Noob QuestionsFollow

Hi! I've been reading up on WoW rogues for a while now. While I don't currently play WoW, I'm planning on starting it up just after I get back from my honeymoon (One week from now), and I'm planning on starting off playing a dwarf Rogue.

To that end, I had a couple of questions I'd like to ask. I'll mainly be doing PvE, although I'll be playing on a PvP server, and am definitely interested in doing a bit of PvP as well. While I don't plan on ever being some super-powered mutant, I would like to be able to hold my own against others of similar levels.

So, I know that Combat Swords, as of right now, is the PvE build to use. However, I'm a lot more interested in using Daggers than swords... it fits in better with my idea of a rogue, and interests me more. The question I have is this; if I go Combat Daggers, how MUCH of a difference is that going to make in my ability to PvE? Am I going to be severely gimping myself in PvE, and also PvP by using that build?
How about if I use a Mut build? Would that be a better build for what I'm looking to do?

Also, keep in mind, that with an extremely busy lifestyle, I probably won't have a TON of time to dedicate to playing... meaning that getting to 70 is probably going to be an extremely long process for me. Does this fact change the build that I'd potentially want to use?

The other question I have is regarding profession. I know that most people advocated either taking two gathering professions to make money, taking Skinning/LW, or waiting until 70 and then picking up a proffesion. Obviously the waiting till 70 option is out for me. The profession I'm planning on taking is Herb/Alch; the reason being, I'm hoping that being able to make my own potions will help me to get along quicker without needing help from others. Being able to make my own healing pots seems like it would be EXTREMELY useful. I do have a friend that plays currently that can probably help me some with gold, so I'm not totally concerned about making money.

However, it seems like nobody ever even considers taking Herb/Alch as a rogue, so my other question is this. Is taking Herb/Alch a stupid idea, or will it work for what I'm hoping for?

Whew! That got a little long. Sorry if you think these questions are retarded and that I should read the rogue compendium (again). Thanks for any help/advice you can give!

Using daggers because they are more roguish is kind of a moot point. As combat Daggers what are the differences?

You use backstab instead of sinister strike (positional requirement).
You get 5% crit instead of a free swing (free swing is better since it is with your main hand).
You can open with ub3r 1337 ambush crits (ambush is obsolete as soon as you get cheap shot, if not sooner).

More than anything the damage you get out of a dagger backstab is probably going to be a lot less than with a SS sword because for two reasons, daggers don't hit as hard in terms of damage numbers and your gonna spend a lot of your time gouging and kidney shotting just to get into position to use backstab. SS + Daggers = phail. Plus, in the 50s, there is a huge dry spell of viable daggers.

Do yourself a favor and make your leveling experience much less painful and go with combat swords, atleast until you hit around 55. At 55 you can mutilate (41 in assasination) and get Oppurtunity (increase to mutilate damage). I leveled through Outlands as Mutilate and only just respeced after I had enough badges to get the SSO fists. The first couple quests in outlands get you some nice daggers to use and there are two nice ones in Kara, although you can grind out rep for some better swords.

If you plan on PvE mostly, humans are the better rogues (on alliance) becuase of sword and mace spec and the rep bonus is nice too. Perception is considered one of the most OP racials too and helps in those rogue on rogue/druid fights. Dwarfs are good too because they get stoneform. Gun spec is close to worthless for rogues. Gnomes are good too for escape artist, and the enigineer spec can be useful if you pick up that prof. NELF shadowmeld is an extra level of stealth and they get an extra bit of agi. NELF is the weakest choice of the alliance races.

For Proffessions herb/alch is a viable choice for any class. It is one of the few that really can work with anyone (JC and engi being the others). Making your own raid elixers/flasks can save you a ton of money (Relentless flasks go for like 50~60g on my server). I wouldn't worry about health pots though. As a rogue you should have a pick pocket macro that will net you a ton of junkboxes and other goodies as you level, and help you keep your lockpicking capped. You will get health pots from the mobs and inside the junkboxes thoughout your career and really shouldn't run low if you are playing a rogue right. ;-)

As mentioned by python, if you have a freind who is already playing and willing to get you some gold, have them send you an invite through the recruit a freind program. If they roll an equal level toon and you guys quest and kill together you both get triple xp. In addition, you can give a level to any one of his toons that are lower than you at a rate of one per every two you get, and once you pay your first two months subscription, he gets a cool Zebra mount. Its a great way for you to level faster and get ready for the expansion and him to bring up a couple extra alts.

Good luck to you and welcome to the World...of Warcraft. And congratulations on the wedding.

Mutilate will be the most viable. Combat daggers will be a joke in PvP unless you are going against some scrub. Since Mut really isn't viable until 55 as I mentioned above, combat swords will serve the purpose for you until then. Most of your PvP until 70 is going to be World PvP (read: ganking and getting ganked). If you are on the recieving end, its probably a person who is much higher level than you or a group, in which case your spec has little to nothing to do with your survival.

Also, they have buffed the 20-60 xp rates quite a bit. I have a very casual game schedule (Friday nights, Saturdays, some times a couple hours on Sunday and a raid during the week) and I have leveled a shadow priest from 1-40 in about a month. If you get your pal to do R-a-F with you it will be even faster. Hell, Theo and MyTeddy were at 52 in less than two days played (granted they both have extensive knowledge of the game, quests, and have higher levels to run them through stuff.

To earn the triple xp, you have to be partied with your friend who invited you, and you have to be questing together. As long as you stay within 4 levels of each other, you will both earn triple xp for kills and quest turn ins. At level 60, you must grant your freind all your saved levels or you will lose them.

All the details can be found here: http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=20588

Mutilate sounds right for you, yes. You can probably mutilate your way trough Karazhan (the first raiding instance) and do alright. By the time you reach the content where you'll really need PvE swords to prevent your raid from 'carrying' you, WOTLK will probably be out. As for the difference, I'm not too sure anymore these days, but if I recall correctly you lose 8% of your personal damage as opposed to combat swords.

I do however suggest you spec combat (daggers if you must) until you reach level 50 where you can respec and take mutilate. Doing so will probably speed up your leveling by quite a bit.

Oh, and you might find it worthwhile to pick up master of deception and some points in camouflage while levelling if you're playing on a PvP server. While combat increases your uptime, deaths significantly lower it... And vanish probably won't save you from somebody 4-8 levels higher than you if you don't have a speed or stealth boost on it.

I leveled to my mid 30s with dagger MH and Sword OH, specced deep assassination before I found these boards...

I leveled as sub till around 60 and switched to mutilate. It was really fun, and the boosted stealth and speed was nice while leveling.



I agree, but leveling Engineering is quite hard with only one character. My gf was an alchy/herb, and I found those troll blood potions quite useful while questing.

I think the point was that it is incredibly easy to level to 70 and talent spec makes no massive difference.

I mean...duh.

Hey guys! I'm back!

Thanks again for all the info. I decided to stick with combat swords to help make levelling as easy as possible. When I actually get to the 50's or 60's, I'll look at changing specs then. I appreciate all your advice.

Now, I've got one more question. I hit 11 last night, and there's two quests in my starting zone, both of which give nice daggers which have the same DPS. One of them is slower, but has +2 agility, and one of them is faster, but only has +1 agility. I've already got a mainhand that I'm buying, and so I'm going to be using this for my offhand.

So, if I read everything right, the reason that everyone says to have a slow mainhand and a fast offhand is because with a slow mainhand, you have a better chance of doing bigger damage with SS, and with a fast offhand, you have a better chance of proccing poison. Is this correct? If so, then obviously I'll take the one with +2 agility.