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Rogue

The Rogue is the same animal it was in 2005: stealth, energy, combo points, poisons, Sap, Pick Lock, and three trees that all deal melee damage. What changed is the talent math. Assassination finally has Mutilate at level 40, Subtlety got a bleed identity built around Hemorrhage and Rupture, and Combat lost its headline BlizzCon talent before the beta was a day old. If you want to play the class that sims highest on paper and pays for it with positional requirements and two buffs to juggle, roll Assassination. If you want the easiest 1 to 60 and a cleave button for the 10-man, roll Combat.

Why play it in Forever

Section titled “Why play it in Forever”

Rogue brings no raid buff. Your value is damage, Expose Armor when no Warrior is Sundering, Kick, and Feint for threat control. Blizzard’s Deep Dive recap does not contain a single Rogue-specific sentence verified, so everything below comes from the datamined beta trees and fan theorycraft.

What makes the class more interesting in Forever than in Classic Era: Assassination has a real 2-combo-point builder in Mutilate and a poison-amplifying finisher in Venom; Subtlety’s Thousand Cuts turns Rupture ticks into energy discounts; Combat’s Hack and Slash gives every weapon type a distinct bonus, so your race and your drops decide your weapon instead of “swords or bust”. Weapon-skill racials became crit, and weapon-skill items give less of it, which flattens the old Human-or-Orc gate. verified

What changed from vanilla

Section titled “What changed from vanilla”

Beta 1.60.1.69977 datamine: 9 new talents (zockify counts 10 by classifying Hack and Slash as new), 34 changed, 7 removed, 30 changed spells. verified

Removed talents: Dagger Specialization, Fist Weapon Specialization, Mace Specialization, Improved Backstab (Combat); Improved Sap, Sleight of Hand, Deadliness (Subtlety). Sword Specialization was rebuilt as Hack and Slash. verified

New talents (datamined text): verified

Talent Tree, row What it does
Mutilate (21 pt) Assassination Attacks with both weapons for 75% weapon damage plus a per-weapon bonus (17 in the 69977 export, 13 in a 09-20 export; unsettled). +20% vs Poisoned targets. Awards 2 CP
Venom (31 pt) Assassination Finisher: +30% poison damage and +10% poison application chance, 9 to 21 sec by CP
Puncturing Wounds Combat row 2 +10% Backstab crit, +5% Mutilate crit, Backstab has a 15% chance to add a CP (3/3)
Flawless Execution (16 pt row) Combat Eviscerate costs 10 less Energy. Replaced Restless Blades
Dirty Tricks Subtlety row 2 Sap and Blind cost 25% less Energy
Improved Distract Subtlety row 3 +3 yd radius, further reduces stealth detection of distracted enemies
Quietus Subtlety row 6 Sinister Strike, Ghostly Strike, Hemorrhage +2% to 10% damage vs targets under 35% health
Cutthroat Subtlety row 6 Backstab has a 3% to 15% chance to make your next Ambush within 10 sec not require stealth
Thousand Cuts (31 pt) Subtlety Each Rupture tick cuts the Energy cost of your next Hemorrhage or Backstab within 10 sec by 3, stacking 5 times

Reworked talents worth knowing: verified

  • Hack and Slash (Combat, 5 ranks): axes and swords get a 1 to 5% extra-attack chance; daggers and fists get +1 to 5% crit; maces ignore 3 to 15% armor. Rogues can reportedly train One-Handed Axes, flagged “check in client” by expcarry. unverified
  • Hemorrhage (Subtlety 21 pt): 100% weapon damage (145% with a dagger), the target takes 15% more Rupture damage from you for 15 sec, 1 CP. The old charge-based debuff is gone.
  • Premeditation moved to the 16-point row, duration 10 to 20 sec.
  • Weapon Expertise now reduces enemy dodge and parry by 1% per rank instead of granting weapon skill.
  • Lethality 30% to 20%. Dual Wield Specialization is 5% per rank (25% at 5/5). Vigor is 2 ranks of +5 Energy. Seal Fate no longer requires Cold Blood. Setup 33%. Initiative 33%. Serrated Blades adds 3% armor ignore. Dirty Deeds removes Garrote’s positional requirement. Improved Expose Armor cuts the cost by 5 and refunds 1 CP at 5 CP. Improved Gouge moved to Assassination. Improved Eviscerate moved to Combat at 7% per rank.

