how is rogue leveling?

[Skarsguard]

I would say out of the classes that I have leveled that the Rogue was the most painful I mean it's not hard it's just not faceroll like say a DK or Ret paladin.

[Adoxe]

I didn't have a lot of issues while leveling, but I must say Dread Wastes and Townlong were really really really annoying as a Rogue.

[Deadite]

While it was not really hard i found it to be pretty painful. Creeping about hoping you don't pull more that one or two mobs. On my Druid my only problem was some of the 10 mobs i pulled would reset. I would guess tho that the times saved stealthing past stuff might have evened out time wise.

[Kaitain]

I actually found it very enjoyable, specifically compared to levelling my moonkin, which was hell. Not as fun as hunter, but still very pleasant.

I think what I liked about it was that I was doing it in a very rogue style: stealthing between every mob, sapping lots to prevent double pull and control patrols, using gouge and blind to mitigate unavoidable multi-pulls, cheap shotting and playing a short, repeatable burst-ish rotation. Beyond that it's using every cooldown you have to make the process as streamlined and fast as you can. This is as opposed to the levelling style from years ago (Vanilla and TBC in particular) where it was just slapping mobs face to face and never stealthing. I hated that because it was so un-roguey.

The class now has a couple of levelling friendly talents and glyphs that really support this style. I did it as Assassination because I liked SnD staying up and it felt nice for just dumping energy in a short time span. Dunno if that's optimal but it doesn't really matter.

If you like levelling without paying any attention at all to what you're doing, you probably won't like it.

[Deleted]

I actually found it very enjoyable, specifically compared to levelling my moonkin, which was hell. Not as fun as hunter, but still very pleasant.

I think what I liked about it was that I was doing it in a very rogue style: stealthing between every mob, sapping lots to prevent double pull and control patrols, using gouge and blind to mitigate unavoidable multi-pulls, cheap shotting and playing a short, repeatable burst-ish rotation. Beyond that it's using every cooldown you have to make the process as streamlined and fast as you can. This is as opposed to the levelling style from years ago (Vanilla and TBC in particular) where it was just slapping mobs face to face and never stealthing. I hated that because it was so un-roguey.

The class now has a couple of levelling friendly talents and glyphs that really support this style. I did it as Assassination because I liked SnD staying up and it felt nice for just dumping energy in a short time span. Dunno if that's optimal but it doesn't really matter.

If you like levelling without paying any attention at all to what you're doing, you probably won't like it.

Good post, as a rogue you won't be able to pull huge pack of mobs and ae them down, but you have many other specific and unique rogue tools. You can avoid a lot of mobs with stealth sap distraction.
So basically if you want to zerg your way through levelling, rogue is not the class for you, in the meantime you would be spoiling all the fun that levelling as a rogue is supposed to be.

[Kuniku]

While I'm not quite in MoP content yet (hit 71 last night) I must say so far that Rogue is one of my favourite classes to level since my shaman in 2.0 (2x Flurry Axe + Hand of justice + old windfury = ALL OF THE EXTRA ATTACKS!) A lot of classes now days are just a faceroll, run in, do some aoe, rince and repeat. But my rogue seems that much squishier, and can't get away with pulling as many mobs - while Recuperate is good, its not THAT good! So I'm using more abilities, I'm sapping mobs so I can fight them both 1v1, so can use openers on both, I'm regularl having to to blind and vanish.

Also its the first time I've leveled on a pvp server, and rogues must be the best class for that with all the reset options, I've jumped a lot of other players my own level, and whenever any of them has tried to return the favour if the fight starts going sour I can reset everything, heal up and get the jump on them and usually win - more so now I've got more of the cooldowns (CloS and prep spring to mind that I got yesterday)

Roll on MoP land and seeing more people to get involved with ^__^

[Deleted]

Well I'm glad I'll be leveling my rogue with a disci priest

I usually level in sub and rely on nuking stuff with an opener, but I might go from 85 - 90 as combat/assassination now that I'll have a pocket healer.

[Esexret]

yup yup gogo assassination ^-^

[aycheff]

Leveling my Rogue was rough, specially after leveling as a mage. Downtime in 88-90 was horrible. But its oh so worth it once you hit that 90 and get your rogue well equipped ;D.

[Coldkil]

I leveled the rogue as first char, so i didn't have a comparison at the time.

But when i started leveling other chars i've seen how much easier is woth certain classes like paladin, DK, warlock. It's not difficult, but you struggle much more with a rogue because we actually don't have "spammable" heavy hitting abilities which crit for 100k at lvl 86.

Our damage is balanced on a fast flurry of attacks - plus bad gear and stats decay while leveling put us in a disadvantage.

Leveling is certainly doable, but other classes have a much easier way through it.

[Kael]

I'll say that in reflection, leveling my rogue (85-90) DID feel more roguelike than anything else in the game, but getting two characters (rogue, druid) to 90 the first week, my rogue with all the gear I could possibly pick and DS BiS, 450/435 weapons for combat at 88 etc., whereas my druid leveled as a DS BiS bear who collected quest rewards for casters (hit 90 in ~412 gear)... my bear was doing approximately equal damage in most situations, and without any fear (from 1-15 mobs). It was just more efficient.

