Rogue

The rogue is a lightly armored class that specializes in melee damage. Rogue combat centers around using instant attacks to build combo points, which are used to unleash more powerful finishing moves on the target. With their distinctive stealth ability, rogues are capable of sneaking through the shadows unnoticed, dispatching their foe in a whirl of attacks, then vanishing from sight. Rogues can also stifle their opponents with a variety of poisons, bleeds, stuns, and other disabling effects. Rogues are renowned for their elusiveness, having a number of defensive abilities that make them adept at running away. Many of the rogue's abilities depend on their ever-replenishing pool of energy.

The primary rogue attributes are agility and stamina. Rogues are also interested in haste, critical strike, hit, and expertise. Rogues can wear only leather or cloth armor, are unable to use shields, and can wield only one-handed weapons (daggers, swords, axes, maces, and fist weapons) and ranged weapons. They can dual wield one-handed weapons upon creation, in a way compensating for their inability to use two-handed weapons.

Background
Rogues are Azeroth's legerdemains. They possess a wide range of skills that allow them to accomplish feats from disarming traps to finding secret doors to smacking a magic item until it works. They are decent in a fight, and if they can strike quickly or unseen — or are flanking an enemy with the help of a thoughtful ally — they can be truly deadly. Of course, they also excel at stealth.

The rogues of Azeroth are the masters of subterfuge, skilled and cunning adversaries of those who dare not look into the shadows to see what lurks there. Roguery is a profession for those who seek the adventures of stalking and silent forests, dimly lit halls and heavily guarded strongholds. Using trickery in combat and able to vanish at the slightest distraction, the rogue is a welcome addition to any group of adventurers. Ideal spies, deadly to those they can catch unaware, rogues have no problem finding a place in the world. Deadly masters of stealth, rogues are the whispers in shadowy corners and the hooded figures crossing dark fields. Skilled with daggers and the art of silent death, these vagabonds and bandits skulk about Azeroth seeking targets and profit. A member of almost any race can learn the tricks necessary to become a skilled rogue. Still, for the Tauren and Draenei, such a profession is an alien concept and therefore rare (if not non-existent) among those peoples (Clip-clop Clip-clop Anyone?). Rogues can be found among all races on Azeroth. Whether they are diplomats, spies, thieves, scoundrels, entertainers, or simply adventurers, you can find them plying just about any trade from Mount Hyjal to Ratchet.



For as long as there were dark alleys and needs for dark services, there have been rogues, and thus they are one of the oldest professions in Azeroth. Rogues are a diverse class, and they are typically made up from the dregs of society — cutthroats, pirates, robbers, and low-lifes. The only code rogues live by is the contract, and their word is only as good as the money their services are bought for. The diverse aspects of their trade requires rogues to be well versed in lockpicking, toxicology, rudimentary alchemy and brawling. In combat, rogues rely on the element of surprise, and tactics which are regarded by most as vile and cowardly. They are rarely seen entering a fight without weapons laced in poisons and ample supplies of everything from bombs to elixirs in their backpacks. Their attacks concentrate on weak points in the body in an attempt to finish fights brutally and quickly. Rogues play prominent roles in every aspect of society — albeit, they will rarely be written in history books because their involvements will be largely unknown to the common person, but they are always there, greatly affecting the flow of events from the shadows.



From the high-contract assassin hired in secret by respected noblemen to the lowly street mugger, rogues are the ones called upon when maintaining the status quo requires a questionable solution — and by fulfilling it, are branded as outcasts by the very society that calls upon their service.

In Azeroth several rogues are free agents, though most prefer to join a guild for safety and ease of employment. Ravenholdt and the Syndicate are examples of said guilds. Other recognized rogue organizations include the Shattered Hand, the Deathstalkers and 7.

Races


The following races can play the rogue class:

Attributes
Rogues depend on the following primary attributes:
 * Agility - Increases attack power, critical strike, and dodge. Agility is often a rogue's best stat.
 * Stamina - Increases health. While not a priority for rogues compared to other stats, stamina is necessary to stay alive. Most rogue gear pairs agility with stamina.

Rogues also desire the following secondary attributes:
 * Attack power - Increases the damage per second of melee weapons. This is mainly derived from agility (2 AP), but is sometimes found on items as a raw stat.
 * Haste - Increases attack speed and makes energy recover more quickly.
 * Critical strike - Improves the chance that attacks do extra damage.
 * Hit - Improves the chance of hitting the target with weapons and poisons.
 * Expertise - Reduces the chance that attacks are dodged or parried.
 * Mastery - Improves mastery ability (Potent Poisons, Main Gauche, or Executioner, depending on spec).

Strength is not a good stat for rogues; while it does increase melee attack power (1 AP per point of strength), agility does that and more. Rogues use no mana, so intellect, spirit, and related caster stats are completely useless. Items containing dodge, parry, or extra armor are usually tanking items that rogues should avoid. Resilience is only useful to rogues who PvP; it is completely useless for PvE.

Equipment


Rogues can use five types of melee weapons: daggers, fist weapons, one-handed maces, one-handed swords, and one-handed axes. They dual wield, which means they can equip a weapon in each hand when most classes can equip only one; the trade-off, however, is an increased chance to miss with each weapon and reduced damage from the off-hand. Rogues cannot equip two-handed weapons or shields. A rogue's choice of weapon typically reflects their talent specialization: the Assassination and Subtlety trees favor the use of daggers, while the Combat tree favors the use of swords, axes, maces, and fist weapons. In order to optimize damage, rogues must pay attention to the weapon speed and damage per second of the weapon in each hand.

