Rogue Leveling Guide 70 to 80 for WotLK Classic

The following article will be a beginner-friendly leveling guide for the Rogue class, for WoW Classic: WotLK. This Rogue leveling guide will not be relevant to other classes within the game, nor will it be relevant to other expansions other than the one specified – as each expansion and class features differences within the leveling process. Furthermore, this guide is tailored specifically towards the Rogue class and its playable sub-classes or specializations.

This leveling guide is also not a complete quest-to-quest optimal route tutorial for the leveling process. But instead covers various important decisions that players of the Rogue class will have to make along the way, and is aimed at improving this experience for all players. For people playing a Rogue for the first time, or for those new to the WotLK expansion, where questing is much more difficult than other expansions, this guide will be especially useful.

The Rogue class is a melee damage-dealing class with only damage specs, and each of the three specs for the class excel at completely different playstyles.  Rogues are not the fastest or easiest class to level, although certain abilities can provide a lot of utility for the process such as Stealth which cloaks the user in invisibility. However, Rogues perform exceptionally well at PvP throughout all levels of the game, and furthermore, certain specs perform relatively well in PvE content at max level, making the class a viable option for the expansion.

Top 5 Tips for Leveling a Rogue 70 to 80

1 - Plan your Leveling Route

Before you start leveling your Rogue from 70 to 80 in WotLK Classic, it's important to plan your leveling route. This will help you optimize your time and ensure that you're taking the most efficient path to reach level 80. Research different zones and quests that are suitable for your level range and create a plan that allows you to complete them in a logical order. By having a clear leveling route, you can minimize downtime and maximize your experience gain, making the leveling process much smoother.

2 - Focus on Quests that Give the Most Experience

When leveling your Rogue from 70 to 80 in WotLK Classic, it's crucial to focus on quests that give the most experience. These quests typically involve killing elite mobs or completing challenging objectives. Look for quests that offer high experience rewards and prioritize them in your leveling route. Additionally, consider completing quests that have multiple objectives or can be completed in a short amount of time, as this will help you maximize your experience gain. By focusing on high-experience quests, you can level up faster and reach level 80 more efficiently.

3 - Utilize your Stealth Abilities to Avoid Unnecessary Fights

As a Rogue, one of your greatest strengths is your stealth abilities. Use this to your advantage when leveling from 70 to 80 in WotLK Classic. Avoid unnecessary fights by sneaking past mobs or using your stealth to pick off isolated enemies. This will save you time and energy, allowing you to focus on completing quests and gaining experience. Remember to always be aware of your surroundings and plan your route accordingly to minimize the number of fights you have to engage in. By utilizing your stealth abilities effectively, you can level up faster and more efficiently.

4 - Take Advantage of Dungeon Runs for Extra Experience

Dungeon runs can be a great way to gain extra experience while leveling your Rogue from 70 to 80 in WotLK Classic. Not only do dungeons provide a significant amount of experience, but they also offer the opportunity to obtain valuable gear upgrades. Look for groups or guilds that are running dungeons and join them whenever possible. Communicate with your group members to ensure a smooth and efficient run. Additionally, make sure to complete all dungeon quests available to maximize your experience gains. By incorporating dungeon runs into your leveling strategy, you can level up faster and acquire better gear along the way.

5 - Use your Crowd Control Abilities Effectively

As a Rogue leveling from 70 to 80 in WotLK Classic, your crowd control abilities are crucial for surviving and efficiently taking down enemies. Abilities like Sap, Blind, and Gouge can be used to incapacitate enemies and give you the upper hand in combat. Make sure to use these abilities strategically, targeting high-threat enemies or groups of enemies that could overwhelm you. By effectively utilizing your crowd control abilities, you can minimize damage taken and maximize your leveling speed. Practice and experimentation will help you master the art of crowd control and make your leveling experience much smoother.

General Rogue Leveling Tips

The following are some general tips that can be followed by Rogues throughout the leveling process and are aimed at improving the leveling experience:

• When being targeted by more than one enemy, pay attention to your defensive abilities such as Evasion and Blade Flurry, as these abilities can save you in a pinch and can allow you to easily kill multiple mobs at once.

• Utilize the Vanish ability as a safe option so that you can play a bit riskier. Rogues are not excellent classes at pulling multiple mobs at once and defeating them effectively – and so the Vanish ability is very useful with regards to being a get-out-of-jail-free card in a sense. 

• Rogues benefit from lots of crowd control abilities in their arsenal, such as Sap, Blind, Gouge, and Kidney Shot. Be sure to learn how these abilities work and use them often in combat to gain the upper hand.

