How will my experience be if I main Rogue?

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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I tried a lot of alts and I seem to really only enjoy playing rogue. I suppose I have the tendency to choose the super squish but high burst damage classes in other games that offer them as well.

either way, I never played in Vanilla. I did play when you had to make your own poisons though just never even got close to 60 then. from the people who did, what will my experience be like when I main rogue in Classic?

Will finding groups be extremely hard? am I mostly useless in comparison to other classes? will I get the chance to end game raid? let me know!

edit: I do have a max level rogue in retail that has done some mythic raiding and got my 1750 achievement in 3s recently so I know how they play generally, what I meant was I never hit level cap during Vanilla/BC.

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Rogue is the class I have played the most by far. From my experience finding groups for 5 mans is a bit harder than it would be for a mage or warlock. Sap is a bit difficult to use so you will need others to bring CC. Still, you will need 3 dps so it’s not so bad.

As far as usefulness goes rogues are top tier dps. They are one of the very best from the first dungeon you do all the way until naxx.

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Rogues level slow, but bring lots of dps. Sadly your utility will be lacking. You will have sap but short of speccing sub, it takes you out stealth on use.
Combat is the go to spec for leveling and raiding.

The hardest part will be the fact that rogues are a dime a dozeb

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Have you seen the survey on the classicwow subreddit? Last time I checked it had over 15k replies so it’s a decent amount of data. Rogue was behind Warrior, Mage, Priest, Pally/Shaman, and Warlock in terms of what people said they would choose. That leaves only Hunter and Druid below.

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I can pretty much guarantee that rogue will be the second most played class, only behind warrior. I promise you.

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Sub builds are pretty trash for leveling, but it’s the build I used all the way to like 35ish because I was a noob, did very little damage lol. But I had fun with it for a while, I guess?

The only thing that sucks about Combat is that you’re going to be competing with Fury Warriors, other Rogues, and plate tanks for the slowest 1 Handers that you really need to get the most out of Sinister Strike, such as Dal Rend swords, I think one of them is for Rogues but good friggin luck trying to get one over the tank threatening to drop the raid over it, they’ll pick someone else over you every single time.

And, ideally you’d want a fast offhand to proc Combat Potency as often as possible, like with a dagger, and really getting daggers won’t be a problem for you at endgame, but you’ll rarely have the “good” setup till you actually get the blue/purple drop you needed.

So, in the meantime like with leveling, you end up just using the slowest thing you have in your main hand and the fastest thing you can get in your offhand, which may not be very good. It’s one of those things where weapon speed really really matters even at mid level range where you’re getting into Combat Potency and need that energy to fire off Sinister Strikes.

That’s pretty much the only annoying thing about Combat besides the pre-Combat Potency energy starvation, which can be partially treated with Thistle Tea.

However, if you’re going to be doing a lot of dungeons you might have a good time with Assassination, I honestly forget how it did for leveling, I know Combat was pretty much king of leveling, but ‘Sin had some sort of “keep on killing” mechanic/talent that helped with your uptime. I think?

TLDR; I would go Assassination till around 30-35, then respec into Combat and go get the Thrash Blade from the quest in (Desolace?)

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Rogues, in my memory (and certainly in my guild) were the kings of melee DPS in endgame for Vanilla. We had two rogues that competed with the lock and mage lead for top DPS and it was a vicious competition. Ha ha ha. The rogue was an outstanding min/max player (one of the very few we had on the team), and he loved to tweak things to push it higher.

I said that to say this: Rogues can be amazingly fun and they have tremendous utility in the Vanilla specs. I played a combat rogue as an alt and then mained it for a short time back in BC. I just remember in Kara being on the rogue, still. I only mained a rogue for about 5 minutes because I discovered healing shortly after that, and it was all over. I’ve been healing ever since.

But rogues are FUN, and they are needed for several mechanics in Vanilla raids. If the class appeals to you, roll one. You’ll enjoy it.

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As some ppl stated.

A lot of rogues to pick from for PVE, slow leveling almost like a warrior, one of the best single target dps for PVE, pvp good healer killer, one of the weakest class in PvP( you will kill ppl but mostly the slow and dim witted), good at first opener in WPvP (wait for odds are you in your favor),
And whatever else.

