Heirlooms + Rogues = Love?

[Zeid]

And what you said about sub... weeell... sub is dead. You may decide to level with it, but generally speaking you'll see more Combat Rogues in arenas then you'll see Rogues who play Sub.

No , not in 2s or 3s at least

[Kramar]

/equipslot 16 Name of Dagger;
/cast Ambush;

/equipslot 16 Name or original sword

afaik, equiping an item triggers the GCD which would make that macro unusable.

[Darkheaven]

afaik, equiping an item triggers the GCD which would make that macro unusable.

Nope

[Latetomyownfuneral]

When i was leveling my rogue, i went in sub just enough to pick up hemo, ghostly strike, and the vanish evasion CD reduce. Malice in assasination tree, relentless strikes, imp evis and lethality, then finish up by going in combat. As for enchants i went firey, well because it was cheap and proced all the time. When you get to . . 41 or 44 i think, dual phantom blades should be really good, the armor reduce mechanic is nice.

[Haibara]

The less damage you take while levling as rogue, the less downtime you have. therefore I suggest you go subt to 50, chainstunning and backstabing mobs while taking minimal damage. at 50, go mutilate since then it will be even easier. at some points, like first 1-2 lvl's in outland and northrend you might feel your doing really low damage, it will even up as your gear gets better, believe me.

[ithanium2]

I like leveling subtlety also.
Premed + Ambush Crit (almost all the time) + KS + GS + hemo = dead mob. Not to mention the lower cooldown of stealth and the faster movement in stealth.

I'm not saying its the best leveling spec, but i enjoy it the most.

[Moxxy]

It always amazes me the number of rogues who repeat the "OMG Combat ftw for leveling" mantra. I have been combat since molten core days with brief forays into Mutilate during early TBC and during "Naxx omg we are farming this crap again" WOTLK. Combat is a great spec for sustained dmg but it has always suffered from a lack of combo points. If a mob lives 30+ secs and you can do a rotation, its great, but realistically, for soloing, mobs don't live that long.

For soloing, you want a spec with as little downtime as possible, which requires mitigating damage through dodge & stun for a rogue. You also want high burst, IMO. Outside of elite mobs, the burst of adrenaline rush is overkill. This leads me to one of two builds:

1) Mutilate http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#fhxcojgoVboIuVo0xVZxbc

This build was amazing for soloing pre overkill change in 3.1.2. With Vigor + Vigor glyph you can still do a mut + mut + evis and finish off most mobs without tapping out your energy bar. With fleet footed + camo, you can traverse mob to mob easily in stealth without feeling sluggish as well as giving you the overkill regen post stealth removal. This build has the highest burst potential but I think lacks a little in the dmg mitigation area (especially in dealing with 2+ mobs, but you can always sap one to help this). The poisons of choice are double IP since deadly won't have time to tick.

2) Hemo http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#fhhZ0...Ze0fdhhzdAzVco

This is my current soloing build as it fits well with my fist + dagger combat raiding spec, but it has its advantages beyond that. The key to this build is eviscerate. Glyph eviscerate and stack agi/crit as much as possible. Macro premeditate into cheap shot. You, then have 1 of 2 rotations. Cheap Shot (when premed is up) + Eviscerate = dead mob (Eviscerates hit like a truck in this build). Cheap Shot (without premed) + Hemo + Eviscerate. Either way, most mobs of your level die before the cheap shot wears off due to master of subtlety's 10% bonus + 35% talent boosts to eviscerate. The poison of choice in this case is double wound poison. Since most things die during cheap shot, this build wins in mitigation but even outside of cheap shot, the extra agility and potential for double evasion during prep really pushes it ahead. You could drop 9% to eviscerate as well and pick up lightning reflexes for 6% more dodge & 10% melee haste.

