Outlaw Rogue Leveling Guide from 1 to 80 — The War Within (11.2.5)

Unfortunately, Rogue has often been cited as the single worst class to level in World of Warcraft. Fret not, however, as it is still more than capable of dealing with the leveling journey just fine, even if it will take you a little longer than your friends who may have chosen a different class than you. Once you hit max-level, you'll surpass them in no time and be thankful you spent the time to pick Rogue!

One of the biggest strengths of Rogue during leveling is its ability to simply sneak past many nuisances. With clever use of Blind, Vanish, Sap and other CC abilities, you can often loot important quest items and then simply Vanish to disappear without having to kill a single enemy.

Whenever your Evasion is off cooldown, it is worth pulling many mobs simultaneously and simply avoiding all damage they deal. Crimson Vial has a low cooldown, so make sure to use it and the new Recuperate spell to heal up between pulls. Dungeons are a solid choice to level as well, once you get access to Blade Flurry, as it will allow you to contribute good AoE damage at all stages of the leveling journey.

When leveling up, you should always choose the piece of loot with the highest item level. The only exception to this rule is if you have a Ring or Necklace with a slightly lower item level but two secondary stats on it instead of one.

When using Heirloom items, we recommend using those with Haste, as they will slightly improve the gameplay flow while leveling.

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Talents are passives or abilities that you can choose from to optimize your character or change how some of your regular abilities work. Many of these are only passive abilities that do not alter the way you play the game or the order in which you use your abilities. Some, however, are big milestones on your way to max level, and you should aim for these talents as soon as possible.

At Level 10, you can allocate your first Talent Point into your Class Talent tree.

At Level 11, you can allocate your first Talent Point into your Outlaw Talent tree.

At Level 12, you can allocate a second Talent Point into your Class Talent tree. This process alternates every level, and you will be able to spend 31 Talent Points in your Class tree and 30 Talent Points in your Outlaw Talent tree by the time you reach Level 70.

At Level 71, you will be able to pick from a Hero Talent tree. We highly recommend you pick Fatebound as it is the stronger of the two trees at max level while also providing some neat bonuses for leveling like a double Grappling Hook.

If you play with War Mode on, we recommend Enduring Brawler, Boarding Party and Take Your Cut as your War Mode talents.

As you level up, some of your abilities will be replaced with spec-specific ones, i.e., at Level 22, Eviscerate will be replaced with Dispatch. At other times, new abilities will join your rotational priority list. Some of these you will learn automatically as you level, others you will talent into. If you follow the Point-by-Level path of our Talent Calculator, this guide will immediately tell you how to use these new abilities efficiently.

Starting at Level 1, you only have one main attack ability: Sinister Strike.

1. Cast Eviscerate once you have 4+ Combo Points to spend them.
2. Use Sinister Strike to build up Combo Points.

1. Cast Ambush when you can open from Stealth, or whenever the ability to cast it is granted to you in some other way.
2. Use Adrenaline Rush on cooldown. Ideally, you want to try and pull multiple enemies when it is up so that you do not waste its uptime on running between enemies.
3. When fighting more than one enemy, use Blade Flurry. Try to always hit the highest health target with your abilities while it is active.
4. Cast Roll the Bones whenever it is off cooldown.
5. Cast Slice and Dice to spend your Combo Points and maintain the buff.
6. Use Between the Eyes on cooldown with 4+ Combo Points.
7. Cast Eviscerate to spend excess Combo Points.
8. Cast Dispatch to spend excess Combo Points.
9. Cast Pistol Shot when you get an Opportunity proc unless it will cause you to overcap Combo Points.
10. Cast Sinister Strike unless you have 4+ Combo Points.

Outlaw Rogues have a few tools at their disposal that make fighting multiple enemies easier or that allow you to avoid debilitating effects.

• Kick allows you to interrupt an enemy that is casting a spell. Use this frequently to avoid the damage you would otherwise be taking if the spell cast finishes.
• Crimson Vial lets you heal 20% of your max Health over 4 seconds. Use this whenever you need the healing or when you are between pulls.
• Sap lets you control any Humanoid, Beast, Demon, or Dragon for up to 60 seconds. Use this to keep a single enemy from joining the fight before you open on a group of enemies from stealth. This crowd control breaks when the enemy takes damage. Try to avoid hitting it with any of your abilities that hit multiple targets, or it will join the fight.
• Kidney Shot can be used to stun a single opponent for up to 6 seconds. Use this to interrupt a dangerous cast or simply not take damage from an enemy. Some NPCs might be immune to stuns.
• Evasion increases your chance to dodge incoming melee and ranged attacks by 100% for 10 seconds. Use this whenever it is available to you while you are fighting multiple enemies. You can only dodge enemy attacks when facing them.
• Grappling Hook is a very powerful movement ability. This can sometimes allow you to traverse to a higher elevation or can be used to completely negate fall damage, saving you valuable time while leveling.
• Vanish removes you from sight. This essentially resets all enemies you are in combat with. If you happen to be close to death and you do not feel that using any other defensive or offensive ability might let you finish off all the enemies you are engaged with, use Vanish to survive.
• Blind allows you to control an enemy for up to 60 seconds. This can be used from stealth or outside of it. The crowd-control effect breaks when the target takes damage, so make sure not to hit it with any of your AoE abilities or use Blind when the enemy is afflicted with one of your damage over time effects.
• Cloak of Shadows removes and makes you immune to magical effects for 5 seconds. This allows you to potentially remove damage over time effects that could break your Stealth, allow you to take less damage, or simply avoid certain crowd control or damaging effects.

In this section, we will rank the PvP talents best for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content. Below is a ranking of both General PvP Talents and Outlaw Rogue-specific PvE talents.

1. Take Your Cut causes you and allies within 8 yards to gain 15% Haste for 8 seconds after you use Roll the Bones. It is fairly good since it acts as a mini- Adrenaline Rush and has decent uptime when you are questing in the open-world.
2. Boarding Party makes Between the Eyes increase the movement speed of all friendly players within 10 yards by 30% for 5 seconds. Movement speed is always nice while leveling, so this is highly recommended.
3. Enduring Brawler increases the chance of your Sinister Strike to strike an additional time by 1% for every 3 seconds that you are in combat. This stacks up to 15 times, and you lose 1 stack for each second you spend out of combat. This is a great pick if you plan on staying in combat for a long time, or have minimal downtime between engaging with enemies.
4. Control is King allows your Cheap Shot to grant Slice and Dice and Kidney Shot will restore Energy when used. Both of these enable you to use these abilities instead of Ambush or Envenom if need be, while still providing DPS benefits. If you have more regular downtimes so, that Enduring Brawler is not worth playing; this is the best third choice.