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WoW Rogue Leveling Guide - Cataclysm Leveling & Spec

Free WoW Rogue Leveling Guide:

With the coming of WoW: Cataclysm all classes have suffered major changes and so has the rogue class. Talent trees have been changed as well as the mechanics of certain classes. However, rogues have retained their basic mechanics and core of their talent trees. The balance of the trees has been shifted though. Best leveling spec in Wrath of the Lichking was combat by far but the situation has changed now.

Rogues have three talent trees:
Combat
Assassination
Subtlety

Subtlety rogues have very nice utilities but their damage output is far behind of Combat and Assassination. Blizzard has put a lot of effort in trying to balance out all three spec but still could not put subtlety close enough to combat and assassination. With this fact in mind, we can already write off subtlety from the list, leaving us with two possible specs for leveling: combat and assassination. If for some reason you insist on going with leveling as subtlety you should try using a spec similar to this:

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#fohZ0bZfhcfducRGo

Assassination rogues have the highest damage output at the moment of all three spec and is the dominant spec for all PvP and PvE rogues. When comparing two spec we can always agree that more damage is equal to faster leveling as long as the downtime is roughly the same for both specs. Most of the damage for assassination rogues comes from their poisons, which counts as nature damage thus fully ignoring the targets armor. Your assassination build should be something like this:

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#ffIfzsMzoGo0bZbhc

Assassination is definitely the preferred leveling spec if you are playing on a PvP realm where you are often attacked while leveling.

Combat rogues were the best leveling option in Wrath of the Lichking and even in The Burning crusade and even now they are still viable. This spec is focused on physical damage more than anything else, and is reduced by armor. Down time for both specs is roughly the same. Combat rogue leveling spec should be:

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#fbhZfGccocbRGobh

Keep in mind that with this spec u do get a bit more survivability then with the assassination build. Combat damage is highly scaled by your weapons so if you do not have heirloom weapons or good rare quality ones I would recommend going for assassination over combat. Seeing how assassination is currently dominating both aspects of the game PvE and PvP, while you level you will get used to all of assassination abilities, strong and weak points allowing you to get used to it and be ready for instance or battleground farming. Combat might be the preferred spec on PvE servers up until level 70 but after that, once your enemies have much more health, assassination will be the better option.

We can conclude that both Combat and Assassination are fully viable for leveling with subtlety being far behind on damage. Try both spec out and play with the one that suits you best so you will further optimize your leveling time and enjoy leveling more.

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