The Rogue is one class that can benefit from almost any profession in some way or another. A Rogue concerned with gathering professions can utilize stealth to approach resource nodes that may be blocked by monsters for those without the ability. A Rogue may find the buffs given by potions powerful enough to change the outcome of a fight. The Rogue may even craft his own armor with the Leatherworking skill, or sell his crafts with any of the crafting skills. A Rogue may even supplement his combat technique with unorthodox weapons such as bombs, death rays, net guns, and special defensive items from engineering. To choose the appropriate profession its ideal for a Rogue to first decide on his play style and then evaluate which profession would benefit him best.

Crafting Professions:

Tailoring:Tailoring is primarily concerned with the creation of cloth armor and accessories such as bags and shirts. Tailoring is not ideal for a Rogue, as a Rogue will most likely never wear a piece of cloth armor. Though the ability to make your own bags will have some merit at earlier levels, the benefits of other professions for a Rogue will far outweigh those of tailoring.

Leatherworking and Skinning: One of the ideal professions for the new Rogue, leatherworking gives the Rogue the benefit of being able to make most of his own armor until later levels, as well as kits to augment the strength of his armor. Coupled with skinning, grinding levels will become a profitable enterprise. Although crafted armor is often not as good as lootable armor as you level there are some high level armors the Rogue may want to consider. The first set is craftable by devilsaur leatherworkers: Devilsaur Gauntlets and Devilsaur Leggings are a great set for Rogues who haven’t started doing end game instances. Another set, craftable by elemental leatherworkers: Stormshroud Shoulders, Stormshroud Pants, Stormshroud Gloves, and Stormshroud Armor. Both of these sets are good, and one might notice that Stormshroud armor has more +crit stats while Devilsaur armor has more +attack power, which may cater to your preference.

Blacksmithing and Mining: Blacksmithing allows the creation of goods made from metal, and later can branch off to specifics such as weapon smithing and armor crafting. Though these professions cater mostly to the more heavily armored classes, the ability to craft some weapons may be of use to a Rogue at some points. However, these weapons are usually of a lower standard than those that can be found in instances, so the true value of blacksmithing to a Rogue is in making money. The ability of a Rogue to sneak from mineral deposit to mineral deposit, usually without fighting anything, makes the Rogue the most productive mining class, along with druids. The more you can mine, the more you can sell.

Alchemy and Herbalism: Alchemy is the profession which allows the creation of various potions which can be used instantly in almost any situation. Though the benefits of stealth in terms of gathering resources applies as well to herbalism as it does to mining, the main benefit of this combination actually lies in the production skill itself. The ability to create potions with various affects ranging from healing to poison cleansing, strength, armor, and life buffs, to even invisibility and invulnerability are invaluable to one who prefers a varied and powerful combat technique. At later levels many of the resources gathered from herbalism fetch a good price in the AH and may double as a good source of income. A very important benefit of herbalism for a Rogue is that the Rogue will not be reliant on the auction house for their fade reagent. Fade leaf can be farmed, and swiftthistle for Thistle Tea is easily obtainable as well.

Enchanting:Enchanting is a unique and valuable ability in World of Warcraft. It allows you to add permanent stats to weapons and armor using unique materials gathered from disenchanting weapons and armor of green quality or better. It is arguably the hardest profession in the game to level and can sometimes be very difficult to make money from considering the cost of materials on the player market, and the lost value from items disenchanted to make enchanting materials. The obvious benefit of enchanting is that the profession and the ability to gather materials for it are contained as one profession, so you may pick another gathering profession to supplement your income. It is not likely that a Rogue will benefit from enchanting in any particular way over any other class.

