's primary weapon of choice. Rogue Talent Builds Unlike retail WoW, Classic uses a more traditional talent system consisting of three separate trees, which any Rogue may freely.
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The Best Talent Choices
Level 15: Recommended choice - Elaborate Planning | |
Elaborate Planning - Your Damage Done is increased by 10% for 4 seconds after using a Finishing Move. This gives you a good Sustained Damage boost and is really useful in AoE heavy encounters, as it benefits heavily from increased frequency of finishing moves. | |
Master Poisoner boosts your Weapon Poisons Damage by 30% and their non-damaging effects by 20%; It does not affect Envenom or Poison Bomb. This benefits greatly from Rogue's Mastery: Potent Assassin but at the moment is noticeably weaker than the Elaborate Planning.Blindside is an active ability designed for finishing off enemies, as it can be used only on Targets below 35% health, it costs 30 Energy; Mutilate has 25% chance of making Blindside Free and usable on any Target. It is not as good as other options, and it uses Energy needed for your other abilities. | |
Level 30: Recommended choice - Subterfuge | |
Subterfuge - Abilities that require Stealth may now be used for 3 seconds after breaking Stealth. This Talent gives you the most flexibility and it synergizes well with Garrote and a Vanish. | |
Nightstalker increases your movement speed by 20% and Damage from Abilities by 50% while Stealth is active. It will help you relocate out of combat but is worse than Subterfuge when it comes to Damage. With Master Assassin you have 50% increased Critical Strike chance while in Stealth and for 3s after breaking it; this gives you some AoE and Burst Damage potential when combined with Vanish. | |
Level 45: Recommended choice - Vigor | |
Vigor - Increases your Energy Regeneration rate by 10% and your maximum Energy by 50. This is a very flexible talent which boosts Damage Done by all your Energy consuming abilities (because you can use them more often). | |
Deeper Stratagem increases Combo Points cap to 6 and makes your Finishing Moves consume up to 6 Combo Points and do 5% increased Damage. This is very useful in AoE heavy encounters, as it makes Combo Point management way easier by reducing the amount of wasted CP. Marked for Death applies 5 Combo Points to your Target instantly; it has 60s cooldown that resets when Marked Target dies. It is best suited for leveling and situations when adds are dropping like flies. | |
Level 60: Recommended choice - Cheat Death | |
Cheat Death - Damage that would have killed you reduces your HP to 7% instead, all damage taken for 3 seconds afterward is reduced by 85%; this effect can trigger once every 6 minutes. This ability is the REAL lifesaver and should be chosen as a default. | |
Leaching Poison gives your Deadly Poison and Wound Poison a 10% life drain. This Talent is best suited for Solo content. Elusiveness extends Damage Reduction effect of Feint to non-area-of-effect-attacks (it now grants 30% damage reduction from all sources other than AoE) which is very useful in certain encounters, but much more situational than Cheat Death. | |
Level 75: Recommended choice - Prey on the Weak | |
Prey on the Weak - Enemies under effects of your Cheap Shot, Dismantle or Kidney Shot take 10% increased Damage from all sources for 6 seconds. This talent will help your Raid take down a priority Target more quickly which, and should be chosen as default because of that. | |
Internal Bleeding adds a Bleed Effect to your Kidney Shot which provides a marginal damage output improvement while in a Raid group and is best suited for Solo play. Iron Wire extends the duration of your Garrote's silence effect and causes silenced Targets to deal 15% less damage for 8 seconds. This Talent has rather limited uses outside PvP. | |
Level 90: Recommended choice - Toxic Blade | |
Toxic Blade - Attack that deals Nature Damage to your Target and increases your Nature (poison) damage done to the Target by 30% for 9 seconds; generates 1 Combo Point and costs 20 Energy. This provides a high Sustained Damage improvement as it works with all Nature-damage based Rogue spells and abilities. | |
Venom Rush makes your Mutilate refound 5 Energy when used against a poisoned Target. This Talent is effective only in a Single-Target scenario, as you have to use Mutilate to gain value from it. Exsanguinate causes all your Bleed effects applied to a Target to bleed out 100% faster when activated. This gives a bit more Burst Damage boost than Toxic Blade but has less synergy with other rogue Abilities. | |
