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So maybe im not high enough lvl (only lvl 14 atm) but ive tried and leveled other classes to 25 and rogue seems so bad at leveling compared to the others. I can barely fight something my level and have to run for the hills if i aggro another mob or something higher lvl then me. The constant missing, dodging and parrying from mobs also greatly annoys. Am i doing something wrong cause Rogues seem way to much of a handful to lvl w/o a main to fund them heirlooms or enchants.
Rogues are one of if not the slowest class to level with.
You can't heal, you can't attack from range, you are a squishy Warrior, that is your life until around 70.
The good news, you will do the most single target DPS of any class, provided you don't get randomly killed by one of the dozen or so "F U Melee" mechanics bosses tend to have.
Make sure you're just plowing through the combat tree when leveling as it is by far the best tree for it.
You're not doing anything wrong. It's just how rogues are. As Dongwise said, if you want to have it easier, just roll Combat - higher dodge & parry chance, higher hit and expertise, Riposte, Blade Flurry, Surprise Attacks & Unfair Advantage pretty much make you come on top of every toe-to-toe fight, which what Combat is all about. And that's without even mentioning Killing Spree and Adrenaline Rush. The drawbacks - you're not as "sneaky" or bursty (before Killing Spree) as the other two specs.
Well, my first ever character on Lord was a rogue. 10-80 i leveled with full pve subtlety + some assassination build. Never had any problems what-so-ever.
Combat would SEEM to be a superior leveling spec, but it isn't. With sub an ambush literally chunks everything to half health or less right off the bat. After that throw in a hemo or two, eviscerate = dead. I could solo most elite quests with the double evasion i get with preparation. The whole point is that with a proper sub build you explode mob after mob after mob without taking almost any damage.But the downside is that sub 'pve' is a bit harder to play than the mindless sinister spam you get with combat.I've leveled with combat and i always end up feeling like a melee mage, except on my '1' button is SS instead of a frost bolt or some such ****.
tl;dr - go sub for leveling, you kill faster than combat, you take less damage than combat, you can solo elites but it requires some rudimentary skills in rogueplay.
OK, so... "leveled with full pve subtlety + some assassination build. Never had any problems what-so-ever" - that's just pure crap and lies. If you're saying this, then you either leveled through dungeons, or with groups, or you leveled veeeeeeeeeeeeeeery slowly.
- Ambush chunks everything to half health - no, unless it crits, you're overgeared and you're killing low-level mobs. As Combat, you open up, use Slice and Dice and finish with a quick Eviscerate.
- Soloing elites with double Evasion - how? You have no damage. I remember when I tried Sub leveling years ago and soloing elites was more stressful to me than outdoor PvP. Combat just zergs elites like they're normal mobs. Sub PvE is not harder, it just doesn't exist. You have the extremely weak Hemorrhage, the extremely expensive Backstab, low poison damage, low auto-attack damage. You're basically relying on your Ambush critting - otherwise your kill speed is painfully slow.
- Exploding mob after mob - as soon as you engage 2 mobs or more, which happens very often in leveling, you have to use major cooldowns or you lose most of your HP or even die. Combat barely has to use cooldowns and can handle several times more mobs than Sub or Assa.
First of all, i leveled with questing solo.
-Ambush ALWAYS crits. 40% crit from Relentless strikes, 50% crit from improved ambush leaves 10% base crit which ALL rogues have. Gear is largely irrelevant, save from a single decent dagger, which you can always get.
-Elites are easy. Get Blood Spatter, combine that with Serrated Blades and a glyph of Garrote and elites bleed to death. Throw in a kidney shot if needed.Disarm also is a thing for those rare moments when your dual evasions aren't enough. That also works perfectly for mobs with a lot of armor, on which ambush is less effective. And with all the bleed talents Rupture absolutely obliterates mobs that you couldn't open on from stealth. So you're covered in every possible scenario.
-Two mobs at once with subtlety. You simply play smart and don't do it. Sap is there, common sense is there, spending a second to look around before you run in is there, so you rarely, if ever, have to deal with derping out and pulling more than you can handle.You argue that combat kills multiple mobs together and nets a faster leveling speed. True, but >only< when you have blood flurry and evasion available, otherwise those 2+ mobs you pull wreck your health and you lose time having to sit and eat, bandage, cry etc. And when you eventually get Shadow Step things REALLY ramp up, i don't need to tell you how much time you save teleporting around instead of having to stealth to your targets.
Don't go jumping on the 'hurrdurr sub is BAD 'cause i couldn't do it back in the day' bandwagon. That's crap.
The guy is right, sub is really good for leveling. The cancerous thing about it is getting daggers, infact I managed to solo 5 man group bosses which i could not solo as combat. The advantage that combat has is versatility for weapon use and the possibility to group kill some mobs on a large CD. I usually run Sub for leveling and dual spec combat for instances, the sustained dmg is just too **** if you are in a group.Quote:
Originally Posted by taralej
Mate, gear IS relevant. Your Ambush doesn't just scale from your dagger's "base" damage, y'know. Bleeding elites to death takes an eternity. Now imagine if a mob sticks on you while kiting the elite or even worse - an enemy player. If you're intentionally and avidly avoiding 1v< situations, then you're just leveling slowly, that's all. You can't avoid mobs all the time and most mobs aren't even Sappable, so what are you talking about? Most mobs are within reach of 2-3 other mobs, so even opening from stealth as a scenario ****s you up completely.
