WOW Cataclysm: Rogue Leveling Guide

Today I'll go over the basics of leveling your super sneaky ninja Rogue. This is far and wide my favorite class to play because they are well suited for world PvP (ganking). Theres no better feeling than ganking that Ret. pally thats been causing hell in lowbie zones, then corpse camping him 'til he takes rez sickness. One thing any rogue should know, as it is exponentially important, is to fight on your own terms. This can be the hardest thing for new players to grasp, which amazes me due to the design of the class. Every rogue spec has the same opener...can u guess what it is? If you said stealth then let me congratulate you. Stealth is important for us to use certain abilities, some of our most damaging, and subtlety rogues will notice a damage increase from stealth and immediately after breaking stealth. Assassination rogues receive a damage increase for poisons applied to their target, but that in no way means poison should be neglected by other specs. DPS is the game and any trick to inprove on those numbers are welcome additions to any spec. This article will have everything you need to get started, like what stats to look for in gear, what talents to pick up and how to use the ever so useful cooldowns. 

Primary Stats

Not much has changed with our primary stats.

Agility - Nothing changes here, this is our primary stat and has been for some time now. This will be on just about every piece of gear we equip.

Stamina - Directly contributes to your health pool. Don't expect to actively seek this out as our gear will have more than enough to sustain us

Secondary Stats

This is were the discussion can get a bit hazy, but have no fear! I'll simplify it as much as i can so that you will have a better understanding when it comes time to enchant, gem and reforge.

Hit - 120.109 Hit Rating = 1% reduction to miss in melee combat. We'll probably never reach our hard caps but getting close without sacrificing Agility, Haste, Mastery and Crit is a welcome addition to our stats. The caps are listed below in order of importance, but like i said getting close will suffice, except for the Physical Damage hit cap (you'll never hit it don't worry about it)

Expertise - @L85 you'll want to be somewhere in the ball park of 26 expertise skill (781 rating)

Haste - Directly improves our Physical Damage. After hit and expertise soft capped we'll be stacking as much of this as we can get.

Mastery - Heres where the debate begins. You can go either way here, for me i won't be stacking nearly as much here as I will be with haste. A good number is to keep this around 60-70% of your haste rating

Crit - Chances are you won't be stacking here, in fact you'll probably sacrifice it all together for 1 of the 4 above when reforging as we'll be gaining enough crit from agility.

HIT CAPS (25man)

Special Attacks (ie. Mutilate, Sinister Strike) the chance to miss is 8%. Everyone will want to hit this number regardless of spec or player environment (PVE, PVP)

Spell Hit (poisons) the chance to miss is 17%. Try to get as close as you possibly can here.

Physical Attacks (ie. white damage, auto-attacks) the chance to miss is 27%. Not as important but a welcome addition when raiding.

STAT CONVERSIONS

The following is a list of how much stat rating you need to make 1% or 1 skill of each stat at Level 85.

Agility At Level 85 you will now need 324.72 Agility to obtain 1% crit. The actual crit awarded per Agility is still the same however, this value has changed only because we now need more crit rating to obtain the same 1% crit at Level 85.

1 Agility = 2 Attack Power + 0.55 Crit Rating (0.30%)

324.72 Agility = 1% Crit = 179.28 Crit Rating.

Crit Rating 179.28 = 1% Crit

Haste 128.05 = 1% Haste

Mastery 179.28 = 1 Mastery Skill

Hit 120.10 = 1% Hit

Spell Hit 102.44 = 1% Spell Hit

Expertise 30.03 = 1 Expertise Skill = 0.25% Dodge Reduction

Improved Sinister Strike - Increases the damage dealt by your Sinister Strike ability by 30% and reduces its Energy cost by 6.

Precision - Increases your chance to hit with weapon and poison attacks by 6%. This is especially useful towards the end-game raids.

Aggression - Increases the damage of your Sinister Strike, Backstab, and Eviscerate abilities by 20%.

Improved Slice and Dice - Increases the duration of your Slice and Dice ability by 50%. Especially nice for longer fights or multiple opponents.

Revealing Strike - An instant strike that causes 125% of your normal weapon damage and increases the effectiveness of your next offensive finishing move on that target by 20% for 15 sec. Awards 1 combo point.

Lightning Reflexes - Increases your chance to dodge enemy attacks by 9% and your attack speed by 6%.

Reinforced Leather - Increases your armor contribution from cloth (cloth???) and leather items by 50%. Cloth is bad, use leather in all slots, always.

Combat Potency - Gives your successful off-hand melee attacks a 20% chance to generate 15 Energy. This is why you want a fast off-hand weapon.

Precision - Rank 3/3 - You can't kill what you don't hit

Improved Recuperate - Causes your Recuperate ability to restore an additional 2% of your maximum health and reduces all damage taken by 6% while your Recuperate ability is active.

Adrenaline Rush - Increases your Energy regeneration rate by 100% and your melee attack speed by 20% for 15 sec.

Savage Combat - Increases your total attack power by 4% and all physical damage caused to enemies you have poisoned is increased by 4%.

Improved Recuperate - Rank 2/2 - More energy = more DPS

Reinforced Leather - Rank 2/2 - Survivability

Bandit's Guile - Your Sinister Strike and Revealing Strike abilities have a 100% chance to grant you an evolving insight into an opponent's defenses, increasing damage to that target by up to 30%. Opponents can adapt over time, negating this benefit, and Striking a different opponent will begin the cycle anew.

Restless Blades - Your damaging finishing moves reduce the cooldown of your Adrenaline Rush, Killing Spree, and Sprint abilities by 2 sec per combo point.

Killing Spree - Step through the shadows from enemy to enemy within 10 yards, attacking an enemy every .5 secs with both weapons until 5 assaults are made, and increasing all damage done by 20% for the duration. Can hit the same target multiple times. Cannot hit invisible or stealthed targets.

Lethality - Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Sinister Strike, Backstab, Mutilate and Hemorrhage abilities by 30%.

Coup de Grace - Increases the damage done by your Eviscerate and Envenom abilities by 14%. 

Quickening - All healing effects on you are increased by 20% and your movement speed is increased by 15%. This does not stack with other movement speed increasing effects.

Deadly Momentum - After killing an opponent that yields experience or honor, the critical strike chance of your next attack within 10 sec is increased by 40% and your Slice and Dice and Recuperate abilities are refreshed to their original duration.

Relentless Strikes - again, more energy = more DPS

Nightstalker - Anything that reduces the cooldown of stealth is a welcome addition for any rogue. A great utility, but not required unless you spec subtlety.

Now that you've got the tools to succeed, you should have no problem frustrating new and experienced players alike. Stealth - Gank - Stealth - Corpse Camp...it's the way of the world. Now lets get it in and HAVE FUN with all theses new abilities.