Level 100: Recommended choice - Poison Bomb | |
Poison Bomb - Envenom and Rupture now have a 4%/Combo Point chance to smash a Vial of Poison under the Target's feet, creating a pool of Acid that deals Nature Damage to all enemies within it over 2 seconds. This is the best choice for Single Target Damage that also increases AoE Damage done against stacked Targets. | |
Hidden Blades is a stackable buff to your Fan of Knives which increases its damage by 20%; stacks up to 20 times, one stack is gained every 2 seconds. This works well in Burst-AoE scenarios but lacks Sustained AoE potential. Crimson Tempest is an AoE Finishing Move with a 10yd Range, that deals instant Damage to all enemies in range and causes them to bleed for extra damage; it lasts longer per Combo Point spent. It is a good choice for Sustained Area of Effect Damage. |
The Basic Rotation
Assassination Rogue's rotation revolves around building up Combo Points with Mutilate and spending them on Finishers while also maintaining Bleed effects applied to the Target.
Always use Deadly Poison as your Lethal Poison
You should be using the following Priority List when fighting against a Single Target:
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You should be using the following Priority List when fighting against Multiple Targets: | |
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Tips and Tricks for Improving your Gameplay
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Wow Top Dmg Rogue Spec 1
END NOTE This is an early version of our guide, we plan to upgrade upon it, and add further sections. So please leave your suggestions in the comments section below. We would also like to state that this is meant as a pocket guide and therefore we will not go into too much detail (please visit more specialized sites for a much more in-depth build/stat/gear/rotation analyses). |
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You can find all our Pocket Guides for other WoW Classic Classes builds right here: Best WoW Classic Builds
If you have just started leveling your Rogue, you may want to check out our Rogue leveling Guide first
Build Overview
Combat Rogue is one of the best DPS Classes in Classic WoW, losing only to Warrior when it comes to pure numbers. His Energy mechanic (in Classic, Rogue gains 20 Energy every 2 seconds) allows him to keep up his DPS even in the longest of encounters, making Sustain not an issue at all. However, in very long fights, Rogue might be forced to reapply his poisons as they have limited charges. This can lead to a slight DPS loss, but it is negligible when compared to a loss caused by running out of resources. He has access to two solid threat-management tools in a form of Vanish and Feint, so he is able to deal steady damage without any real risk of gaining Bosse's unwanted attention (for as long as he pays attention to his Threat meter, of course). Unlike some other Classes/Specs, Combat Rogue performs at the top level throughout all the content Phases, which makes him a solid DPS choice for any Raid Tier. His Utility, while not the best in Raids, can prove to be irreplaceable in smaller groups or in certain Raid encounters, like suppression room in Blackwing Lair. The only real drawback of Combat Rogue is his popularity. Finding a spot in a decent Raiding guild might be a slight problem, but it can be overcome with a little bit of hard work and dedication because solid and dedicated Raiders are always in high demand.
Pros | Cons |
Very high and stable Damage output | Lightly armored Class with rather low HP pool - can die instantly after accidentally pulling aggro in Raid. |
Good threat management options | Somewhat limited Raid utility |
Great Sustain | Poisons have a limited number of charges |
Scales very well with gear | Finding a good Raiding guild might be somewhat difficult because of Rogue's popularity |
Very strong in PvP, even in a dedicated PvE build | High competition for items in Raids |
The Best Race Choice
Note: Here, we will point you only towards the best PvE DPS Rogue Race. If you'd like to know more about other race picks, please check our WoW Classic Beginners Guide, where we dive deep into all available Rogue's race choices for both factions.
