Classic Rogue DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents

Rogues have a different build depending on whether they are using daggers or swords.

If you were looking for leveling builds, please refer to our leveling guide for Rogues.

This build is one of the best PvE Raiding build that you can use as a Rogue. This build will utilize the cooldowns Adrenaline Rush and Blade Flurry for good burst as a combat heavy build.

This build uses Sinister Strike as the main combo point generator. You also want to maintain your Slice and Dice buff at all times.

A major benefit of being a dagger Rogue is that the best PvP build also uses daggers, making it easier to gear for PvP if you are playing daggers in PvE. Just like swords, this build makes sure to get Blade Flurry, Adrenaline Rush, and Weapon Expertise, as they are just incredibly strong talents.

The main difference in the rotation of daggers is that you will be using Backstab as your main combo point generator and Ambush as your out of stealth opener. See the opener section in our rotation page.

If you are playing Horde, then you will not be using Instant Poison IV on your main hand in order to fully take advantage of the Shaman ability Windfury Totem. Because you will not be using Instant Poison IV on your main hand, then you will not need all 5 points in Improved Poisons, so as Horde, you can put 3 of those points into Improved Eviscerate.

This build is not particularly strong until we find ourselves in much later phases of Classic and is not recommended until we have access to Naxxramas gear..

Both main PvE builds for Rogue will go about half way into this talent tree, as it holds some very strong talents for Rogue in general.

Improved Eviscerate is sometimes run instead of Murder, depending on what type of targets you will be encountering.

Ruthlessness is run in the sword build for Rogue. This talent is very strong and, when it has all 3 points put into it, will net you a fair amount of combo points gained.

Improved Slice and Dice is a staple in both Rogue builds, since it helps you spend less combo points on maintaining the buff, which can be spent on other finishers such as Eviscerate.

Relentless Strikes is a strong choice that the swords build uses. The sword build does end up using more finishers in a fight than the dagger version does, thanks to the lower Energy cost of Sinister Strike as opposed to Backstab, and the talent Ruthlessness allows them to take advantage of this talent more effectively than dagger Rogue.

Cold Blood is run in the PvP build for Rogues and is best used to guarantee a critical hit on your Eviscerate. This talent is very powerful for PvE as well in the Seal Fate Dagger build.

Improved Sinister Strike nets you a total Energy cost reduction of 5, allowing you to cast more Sinister Strikes in a fight. This is a staple when it comes to the sword build for Rogues.

Sword Specialization can be run instead of using both Improved Gouge and Improved Sprint, if you would rather have the extra DPS instead of the utility. The chance on this talent proccing may be low, however in a long fight where you are attacking a lot, this does proc a decent amount.

Blade Flurry is one of the main reasons that both Rogue specs go so deep into the Combat talent tree. This is both a single-target and AoE cooldown providing you with a great amount of attack speed (which is very strong for Rogues) and is the only way, besides Engineering, that Rogues can AoE.

Weapon Expertise is a staple in both dagger and sword builds, since it offers you with a significant increase in your Weapon Skill, which is incredibly important for Rogues in PvE since Raid bosses are Level 63.

Adrenaline Rush is a super strong cooldown that increases your Energy ticks from 20 Energy per 2 seconds to 40 Energy for 2 seconds. This allows you to effectively Sinister Strike every 2 seconds.

Master of Deception is incredibly useful in gold farming and PvP, making it a staple in the PvP build.

Camouflage is super strong in the PvP and gold making builds. The increased speed while stealthed nets a 15% increase, which is a significant movement speed increase.

Hemorrhage is your main combo point generator in PvP if you are running the easier PvP build. When you are better geared, then you may end up making the change to the dagger build which does not run this talent and is a bit smoother on its damage.

Preparation is a cooldown that is very strong in PvP, since it allows you to perform your burst all over again, as you will also reset the cooldown on Cold Blood.