PvE Combat Rogue Stat Priority

Nevermore Nevermore

The stat priority of Combat Rogues is very similar to that of other melee DPS classes, and particularly other agility users. In the briefest terms possible, you will want to focus on hit rating until cap, then expertise rating until cap, then armor penetration rating until cap, and then go all out with agility after you’ve reached all the caps.

Rogues are somewhat unique amongst melee DPS in that they want to reach for hit cap for spells rather than physical attacks. This is because our poisons, which now deal a significant portion of our overall damage, scale with spell hit, and thus we get to double dip on excess hit past the regular 8% — we improve spell hit chance for poisons, and hit chance for auto attacks due to dual wielding.

Stat Priority

  1. Hit rating
    • Cap: 237 rating, or 210 rating if there’s a Draenei in your party
  2. Expertise rating
    • Cap: 91 rating for orcs using axes & dwarves using maces, 107 for humans using swords or maces, 132 for others
  3. Armor penetration rating
  4. Attack power
  5. Agility
  6. Haste rating
  7. Crit rating
  8. Strength

Stat Explanations

Hit rating will be your most important stat — if you can’t hit your targets, you’re not dealing damage. You gain a 1% increased chance to hit for every 32.79 hit rating you have. Furthermore, as a Rogue you get a 1% increased chance to hit with your spells (poisons) for every 26.232 hit rating you have.

The soft-cap for dual-wielding melee hits versus level 83 (boss) enemies is 8%. You do not have to care about the hard-cap, as it simply takes too much investment to reach. Normally you would stop at that point, but we want to cap spell hit for our poisons too — meaning we need a whopping 446 hit rating to cap, or 17% spell hit chance. That is an excessively high amount, but thankfully we have ways to reduce the amount needed.

Combat Rogues have access to the Precision talent, which means that we only need 12% hit chance, or 315 hit rating. Furthermore, having a Shadow Priest (Misery) or Balance Druid (Improved Faerie Fire) in your raid reduces that requirement by a further 3%, meaning we need 9% hit chance, or 237 hit rating. Finally, having a Draenei in your party (not raid) gives you the Heroic Presence aura, which offers an extra 1% hit chance, meaning you need 8% hit chance to cap, or 210 rating — or, if you don’t have a Shadow Priest / Balance Druid in your raid, you need 11% hit chance, or 289 hit rating.

Expertise (and expertise rating) will be your 2nd most important stat — again, if you can’t hit your targets, you’re not dealing damage. You gain 1 expertise for every 8.1974 expertise rating you have. 1 expertise reduces the chance that your attacks get dodged or parried by 0.25%. However, expertise has an unfortunate quirk: you cannot have fractional amounts of it. For example, if your character has 111 expertise rating in total, you will end up with 13 expertise, rather than 13.54 which is what you get if you divide 111 by 8.1974.

The soft-cap for melee hits versus level 83 (boss) enemies is 26 expertise, reducing the chance that your attacks get dodged by 6.5%. You do not have to care about the hard-cap, which involves eliminating parries, as you should always be attacking the boss from behind, and enemies cannot parry from behind. This means that melee characters need 214 expertise rating in order to reach the expertise cap — but there are ways to reduce that.

Combat Rogues can pick up the Weapon Expertise talent, which grants us a massive +10 expertise, meaning we only need 16 expertise, or 132 expertise rating. Furthermore, orcs using axes and dwarves using maces gain +5 expertise thanks to their racials, meaning they only need 11 expertise, or 91 expertise rating. Humans meanwhile get +3 expertise when using swords or maces, meaning they need 13 expertise, or 107 expertise rating. Rogues have a really easy time capping expertise, compared to other melee.

Armor penetration is infamously the strongest stat for physical damage dealers in Wrath of the Lich King. Combat Rogues are no exception — the vast majority of our damage is physical, meaning we get a massive benefit from armor penetration.

Armor penetration is one of the most “math-y” stats out there and it’s generally pretty difficult to understand, so we won’t go into details about how it works here. The only thing you really need to know is that, for most Rogues, it takes 1400 armor penetration rating in order to reach 100% armor penetration in raids. For Rogues that are using maces along with the Mace Specialization talent, it takes 1190 armor penetration rating to hit 100% instead.

I must mention the fact that Armor Penetration is a very scarce stat in the first two phases of the expansion, having only trinket procs as a reliable source of Armor Penetration. Generally speaking, you will want to gain trinkets that grant you such procs in the first two phases of the expansion, starting to prioritize Armor Penetration armor pieces as well with the beginning of the third phase of the expansion.

If you’ve reached the cap, you should switch your armor penetration gems, enchants, etc to agility equivalent versions. Don’t forget your armor penetration procs when calculating how much armor penetration you have.

Attack power makes your attacks hit harder — it is the core stat of all physical damage dealers, melee or ranged. As a Rogue, you’ll get the bulk of your attack power from the agility stat found on items, but attack power on its own is incredibly powerful.

Rogues are an agility-based class, meaning agility will be your “bread-and-butter” stat, so to speak. Raw attack power will generally be better than agility (as most sources offer 2 points of attack power per 1 point of agility), so you won’t want to stack agility through gems etc, but it’s an incredibly valuable stat nonetheless.

As a Rogue, you gain 1 attack power per 1 point of agility, as well as 1% increased chance to crit for every 83.33 agility you have. These amounts are further increased by 10% when buffed with Greater Blessing of Kings, meaning you get 1.1 attack power or 1.1% crit for the same amount. This means that 1 point of agility is always better than 1 point of attack power, but you usually get 2 points of attack power for each 1 point of agility from most sources (for example, gems), meaning agility doesn’t make attack power obsolete.