Having to sneak around and sap and vanish is an interesting play style, but unfortunately, for this leveling experience, it's simply unrewarding - while it's interesting, it's a grind. If I'd leveled my rogue over 3 weeks, or if I hadn't cared about pace of leveling, I'd have really enjoyed it - but I play characters for max-level gameplay, and the effort and time required in leveling a rogue was greater than: druid, mage, warlock, priest, monk, warrior, DK, hunter, shaman (so far). This is what I'd like to see from WoW on a wide-scale basis, but from the point of view of 1 of 11 classes on a journey from 85 to 90... it's a serious pain.

If you want your rogue at 90, bear with it, and get your LFR/T14+ gear and all the QOL/why-does-this-suck-SO-much issues melt away, and played well, you'll top damage charts while flooring damage taken charts, and in some cases, actually bring some utility (ooh challenge modes!). It's worth it, but it's still a pain in the arse =)

[Nicola]

I'd say 85-90 is by far the hardest part, but doable.
Lower levels is just getting slice and dice and recuperate up and spamming mut mut rupture on every mob you see. No need to wait till mobs are dead, they'll die from the dots and refund you energy.

[shadowboy]

The key to leveling fast as a rogue is to level as a rogue should (using stealth, tricks, cc, etc). Kill only what you need to complete quests for faster quest completion.

[Maelstrom51]

The key to leveling fast as a rogue is to level as a rogue should (using stealth, tricks, cc, etc). Kill only what you need to complete quests for faster quest completion.

Disagree - pull mobs one or two at a time and abuse Rupture/Glyph of Deadly Momentum for zero downtime. Pull too many mobs and use a cooldown.

Just grinding mobs I was able to hit 6-7mil xp/hr without rested doing this. The best spot is the shamans in townlong steppes.

[shadowboy]

Disagree - pull mobs one or two at a time and abuse Rupture/Glyph of Deadly Momentum for zero downtime. Pull too many mobs and use a cooldown.

Just grinding mobs I was able to hit 6-7mil xp/hr without rested doing this. The best spot is the shamans in townlong steppes.

The majority of your XP comes from quest turnins, not killing things. 1 quest is typically worth as much xp as 10-20 kills or more. If you kill minimally you complete quests faster, faster quest completion = more xp/hour.

[Coreana]

I think rogue leveling is pretty hard compared to all the other classes..

[Alvito]

Leveling any class is pretty easy at this point. Rogues lack of aoe until late in the game and the requirement for stealth/positioning creates some issues though. For me they are the worst class to lvl several I have had all toons at lvl cap but my rogue more then once and there is a reason for that.

[Maelstrom51]

The majority of your XP comes from quest turnins, not killing things. 1 quest is typically worth as much xp as 10-20 kills or more. If you kill minimally you complete quests faster, faster quest completion = more xp/hour.

Still disagree.
http://www.wowhead.com/npc=60697/osul-mist-shaman

These mobs give ~23k xp per kill. You can kill one every 10-15 seconds as a rogue. At that speed, the time it takes to travel to different quest areas is simply not worth it.

By the way, if you look at the amount of experience for quests, its right at 10 mobs per quest, assuming equal levels, not 10-20. Now, consider that by killing these shamans you get a 100% damage buff, even ignoring that you have much, much longer downtime questing, grinding these mobs breaks even with questing.

Add in all the downtime, and its not even close.

Tl;dr, you're wrong.

[shadowboy]

Still disagree.
http://www.wowhead.com/npc=60697/osul-mist-shaman

These mobs give ~23k xp per kill. You can kill one every 10-15 seconds as a rogue. At that speed, the time it takes to travel to different quest areas is simply not worth it.

By the way, if you look at the amount of experience for quests, its right at 10 mobs per quest, assuming equal levels, not 10-20. Now, consider that by killing these shamans you get a 100% damage buff, even ignoring that you have much, much longer downtime questing, grinding these mobs breaks even with questing.

Add in all the downtime, and its not even close.

Tl;dr, you're wrong.

I don't know about you but I don't do my quests 1 at a time. You may kill 10-20 mobs for a quest but you have to collect things for another quest, or complete 2 quests at once killing the same mobs.

Point is you're doing 3-5 quests in the time it takes you to grind 10-20 mobs. Quest xp becomes significantly further ahead once you do that. Nevermind that some quest chains end in you killing 1 mob, getting a blue, and getting twice a normal quests worth of experience.

[Maelstrom51]

I don't know about you but I don't do my quests 1 at a time. You may kill 10-20 mobs for a quest but you have to collect things for another quest, or complete 2 quests at once killing the same mobs.

Point is you're doing 3-5 quests in the time it takes you to grind 10-20 mobs. Quest xp becomes significantly further ahead once you do that. Nevermind that some quest chains end in you killing 1 mob, getting a blue, and getting twice a normal quests worth of experience.

I think you should time yourself on how long it actually takes to complete quests. Because quite frankly, I'd be pretty impressed if you were able to average a quest completed every 30 seconds, while including travel time.