Rogues can also use four types of ranged weapons: thrown weapons, bows, crossbows, and guns. Thrown is preferred for a rogue because Fan of Knives and Deadly Throw require a thrown weapon and it is the only type of ranged weapon that can be poisoned. Rogues are not designed for sustained ranged combat and typically they will only use Throw or Shoot to pull mobs, finish off fleeing enemies, or pad their DPS during boss flight phases.

Rogues wear leather armor. Leather is weaker than the mail and plate worn by other melee classes, making rogues more "squishy." To compensate for this, rogues have an array of defensive abilities to improve their survivability, including Evasion, Sprint, Vanish, Cloak of Shadows and Combat Readiness. Rogues can also wear cloth, but this is not recommended, as virtually all cloth items are intended for casters. Rogues also benefit from Leather Specialization (rogue) when wearing only leather.

Melee combat
Rogues specialize in melee combat. A large portion of a rogue's damage comes from auto-attacks and poisons, but they can increase their damage using a variety of offensive abilities. Many abilities require energy, a resource with a fixed capacity that is spent quickly and regenerates quickly. Certain abilities are instant attacks that add up to five combo points to the target ("builders"); these combo points can then be used to execute finishing moves that last longer or are more powerful per combo point ("finishers"). Rogues also have powerful opening moves that can only be used from stealth ("openers"), as well as cooldown-restricted abilities that greatly increase damage for a short period of time ("cooldowns"). The following are examples of offensive rogue abilities categorized according to this terminology:
 * Openers: Ambush, Garrote, Cheap Shot
 * Builders: Sinister Strike, Backstab, Mutilate, Hemorrhage, Revealing Strike, Shiv
 * Finishers: Eviscerate, Slice and Dice, Rupture, Envenom, Expose Armor
 * Cooldowns: Vendetta, Killing Spree, Adrenaline Rush, Shadow Dance

Stealth
Rogues have the ability to stealth, which makes them essentially invisible to enemies their level and lower. Stealthed rogues are detectable at close range, though will remain stealthed and appear translucent. Many rogue abilities require stealth, and others require being behind the target, which is often achievable only in stealth. Some abilities, notably Sprint and Distract, interact well with stealth, but normally using any ability or performing any action will break stealth.

Stealth opens up a range of tactics and roles for rogues. Groups may rely on a rogue's stealth ability to scout dungeons, and to use Sap for added crowd control. In PvP, stealth combined with burst damage gives an element of surprise that can be especially effective against cloth-wearers. Stealth also enables rogues to bypass mobs that other classes would be forced to engage, which is useful for solo play.

In addition to stealth, rogues have a number of other "sneaky" abilities, such as the ability to detect and disarm traps, pickpocket mobs, and pick locks (breaks stealth).

Poisons


Rogues are the only class that can coat their weapons with poisons. Poisons are purchased from poison vendors and are applied to the weapon as a 60 minute buff that does not stack with similar enhancements (such as sharpening stones). Poisons generally either cause damage to the target (either instantly or as damage over time) or other hindering effects (slowing the target, reducing the effectiveness of healing on the target). Each weapon, including thrown weapons, can have different poisons applied to it, and faster weapons will cause the poison to proc more often. Poisons are a core aspect of the rogue class and should be used whenever possible. Poisons can be enhanced with talents, the majority of which are found within the Assassination tree.

Disabling effects
Rogues have a number of ways to harm their enemies aside from raw damage. Note that diminishing returns apply to all effects that cause players to lose control of their character (stun, incapacitate, fear, etc.).
 * Stun: Cheap Shot, Kidney Shot
 * Incapacitate: Sap, Gouge
 * Disorient: Blind
 * Disarm: Dismantle

Elusiveness
Rogues are adept at running away. Sprint allows a rogue a temporary running speed boost, and Glyph of Blurred Speed allows a Sprinting rogue to run across water. Glyph of Sprint increases Sprint's speed boost by 30%. Vanish allows a rogue to disappear from combat and enter a unbreakable stealth mode for 3 seconds, making it so the rogue wont be taken out of stealth by any damaging affects. With Glyph of Vanish, a rogue gets 2 extra seconds of unbreakable stealth.

Talents


At level 10 rogues may specialize in any of three talent trees. Each tree primarily fulfills a melee damage role:


 * Assassination - "A deadly master of poisons who dispatches victims with vicious dagger strikes."
 * Combat - "A swashbuckler who uses agility and guile to stand toe-to-toe with enemies."
 * Subtlety - "A dark stalker who leaps from the shadows to ambush his or her unsuspecting prey."

End-game expectations
Your main priority in raiding is maximizing melee DPS, while staying alive. Put your threat reducing abilities (namely, Feint, Vanish and Tricks of the Trade) to good use, use them before you gain aggro. As with all melee DPS classes, rogues are expected to come to raids with ample supplies of Flasks, Potion of Speeds, food, poisons and bandages. Depending on particular situation, rogues may not get many heals. If that's the case, rogues should use Recuperate, Potions, Healthstone's, or Bandages.

Since the release of the Burning Crusade expansion, most raid instances were built to accommodate rogue poisons and the immunity to them has all but been removed. All WotLK bosses are susceptible to rogue poisons.

Also rogues are wanted to be utilized as interrupters at some bosses such as Kel'Thuzad and General Vezax, and can be asked to dismantle in instances like Onyxia's Lair.