Tip: don’t hit evasion going against a warrior or it will be a one or two shot death.

Tip: you see a prot Paladin and don’t engage even if he is in green/blues with 70% hp with adds on him/her you better not attack.
Unless you have T2. If prot Paladin is in T2 don’t even think of breathing in that direction. You can have a 5 man party of rogues/warriors you will all die. If the prot is built correctly.

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^^^^^^

Yeah that was pretty much my experience with Rogue in Vanilla PvP, you have lots of fun bursting down weak/undergeared players, but the ones who can survive the opener you end up avoiding like the plague, they don’t fall for that crap and shut you down when they see it happening to someone else.

I guess alot of people still liked that play style, but IMO killing the weakest players isn’t helping the team all that much to capture objectives, like, killing 1 or 2 players in blues/greens who weren’t gonna kill anyone on their own anyway, is far less useful than the enemy Warrior who is taking out 4 or 5 people at a time including healers.

You’re better off just being a healer/FC killer or peeling off of your own healer who is trying to escort FC.

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Especially on pvp servers… Being invisible and able to pick your fights in a hostile world where people can’t just go on a mount and fly away or get sharded away is simply massive. Doubly so when it gives you top level pve dps potential, the ability to ignore threat, the ability to avoid death during a wipe, and some pretty fantastic itemization advantages all without ever being asked to tank things. As another bonus they’re also a strong pvp class.

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You might wanna check out that Vanilla talent tree.

As far as weapons go Rogues have daggers and Warriors get axes. The 2 classes share swords and the occasional fist weapon. Getting good weapons can be a pain but only if you are set on using 1 weapon type only.

Also you guys seem to be haters when it comes to rogue PvP. They are ridiculously powerful in any 1v1 scenario as long as they start in stealth. Rogues are equipped with a bucket of CC and some scary burst damage with Cold Blood. It can be hard for them to find an opening in large scale PvP but watch out if they do.

Oh and “don’t use evasion vs warriors” is a common misconception. Evasion helps a lot to avoid damage from everything a warrior does other than overpower. That includes their most dangerous attack, mortal strike, and their white hits, which generate the bulk of their rage. If you can’t beat a warrior who is only landing 1 overpower every 6 seconds then you’re doing something wrong.

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You obviously don’t know how to play rogue.

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Best way to make finding a group easy as a rogue: Improved Sap

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Your gonna do it from behind, nuff said

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i would suggest going herb/alch so you can farm stuff for blind and potions are always good. also make sure to keep your lockpicking maxxed and people will def bring you for BRD and other dungeons that req a key, if nothing else.

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I too am getting out of my comfort zone (mained ranged DPS for the most part when not tanking) and rolling a rogue and priest for classic. Priest I have done but rogue I’ve never gone beyond L10. I like the idea of a stabby melee toon with stealthy lockpicky skills. Should balance out the standing back and healing those doing the damage of the priest role.

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Rogues are 2nd most played class on every single vanilla private server. You will be invited to dungeons, raids, premade pvp groups, and just about every other sort of activity the game offers. Leveling won’t be as easy as it is playing something like a hunter or druid, but it’s still far better (imo) than early leveling on an untwinked warrior .

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I mained a rogue from Vanilla to WOTLK when I quit.

It’s fun, and can be amazingly rewarding if you’re good at it, but it can be slow and frustrating if you’re not.

If you’re good at it, like so many other classes, people will seek you out for dungeons and grouping etc. Back in Vanilla rogues were a dime a dozen, but GOOD rogues were fairly rare.

for PvP you have 2 choices: stay combat/assassination and be “ok” or respect to subtlety and - if you can play that play style - be fairly strong.

I’ll be mailing a rogue this time around as well.

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Congratualtions on rolling one of the most OP classes in vanilla. The only issue with finding a group will be how many other people roll rogues as well. Other than that rogues are great in basically everything, great dps in groups and lots of utility in the form of CC.

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“LFM UBRS, full on Rogues”

Honestly though, outside of the couple dungeon drops that every melee class is clamoring for at launch, you’ll have no issue finding groups as a Rogue. Solid DPS, good to great utility depending on your spec & how fast you level lockpicking.

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