World of Warcraft Rogue Leveling

Stealth assassin, stalker in the night, shadow of death, etc. All of these are titles that could easily be applied to the traditional image of any given rogue, yet oddly enough for the purposes of mass slaughter you'll find your rogue much more capable when following a more direct style - Combat.

Combat style rogues are very similar in killing tactics and abilities to that of a fury warrior, dual-wielding speed demons bashing down every opponent in sight with a flurry of blades(or maces, etc.) However, we differ from our fury warrior brethren in a large manner simply because even a combat rogue possesses a large amount of 'survivability,' this is our vanish, evasion, blind, and other such abilities that can easily turn the tide of battle.

All in all the combat rogue poses an immense threat to almost any style of monster you'll encounter. We have all manner of interruption abilities for casters, impeccable close combat attacks, and numerous cooldowns that allow us to drop even boss/elite class mobs when required.

Large parts of determining just how well you'll perform at the killing machine deal is dependent entirely upon your own abilities of timing and the coordination of multiple attacks to strategically disable and stun mobs, allowing you to fight entire groups of 3-5 at a time.

So, that said, let's move on to the real important stuff, talent points, primary ability rotations and all that jazz.

Remember that resemblance to fury warriors I was talking about? Well that really comes to the forefront when selecting our first talent, albeit in a very good manner - Malice.

Malice is a straightforward increase of 5% to our critical chance, basically equal to a straight-up 5% increase to overall damage, and rogues, combat or assassination, are very critical/burst based.

Next up the combination of improved sinister strike and gouge results in quite the stunning overall improvement to some of combat rogue fundamentals. Despite the initial transparency of any benefits, the improvement of a single more sinister strike per opening burst adds up to quite a bit more throughout your leveling experience.

Gouge is another one that doesn't really look that great at first, but as time passes you should find yourself increasingly gouge happy, rather, using it for more than a few strategic attacks or simply as a method of regaining energy mid-fight.

At this point is where the combat tree relaxes into an easy pace of constant increases, bringing your parry, +hit, damage%, and even adding extra attacks or chances to stun on hit. The majority of the talents you pick up will encompass such increases, providing an ability or two combined with quite a few passive boosts that add up dramatically over-time.

For another point in favor of survivability, adrenaline rush and blade flurry. Oddly enough as it might sound, a combat rogues primary "survivability" comes from our ability to pop a cooldown(evasion, flurry, vanish, etc,) or two and drop almost any conceivable opponent, at later levels even instance bosses become viable solo targets.

Fortunately for those partial to grinding or mass slaughter in general, it isn't that complicated to get into a proper "groove" per say when working your way through any given area, combat rogue ability rotations aren't all that difficult.

Standard operating procedure is to open with cheapshot if possible, followed by mashing whatever key sinister strike is bound to combined with reading a book or watching TV - repeat ad infinitum. If you feel like tossing it up a bit, throw in an adrenaline burst and blade flurry combo every few minutes and drop five or six mobs at once, although even that gets old eventually.

As a combat rogue, batman you will not be, but in the end it gets you from point A: level 1, to point B: 70, in record times, without much effort even.

Rogues are really fun, especially combat rogues, and in general you won't experience anything but more of the same as you progress from 1 to 70 and beyond.

If you like playing as a mostly straight up fighter, combat rogues are exceptional at all tiers of the game, but if you don't decide you like the play style early on, it's not going to change.

Statistics wise combat rogues yet again resemble fury warriors greatly, to the extent that many raiding fury warriors actually wear one or more pieces of either leather or mail armor. You'll find that plate loses it's effectiveness and thusly attractiveness quite quickly into the endgame.

Hit rating is a big one for a steady increase in overall DPS, making certain at the very least that your special attacks are at the level of guaranteed hits and when combined with the massive amounts of possible critical% can make your rogue into a whirlwind of death against any encounter.

Raid wise rogues are the top possible DPS and can only be matched or at least challenged by a select few others including hunters and mages - of those rogues combat again tops the meters.

As you progress level wise, I expect you'll begin to develop a certain sense of just where you want to be and what needs improvement, but just in case I'll recommend checking out the Killer Guides Rogue Class Guide, my personal recommendation for anyone looking for comprehensive coverage of the rogue class.