As I said, I've tried it myself many times for teh lolz. It's fun and effective in outdoor PvP, but that's it... The only thing Sub has which the other specs don't is burst through Ambush crits. It has the lowest sustained damage and the lowest energy management. It also has better survivability than Assassination, yes, but then again - Assa has an almost guaranteed Backstab crit (Puncturing Wounds + Remorseless Attacks) and a guaranteed Eviscerate/Envenom (Cold Blood). A Cheap Shot > Slice and Dice > Backstab brings mobs your level to half HP as it is. Then just put one Mutilate and Eviscerate/Envenom. Dead.
I leveled my rogue on Lord as Sub and Combat, compared them both at low levels. I am like level 40+, didnt play for long time. I will tell you that Sub was a lot easier and a lot more fun to level than combat, better stealth is a life saver and can help with difficult quests. The burst of sub is sick, mobs died with 1 ambush + combo builder + sometimes finisher if +2 or more levels. Even if my ambush didnt crit, which was very rare, with hemo I could down mobs pretty quick. Regular fight(if Ambush crits), Sub is a lot faster than Combat, tested with recaunt, it clearly can show you how much dmg you can dish out in long and short fights, and even in longer fights when Ambush didnt crit, Sub was killing faster. Just check out what is the difference in Slow weapon Sinister Strike and Dagger Hemo with all affecting talents, the difference if very minimal with leveling gear, at some levels Dagger Hemo even in theory does more dmg/per energy cost with all talents you can get from Sub tree, but the biggest difference is insane dmg of Ambush.
The only downside is when you are fighting multiple mobs, but it is in general for rogues, Sub suffers the most cuz no second Ambush, but you always can Vanish, Prep Vanish. Those few percent passive dodge and parry will not carry you, you will dodge or parry like 1 extra attack after fighting 8 mobs, thats nothing. + Sub is killing faster which means you take a lot less hits.
Combat is complete sh1t before you have Unfair Advantage talent and Killing Spree. Once you get those, you are faster than Sub on multiple targets but Sub will always be the best if u can fight single targets all the way, which you should do because rogues defenses are garbage without CDs. You should always fight 1v1 unless you want to drink after every pack.
Assassination is worse than those two dont bother.
I dare you all Sub haters go and level one, you dont need fancy gear, just get good main hand dagger and upgrade it all the way till Outland/Northend then you are good to go with Combat.
Not to beat a horse here but I think that's the main point of combat vs. sub.
Sub requires a specific weapon and combat doesn't. So doesn't that make it easier for people to level combat since they don't have to hunt for daggers?
Well, the rogue I'm leveling right now is actually Assassination, to turn the conversation a bit. On low levels I have an almost guaranteed Backstab crit with 15% passive, 40% from Remorseless Attacks and 30% from Puncturing Wounds. Those 2 talents, together with Malice and Lethality, being in the Assassination tree really lured me to try it out. Seal Fate gives me extra combo points and Cold Blood gives me an on-demand crit on my Evi/Envenom or even on Ambush - when doing outdoor PvP as Assa, just CB Ambush + Backstab + Evi and everything, except warriors and paladins, will be dead within those 3 seconds before they can even react. At low level the burst is greater even than that of Subtlety, but you're relying heavily on CB and Remorseless, so without them you're hitting like a wet noodle.
The bottom line for OP - you have to focus on actually playing as a rogue. Which means singling out targets, not exposing yourself and squeezing out the maximum from your talents and cooldowns. If you do that, it doesn't even matter what spec you'll choose. People generally say that Combat is the best, because from all 3 it requires the least effort on the above-mentioned things - most of the talents in the Combat tree just work for themselves.
No **** ambush scales off of AP as well, while the main damage increase is obviously the weapon, so I literally don't see your point but w.e. And I couldnt care less if it takes me 1 minute to solo a mob, which usually would be unkillable. I rather take 1 minute to continue a chain/ get a great item instead of skipping it. And you literally run into no issues with "unsappable" mobs, unless you quest in some weird *** zones.Quote:
Originally Posted by taralej
That you tried it doesn't mean you are pulling it off well, you don't seem greedy enough for damage to benefit from the burst. Your fancy half health opener is easily outclassed by ambush + evisc, or ambush = hemo = evisc incase you don't crit on your ambush (which shouldn't happen unless you haven't killed recently). That carries you with two shots on every non elite till the lvl 40s, from there on it just depends on if you actually do dungeons for gear.Quote:
As I said, I've tried it myself many times for teh lolz. It's fun and effective in outdoor PvP, but that's it... The only thing Sub has which the other specs don't is burst through Ambush crits. It has the lowest sustained damage and the lowest energy management. It also has better survivability than Assassination, yes, but then again - Assa has an almost guaranteed Backstab crit (Puncturing Wounds + Remorseless Attacks) and a guaranteed Eviscerate/Envenom (Cold Blood). A Cheap Shot > Slice and Dice > Backstab brings mobs your level to half HP as it is. Then just put one Mutilate and Eviscerate/Envenom. Dead.
Overall, combat is something great for fresh starts as it enables you to wear any junk you can find, sub is simply more specific in the gear department and more advanced in the leveling are.
And am I really arguing about leveling specs those days? **** me, what has the rogue section come to...
idk man, more like the whole rogue section, if you ask me... or even the whole forums.
On topic;
Levels 1-9 feels easy on a Rogue. Pickpocket all the things for money. Get weapons from a vendor. Learn first aid, then once at level 10... (On the way to Westfall in my case at least) Go straight for Combat and put points in Improved Gouge, and bandage yourself if it lands. It sounds cheesy, but it works. The change in zone makes one go from slayer to slayed in WotLK/TBC. Then again, once you get some levels, you'll be fine. 10-20 was the most horrible as a Rogue for me at least on WotLK without any heirlooms to speak of...
And then it hits home again from 20-25. But after that, it's relatively smooth sailing from that point on, heirlooms or no.