Engineering: An ideal profession for the level 60 Rogue without money problems, engineering will give you a number of novelty items and items to cover gaps in Rogue abilities, or even reinforce existing ones. The mainstays of engineering are things such as dynamite, a thrown item that does area damage, goggles with various abilities such as Catseye goggles, and several novelty devices that do things such as root the target, reduce attack power, temporarily stun enemies, even items that allow the wearer to slow fall or stealth without the stealth ability. Obviously some of these abilities overlap with Rogue abilities, so it’s important to pick a branch of engineering that best suits how you like to play your Rogue. Goblin engineering tends to have more offensive items such as better dynamite and bombs, a rocket helmet which stuns the enemy for a considerable amount of time, great for when sap just isn’t reliable enough. Gnomish engineering tends towards more ability oriented items. For instance, the gnomish mind control cap allows you to mind control one target, and for the duration they will follow you like a pet and attack your targets. The Gnomish Net-o-Matic Projector nets the target (some monsters have this ability so you’ve probably seen it before) and they can’t move for 10 seconds. Its great to temporarily take someone out of the fight. Both branches have a transporter you can make, goblins for Winterspring and gnomes for Gadgetzan. Rogues that raid may want to consider the value of going gnomish engineering simply for a quick way to get to tanaris, considering how far apart Molten Core and Blackwing Lair, located in blackrock mountain, are from Silithus and Ahn Qiraj. However, there are two very important things to remember about engineering. The first thing to consider is that most of the items have a chance of failure. So while you might be able to use a net gun or a rocket helmet to take someone out of the fight and save your life, it could very well fail and put you at a disadvantage. The second thing to consider is that most engineering items take up a trinket or armor slot. Its important to decide beforehand if the trade off is worth it depending on the situation, because you won’t be able to exchange items during combat. And even if you vanish and switch your trinket/item most have a 30 second warm up before you can use them.

To put it plainly, when any Rogue goes up against any opponent, only one thing really determines how well the Rogue will do. How cheap he’s willing to be. The concept of a Rogue is a fighter that takes advantage of his enemy’s disadvantages. He does not fight fair whenever possible and waits for his opponents to be at their weakest before he strikes.

A Rogue plays a very beneficial role a Rogue can play in PVP groups. Since a Rogue can both deal extreme amounts of damage in a short period of time and stun an opponent the Rogue plays the role of focusing on healers to kill them quickly as well as assisting on hard targets with stuns to minimize the damage they can do. In certain battlegrounds the Rogue’s tools make him well suited to solo capturing a flag, by sapping or blinding guards and taking a flag or bunker. With sprint a Rogue can train guard mobs or even lure other players away from a target if they take the bait.

General PVP techniques:

Stun locking:
This is done through a combination of cheap shot opener, gouge, kidney shot, and sometimes blind. The idea is to allow the opponent a minimal amount of time to perform actions while you deal damage. A simple combo is cheap shot opener with a sinister strike before it wears off. Follow immediately with gouge if you are a dagger Rogue, wait the duration and backstab right before it wears off. Follow this with a kidney shot and allow yourself energy to backstab again. Keep in mind that improved kidney shot may make it more beneficial to use shorter stuns since you can use them slightly more often. With kidney shot being a finisher, the talent Relentless strikes may grant extra energy, helping to prolong the stun lock chain. If desired, a blind is an excellent way to prolong a stun lock to the point of repeating it completely, energy wise.

Bleed kiting:
Against Warriors and Rogues one effective strategy is bleed kiting. To do this, it is ideal to have crippling poison and deadly poison, one on each weapon. Rogues with improved rupture may prefer this method against Warriors as well. Against either a Warrior or Rogue, get enough hits in to stack deadly poison 5 times and proc crippling poison. Now that you should have a few combo points, use rupture as well and then run out of melee range. You now have the opportunity to regenerate your energy completely before attacking again while they can’t easily close distance. When your energy is full again repeat the DOT application. This may also be an effective strategy against hunters with the difference being that you want to stay close. In fact, with crippling poison it should even be possible to stay right between their ranged and melee ranges, meaning they can hit you with neither.

Out of combat restealthing:
Considered very cheap, but very useful nonetheless. 5 seconds after un-targeting an enemy you will leave combat if you have not attacked or been attacked during that time. Keep in mind DOTs will foul a restealth attempt. Once out of combat you will be able to restealth without using vanish, enabling you to get a “free” opener on your opponent. This technique is mostly only useful against Rogues in normal combat, as your stuns and slowing poisons will allow you to escape melee range to go out of combat. However, it is important to note that once out of combat your opponent is too, and can restealth as well. This strategy is not useful against a Warrior unless it is used with stuns, because the Warrior can usually intercept or charge you once you’re out of combat. Ranged classes will easily be able to keep you in combat unless you use a longer stun on them like blind, and possibly gouge with the improved gouge talent.

