PvE Combat Rogue Talents, Builds & Glyphs

wotlk classic combat rogue talents, builds & glyphs
  • Author: Nevermore
  • Date: June 24, 2022
  • Updated: June 24, 2022
  • Expansion: WotLK Classic

Rogues have a talent build that they will generally gravitate towards for the entire expansion, which we call the standard build. However, we also offer a modification of the standard build, which can situationally be useful in specific circumstances.

Notable Talents

  • Prey on the Weak: Increases your critical strike damage by 20% as long as your health, as a percentage, is higher than your targets. As long as your healers manage to keep you at 100%, this means that your crit damage is increased by 20% permanently — which is amazing, other classes would die for a talent like this.
  • Hack and Slash: Sword spec is back, except now it includes axes too! Your attacks have a chance to trigger an additional attack, which is pretty straightforward yet incredibly powerful. This helps you do more damage, and get more procs — a win-win talent.
  • Combat Potency: A staple Combat talent, causing your offhand attacks to have a chance to generate 15 energy. Coupled with our various attack speed increase effects, this talent will give you a lot of energy over a fight’s duration.
  • Weapon Expertise: Grants +10 expertise (not rating, flat expertise). Fantastic talent, helps you cap expertise with very little effort.
  • Savage Combat: Increases your attack power by 4%. More importantly, any target afflicted by your poisons (most often Deadly Poison IX) is also afflicted by the 4% increased physical damage taken debuff. That debuff does not stack, so only 1 Rogue needs to have this talent technically, but in practice every Rogue will have it, ensuring you have maximum uptime on it, buffing your raid’s overall damage.
  • Killing Spree: The crown jewel of the Combat tree is a big nuke button that you get to press every 2 minutes. You can use it on cooldown or macro it with your other cooldowns, but it’s also a great idea to save it for when something needs to die very quickly, as it deals a LOT of damage.
  • Vile Poisons & Improved Poisons: Poisons are buffed in WotLK, so these poison-related talents are more important than they used to be.

Talent Builds

The standard build is a well-rounded Combat Rogue build, offering all of the important talents discussed in the Notable Talents section, such as Prey on the Weak, Hack and Slash and Combat Potency. After we’ve taken all of the important Combat talents, we spend the rest of our talent points picking up Assassination staples, such as Ruthlessness.

Note that you have some leeway with picking up different amounts of points in the Improved Poisons and Vile Poisons talents. Everything else besides those 2 is, well, standard.

increased poison damage

This build is nearly identical to the standard build. Its only difference is that we forego Hack and Slash, picking up Mace Specialization. This build is obviously intended for Rogues using maces, which will be desirable during the Ulduar raid tier, as the strongest one-handed weapons then are maces.

combat build redone mace

Glyphs

Major Glyphs

The last glyph slot has multiple options, of varying viability:

  • Glyph of Tricks of the Trade is a very powerful option, increasing your raid’s DPS. This is what a selfless Rogue should use!
  • Glyph of Rupture is a good choice in the earlier phases, where bleed effects are at their most powerful.
  • Glyph of Adrenaline Rush is a slightly meh choice, only really competing with the other options on shorter fights. The shorter the fight, the better this glyph becomes, essentially.
  • Glyph of Expose Armor is a solid choice on paper. In practice, your Warriors will be applying Sunder Armor most of the time, and the two don’t stack. This means that you only use this glyph if your raid has no Warriors, and if your guild hates you, forcing you to be the Expose Armor user.

Minor Glyphs

Your 3 minor glyphs should be Glyph of Vanish, Glyph of Blurred Speed and Glyph of Safe Fall. Other glyphs can be considered, but none are particularly great, which is unfortunate as these 3 aren’t exactly amazing either.

 

About the 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.
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DevilPanda
DevilPanda
1 year ago

This guide/site is amazing. For anyone running combat rogue in dungeons, I highly recommend going Glyph of Tricks of the Trade. Fast groups will be having DPS ripping threat like crazy (warlock). Currently I run Glyph of Sinister Strike, Tricks of the Trade, and Fan of Knives for my setup.

cascawadas
cascawadas
1 year ago

Hey guys. First of all i’m not a good rogue so i don’t know if this guide is Good, but…. This is the definition of a good guide, good explanations, (a little bit repetitive sometimes, but dont really care), and everything. Thanks guys

Sleepy
Sleepy
1 year ago

Just wondering, what about Glyph of Evis, since it is not listed.

Primer
Primer
Reply to  Sleepy
1 year ago

Bc u never use it, envenom is the more powerfull spell, expect short fights like overworld mobs whre u cant stack ir poisens that high, so its in my opinion pretty usless.

gulp
gulp
Reply to  Primer
1 year ago

this is a combat rogue guide tho

tomas11
tomas11
1 year ago

which poisons to use ? slow or fast offhand weapon ?

Dominick
Dominick
Reply to  tomas11
1 year ago

My guess would be instant poison for offhand and deadly poison for main hand

Ya boi
Ya boi
Reply to  Dominick
1 year ago

Other way around. Deadly on a fast offhand, and instant on a slow mainhand

Last edited 1 year ago by Ya boi
Manchego
Manchego
1 year ago

Thanks for a very helpful guide.

I wonder what the reason might be that you include Vigor in the mace version while excluding it in the swords version?
As I understand energy regeneration is a fixed value, so the 10 extra max energy seems unnecessary in a PvE environment – or am I missing something obvious here?
Thanks again for the guide.

Narcoticks
Narcoticks
Reply to  Manchego
1 year ago

You are correct, vigor is a trap talent. As is the glyph that increases energy. You will never cap energy outside of the start of the encounter

Wackö
Wackö
1 year ago

Hey, im a human rogue and i wonder if i should use de mass talent in combaT ?great guid ty !

CaliCat
CaliCat
9 months ago

Wishing this guide showed which talents to choose at each level.

Passion
Passion(@passion)
Editor
Reply to  CaliCat
9 months ago

Our Rogue Leveling Guide covers which talent to choose at which level, if that is any help.

Penava
Penava
5 months ago

Hey,why don’t u use Evis talent? Everyone said i should go for it with higher gear.

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