How to Be a Successful Rogue in World of Warcraft

Rogues have a lot going for them: massive melee DPS, unparalleled stealthing ability and the ability to dominate PVP! There are a few essential things you need to know to get your Rogue started, but once you've got the gist of it, there's no telling where you can go and who you might get to gank in the back!

Instructions

1. Take leatherworking and skinning. This will provide you with armor for most of your adventuring career and the supplies to make armor. Rogues are limited to leather and cloth armor and since nearly all cloth gear is meant for casters, there's not much for Rogues.

2. Learn to balance your stealth. There is a fine line between using stealth to avoid potentially disastrous conflicts and using it to take the easy way out. Don't use stealth too often, particularly around mobs that are easily defeated. By constantly stealthing past manageable targets, you deprive yourself of valuable items and XP.

3. Come out swinging! Stealthing isn't just for hiding! You can sap enemies while stealthed, or sneak up behind an enemy and backstab them. Doing the latter removes your stealth, but it provides you with an excellent opening move to a fight.

4. Go to the battlegrounds! Rogues were born to PVP! No other class can cripple an enemy player as quickly and efficiently as a Rogue. Rogues are also a nightmare to face in Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley where they can sap a player, then capture a flag before the sap wears off and return to finish their victim.

5. Learn to Lockpick! At level 16, your local Rogue trainer will give you a quest to obtain the Thief's Tools and the Lockpick skill. Take the quest. Lockpicking opens up a whole new world of money-making possibilities!

6. Keep an eye on the trade channel. Lots of people pick up lockboxes and only Rogues can open them. Your services as a lockpicker can fetch you some nice tips, as well as more lockpicking experience!

7. Try not to get carried away. While Rogues are melee damage machines, their damage potential is focused on a single enemy, building up combo points towards a finishing move. Rogues quickly get bogged down by huge mobs, which can spell disaster for someone wearing leather armor.

8. Keep them at bay. Rogues have several abilities that keep enemies from doing what they want to do. Gogue, kick, sap, kidney shot and blind will hinder enemies and allow you more time to take them down.

9. Keep your reagents stocked! A lot of Rogue abilities require reagents: flash powder, poison ingredients and the like. Keep them handy. You never know when you'll need them.

Tips & Warnings

• Remember that locks, like tradeskills, are color coded. Red locks cannot be picked, orange ones are a surefire skill point, yellow are a good chance for a skill point, green is a low chance and grey gives you nothing.