• Most players neglect their ranged weapon when playing a melee-based class in WotLK, and Rogues are no exception. This ability can provide the means to pull enemies from afar without the need of getting close and potentially pulling more mobs.

• The Distract ability can be used to clear paths towards points of interest, or particular targets that you require for quests. This ability can, as the name implies, cause NPCs to deviate from their original path, which can allow Rogues to sneak up towards areas of interest. 

• As a Rogue, most of your damage is dealt via your weapons – and not abilities unlike other classes. As such, prioritize weapon upgrades over gear upgrades whilst leveling, as this will greatly increase the speed at which you can kill mobs. This will make leveling a much faster and efficient process.

Best Rogue Leveling Spec

When it comes to the specializations available for the Rogue class, Rogues have three options all are damage-dealing specs. These three specs are Assassination, Combat and Subtlety. Each of these specs however cover a very different aspect of gameplay, and so are tailored towards different playstyles which you as the player are free to decide. However, each spec also has different benefits and cons towards the leveling process.

Assassination is the weakest leveling spec compared to the other two. Assassination only really opens up and begins to be an alright spec to level at around level 50. This is when the class receives access to the Mutilate ability, and even then, at this level the other specs still outperform this spec when it comes to leveling. Assassination Rogues have excellent single target damage. This damage must be built up during combat, and as such, single target damage is not optimal for questing when you frequently have to kill multiple enemies at once.

Combat Rogues bring a much more optimal playstyle to the leveling experience, and bring a lot of benefits over the Assassination Rogue spec. For instance, Combat Rogues perform AoE damage much better than Assassination Rogues, and as such Combat Rogues can take on multiple enemies at once. This in turn provides a much faster and smoother leveling experience as quests that require you to kill a certain number of mobs can be done much faster. Combat Rogues also have much better survivability and defensive passives and abilities.

Subtlety on the other hand deals less damage than Combat Rogues, however, makes up for this with its arsenal of stealth and crowd control abilities. Which allows the class to navigate optimally throughout areas where there are lots of mobs and enemies. Single-target fights are relatively fast, but still slower than Combat Rogues.

In general, the fastest and most optimal spec out of the three for the Rogue class to level as is the Combat Rogue spec – which offers excellent burst damage, great AoE damage, and finally on-demand damage as opposed to damage that must be built up such as the other two Rogue specs. Combat Rogues are the best of the three Rogue specs for both questing and dungeon spamming, and so it is recommended that new players especially choose this spec when leveling – as you can always change to one of the other two specs at max level if you wish to do so. 

If you prefer a slower playstyle however, and possibly a safer option that doesn’t rely on AoE damage, players can also choose the Subtlety spec to level as. Subtlety will still outperform Assassination Rogues when it comes to leveling, however they lack the damage output and defensives that Combat Rogues possess which allows them to complete quests and level in a much more efficient manner.

Dungeons vs Questing

In Wrath of the Lich King, many players will opt for a dungeon-grinding strategy to accumulate experience points and reach max level. This method of leveling sometimes, if the correctly done, can provide a more efficient leveling speed as opposed to relying on quests for most of the experience gain, however it brings with it some cons.

As a Rogue, questing is not as effective as many other classes, as you will struggle to kill mobs as quickly as other classes and furthermore you have less sustainability than others, even as a Combat Rogue which is the most optimized specialization to level as. As a result, it is advised that for the most optimal leveling route, players complete as much dungeons as they can when leveling a Rogue. And to make sure that they acquire all of the quests for the relevant dungeon to maximize gain.

Dungeons also provide great access to gear, which Rogues are much more dependent on than other classes. Acquiring suitably level-appropriate weapons for instance can increase Rogues leveling speed significantly as weapons make up most of the Rogue’s damage. Unlike other classes, which rely more-so on abilities for the bulk of their damage output.

As a new player, it is still not advised to only run dungeons, as only running dungeons will reduce the World of Warcraft experience and dimmish from the game knowledge that you receive via questing. Such as understanding of the lore, the world, the many zones and how they are all intertwined, and even class-specific understandings that you acquire from playing your class in a solo-leveling experience. Questing is also a better option for solo levelers, as you only rely on your own performance and accord when running quests, and do not experience as much downtime as opposed to running dungeons. Furthermore, as a damage-only class, Rogues will struggle to find a place as fast and optimally as other classes that can play tank or healer specs.

As such, running dungeons frequently as a Rogue, at least once per dungeon when appropriately leveled for it, and make sure to try to complete all dungeon-relevant quests to maximize experience gain. Out of the three Rogue specs, Combat Rogues are the best spec for running dungeons as it outperforms the other specs tremendously with regards to AoE damage output, which the other two Rogue specs lack significantly.

