Combat Rogue

Overview

Talents and builds

Level 60 build

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Raid build

The raid build moves 12 points from Improved Gouge (3), Remorseless Attacks (2), Improved Sinister Strike (1), Camouflage (5) and 1 more to Murder (1), Relentless Strikes (1), Lethality (5), Aggression (3) and 1 more.

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Key talents

• Adrenaline Rush1/1Increases your Energy regeneration rate by 100% for 15 sec
• Weapon Expertise2/2Reduces the chance for your attacks to be Dodged or Parried by 2%
• Hack and Slash5/5Gives your melee weapon attacks a benefit depending on the weapon. Axe/Sword: Your successful melee attacks have a 5% chance to trigger an extra attack on the target. Dagger/Fist: Increases your critical strike chance by 5%. Mace: Your attacks ignore 15% of your target's armor
• Blade Flurry1/1Increases your melee attack speed by 20% and your melee attacks strike an additional nearby opponent. Lasts 15 sec
• Dual Wield Specialization5/5Increases the damage done by your off-hand weapon by 25%
• Flawless Execution1/1Reduces the Energy cost of your Eviscerate ability by 10

In rough priority order: Improved Sinister Strike lowers the energy cost of the spec’s main combo builder early, which compounds for the rest of a leveling or raiding career. Dual Wield Specialization adds flat off-hand damage, a straightforward multiplier once dual-wielding. Hack and Slash now treats axes the same way it always treated swords, folded into one shared weapon-type group — this is the talent behind Rogues gaining access to one-handed axes at all in Forever. Weapon Expertise, reworked to reduce the chance enemies dodge or parry attacks rather than raising weapon skill, is a flat damage-uptime gain. Blade Flurry adds attack speed and a second melee target, useful whenever there’s more than one target to hit. Adrenaline Rush, the tree’s capstone, doubles energy regeneration for 15 seconds and is the spec’s signature burst cooldown.

Point allocation runs deep into Combat to reach Adrenaline Rush at the bottom of the tree, roughly 31 points, with the remainder split as a few points in Assassination for crit and poison utility and a few in Subtlety for utility talents. Open the planner at /planner?class=rogue to build this out.

Rotation and priority

Open with Slice and Dice at three combo points, then spend combo points on Eviscerate at five: in this site’s simulator, keeping Slice and Dice up the whole fight measured worse than putting those combo points into Eviscerate, so after the opener the simulated priority does not spend more points on it. Use Adrenaline Rush on cooldown as the burst window (Blade Flurry goes up alongside it whenever it is ready), and build with Backstab when a dagger is in your main hand: it hits for 150% weapon damage against Sinister Strike’s 100%, and Puncturing Wounds adds crit and a chance at a second combo point to it. In this site’s simulator the Backstab version beat the Sinister Strike one by about 10%. With a sword or mace in the main hand Backstab cannot be cast, and Sinister Strike builds instead. There is no opener-specific sequencing beyond that in the current simulated priority, and the tree’s talent changes (cheaper Sinister Strike, stronger off-hand, Blade Flurry cleave) affect the numbers behind each swing rather than the order abilities are used in. Poisons are your weapon imbues: Deadly Poison on the main hand and Instant Poison on the off hand once Deadly is learned at 30. In this site’s simulator that beat two Instants by a few percent in a raid and by about 10% at levels 30 to 50, and it beat the same two poisons the other way round. Thistle Tea goes in whenever energy is near empty: 100 Energy on a 5 minute cooldown.

Stat priority

1. 1Hit
2. 2Agility
3. 3Critical strike
4. 4Strength
5. 5Attack power
6. 6Melee haste

Best in slot

Dual Wield Specialization makes off-hand weapon damage worth checking specifically when comparing two weapon options. A new stat reducing the target’s dodge and parry chance may appear on gear as itemization fills in, which is worth tracking alongside hit rating for a spec that depends on landing every Backstab or Sinister Strike.

Enchants and consumables

A raid shaman’s Windfury Totem is an aura on you, not a weapon enchant, so it stacks with your poisons; this site’s raid-preset numbers include it.

Races

• Human
• Orc
• Dwarf
• Night Elf (Recommended)
• Undead
• Gnome
• Troll (Recommended)
• High Order Skyborne
• Windshaper Skyborne

Night Elf is the Alliance pick: Elune's Light. Troll is the Horde pick: Berserking.

Professions

Community convention favors Engineering for combat utility items alongside a gathering profession such as Mining or Herbalism for self-funded leveling and consumables, since Combat’s damage doesn’t scale from a crafting profession the way a caster’s does.

Leveling

Outlined: points added in this level range.

Combat is generally the strongest of the three Rogue trees for leveling: Adrenaline Rush and consistent weapon damage clear trash faster than Assassination’s poison-uptime approach or Subtlety’s stealth-oriented kit.