Haste is one of the most straight-forward stats — it makes you attack faster. You gain 1% increased attack speed for every 32.79 haste rating you have.

Rogues benefit tremendously from haste, as a very large percentage of our damage comes from auto attacks and poisons, which are both improved by haste. Moreover, attacking more often causes you to gain more energy from Combat Potency, meaning haste boosts energy regeneration too — albeit at a smaller rate than in future expansions. At a certain point, haste will be extremely close if not surpass agility, but you will typically need simulation programs to find out if that’s the case for your character, so we will value haste just underneath agility.

Crit rating is a great stat for any physical damage dealer, increasing your chances of landing a critical strike. You gain a 1% increased chance to crit for every 45.91 crit rating you have.

Rogues have a very high critical damage multiplier, thanks to our talents: Prey on the Weak & Lethality. However, we don’t have many crazy crit procs like other classes do, meaning crit will generally be our weakest secondary stat — though plenty strong nonetheless.

Here’s a little secret: strength is actually better than attack power, even for rogues. As an agility-centric class, 1 point of strength gives us 1 attack power, but that’s further improved by 10% thanks to Greater Blessing of Kings, meaning strength is 10% better than attack power, when comparing 1 strength to 1 attack power.

The reason why it’s last on our list is that strength is typically found on items designed for warriors, paladins and death knights, which typically lack agility and attack power, replacing both of them with strength. Thus, an item designed for a rogue will end up being slightly better, as it provides a better mix of the stats we want. That’s not to say it’s bad, however, it’s just most of your strongest pieces will be those that have attack power and agility, rather than strength.

Author

Nevermore

Hey there folks, I am Nevermore and have been deeply passionate about WoW for more than a decade. Whether we talk about the hidden mysteries of Azeroth or the otherworldly Outland, my journey brought me here to share the things that I have experienced with you all.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

8 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Effe
Effe
2 years ago

Hey, I’m reading on Icy-Veins and Wowhead that stat priority should be like: 1. Hit Cap, 2. Expertise Cap, 3. Agility, 4. Strength and Attack Power, 5. Armor Penetration. But you go by Armor Penetration as 3. stat (after the Hit and Expertise Cap). Wowhead quotes: ”In early phases of Wrath of the Lich King it is not a very desirable stat. In Icecrown Citadel gear levels, Armor Penetration becomes a much more desirable stat for Combat Rogues.” So, I’m getting really confused. Who is wrong and who is right? Should I stack Armor Penetration after Hit and Expertise cap or should I go with Agility and Attack Power to maximize my dps?

1
Reply
Nevermore
Nevermore
Author
Reply to  Effe
2 years ago

Hey there! To answer your question, Armor Penetration is a very scarce stat in the first phases of the expansion up until the third phase when TOGC becomes available. Generally speaking, you can only gain Armor Penetration in the first two phases of the expansion from trinkets that grant you a high amount of Armor Penetration for a limited amount of time. You will want to gain such trinkets (Grim Toll/Mjolnir Runestone) in the first phases of the expansion. Armor Penetration becomes much more abundant starting the third phase of the expansion, being among the first stats that you will want to get. I thought I have added such an explanation inside the Armor Penetration tab, but it seems like it has slipped my mind!

You can truly start to prioritize Armor Penetration with the beginning of Phase 3! You can choose to rely only on your trinkets for the first two phases of the expansion. When I made the guide, I had all the phases in mind, I do apologize for not presenting an additional explanation.

Last edited 2 years ago by Nevermore
0
Reply
NattyK
NattyK
Reply to  Nevermore
2 years ago

ok here is the real answer. Agility is the BETTER stat until you have 700 PASSIVE armor penn. Then Armor Penn is better. Its the exact same with hunters. Stats is something the Tavern here always gets wrong.

2
Reply
Real Guides
Real Guides
1 year ago

For every 32.786 points of hit rating, your chance to miss with your attacks is reduced by 1%.So you saying 11% or 289 makes NO SENSE at all dude. 291 Hit rating is only 8.8%

1
Reply
RealGuide
RealGuide
2 years ago

Stat Priority for Combat Rogues

  1. Hit Rating (to cap);
  2. Expertise Rating (to cap);
  3. Agility;
  4. Strength and Attack Power;
  5. Armor Penetration;
  6. Haste;
  7. Critical Strike Rating.
0
Reply
Nostealth
Nostealth
3 years ago

Main weapons for rogue should be axes/swords for extra swings due to talent, the others are just not so efficient as Swords Specialization. Flat attack power is overall way better than agility as stat. Keep in mind every single melee swing and poison proc dmg scales of rogues Attack Power. While using agi gems on an overall you lose rougly 400 ap when socketed with 40ap(or more if jc as profession). While crittical has a soft cap, attack power does not.We love to crit, but it’s a chance. If you are hungry for crit,might as well just use fist weapons and go for talent, that’s extra 5% crit.

-6
Reply
Nevermore
Nevermore
Author
Reply to  Nostealth
2 years ago

Hey there! In the talents section of this guide, you will find that the standard build is heavily reliant on the Hack and Slash talent. Furthermore, you will also find the attack power gems that you have mentioned which are very potent in the first phases of the expansion when there is not enough Armor Penetration around in the Gems, Enchants & Consumables section. When we mentioned that you should focus on Agility more than Attack Power, we were taking into consideration items rather than gems.

0
Reply
Narcoticks
Narcoticks
Reply to  Nostealth
2 years ago

And to further clarify: Fist weapon MH (Calamity’s Grasp) and fast Dagger OH (webbed death) is actually your BIS setup for phase 1 as a combat rogue. Followed very closely by Silent Crusader MH and Hailstorm OH (but SC is very rare, so i wouldnt count on it).

0
Reply