World of Warcaft: Combat Rogue PvP / Rogue Builds

A lot of Rogues in World of Warcraft will try and tell you that if you make a Combat Rogue, you may as well have been a warrior. With my Combat Rogue, I get that all the time. What these players fail to realize is that Combat Rogues in World of Warcraft are an entirely different breed than a Fury Warrior or an Arms Warrior. We don't wear plate, so we get some other cool moves that allow us to take some more punishment. After all, when you're combat you're going to need it. Let's go over the spec and see how to use it!

Combat Tree:

Tier 1:

Dual Wield Specialization is key here. Right from the beginning, those people that said we were Warriors were proven wrong. Who else can say they have such a powerful talent on their Tier 1 skill tree. Pump 5 points into Dual Wield specialization because you're going to do a hell of a lot more damage with it.

Tier 2:

With "hit" being all that much more important nowadays, you're going to want to grab precision in this tier. Not only does it give you a 5% better chance to hit, but it also gives your poisons another 5% chance. In reality, since your poisons are getting that 5% from the regular hit and the 5% just for poisons, you're going to have a 10% better chance to hit with poison attacks. It's cheap, it's nice and it can win you battles. Take it. We're also going to want to take Deflection. Parry isn't too important for a Rogue, but it'll allow us to get riposte next Tier, and that's worth it.

Tier 3:

Riposte. Also take Endurance. It's going to decrease your cooldowns on Sprint and Evasion quite a bit, by as much as 40% and increase your Stamina. The Rogue is a cooldown class. That means that often times, you're going to have to bust some cooldowns to win the fight. What better way to use them efficiently than to get the cooldown reduced on two of your most powerful ones! Max that sucker out!

Tier 4:

Aggression is going to give you 15% more damage to Sinister Strike, Eviscerate and Backstab. That's huge! I'm speccing as sword spec right now, so you won't be backstabbing, but you'll sure be using Sinister Strike and Eviscerate. That's a huge damage increase, and it's going to prove to be your bread and butter of burst damage as you fight more and more. You'll get the hang out what you're damage is with this talent and what it was without it. Trust me, you won't go back.

Tier 5:

You might be wondering why we haven't spec'd a specialization in a weapon yet. Well, ultimately that's up to you. I'm just providing a backbone for the build. Ultimately I chose swords. That's just my style. If you're going swords as well, you can go ahead and pump 5 points into Sword Specialization on this tier. Whatever you do, before you're done with Tier 5, take Blade Flurry. It essentially lets you kill 2 people for the costs and energy expenditures of one. Very efficient stuff.

Tier 6:

Blade Twisting makes you do more damage and also has a chance to daze the target you're currently fighting. Not bad if you consider how many battles you've lost or given up going after after your target ran away from you. This will help to prevent that from happening again. Weapon Expertise gives you guess what?....Expertise. Expertise = good stuff and hard to come by. Whenever you can get it from something or somewhere, take it.

Tier 7:

Adrenaline Rush is about as burst damage as Combat Spec gets. That being said, it's not just going to give you a bit more burst damage, but it's going to allow you to spam (use over and over) your utility moves as well. With this ability you'll have an almost unlimited amount of energy to spend. Use it until your heart's content!

Tier 8:

Comat Potency gives you a 20% chance to restore 15 energy when dealing damage with your offhand weapon. It doesn't seem like much but when the only difference between a win and a loss is that little bit of extra energy, and you don't have it, you're dead. Think about it. Gaining energy is always, always a good thing. This is a great talent to max out.

Tier 9:

Surprise Attacks gets rid of your opponent's dodge chance. That's huge. Savage combat is going to increase your damage against targets you've poisoned (which will happen by default), and gives you some extra attack power. If this took 5 points, i'd be upset but since it only takes 2, well, it's awesome.

Tier 10:

Prey on the Weak - Yep!

Tier 11:

Killing Spree!

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