Rogue Guide

ng in a cave or near a mountain that has several mining spots. They are great places to stop while you regen between sets of mobs.

Crafting isn’t an ideal low level means of making money unless you don’t care too much about leveling.

Get in the habbit of pickpocketing every NPC you come across. This is tedious in very early levels as rank 1 stealth is so slow and you’re still getting used to sneaking up on opponents effectively, but it will get a lot easier. The money you make per PP is nominal, but you will be killing about 100,000 NPCs by the time you get to level 60.

People are always asking me how I made 179 gold before I hit level 40. I did it by solo grinding. I killed mobs close to my level with and without pickpocketing and sold the stuff I looted off of them. It’s that simple. What I didn’t do was split my loot in a group. I didn’t waste a bunch of money on purchasing equipment or grinding tradeskills. Argue all you want, but tradeskills cost money to grind. There’s always a financial sacrifice when it comes to crafting.

I made the mistake of not selling green items in the AH as often as I should. In fact I should have sold my cloth, leather, etc etc in the AH as well, but almost never did. I probably would have made 2-3 times as much. However, even without selling in the AH I was able to grind to 300 enchanting (which easily cost me 500g) and purchased my level 60 mount very shortly after reaching level 60.

I also happen to be the unluckiest guy in the game when it comes to getting world loot drops. I’ve seen 2, both were total garbage and I solo grind a lot for cash.

TRADESKILLS

Here are some of the best trade skills for rogue:

Skinning- This is an excellent skill for making extra cash. The loot that drops off beasts is typically horrible. The ability to skin them compensates for this quickly. It is also an essential trade skill for leatherworking. Skinning elite mobs can fetch a nice profit especially after you find Finkle’s skinner off the Beast in UBRS.

Leatherworking- Rogues can only wear leather armor so it’s nice to be able to make your own. However, the items you can make in leatherworking are pretty terrible. I mastered this profession in beta and didn’t like it. There are a couple of items that are pretty nice, but note that you will likely not wear most of the things you can make.

Engineering- This trade actually offers a lot of really amazing stuff for PvP. There are a lot of things that are great for the “cool” factor alone. This is a very difficult profession to grind but I promise you will like some the stuff you make.

First Aid- The healing from this trade is really nice. You can use it in combat and it’s nice to reduce your downtime between sets of mobs once in awhile. It’s also really use in PvP when you blind your opponent. It doesn’t take away from your 2 primary professions, so it is an absolute must have trade skill.

Alchemy- There are a lot of potions that really compliment the rogue’s abilities. This is another trade that is excellent for PvP but anyone can buy potions from someone else instead of making them. However, you will not find all of the potions you want all the time. I have 4 alchemists in the guild and can’t exactly ask them to make me 100 major healing pots or 100 free action pots when 250 guildmates are asking for the same thing. I rarely use potions, but that will change when I finish grinding out my warlock.

Cooking- Thistle tea instantly gives the rogue 100 energy. Another great tool for PvP.

EQUIPMENT

It is difficult to save for a mount when you’re constantly upgrading your equipment. Try to get the gear you need from quest rewards and instance boss drops.

Swords vs. Daggers- Ah the most tired argument to be had within our class. I prefer a sword in my main hand. I am always on the lookout for the highest min/max sword I can find. I don’t care about speed and even DPS is secondary to me. Sinister strike ignores weapon speed. Energy permitting I can spam it for massive damage once every second. Mathematically, opening with ambush and using backstab on a mob is superior to SS with a sword opening with cheap shot. In practical application daggers pale in comparison to swords when it comes to DPS. One could argue that they could open with ambush and use a weapon switch macro to use a sword for SS and have the best of both worlds. I’ve tried this. At the end of the day, ambush is just a poor opener for PvP because of the lack of stun and bad for instances because of aggro management. I just don’t like the tempo and playstyle.

If you go with swords you will want a Krol Blade a Dal'Rend's Sacred Charge or the holy grail of swords: Teebu's Blazing Longsword, which I had the displeasure of handing to the winner of the roll in the Molten Core raid I ran. So painful. They all have outstanding max damage.