Alliance | If you want your Racials to affect your DPS, there is only one choice in Alliance and it is Human. His Sword Specialization gives him a considerable edge over other available allied races. It decreases your chance to miss an attack, reduces enemy's chance to dodge, block, and parry, and most of all reduces glancing blow (glancing blows deal damage reduced in proportion to the difference between Target's defense skill and Attaker's weapon skill) penalty, which is huge for DPS. If you are going for a Dagger build, the race choice becomes very much open. We recommend Dwarf or Gnome in this case, because of their solid PvP-centred Racials - Stone Form and Escape Artist. |
Horde | If Rogues could use Axes in Classic, the choice would be unbelievably simple, but they sadly can't, so it isn't. There are two solid Race choices, that affect DPS, to go for on Horde's side - Orc and Troll, but the power of Undead's Will of the Forsaken can't be overlooked either. Orc's Blood Fury is generally better than Troll's Berserking (the problem with Berserking on a DPS character is the fact that you shouldn't be taking damage, so it will give you only 10% Haste in most situations, which is underwhelming when we take its long CD into consideration). All in all, Orc wins (and he is great for PvP as well), but not as clearly as Human on Alliance's side. |
The Best Professions Choice
There is only one profession that makes a real impact in Raids and it is Engineering (Alchemy is also a decent option, but you can buy Flasks, Elixirs, and Potions from other players, which makes it much less impactful). It gives you access to powerful explosives that increase your AoE and Single-Target DPS. On top of that, it lets you create and use Gnomish Battle Chicken Trinket that summons a Guardian Chicken that fights at your side and has a chance on hit to cast a 'Battle Squawk' which boosts Melee attack speed of all Party members by 5%, making it a must-have in every competitive group. The fact that Engineering is also considered the best PvP profession is an added benefit to its power in PvE environment.
At the start, you should pick Mining to supplement your Engineering Skill, you can always switch it to another profession of your liking later on.
Note: If you want to know more about all available professions and secondary skills, please check our detailed WoW Classic Professions Guide.
Statistics Priority
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The Best Talent Builds
Proper Talent allocation is essential for maximizing Damage output. Here, we will describe the most optimal spec and lead you through the Talent Trees level-by-level to explain some choices.
There are two paths to choose - Swords Combat Build and Daggers Combat Build. Swords variant wins on DPS, but one might opt for Daggers setup, as it makes getting solid PvP weapons in Raids much easier.
Note: There are two versions of Daggers Build. The second one is based on the Seal Fate Talent from the Assassination Tree and requires a lot of Critical Strike chance (~30%) to work properly, which is not really achievable before Phase 5 without dropping below 9% Hit Cap, which is unacceptable. We will feature this build as soon as Phase 5 starts.
Swords Combat Rogue PvE DPS Build Assassination Tree:
Combat Tree:
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Daggers Combat Rogue PvE DPS Build Assassination Tree:
Combat Tree:
Subtlety Tree:
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Where to get Pre-Raid/Raid BiS Gear
In order to maximize your DPS, you should aim to assemble the best possible Gear. This applies to both Pre-Raid and each of the Raid Tiers/Phases. Also, remember that it is the armament that gives the highest DPS boost, so you should start by getting the best rogue weapons available. Below, we present you the BiS (Bst-in-slot) list for all equipment slots.
Note1: The list will be updated with new items concurrently with the introduction of new Raids/Phases, so remember to visit this page after new Raid opens for an update on what current best Rogue items in each lot are.
The Best Rogue Items | |
Weapon (MH) |
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Weapon (OH) |
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Ranged |
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Trinket 1 |
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Trinket 2 |
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Neck |
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Ring 1 |
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Ring 2 |
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Head |
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Chest |
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Legs |
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Gloves |
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Boots |
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Shoulders |
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Wrists |
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Belt |
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Back |
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The Best Enchants and Consumables
Proper enchants and consumables will greatly increase your Damage output. While getting enchants is a one-time-deal, farming consumables might be a real chore, but it is still worth it as numbers clearly show.
