General Warcraft Strategies to Keep in Mind When Playing a Rogue

Playing a rogue in the world of warcraft is an extremely fun thing to do. The relative simplicity of the class does little, however, to deter questions such as the following:

*zomg WHY didn't my healer heal me?

*Why do I always die in 5 man's?!

*Why is my damage crappy compared to other classes?!

Before diving into specifics, let's just review what the rogue class does: the rogue is primarily concerned with doing damage (and lots of it), while also being a crowd-controller (to a lesser extent). This simple review of the function of the class should tell you a couple of things, namely:

*You can't do your primary task, to do lots of damage, when you are dead--so don't forget to have ENOUGH stamina.

*Take advantage of the rogue's variety of crowd-controlling mechanics: you have more than sap available to you!

I see a lot of rogues that are ONLY concerned with damage. If a monster is attacking a healer in a group, I sometimes notice that the rogue doesn't change any of his combat tactics to help the group out. This is more of a concern in 5-man dungeons/instances. If you notice your healer getting rocked, and your tank cannot or is not doing anything about it, consider the following:

*gouge, kidney shot, or vanish (be careful with this one, it wipes aggro and the second person on the aggro list becomes the first person, so hope it's not the priest) the current mob you are fighting and sprint or just get your butt over to your healer. Once there, gouge, kick, kidney shot, blind, slow (via crippling poison) and otherwise contain the monster while trying to bring it back to the tank (assuming the tank is alive). If and when the monster is close enough to the tank, the tank can taunt and the fight can be controllable again. If the monster is landing hard hits on you, pop evasion and pray that you dodge the big hits. Otherwise, vanish at the last opportunity if you can, blind and bandage, or sacrifice yourself for your group (in most cases, a healer surviving at the expense of a rogue is a win overall for the group)

*remember not to let yourself die--rogues are squishier than they often give themselves credit for. Our dodge chances have been reduced a lot and "evasion tanking" isn't as viable as it once was. If you take a couple of hits from most any monster of equal or higher level, you will die.

*DON'T EXPECT HEALS---but DO watch your healer! If you are dying a lot and usually do not die frequently, consider keeping a closer eye on your healer. If your healer appears to be AFK during trash pulls, and you're experiencing the implications of it, then you need to communicate this with your group so that a change can be made. Other than that, in general you should NOT expect heals and bandage when and if necessary!

Other group-function questions:

*Why isn't my damage that good, I thought that rogues were damage dealers?
When facing this question, you really need to ask yourself other questions to see your lackluster performance can be explained away. First, some fights are simply BAD for melee-type classes (e.g. first boss in Mana Tombs). Don't judge yourself to be a horrible player because of one boss. Look at the meters after each boss and total them, THEN make a call.

Look at your talent specialization build! Sorry folks, subtlety is fun but worthless for doing sustained damage over time (unless you are particularly ingenious and make ideal use of cooldowns and DoT's) Combat swords, combat daggers, full assassination spec's, and combat fists will do some great damage for you.

If you have a good talent build but are still lacking in the damage meters, consider the gear of other group members. A fully epic holy paladin will and can beat out a green/blue rogue in some cases. Keep that in mind.

ALWAYS, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, HAVE SLICE AND DICE UP IN PVE. The following is an ideal combo point strategy for combat swords:

Sinister strike, sinister strike, slice and dice---rinse and repeat. If you're really needing to get poison on your target fast, consider substituting one of the initial sinister strikes for a shiv.

I hope all of this very general information was useful! At the least, I hope you remember to mind your SnD's (Slice and Dice's) and your BLINDING POWDER.