Fighting multiple enemies.
Even for a combat Rogue, it will be easier to kill them one at a time. When attempting to initiate a fight against 2 enemies, a sap on the stronger enemy is always a good idea. It will effectively take them out of the fight until it wears off, although be aware that it tends to break very early, often as soon as 10 seconds, and also that Paladin shields and certain Shaman totems can remove the effect. Ideally, in any 1 vs. 2 situation you want to create distance between the two enemies so you only have to fight one at a time. What this usually means is running away, and attacking the one that catches up to you first. Make creative use of your cool downs and stuns and you should have no problem keeping one person out of your hair for the most part, however in any unbalanced fight like that the odds are not going to be in your favor.

The uses of Thistle Tea.
Maybe an odd thing to give its own section to, but thistle tea can give a Rogue a HUGE advantage in the opener. As long as you can afford or obtain the reagent, you should always carry a good supply of this item. The instant 100 energy gain provides a great means to extend combo or add a significant amount of burst damage. Consider this thistle tea-assisted opener: Cheap shot, followed by backstab and then use thistle tea and backstab again. If you are seal fate build and those backstabs critical, you now have 5 combo points before cheap shot wears off. If you have 5 piece Nightslayer armor bonus (+10 max energy) and the seal fate build’s vigor talent, you’ll have 120 energy. By timing energy ticks correctly before the opener and using thistle tea, you can literally ambush and backstab 2-3 times before the enemy realizes what’s going on. If all of those crit you could possibly kill even a tougher enemy before they can even react, which simply underscores how powerful of a tool thistle tea can be. Against a Mage or any cloth wearer, a thistle tea opener is almost always lethal.

Strategies vs. different classes follow:

Rogue:

Killing a Rogue is fairly straightforward, evasion is the best defense against their damage but it’s just as likely the enemy Rogue will use evasion as well. At this time it’s a good idea to consider using blind, since it cannot be dodged blocked or parried and waiting out their evasion timer before you use your own. Obviously a stun lock technique will minimize the damage done to you, but depending on whether you are a backstab or combat spec Rogue you may want to just finish the fight quickly and straightforward, as a dagger Rogue excels at. A sword Rogue may want to take more care to keep the Rogue under his control, as its very easy for a Rogue to turn the tide of the fight using vanish to perform a second opener, if you give them enough chance to use it. If you’re afraid a Rogue is going to use vanish, a dot is the best way to keep them visible. Crippling poison and instant poison is a good combination against a Rogue, to help deal extra damage and keep them from running away.

Warrior:

A Warrior is one of the tougher opponents for a Rogue to fight, for a few reasons. First, the Warrior has significant damage mitigation, and the ones with raiding gear have even more in the form of dodge and parry. Second, the Warrior has a move called Overpower which is active after the opponent dodges. Considering that one of the Rogue’s primary forms of damage mitigation is dodge, this presents a problem. There are a few different ways to kill a Warrior, however if you are similarly geared with the Warrior it may always be slightly difficult. For a Warrior that shows a preference for overpower and battle stance, bleed kiting is a great idea. Such Warriors tend to rely on their overpower crits to deal their damage to Rogues, so dealing your damage while you aren’t in range is the best way to go. If you can damage them fast enough, a series of stuns and stun lock may be another possibility. It’s very likely that you won’t be able to keep them stunned long enough to deal a significant amount of damage to them though, as you’ll be using a lot of energy and combo points through stuns. The important thing to remember though, is that a Rogue has the advantage in being cheap and tricky. If you have to fight a Warrior up close, save your gouge for when you dodge, and that way he’ll be stunned until his overpower timer is up. Stay behind the Warrior as much as possible, since they can’t attack things behind them. Whatever you do don’t allow the Warrior to just sit in front of you and hit you, as that’s the easiest way for the Warrior to win. If you aren’t using the bleed kiting method, crippling poison and instant poison is still a good combination. You don’t necessarily need crippling poison, but if you need a breather it may come in handy to help you get some distance. Be warned when trying to restealth: Warriors with the appropriate talent place a DOT effect on you when they crit, which will prevent you from vanishing properly or restealthing. However, you may try to time your vanish so that you can disappear and use your opener before their DOT ticks again, though this will take some practice most likely.

