- Author: Nevermore
- Date: June 24, 2022
- Expansion: WotLK Classic
Professions are a crucial part of your World of Warcraft character, potentially offering a large boost to your damage, healing or survivability, while also allowing you to generate some gold.
This section will cover some of your best options for professions as a Combat Rogue.
Best Professions
Like with most other classes & specs in the game, Engineering will be your strongest profession. For the second profession slot, we recommend Jewelcrafting, though Blacksmithing is extremely close to it in performance.
Engineering is the king of professions for PvE content, offering a vast, vast array of different benefits.
The main benefit of Engineering lies in the Hyperspeed Accelerators gloves enchant, which gives +340 haste rating for 12 seconds, on a 1 minute cooldown. This translates into a ~10% attack speed increase with a 20% uptime, which is already amazing on its own — but it becomes even bigger when you use the Accelerators when your various trinkets proc. Its 1 minute cooldown is perfect for stacking it with our cooldowns.
Additionally, as an Engineer you have access to the Nitro Boosts boots enchant, passively giving +24 crit rating and coming with an-use effect which massively increases your speed for 5 seconds, allowing you to move out of dangerous AoE effects or catch up to your target quickly.
Finally, just like in previous expansions, Engineers can use powerful explosives such as Saronite Bombs and Global Thermal Sapper Charges.
No surprises there, Jewelcrafting is an extremely potent profession for most classes / specs and that includes Combat Rogues. Not only do you gain access to powerful, Jewelcrafter-unique gems, but you also get to sell gems to others, giving you a modest income through this profession.
The main benefit of Jewelcrafting is the Jewelcrafter-unique gems, Dragon’s Eye, which are more powerful than regular gems, but are limited to 3 equipped at a time. The main ones you’ll be crafting as a Rogue are Fractured Dragon’s Eye, Bright Dragon’s Eye and Rigid Dragon’s Eye, resulting in +42 armor penetration rating, +84 attack power or +42 hit rating compared to using regular epic gems.
Useful Professions
The following professions are considered viable, but offer a lesser benefit compared to the best professions, so they’re not recommended. If you’re not focused on making your character 100% optimal, you can use any of these professions just fine.
Blacksmiths can add 2 extra gem sockets to their gear — 1 on wrists, and 1 on hands. You will generally socket 2x Fractured Cardinal Ruby or 2x Bright Cardinal Ruby into them, translating into a +40 armor penetration rating or +80 attack power bonus, but Blacksmithing has the massive benefit of allowing you to gem whatever it is you need — if you’re armor penetration capped but need some more hit, you could go for Glinting Ametrine, for example. Jewelcrafting offers slightly more stats, but fewer options.
Unfortunately, as a Rogue you cannot use plate armor, so this is the end of the benefits you get out of Blacksmithing.
As a Tailor, you gain access to the Swordguard Embroidery cloak enchant, a proc which gives you +400 attack power for 15 seconds with a 45 second internal cooldown. This translates into a possible +133 attack power bonus on average if it procs exactly every 45 seconds, or a +100 attack power bonus on average if it procs every 60 seconds, which is absolutely massive.
However, there is a significant opportunity cost attached to this bonus, as it prohibits you from using the standard cloak enchant, Enchant Cloak – Greater Speed, making it weaker in practice, as Haste is very good for Rogues. Procs are extremely powerful as they can be stacked together with cooldowns, so this bonus shouldn’t be written off at all because of this — it’s just not flexible as Jewelcrafting or Blacksmithing.
Tailoring is pretty weak on the gold generation side, unfortunately, so the cloak enchant is all you really get here.
As a Scribe, you gain access to the Master’s Inscription of the Axe shoulder enchant, which provides a +80 attack power increase over the standard enchant available to everyone, Greater Inscription of the Axe. This bonus ties Blacksmithing, Enchanting and Leatherworking in terms of stats, though Blacksmithing has far superior flexibility in the stats it can offer you (including armor penetration gems) and is thus better.
Scribes also get to make Glyphs & scrolls, providing a nice source of income, but many will argue that the real benefit in Inscription comes in not having to grind The Sons of Hodir reputation for the shoulder enchants!
As an Enchanter you gain access to the Enchant Ring – Assault enchant, which you can apply to both of your rings for a modest +80 attack power. This bonus ties Blacksmithing, Inscription and Leatherworking in terms of stats, though Blacksmithing has far superior flexibility in the stats it can offer you (including armor penetration gems) and is thus better.
You also get to enchant your own equipment without needing to tip another enchanter, which results in a neat amount of gold saved, on top of the gold you can generate by enchanting others.
As a Leatherworker you gain access to the Fur Lining – Attack Power bracer enchant, which proves a +80 attack power increase over the standard enchant available to everyone, Enchant Bracers – Greater Assault. This bonus ties Blacksmithing, Inscription and Enchanting in terms of stats, though Blacksmithing has far superior flexibility in the stats it can offer you (including armor penetration gems) and is thus better.
You also get to make some Leather gear for yourself, which is nice if this Rogue is a freshly dinged alt with no previous gear. However, there’s generally no gold to be gained out of Leatherworking, so the benefits end there.
As an Alchemist, you gain access to the Mixology passive effect, which increases the effectiveness of flasks and elixirs you consume, but only if you can craft them yourself. This results in a +64 attack power increase when using Flask of Endless Rage, our preferred flask. This is sadly a smaller boost than what other professions can offer, but not by much.
On the flipside, Alchemy is one of the best professions for gold generation, as potions, flasks and elixirs are always relevant and in high demand. This makes it a great profession for your alts to have.
Skinners gain access to the Master of Anatomy passive, which offers a +40 crit rating boost. This is weaker than all of the other professions mentioned in this list, but at least it’s something.
Skinning is generally not that good at gold generation either, so it’s overall not a great profession.
Sub-Par Professions
The following professions do not offer any DPS-increasing benefits and are thus not considered viable for Combat Rogues in PvE.
Herbalists gain the Lifeblood active skill, which heals you for 3600 over 5 seconds, with a 3 minute cooldown. Rogues have no healing abilities whatsoever, so this ability is… something, mostly while leveling, farming or questing — but its benefit will generally not be great in a raid.
On the flipside, Herbalism is one of the strongest professions for gold generation, as herbs are used in Alchemy and Inscription, and thus always in demand. Rogues are also a pretty good gatherer type character, making Herbalism an alright option if your Rogue is an alt you aren’t seriously raiding with.
Miners gain access to the Toughness passive, which offers a +60 stamina boost. The extra health can very rarely help you survive an attack you otherwise haven’t, but it’s not something you as a DPS player should ever count on.
Mining is okay for gold generation, and as with Herbalism, Rogues are a fairly strong gathering character. This means that if your Rogue isn’t a serious raiding character, you could pick up Mining and start getting some $$$.
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