The Best Enchants | |
Weapon (MH) | Enchant Weapon - Crusader (Chance to gain +125 Strength for 15 sec.) |
Weapon (OH) | Enchant Weapon - Crusader (Chance to gain +125 Strength for 15 sec.) |
Head | Lesser Arcanum of Voracity (+8 Agility, available from Libram of Voracity Quest in Burning Steppes) |
Chest | Enchant Chest - Greater Stats (+4 to all stats) |
Legs | Lesser Arcanum of Voracity (+8 Agility, available from Libram of Voracity Quest in Burning Steppes) |
Hands | Enchant Gloves - Greater Agility (+ 7 Agility) |
Feet | Enchant Boots - Minor Speed (+8% Run Speed) or Enchant Boots - Greater Agility (+7 Agility) |
Shoulders | Chromatic Mantle of the Dawn (+5 to all Resistances) |
Wrists | Enchant Bracer - Superior Strength (+9 Strength) |
Back | Enchant Cloak - Lesser Agility (+3 Agility) |
The Best Consumables | |
Instant Poison VI | 20% chance of poisoning the enemy, dealing 112-148 Nature Damage instantly. 115 Charges. |
R.O.I.D.S. | +25 Strength for 60 minutes. Reward from the Rage of Ages repeatable Quest in the Blasted Lands. |
Elixir of the Mongoose | +25 Agility and +2% Critical Strike Chance for 60 minutes. Can be bought on AH or directly from an Alchemist. |
Juju Power | +30 Strength for 30 minutes. Reward from a reputable Quest available from NPC Witch Doctor Mau'ari, Everlook, Winterspring. |
Juju Might | +40 Attack Power for 10 minutes. Reward from a reputable Quest available from NPC Witch Doctor Mau'ari, Everlook, Winterspring. |
Winterfall Firewater | +35 Attack Power for 20 minutes. Drop from Winterfall Furbolgs in Winterpring (this is an alternative for JuJu Might, as the effects don't stack). |
Thistle Tea | Instantly grants 100 Energy. Created by Cooking, Recipe can be obtained from 'Kalven's Tower' Rogue Quest. |
Grilled Squid | +10 Agility for 10 minutes. Created by Cooking, Raw Squids can be fished, but only during Winter. |
Rotations
In Classic, Rogue follows more of a priority list than a strict rotation. On top of that, the list changes slightly depending on the Weapon (and build) you are currently using)
Note: most of the time, you'll want to use your Cooldowns at the start of combat, so that you'll get a second (and a third in long encounters) charge before the fight ends.
Wow Best Rogue Spec
Rogue's opening sequence looks as follows:
Opener (Ambush/Garrote, or even Sinister Strike/Backstab - depending on chosen build/situation) ⇒ Slice and Dice ⇒ Adrenaline Rush ⇒ 5x Sinister Strike/Backstab (depending on chosen build/situation) ⇒ Slice and Dice ⇒ Here, standard single-target Priority list kicks in
Please use the following Priority List for sustained Single-Target Damage output:
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Rogue does not have an AoE Rotation, as he lacks any AoE abilities. When in an AoE situation, use Blade Flurry, throw Grenades (if applicable) and continue with your Single-Target Rotation. |
Tips and Tricks for aspiring Rogue Raiders
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END NOTE This Guide should help you to prepare yourself for that legendary Vanilla Raiding Experience and allow you to progress through Raid Tiers efficiently and with a good amount of fun. We hope that you have found this guide useful and informative. If we have missed a piece of information that is important to you, please let us know! Please do note that this is an early version of our guide, and we will be happy to receive constructive criticism, that will help us improve it, so leave your suggestions in the comments section below. |
Pictures used in this article are the intellectual property of Blizzard Entertainment Inc.