[satori sartori]

1) Mutilate http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#fhxcojgoVboIuVo0xVZxbc

Why Hunger for blood? or Master Poisoner or Precision, IMO the best leveling specs are almost the same as pvp specs
I would try this
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#fhxco...czZbxZxbfbhhzb
Dirty Deeds is a must, or cheap shot gets you energy starved.
I don't take gouge as a talent dump, I actually use it a lot while leveling, its a good CC.
Focused attacks and all the next Talent are more of DPS talents for endgame.
I dont even bother with Murder, because there is a lot of undead in Northrend, and its not a lot of extra damage, until endgame with buffs.

[Moxxy]

Why Hunger for blood? or Master Poisoner or Precision, IMO the best leveling specs are almost the same as pvp specs
I would try this
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#fhxco...czZbxZxbfbhhzb
Dirty Deeds is a must, or cheap shot gets you energy starved.
I don't take gouge as a talent dump, I actually use it a lot while leveling, its a good CC.
Focused attacks and all the next Talent are more of DPS talents for endgame.
I dont even bother with Murder, because there is a lot of undead in Northrend, and its not a lot of extra damage, until endgame with buffs.

Its a matter of choice I guess. If you go the dirty deeds route, you could viably open with Cheap Shot, but I prefer the mut + mut + eviscerate opener. Its faster killing, though you probably take more dmg.

That said, you are right, the high end HFB + Cut to the Chase & Master Poisoner talents are a bit wasted in this setup. Especially since I don't bother keeping HFB up when using it. Its a tad more flexible though as its a decent dmg dealing build if you end up instancing at all while leveling.

As to precision? It felt like less of a waste then going down the subtlety tree. Typical leveling gear lacks in the hit department and this can help close that gap. If I were to remove the 8 points from HFB, MP & CttC, I would probably go http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#fhxco...IzZ0xV0x0LZxbc for monstrous eviscerates but it also depends on whether you are playing on a PVP or PVE server.

[Voij]

Its a matter of choice I guess. If you go the dirty deeds route, you could viably open with Cheap Shot, but I prefer the mut + mut + eviscerate opener. Its faster killing, though you probably take more dmg.

That said, you are right, the high end HFB + Cut to the Chase & Master Poisoner talents are a bit wasted in this setup. Especially since I don't bother keeping HFB up when using it. Its a tad more flexible though as its a decent dmg dealing build if you end up instancing at all while leveling.

As to precision? It felt like less of a waste then going down the subtlety tree. Typical leveling gear lacks in the hit department and this can help close that gap. If I were to remove the 8 points from HFB, MP & CttC, I would probably go http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#fhxco...IzZ0xV0x0LZxbc for monstrous eviscerates but it also depends on whether you are playing on a PVP or PVE server.

There's one fatal flaw in your spec, at least I believe it's a flaw...
You spec into Improved Poisons, which would be alright, if you had spent 2 points into Deadly Brew, which you didn't.
That's 20% extra-Mutilate-Damage that's missing there O_o
And if you wanna go IP/WP, then you might aswell just go WP/WP and take those points out of Improved Poisons.
You could also take one point out of Focused Attacks and put it into Aggression, I believe the bonus to your Eviscerate's damage is worth more then that 0.66 energy per crit. (Depending on your crit-chance though...)

All in all, there're some bad things about your build:
4/5 Lethality
4/5 Aggression
0/2 Deadly Brew
0/2 Quick Recovery (Reduces downtime and helps a little if mobs dodge your Evis, since you're usually not expertise-capped when leveling.)
5/5 Improved Poisons, which is, when combined with the things mentioned above, a bad talent to choose.

BUT I'll admit that it's a nice build if you do a lot of instances while leveling.

[ant1pathy]

Combat is better at taking on more than one mob at a time. But how often do you realistically find those setups while you're leveling? I spent way more time sneaking to a specific mob, killing it, and restealthing. Quests are faster than mob grinding, and nothing gets them done as fast as a Mut/Sub build. Try this spec and see how it does for you. Slow/slow, Wound/Wound.