Mage:

Winning against a Mage depends completely on how prepared you are, and how prepared the Mage is. While a thistle tea combo may be able to kill a Mage, a well prepared Mage may blink before it is finished. For a lot of mages, once they are able to polymorph you they can bring all their abilities to bear against you, potentially killing you before you get in range again, so mages are the most unforgiving opponent in the game for a Rogue. Against any Mage ambush is the best opener, because they can blink out of cheap shot. Obviously, if you are a combat Rogue cheap shot is practically your only option. In this case you should cheap shot for the combo points and then run in the direction the Mage is facing, as he will likely blink out of the stun. You must keep in range of the Mage to kick cancel his casts and damage him. You’ll have to use vanish to get out of frost nova and blind has a decent enough range that you can stop him from running too far away if you get frostnova’d again. It’s very likely you will use a lot of cool downs against a Mage, as they have many abilities designed to keep you at range from them. Good poisons to use against a Mage are mind numbing and crippling, although the chances aren’t as good against a Mage that you’ll be able to keep them in range long enough to apply them.

Warlock:

A warlock is most dangerous when it has its succubus out, since the succubus can keep you seduced for a while as the warlock prepares his damage. One way to deal with this situation, if the succubus is not invisible, is to blind or sap the warlock and kill the succubus quickly, and then wait 5 seconds and restealth to use your opener on the warlock. No matter what a warlock will get death coil off on you and the best you can do is sprint back to the warlock or blind him if you’re still in range, otherwise they will likely fear you again. If you have a PVP trinket a warlock is a good opponent to have it ready for. When they have an invisible succubus you may try sapping the warlock so that it seduces you, using your PVP trinket and killing the succubus, and then restealthing to kill the warlock. Once warlock pets and deathcoil are not a problem, the fight is relatively simple. Use kick, as well as gouge and kidney shot to keep them from casting ANY timed casts, such as fear, corruption or immolate. They will be able to cast a curse on you, usually agony or weakness so they can kite you, but if you prepare with mind numbing poison and crippling poison you shouldn’t have any problems killing a warlock at this point.

Priest:

The priests only real defenses against a Rogue are Psychic Scream and Power Word: Shield. One backstab is usually enough to take down a priest shield, and it’s a good idea to gouge to recover your energy. Given 15 seconds a priest will be able to put their shield up again, which will soak another backstab. So, ideally you should get their shield down and then prepare for a damaging combo. Keep your eyes open for their heals. If you want to kill a priest while taking minimal damage you must keep them from healing, as this will only prolong the fight allowing them to likely use psychic scream again. A shadow priest will follow psychic scream with mind flay, which will slow you and make it difficult to close to melee range again. A good priest of any spec will also have shadow word: pain DOT on you at all times, so restealthing is not a reliable option here, by vanish or otherwise. If you’re paying attention you can sometimes catch them right when the DOT wears off, before they can reapply it. The safest way to handle a priest, especially when there are other enemies around or in a battlegrounds situation, is a thistle tea ambush/backstab combo. Priests can be dangerous opponents to take your time with. Mindnumbing and instant poison are a useful combination of poisons against priests.

Hunter:

