Rogue Class Guide — Class Guides · WoW Burning Crusade
A leather-wearing melee fighter who builds combo points with Energy and spends them on finishing moves. Rogues open from stealth, stun and blind enemies, and poison their weapons.
- Roles
- Damage
- Specializations
- 3
- Popular builds
- 7
- Version
- WoW Burning Crusade
How the rogue plays
Rogues still build combo points with Energy and spend them on finishers, and keeping Slice and Dice up is still the core of their damage. The Burning Crusade adds Mutilate, Envenom, Shiv, Deadly Throw, Shadowstep and Cloak of Shadows.
Cloak of Shadows removes harmful spells and ignores new ones for a few seconds, a huge tool against casters. With Vanish and Evasion, rogues are very hard to pin down.
Raids want rogues for steady damage; arenas want them for stuns, Sap and Blind.
Strengths and weaknesses
Strengths
- Excellent single-target damage.
- Cloak of Shadows, Vanish and Evasion make rogues hard to pin down.
- The best openers and stun-locks.
Weaknesses
- Weak area damage: only Blade Flurry.
- Energy caps how fast you can act.
- Leather armour and high threat.
Specializations
The specs compared
Each spec rated from 1 to 5 at what it does in WoW Burning Crusade. Single and several targets mean damage for damage specs, healing for healers and threat for tanks; a spec's own guide names its ratings for its role.
| Rating |  Assassination |  Combat |  Subtlety |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single target | |||
| Several targets | |||
| Survivability | |||
| Utility | |||
| Solo and leveling | |||
| Ease of play |
- Assassination
Damage · 2 builds
Crits, poisons and stronger finishing moves.
Top talent:
Assassination guide
Mutilate - Combat
Damage · 3 builds
Sustained weapon damage: weapon specializations, Blade Flurry and Adrenaline Rush. The usual leveling tree.
Top talent:
Combat guide
Surprise Attacks - Subtlety
Damage · 2 builds
Stealth and openers, with control and burst for player-versus-player fights.
Top talent:
Subtlety guide
Shadowstep
Gear
- Leather with Agility, hit, expertise, haste and crit.
- Hit to 9% (142 rating) for special attacks, less Precision; dual-wield white swings gain from hit well past it.
- Expertise lowers the chance your attacks are dodged.
Each spec guide ranks its stats and says what to look for on its gear.
Rogue class quests
The quests that unlock class abilities, by the level each route starts at.
- 20Poisons