AoE damage will help your dungeon group progress faster through the dungeons as it will allow you to efficiently clear groups of mobs and enemies faster than if most of your damage was focused on single targets. Unlike other classes and specs that outperform the Combat Rogue in area of effect damage, Combat Rogues benefit from having little to no downtime when partied with an adequate healer due to not having to rely on mana as their ability resource. Since Combat Rogues, and all Rogues for that matter, rely on energy, there is little downtime between fights which can help speed dungeon running up a little bit. Especially if the other members of the party are also playing specs that have as little downtime as possible.

Rogue Professions

The most useful profession that will aid in leveling efficiency and speed as a Rogue is definitely First Aid. Depending on the spec, Rogues lack a lot of survivability, and defensive abilities that other classes have, and as such can oftentimes struggle when solo questing and leveling.

Rogues also do not have healing abilities in Wrath of the Lich King. As such, First Aid can be an extremely useful profession to have on hand at least throughout the leveling process, as it will decrease downtime tremendously as you can heal faster than if you have to break for food in between fights. It can also be used in a quick pinch to recover health in a losing battle.

Rogues can also utilize the Vanish ability to quickly disappear from battles they may lose – however this results in inefficient time management, as the player is then forced to restart the battle, whereas with First Aid, it can sometimes give the Rogue just enough extra HP to successfully down the target.

Another very useful profession that will increase the Rogues survivability is Mining, which rewards players with the Toughness passive ability. This ability gives the player bonus stamina at exponential rates, increasing as the players mining ability increases. This can increase the amount of hit points the Rogue is able to take before dying and can be a very useful profession to take, as it will make the Rogue much harder to kill. Furthermore, gathering professions are always a benefit during the leveling process as they can be a reliable source of bonus gold, and at endgame, if you wish to continue Mining, it can be a good source of gold.

In a similar notion, Skinning can also be a useful profession to choose as it rewards players with Critical Strike passive bonuses in the form of the Master of Anatomy ability, whilst also providing an extra source of gold income during the leveling process. Skinning is oftentimes also the more logical choice of profession for Rogues, as the Critical Strike ability is a very welcome addition to the Rogues stats. Skinning also provides the materials necessary to level the Leatherworking profession, which can be useful for Rogues who wear Leather Armor.

As always, these are great professions for the leveling process and can always be dropped at max level should you wish to progress another profession. These professions just give added utility to the Rogue that makes leveling much easier.

Important Class Quests

The following are useful class-specific quests that will be available from your Rogue class trainer once appropriately leveled, and are recommended quests that should not be skipped:

• At level 10, Rogues gain access to the Blade of Cunning quest chain that rewards them with the green dagger, which comes in right when the gain access to the Dual Wield ability. This is a must have green dagger, and it will most likely last you a good few level, at least until you complete your first dungeon if you are lucky enough to get something better there. Weapons make up most of the Rogues damage, and you may have noticed at level 10 that you struggle to kill mobs as fast as other classes of similar level – however once you get Dual Wield and this dagger you should start progressing faster through enemies.

• The Thistle Tea Recipe quest chain becomes available at level 20, and gives Rogues the extremely useful recipe to cook Thistle Tea, which provides energy-on-demand. This can come in handy for the Rogue class, especially as it provides increased burst damage in fights as it effectively resets your energy bar which will allow you to cast any ability you want. Again, this can be used defensively and utilized to take down targets that otherwise would have probably killed you before you have a chance to kill them. 

• The level 50 Sunken Temple class quest is extremely rewarding for Rogues – unlike other classes that do not often get as much loot rewards as a Rogue does. Rogues get access to three blue/rare pieces of equipment, including the Duskbat Drape, Ebon Mask, and Whisperwalk Boots. All pieces of gear are exceptional items that will increase the Rogues survivability, defensiveness, and damage output at this level, and can remain in use normally until early TBC when they get replaced by TBC leveling gear. Unlike other classes, this quest chain is much more rewarding for the Rogue.

Once you have reached max level, you can then begin considering your endgame content progression and selecting which pathway you would like to take – either PvP or PvE. Rogues perform exceptionally well in PvP scenarios and are one of the better classes to play at PvP due to their massive crowd control abilities mixed with Stealth. Specs such as the Assassination Rogue are great picks for arena gameplay and can be an easy class to progress through PvP content competitively.

Furthermore, for PvE, Combat Rogues will continue to perform decently at max level raiding and dungeons and can be very fun classes to play throughout Wrath of the Lich King’s content. It is advised that, especially for new players, you take the time to learn your spec and class properly once you reach max level, with considerations to whichever pathway you wish to take with regards to endgame content.