A hunter is another difficult opponent for a Rogue, depending on the situation. A Rogue’s primary advantage against a hunter will be the element of surprise, and crippling poison. A hunter that knows you are coming is nearly impossible to sneak up on, though there are ways. If a hunter knows you are there, they will likely set a trap and stand on top of it. Here’s where the technical aspect of stealth comes in. Even if you don’t have the Master of Deception talent, stealth detection from directly behind you is extremely poor. What this means is that you can actually sneak up directly behind the hunter, disarm the trap, and begin your opener without him even realizing what’s going on. To actually fight the hunter, if you are going to be using crippling poison it’s a good idea to open with cheap shot to make sure it procs on your target. The first thing a lot of hunters try to do is run away, which will give you an opportunity to backstab. Some will scatter shot, which will stun you while they run for melee range. No matter what a hunter decides to do the good ones will almost always put hunters mark on you, meaning they can see you in stealth. This means that vanish is useless at range against a hunter, although you may still get use out of it for a vanish opener at melee range. If a hunter gets out of your melee range without crippling poison and gets concussive shot on you, you can use sprint to close the range but without sprint it will be extremely difficult to kill the hunter at that point. Don’t forget to use blind to keep enemies from running away, if necessary. It may be expensive and use a reagent but with its range and length it is invaluable in these situations. The whole ideal for fighting a hunter is to keep him in melee range where you can damage him, and he won’t be able to do as much damage to you. The hunter’s pet may be annoying, but in almost all cases it’s a waste of time to try and kill it. Unless you’re just feeling malicious, of course.

Druids:

Fighting a druid is like fighting a combination of every class in the game. Some will go catform to try and dps you, some will go bear form to try and soak your damage, some will stay in caster form and try to keep you rooted and at range. The key to winning a fight against a druid is adapting to their strategy. Fight a bear how you would a Warrior. Stay behind him, DOT him up and let him bleed while you hammer on him. Fight a cat as you would a Rogue. Fight the caster form as you might a Mage or warlock. Some of the most dangerous abilities a druid caster has are faerie fire and root. Faerie fire will prevent you from stealthing, and root will simply keep you in place. Vanish will remove the root effect from you even while faerie fire is on you, you just won’t be able to disappear. The most important thing to look out for against a druid is a Nature’s swiftness heal. That is, many druids have a talent that allows them to cast any nature spell instantly. In most cases a druid will save it for their biggest heal. Usually, there is nothing you can do about this unless you stunlock kill them from a relatively high amount of life. The alternative is to save your burst damage such as cold blood eviscerate and thistle tea until after nature’s swiftness has been used. From there you simply have to keep them from casting timed spells, or rooting you and running away to cast. For this reason mind numbing and crippling poison are probably good combinations for use against a druid. Against most classes, if you’re confident in your ability to stay in range and cancel casts those poisons are interchangeable with instant poison, which will provide some more DPS against your target.

Shaman:

Against Shamans there is the similar problem of the nature’s swiftness heal, which many have. Aside from that Shamans can be very tough depending on their spec. Some Shamans will prefer to melee you with windfury on their weapon, so evasion will be a good idea. A lot of Shaman damage will come from shocks, so really it’s a good idea to kill the Shaman as fast as possible. If there are no particularly annoying totems up a stun lock will help you deal a lot of damage unhindered by their shocks and totems. Keep in mind that like fighting druids, you want to save your cool downs until they try to heal, or if they have it until after they nature’s swiftness heal. A Shaman with a shield is generally going to have more armor than a hunter and so your backstabs and sinister strikes will do less damage. Some totems can be very annoying, such as the earthbind totem. Totems are worth killing if you can do it during a gouge by using auto attack. That way you don’t use any energy or combo points to kill them. Some Shamans will prefer to frost shock and earthbind kite you. Against this type of Shaman crippling poison is almost a must. Sprint can be used to cover the gaps when either the poison hasn’t procced or it wears off.

Paladin:

A pretty difficult class to kill, for most classes even. A Paladin’s greatest strength is his survivability, which is rock solid. You can expect to use consumables such as bandages and even potions against this class. You can start off with either a cheap shot or ambush, it likely won’t make much difference by the end of the fight. Paladins have a few ways to damage you and while some of them rely on sheer luck, some of them work completely against you. Some Paladins will have an ability called reckoning, which will grant then an extra attack against you whenever you get a critical strike against them. Obviously, this puts backstab Rogues at a severe disadvantage, and even dagger Rogues are better off using sinister strike until later on in the fight. Fighting a Paladin can be a lot like fighting a druid or Shaman with nature’s swiftness. At some point during the fight, most Paladins will use their Divine Shield, and the really desperate ones will sometimes even use Lay on Hands, which will heal them at the expense of all their remaining mana. So you simply need to whittle them down until they use their shield and heal themselves. This is a really good time to either run a bit and restealth to get the opener when their shield wears off, or simply bandage yourself. If they are a reckoning Paladin, bleed kiting is an extremely good idea, since DOTs completely ignore armor in how much damage they do, and also since a Paladin has no offensive ability at range. They may use cleanse to remove the poison effect, but since deadly poison stacks 5 times they may end up using a lot of mana to keep it off. Think of a Paladin’s mana bar as a second life bar. Once the Paladin has used his shield, and is down on mana, you can go in for the kill, and use everything you have.

