I’d like to know what the role of the Combat Rogue is, specifically in PvE. Anything you have to offer me is greatly appreciated. How do they fare as far as solo leveling goes? Also I’m really going to try my best to raid. Do Combat Rogues get raid slots? What is their role endgame?
Thank you so much
Combat is the rogue spec.
It’s the best leveling spec for rogues and the best raiding spec. Specifically swords.
Yes they get raid slots. Though competition for melee raid slots will be pretty high in Classic as Rogues and Warriors will be some of the most played classes.
Combat is the best solo leveling spec but Rogues are not the greatest levelers unless you get lucky with drops or can feed gear from a main. Your endgame raid role is high end single target melee DPS regardless of your spec. You bring minimal utility for the vast majority of content other than unlocking/disarming distracting and sometimes sapping. Your job is to poke dragon butts as fast and hard as you can.
Poke stuff with the point end of your weapon.
Yes we raid, yes we get slots.
Leveling is ok - if you’re going to be soloing more you’ll likely want to look at swords, if you’re going to be grouping more you will likely prefer daggers.
Role endgame: Poke stuff with the point end of your weapon.
To do damage and kick, highly gear dependent especially in terms of weapons. I never raided with more than 2 Rogues and one was more than likely a carry. Fury Warriors had much more of a chance getting picked up
They level fast. They get raid slots, but they will make up 95% of all rogues and 25% of all characters so there will, overall, be far more rogues than raid slots on classic servers. Your role on raids is to spam sinister strike, keep your self haste up, and not get cleaved.
Edit: As some have stated, you will be very gear dependent. I would plan your quest path ahead of time so that you can make sure you’re getting new swords every few levels.
Take up LW and keep it up to your level so you can wear what you make.
Keep your weapons up to date as well.
Played on ND and tried a different strategy for my rogue this time.
Took skinning/LW and my hunter also funneled leather to him.
My paladin was BS and made weapons.
I used professions to fill in the gaps to keep gear/weapons up to date and found that leveling was much easier
In strictly a pve enviorment, yes.
20/31/0 for swords, ~15/31/5 for daggers.
If you are focused on PvP, def try the ~21/x/21 cold blood prep, or the ~x/21/21 for any variant of combat sub.
Rogue tree’s I think have the most diversity in viability depending on your play style and intention with vanilla/classic.
Much more leeway compared to other classes. But as matcauthon has stated, there most certainly is a “best” min/maxed pve spec for daggers/swords
They most certainly do not level fast. The only slower class is a warrior.
And I love these people who say rogues are going to be 1/4 of the population. What is your source?
Probably from the old vanilla days when most rogues were chinese farmers. Now those farmers play frost mages.
Heh heh heh ![:laughing:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/laughing.png?v=6" ":laughing:")
What? No way.
Yes. Rogues were one of the slowest classes to level.
Yes we were one of the safest classes while leveling (vanish and Sprint).
But between face tanking + no heals + our only movement speed increase on a 5 minute cool Down, rogues are slow to level
I feel fairly certain I leveled faster than my pally and priest friends when I made sure to have First Aid.
I can see mages and locks and hunters being faster - but Rogues have to be middle of the pack.
then your pally and priest friends were doing it wrong.
Paladin - Go prot, get a fast weapon and shield.
pull multiple mobs at once, use seal of righteousness, and use lots of reactive damage to let everything beat itself to death (shield spike, ret aura, blessing of sanctuary, and holy shield). obviously you level as ret up till about level 30.
its close but prot leveling wins out.
priests…did they level as a healer? if not they did something wrong.
all they need to do is pick up these two talents first.
https ://classicdb.ch/?talent#bVZZx
and they win.
Combat Rogue is incredible. It does not level fast. You will have downtime and will be targeted in PvP engagements before you have full use of your toolkit. Dots and being kited will make leveling rough.
A bonus is you can sap and loot things, and you will have the option to pickpocket through the duration of your time playing a Rogue, making gold a complete and total non-issue. I think @ 60 RFD runs netted me 45g/hour. After ranking and the raid week is over, I ended up having many alts with several thousand gold each due to my Rogue. Made a Warrior and he had a Lionheart and Devilsaur set at 53 and 56, a pair of Stronghold Gauntlets, Might Bracers, and an epic mount, all at 60, before I even started farming for his bis and rank. Entirely from RFD and stockpiling material / cured rugged hides (leatherworking).
As combat you will want to go 20/31, traditionally as an Orc or Human if you want to focus on PvE. Humans get sword skill as a racial, and as white auto attacks are nearly 60% of your total damage done (with Slice and Dice 100% uptime), reducing the amount of reduction to attacks via glancing blow is almost paramount. Orcs have blood fury, which can be used in conjunction with juju flurry and adrenaline rush + blade flurry, for a staggering bonus to attack rating on a 53% speed increase (again, with slice and dice).
The big thing with combat leveling, is you can spec into Riposte. More often than not, you will be solo leveling. A Rogue is a lone wolf in that sense. It’s slower, yet quite easier. Having an attack that does as much % damage multiplier as backstab (150%) for a paltry energy cost, that ALSO disarms a target, is just incredible. You can have strings where you parry an enemy attack 2-3 times in a row, and just completely shred them, all while taking minimal damage due to the disarm.
Rogue raid spots are competitive. Rogues do 1 job in raid, and that is do damage. You don’t have to decurse, you can’t blind many mobs, and you offer no group buff. Your only job is to do damage. Being that they are one of the strongest 1v1 PvP classes in Vanilla, and are undoubtedly the strongest pure ganking class, many players prefer not to have to respec back and forth or be bothered with raid jobs like a Mage having to decurse, a Warlock on banish duty, a Hunter chain-pulling, etc. Simply put, no one expects much from a Rogue in raids. People gravitate to them for this reason. So, do your homework, and DPS hard.
I could give you as much information as you need, just respond with whatever you have questions on. I played a Rogue deep into BWL in Vanilla and have completed Naxxramas on 2 private servers as a Rogue.
Great post. I’m thinking human rogue on a pve server for classic (my guild is forming a classic version of itself on a pve server at release). You said 20/31. I know that’s 31 in combat. Do you go 20 in Subtlety or Assassination?
Without purchasing any skills that were CC related,DoT related or sounded wussy I sped through leveling as a rogue in classic. I also used sharpening stones instead of poisons and didn’t pick up cooking till TBC.
Rogues might move slower than other classes (still faster than others) but they have the massive advantage of picking their fights with stealth. Nothing like skipping 4-5 packs of mobs and just picking off the specific mobs you need for completion.
20 into Assassination for lethality, murder, relentless strikes, and improved poisons.
Also, you can’t poison some mobs and bosses in MC because they are elemental, so you take the points there and get more in combat, going for a 17/34 build.
@Thundathys, the big reason for less downtime as a Rogue is because of your survival toolkit. This doesn’t mean kill speed is faster later or anything for questing, but can be attributed to your experience of making leveling a breeze. Hunters and Warlocks still take the cake. Rogues are great levelers, but I dont think you can do 1-60 in 5 days or less.
If I Had to level a classic rogue now I would find it a complete breeze.