WoW: Forever
Rogue
Rogue kills fast, dies fast and picks its fights. Forever moved Lockpicking to level 1 and made it a secondary skill, and Sap no longer breaks stealth.
Which spec?
| Spec | Role | Levelling | In one line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assassination | Melee DPS | Contested — see below | Poisons and daggers, built around Ambush and bleed damage |
| Combat | Melee DPS | Safest pick | Swords and maces, Riposte, and the most forgiving of the three |
| Subtlety | Melee DPS | Viable | Ghostly Strike, openers from stealth, and the strongest PvP tree |
All three are melee damage, so pick on how you want to play rather than on role. Combat is the low-risk answer while levelling; Subtlety is the duelling tree; Assassination's levelling strength is genuinely disputed between sources — one publishes a level-20 build and rates it 4 out of 5, another says it only comes together at 30. That disagreement is real and unresolved, and either side may be right.
Is Rogue for you?
Play Rogue if you like deciding when a fight starts, and you accept dying quickly as the price of killing quickly.
Levelling milestones
| Level | What you get |
|---|---|
| 1 | Stealth, Sinister Strike, Eviscerate, and Pick Lock — moved from 16 to level 1, and now a secondary skill rather than a class skill |
| 4 | Backstab, Pick Pocket |
| 6 | Gouge |
| 8 | Evasion |
| 10 | Slice and Dice, Sprint, Sap — no longer requires stealth and no longer breaks it, first talent point, dual wield |
| 12 | Kick |
| 14 | Garrote, Expose Armor — buffed |
| 16 | Feint |
| 18 | Ambush — the build does not feel good until this lands |
| 20 | Poisons, via the class quest. Instant Poison and Crippling Poison, plus Rupture |
| 22 | Vanish, Distract — now also lowers enemy stealth detection |
| 26 | Cheap Shot |
| 30 | Kidney Shot, Deadly Poison, and Mutilate, Blade Flurry, Adrenaline Rush and Hemorrhage all become reachable — the real identity shift |
| 34 | Blind |
| 40 | Safe Fall, mount |
Every Rogue combat ability trains at its Classic level. The only thing that moved is Pick Lock.
Which race
Alliance — Human for long fights, on Sword Specialization at +2% crit, the largest weapon racial. Gnome is the better levelling pick for Eureka! and Escape Artist.
Horde — Orc, unambiguously. Axe Specialization gives +1% crit — and Rogues can use one-handed axes in Forever, which is new.
Forever changed the answer three ways. Weapon racials became crit racials; Rogues gained one-handed axes; and Sword, Dagger, Fist and Mace Specialization were all deleted from the Combat tree, folded into one talent called Hack and Slash. There is no longer a sword-spec reason to be Combat.
Quality of life
- The level-20 poison quest is the one thing that must be done. Reagents come from a poison vendor near your class trainer. In Forever, poisons stack with sharpening stones and Windfury Totem at the same time — it used to be one or the other — and poison damage now scales with Attack Power and can crit.
- You need two weapons and a swap macro: a dagger main-hand for Ambush and Backstab, and a slow non-dagger for Sinister Strike. Swapping costs a global cooldown and resets your swing timer.
- Train the weapon that matches your racial — swords for Human, one-handed axes for Orc.
- Lockpicking is free money from level 1 now, and pairs with Pick Pocket at 4. First Aid is near-mandatory — you have no self-heal, but you can Gouge or Blind and then bandage mid-fight.
What changed from Classic
| Change | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Sap no longer breaks stealth and needs no stealth | Splitting a pair of enemies is far easier |
| Pick Lock at level 1, as a secondary skill | Free money and utility from the start |
All four weapon specialisations folded into Hack and Slash | One talent covers whichever weapon you hold |
| Rogues can use one-handed axes | Which is why Orc's racial now matters |
| Poisons scale with Attack Power and can crit | Crit is worth more than it was |
| Energy regeneration is continuous, not ticked | You cannot bank a tick to arrive exactly when needed |
At level 60
Unknown. There is no tested 51-point build, no stat weights and no answer on whether Assassination's poison identity, Combat's Hack and Slash or Subtlety's Rupture engine wins — one major site declines even to publish a stat priority. Raids open 9 December.