Combat Rogues are light-armored warriors that prefer to face their opponents directly, using strong weapons that slice and slash their rivals. Their gameplay employs virtually little stealth features, preferring to charge headfirst into the battlefield, aggressively striking foes in a killing rampage. Their skill with diverse weapons speaks for itself – the Combat Rogue’s trail is littered with the bodies of slaughtered beasts.

Combat Rogues received a terrible name in TBC owing to their lack of utility, but in reality, they were routinely among the greatest DPS specs in the game – even if Fury Warriors took the focus from us. In Wrath of the Lich King, we finally get our revenge — not only are Combat Rogues the kings of melee single target DPS, but they’ve been improved in a variety of ways, including access to really powerful utility in the form of Tricks of the Trade and top-tier AoE capabilities in the form of Fan of Knives — the latter being an area they were traditionally lacking in. Furthermore, thanks to talent modifications, we now have a lot more options in selecting weapons — To be competitive, we no longer need to pray for mighty swords like the Warglaive of Azzinoth.

This tutorial will teach you everything you need to know about raiding as a Combat Rogue in PvE content. Everything from talents and equipment to ability rotations and macros will be covered. By the end of this tutorial, you’ll be showing those Fury Warriors who’s boss, peering down from the top of the DPS meter!

Combat Rogue Strengths & Weaknesses

Strengths

Unparalleled single-target damage
Combat Rogues are the kings of single target DPS, with only few specs directly competing with them. They are unquestionably the most powerful melee DPS in this area.

AoE damage at the highest level
Rogues, like other melee, struggled with AoE damage (meaning 5+ targets), which was usually the realm of Warlocks and Mages. This is no longer the case: the inclusion of Fan of Knives takes Rogues to the top of the meters in AoE-heavy encounters, right alongside casters and much ahead of most other melee specs, which are normally limited to cleaving 3-4 targets at a time.

Cleave damage at the highest level
Rogues always had high cleave damage, and were usually only defeated by Fury Warriors. That difference is now narrower than it has ever been, with Rogues right up there with the rest of the melee classes’ “big boys.”

Simple, unchanged rotation
While WotLK made a lot of specs’ DPS rotations more difficult, things barely changed for Combat Rogues – our rotation is mostly unaltered, and it’s still perhaps the easiest in the game, with no sophisticated macros required to play well. This makes getting into Combat Rogue incredibly simple, especially for individuals who want to try a new class or play their Rogue alt more.

Spec is very stackable.
Unlike in TBC, when most guilds would only carry one Rogue for the Expose Armor debuff, Rogues are now extremely stackable because to their tremendously high damage and immensely helpful Tricks of the Trade. Much guilds may transport as many as 4 to 5 Combat Rogues to Icecrown Citadel. Gone are the days when you had to beg for a raid place!

Weaknesses

Loot competition is fierce.
The disadvantage of being a highly stackable class that most raid groups will have multiples of is that you’ll be competing against a LOT of people. This is especially bad when it comes to weapons, because each raid tier typically has two viable main hands and two viable off-hands, so if you have a bunch of Rogues, some of them will likely have to settle for weaker weapons, or may never get a weapon upgrade that tier if you get unlucky with drops.

Gear is extremely important.
Combat As indicated in the Strengths section, rogues are powerful and deliver enormous damage. However, they are heavily reliant on high-quality gear to acquire this level of strength – their initial damage isn’t very amazing, but their scaling is. Many Rogues will select Assassination over Combat for the first couple of raid tiers, biding their time until they have the gear to swap.

Utility is limited.
Combat Rogues don’t have poor usefulness by any means – our Tricks of the Trade are already rather effective on their own. However, when compared to other classes, we just don’t have much to give aside from our damage, since we have the fewest raid boost / debuff effects of any class in the game.

Combat Rogue Utility

Combat Rogues contribute the following raid bonuses and debuffs to a raid, in addition to their damage:

Tricks of the Trade
Only Rogues have this completely unique usefulness. The threat transfer component is quite strong on its own, as seen by Hunters with their Misdirection throughout TBC, but the damage boost component combined with the relatively short cooldown makes this ability absolutely incredible. Use it on your greatest damage dealer on cooldown, especially during Heroism / Bloodlust, and your raid’s DPS will skyrocket. More significantly, your target will adore you for the rest of their lives, which is more than most other courses can claim!

Increased physical damage taken by 4% (does not stack) – Savage Combat
Poor Arms Warriors, they just had one must-have special utility in Blood Frenzy. We stole the 4 percent enhanced physical damage taken debuff from them, being the nasty little thieves that we are. Given that we are substantially stronger than Arms Warriors in Wrath, it will be our responsibility to inflict this critical debuff to bosses. Fortunately, this ability is quite powerful, so every Combat Rogue will be able to use it with ease.

Expose Armor 20 percent armor decrease (does not stack)
The Improved Expose Armor skill has been modified in Wrath, which means we now give the same 20% armor loss as Warriors with their Sunder Armor. Given that applying Expose Armor is much more expensive due to the combo point cost, we effectively lose this debuff totally. The only time you should use it is if all of your Warriors die or are unable to join a raid – the debuff is essential, we’re simply bad at applying it.

Slow cast speed (30%; does not stack) – Mind-numbing Poison
Our cast speed slow spell, like the Warlock equivalent (Curse of Tongues), has been significantly nerfed, going from a 70% cast speed slow to a 30% cast speed slow. However, it is still incredibly beneficial in certain boss encounters, such as Sindragosa and her Blistering Cold. However, because of their 30 yard range, Warlocks are usually better at administering this debuff, so it’s excellent that we can step in and deliver it ourselves if required.