Best Leveling Spec?

Just created a new Rogue. What’s the best spec for leveling?
Please and thank you.

I don’t know.

Hello,

I’m curious to see the answers, but I have been levelling a rogue so I can give you some general comments:

  1. Levelling is super easy, and exp gains are fast, I have been very casually playing 1-3 hours a day, and I’m already level 48

  2. Stuff dies pretty fast, so fast, that it’s difficult to appreciate any real difference in any of the specs that might emerge in a raid fight or longer fight

  3. Specs while levelling feel remarkably similar. They all have point builders and finishers, they all have slice and dice, they all have mini buffs and a big buff, so differences are diminished while levelling due to ease and fight lengths

Now, here’s what I can tell you about each spec, based on levelling:

Outlaw is the most straightforward and probably the best for levelling due to the cleave. More enemies appear, hit bladedance, and it will make your hits on a single target spread to the rest.

Sub Rogue is the most complicated due to the interaction with stealth. You need to set up your bars appropriately to ensure your rotation goes smooth. Shadowdance hits like a truck, but you are weaker outside of shadowdance, and aoe is basically spamming an aoe button

Assasination while levelling is going to feel a lot like outlaw because stuff dies fast. If you are picturing long-lasting dots, like an afflication warlock, forget it. You are going to be combo building and spending. How it plays will be probably the most affected by your talent set-up. I personally love using blindside, marked for death, and subterfuge to have a crazy opening from steal that quickly dispatches the mob.

Ultimately, I recommend Outlaw

You can use pistol shot to attract mobs to you, you’ll have good cleave, and I find I have the easiest time killing things when using Outlaw. You’ll barely notice roll the bones; it’ll just be something you use on the side.

Others can disagree, and please do, this is just my experience levelling up a rogue.

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Sub or Outlaw. Assassination is entirely DoT based. Sub has the best burst, Outlaw has better AoE.

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I have been reading the forums a lot over the last few weeks. Consensus seems to be all are fine, however outlaw is likely to be easiest.

This is for SL leveling. For old world content, i have been playing as sub in full heirlooms and everything dies within 1-2 secs.

Both sub and outlaw are both fine. Sub has its pros and cons as does outlaw.

Started again with an EU account and having the worst time levelling a rogue through BFA. Everything is ridiculously hard to kill from level 16+. Considering switching to MM hunter.

You might have an easier time, but as an experienced rogue, genuinely struggling.

They still didn’t fix Roll the Bones-True Bearing.
You get RTBs at level 29. You get Restless Blades at 41. From 29-41, True Bearing does literally nothing. It’s a dead roll.

I hate Roll the Bones so much. >:(

May be unpopular, but I’ve tried leveling as outlaw and then swapped to assassination. I found the dots actually killed things far faster and most consistently because there was no energy issues like there was for outlaw while leveling and not having access to talents to increase regen.

It boils down mostly to personal taste.

I notice that people really have a horn on for sub, to the point that they think it’ll be miles better in SL and there are many in the higher tiers of pvp who are saying that sure it can do wonders in the hands of super skilled people… but it’s too reliant on absolute perfect play… at least according to skill capped, no idea if they’re still relevant or not. I don’t really dig into the pvp thing much anymore. They also noted that it was over-tuned/semi broken on SL beta and it will certainly end up nerfed as result.

It’s just for the leveling process, especially low levels, assassination seemed to carry very well with low energy regen until certain talents where achieved and then I simply stayed that way. I’ve tried outlaw a few times but it just always didn’t do as good as assassination for me. Maybe it’s just a playstyle issue for me, no idea.

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IMO its sub for 2 simple reason, premeditation talent + shadowstrike.

  1. prem mean that you wont ever waste time aplying slice n dice.
  2. shadowstrike take a huge chunk of your average questing target.

Solo leveling is more about doing many burst fight then 1 long session.

Shadow step 2 mobs then use flying stealth technique (you fly from mobs to mobs and unmonth using stealth to not waste time slowly walking).

outlaw is just plain bad at taking mobs 1 on 1 but if you prefer to pull a few NPC that you want to AoE down. its good.

I’m leaving Alliance and making a horde rogue. Going very fast as subtlety. While the “Jump” that shadowstrike does is being removed, it has not been removed yet. You can use that to jump from one mob to the next dropping them very quickly.

I would recommend leveling as Outlaw, you can just mow through mobs and even clear large packs. You’re going to have an easier time going from mob to mob and in Dungeons, you get your AoE ability Blade Flurry at 19 compared to Subtlety’s 56.

most of Subtlety’s damage comes from Shadow Dance and you don’t get an additional charge till 45 with Enveloping Shadows. It has almost zero AoE and Cleave damage till Shadowlands when we get our AoE Finisher Black Powder.

Man this is actually pretty true. The aoe on sub for prepatch is very weak in comparison. I have absolutely no issues taking on elites 1 v 1 though. I feel like i always have 2 SD rdy for every major fight.

I leveled all three recently from 10-50 and they are all pretty okay for leveling. Subtlety seemed to be the most enjoyable. It helps that it gets it’s energy stuff at 26 and 27. While, Assassination and Outlaw don’t get anything till 37. Outlaw also has to wait till 43 for it’s full energy stuff.
So, the overall experience was better as Subtlety mostly due to that. Outlaw also really bugged me because Roll the Bones can roll True Bearing which does literally nothing until you hit 41 and get Restless Blades. I really hope they fix that…

Are you sure? I haven’t heard anything about that. I hope it isn’t getting removed!

Shuriken Storm + Rupture on multiple mobs actually did pretty well for me in dungeons. At least, in the dungeons where the mobs weren’t just dying quickly. I don’t know why, but level 10-15 player characters can do absurd DPS compared to higher level players.