Rogue leveling... Hemo or assasination?

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
1

With 2 points into improve SS?

2

Neither. Combat is the most solid leveling spec by far for rogues. I guess, if you don’t mind the extra leveling time, as well as looking to gank, anything goes. You will run the risk of though, that people will get ahead of you, and then it will be much harder to gank. I mention that, because I take it you are planning for pvp along the way?

11 Likes
3

Leveling is a long road, spec into what is a fun playstyle for you.

2 Likes
4

Combat is definitely the way to go - swords are OP and plentiful throughout quests and dungeons at low levels. Some mobs will die really quick, before you even build up enough combo’s to do an efficient eviscerate at the lower levels. Above 40 I’m not sure, but I imagine the ease of playstyle for straight combat damage is hard to pass up for some more complex idea.

1 Like
5

Always had more fun with subtly spec. Combat is the more PvE focused spec, and Assassin is really more for PvP. Sub is fun for a little of both, and it’s my pick out of the two you’re thinking between.

You’ll probably want to put some points into sub anyway for faster stealth movement and higher stealth levels for tougher detection. Both will help with leveling.

5 Likes
6

I always leveled sub - while Combat is more efficient, I find it to be a bore.

Going for 1 shot ambush crits was always funner for me =P even though it was slower

2 Likes
7

Honestly do what is fun to you. Yes combat is optimal but it is a one button spec. Personally if I was playing a rogue I would go something like this: https:// classic. wowhead. com/talent-calc/rogue/AAXw8QMcNALDkQ
Getting Ghostly Strike first then going combat. You gain the benefit of imp stealth talents, another button to push for damage and increasing your dodge effectively reducing downtime against melee. Just remove the spaces in the link to see talent preview.

2 Likes
8

Pretty sure Combat is king for leveling

2 Likes
9

Pretty much what everyone else said. Combat!!!

2 Likes
10

The OP said assassination or hemo. There was no mention of combat. My preference of the 2 was assassination. And use a macro for weapon swapping so that you can get your ambushes in. You have to wait for energy regardless.

5 Likes
11

You -=REALLY=- don’t want to use daggers while leveling, honestly.

Having to constantly gouge and wait on energy to backstab or use a limp version of sinister strike with a 1.8 dagger is recipe for making the entire process way slower and more painful than it needs to be…

So that nukes Assassination tree from the topic… So now you’re looking at Sub vs Combat…

Well, here’s the thing, you won’t get hemo until 30 at earliest (and that’s with respeccing 2 points back out of improved Sinister Strike for levels 10-29)

Now compare what you get along the way… A bunch of nearly useless (for leveling) stealth talents, some dodge talents, and some minor CP generator talents, but very little in the way of effective DAMAGE talents… Combat, on the other hand, gets damage from 18 out of 21 of the talents points on the way to 30, a flat 5% melee damage reduction via parry (that also is a damage talent since you parry-haste your mainhand), a second nuke that also reduces damage taken via disarming the target, a significantly stronger cc-gouge, a damage cooldown that lets you fight two mobs at once, oh… and 5% hit.

Don’t reinvent the wheel here, go combat for leveling.

7 Likes
12

I really dont understand why people prefer combat for leveling. Without putting points into camouflage and master of deception and also improved sap, stealth is pretty much useless lol.
I ALWAYS level as sublety. Those talents plus 2 sets of cooldowns, shorter blind and vanish cooldown…

4 Likes
13

Remember sap ALWAYS breaks stealth without the talent. And you walk incredibly slow without the talent. And mobs spot you SO easily without the talent. You’re basically a fury warrior with energy.

3 Likes
14

I, honestly, have no experience with either Hemo or Assassination leveling or otherwise.

If I had to pick one I’d personally go with assassination as it just seems more fun for me.

:cocktail:

15

Combat Swords is the leveling spec. Hands down it is grossly more efficient during the 1-60 grind and it is also by far the best PvE damage for raiding at end-game. It doesn’t start to be chased by Seal Fate or Combat Daggers until well into T2 gear and even in absolutely full Naxx BiS Combat Swords is 8-10% ahead of them. This is compounded if you’re Human.

Personally? I level Subtlety. I love the flexibility of Hemo, the combat potential of both Premed and Preparation and the improved Stealth talents in the tree are downright painful to play without. It’s a far worse leveling spec than Combat (and is actually -really- ugly for soloing until the 30s when you start to pick up more control) but it’s better for your PvP adventures and with duo-leveling or a group (for those tasty backstabs) it becomes quite viable.

As a note, on most Private Servers you can “Frontstab” by quickly strafing in the mob’s hitbox due to most of them having really bad server response times. This was never possible in Vanilla and it was tested and found impossible on the Classic Demo. Frontstabbing allowed things like Sealfate and Hemo daggers to be great for leveling and this just won’t be the case.

TL:DR - Combat Swords is so far ahead of any other leveling specs and end-game raiding specs that you’d have to be a big time PvP fan or a big time masochist to level as anything else.

4 Likes
16

That’s because stealth IS pretty much useless early on, even with those talents. You don’t get cheapshot until 26, and ambush means using a dagger, which is already slower than just sinister spamming with combat. Beyond that, stealth is almost impractically slow in the early ranks (which can destroy your killing efficiency), and a good chunk of the time you will be ranged pulling regardless to avoid getting adds.

Sub’s issue is that the spec requires significant gear to scale off of, and talents in assassination backing it up to function properly (like Relentless strikes)… It also heavily depends on a very slow weapon… None of those are things you are going to have while leveling (save MAYBE a slow mainhand for a few levels at a time)… If you want to get cute with a dagger build, wait until near 60 and duo Plugger in BRD for a barman shanker and then use that until you can get something else pre-raid (since the bleed proc wastes a debuff slot, you won’t want a shanker as your weapon in raids)

2 Likes
17

Are swords better in raid?

18

I remember hating almost every minute playing my rogue. I think i dropped two of them in the mid 40s on EU before knuckling down with one eventually when i moved to US servers. It was only when i finally specced into sin that i loved playing one. But only really in AB and wsg or random world pvp. Solo world play still has that one massive restriction: positioning. And that kills your flow completely. So it’s definitely something you need to take on board.

As for raid I rolled combat daggers (same - in fact WORSE - world issues - burst is traded off for sustain and chances are you will not have prep making you a classic five minute rogue and cant really take advantage of ar/bf to grind down groups because um, positioning again).
The spec was always amazing, particularly on sneaky trash padding in raids. And so long as it was fairly static, you’d be delivering the meaty hits and sustain your team wants.

And that’s why id strongly recommend you just go combat swords :slight_smile: You do almost the same, but you arent stuck with positioning garbage so can just slam the enemy down in every part of the game… not to mention you can take full advantage of ar/bf in the world creating borderline extinction events like your frost mage friends. The pirate camp in tanaris for example.

1 Like
19

You spelt Combat wrong twice.

2 Likes
20

I think the jury is still out on this… I distinctly remember in vanilla(One of my mains was a rogue), Daggers were ahead of swords until AQ and Naxx, where then they were pretty much dead even… to sword being better than daggers by 1-2% in Naxx in practice(not theorycraft) due to mobility.

This may be a spot where private servers are off.

As far as leveling, I agree… except I like the luxory of the subtely talents, like Imp Sap, improved stealth, prep, etc.
You die a lot less.

1 Like