The Rogue has probably one of the simplest responsibilities in World of Warcraft PVE encounters: To do damage. However, it is easier said than done to maintain high damage while staying alive, as the Rogue has the tendency to pull agro if he/she isn’t too careful.

There are two major divisions in Rogue play styles that have different effects on PVE play styles.

The key to high damage output as a dagger Rogue is being able to stay in range long enough that your energy is never completely full, IE no energy ticks are wasted. Considering that the majority of a dagger Rogue’s damage comes from backstab criticals the Rogue has a 4 second window between 60 energy (the requirement for backstab) and 100 energy (full for most Rogues) to use their move without wasting extra energy ticks. Considering that the Rogue also needs to be behind the monster for backstab it can be somewhat tricky to be an efficient Rogue in some encounters.

However, a dagger Rogue is preferable in a fight where proximity is not guaranteed at all times. The reason is better explained by a quick look at combat spec Rogue damage in PVE.

The combat Rogue is a Rogue characterized by a stream of semi consistent damage with small bursts, as well as an emphasis on the addition of “white” damage, or damage arising from auto attack, both main hand and offhand. With talents the offhand damage of a Rogue can be increased by 50%. This is much better than the Warrior’s dual wield bonus of 25%. The benefit of a combat Rogue in certain encounters is to be able to keep their DPS relatively consistent. To put it plainly, a combat Rogue will seldom be caught with their pants down. The main distinction is in the instant attacks they use. While a dagger Rogue primarily uses backstab, a 60 energy cost move, a combat Rogue will generally use sinister strike, a 40 energy move. What this means is that while instant damage output is lower, you are more likely to have enough energy at any given time to do a sinister strike than a backstab, as well as the fact that for every 2 backstabs you could do 3 sinister strikes. While it’s true that a dagger Rogue may often utilize sinister strike in normal combat, a combat Rogue with a higher damaging sword, mace, or fist weapon will do a lot more damage through the ability.

The main difference between the styles is really just how they deal their damage. In timable spikes (Dagger Rogue) with damage downtime, so to speak, or a steady flow (combat Rogue) with no significantly large bursts. So obviously there’s a bit of crossover where both burst damage and high damage potential (IE ability is almost always ready to use) are needed. This is why Rogue play style variety is important in a PVE setup.

Most people prefer a basic customization to the way their interface looks, but even as a Rogue there are specifically designed mods that can help you improve your efficiency.

For the precise Rogue that wants to get the most out of his combos, a mod like Energy Watch is crucial. This keeps track of the energy “ticks” or the exact timing of when you regenerate your energy. This is important because you regenerate energy in ticks of 20 energy. With the proper timing a Rogue with 120 energy (Nightslayer 5 piece bonus, +10 energy, and the vigor talent) can perform cheap shot (60 energy cost) right before the first tick, and in the next 4 seconds (40 energy regenerated) perform 2 backstabs instead of one (60 energy cost per backstab. Careful management of energy ticks can lead to longer stunlocks and more burst damage from the opener, so this mod is highly recommended and can be found at http://www.curse-gaming.com/mod.php?addid=2233

Another mod a Rogue might take interest in is any mod which keeps track of reagents and consumables. There’s nothing worse than going to vanish or trying to blind to buy some time and realizing you have no flash or vanish powder. There are several mods that keep track of these reagents and sometimes more on most mod sites.

Finally, another excellent mod for Rogues is Stun watch, now called CC watch, shows a casting bar that shows the duration of your stuns such as gouge, cheap shot and kidney shot. This mod can be found at http://www.curse-gaming.com/mod.php?addid=2572