Milestone rows (derived from row position, not Blizzard labels; Blizzard has named no class’s 16-point talents): 16 pt = Improved Expose Armor row (Assassination; it is a 2-rank talent, so the “one-point milestone” label is shaky), Flawless Execution (Combat), Premeditation (Subtlety). 21 pt = Mutilate / Blade Flurry / Hemorrhage. 31 pt = Venom / Adrenaline Rush / Thousand Cuts. verified

Spell changes: Backstab Rank 9 bonus 225 to 150. Rupture and Eviscerate base values trimmed. Expose Armor buffed. Instant Poison Rank 1 went from 19 to 25 damage to 13 to 17. Crippling Poison is a 50% slow. Wound Poison’s heal reduction went up. Sap Rank 3 “no longer requires stealth” (zockify reads the same line as “no longer breaks stealth”; unresolved). Poisons and Lockpicking are now secondary skills like First Aid. verified Feint reportedly drops much more threat than in Classic. unverified

Resource changes: combo points persist on the previous target when you switch, until you build on a new one (player reports on the Blizzard forum, no Blizzard text). verified One fan site describes Energy regen as continuous rather than the vanilla 20 per 2-second tick. unverified

The three trees

Section titled “The three trees”

Assassination

Section titled “Assassination”
  • Role: melee DPS, daggers.
  • Playstyle: Mutilate builds 2 CP per press. Keep Slice and Dice and Venom up, then 5-CP Eviscerate. Seal Fate crits add CP. Instant Poison main hand, Deadly Poison off hand.
  • Strengths: the highest public sim signal (about 646 DPS on expcarry’s work-in-progress preset, their “A band”). verified as published
  • Weaknesses: positional (Mutilate is from behind), two buffs to juggle, poison-immune bosses gut it, needs two good daggers.
  • Verdict: consensus raid-DPS frontrunner. Dispute: the sim presets are pre-beta, and Mutilate’s per-weapon bonus differs between exports (17 vs 13). Nobody has played it at 60.

Combat

Section titled “Combat”
  • Role: melee DPS, any one-hander.
  • Playstyle: Sinister Strike builder, Slice and Dice upkeep, Eviscerate, Blade Flurry and Adrenaline Rush windows.
  • Strengths: weapon flexible through Hack and Slash, safest leveling, cleave via Blade Flurry, Riposte and Endurance for survival.
  • Weaknesses: lost Restless Blades; beta players report energy starvation at low level; about 616 DPS, expcarry’s “B band”. verified as published
  • Verdict: the leveling spec, agreed by wowforeverbuilds and expcarry. verified Whether it keeps up at 60 without Restless Blades is the open question.

Subtlety

Section titled “Subtlety”
  • Role: melee DPS and control.
  • Playstyle: Premeditation plus Ambush opener, Hemorrhage builder, 5-CP Rupture, Thousand Cuts discounts on your next Hemorrhage or Backstab.
  • Strengths: a new bleed-based raid identity, and a huge PvP control kit.
  • Weaknesses: “no comparable public preset” for raid DPS; Quietus is called filler.
  • Verdict: the PvP spec. wowforeverbuilds says its raid role “has not been compared with Combat or Assassination in game”. verified

Sim numbers above assume fixed gear, full buffs, a 2-minute single-target fight, and work-in-progress presets. expcarry itself says “do not copy” them.

Leveling 1 to 60

Section titled “Leveling 1 to 60”

Where beta data stops: the beta cap is 20, rising to 30. Talents from 10 to 20 have been played. Everything past that is theorycraft and labeled so by its authors.

Beta-tested Combat 10 to 20 (wowforeverbuilds, updated 09-21): verified

Levels Talent
10 to 11 Improved Sinister Strike 2/2
12 to 14 Improved Eviscerate 3/3
15 to 17 Precision 3/3
18 to 20 Puncturing Wounds 3/3 (daggers) or Deflection (swords)

expcarry lists the same four talents with Eviscerate first.

Theorycraft Combat swords 20 to 60 (written before the Restless Blades removal; substitute Flawless Execution or a Lightning Reflexes point at the marked slot): verified as published

Levels Talents
10 to 13 Improved Sinister Strike 2, Remorseless Attacks 2
14 to 19 Improved Eviscerate 3, Deflection 3
20 to 22 Precision 3
23 to 31 Riposte, Endurance 2, Lightning Reflexes 1, Dual Wield Specialization 5
32 to 37 Blade Flurry, Hack and Slash 5
38 to 42 Aggression 3, (former Restless Blades slot), Adrenaline Rush
43 to 60 Malice 5, Ruthlessness 3, Relentless Strikes, Lethality 5, Murder 2, Weapon Expertise 2

Rotation while leveling: open with Cheap Shot or Ambush from stealth. Sinister Strike to 2 CP, then Slice and Dice on long fights; otherwise go straight to a 5-CP Eviscerate. Slow sword main hand, fast off hand, Instant Poison on both. Expect energy starvation in the 40s until Relentless Strikes, thin crowd control before Blind at 34, and weakness against casters. verified

Trainer milestones in the beta client (no new trainer abilities; every new Rogue spell is a talent): 10 Sap, Slice and Dice, Sprint; 20 Rupture, Poisons, Crippling Poison; 30 Deadly Poison, Kidney Shot, Disarm Trap; 34 Blind. verified

Alternatives:

  • Assassination 30 to 60 with Mutilate at 40 exists, but its table claims Venom at level 30, which needs 31 points when you only have 21. The guide is internally inconsistent. Treat it as a sketch. verified
  • A Subtlety 20 to 50 stealth-opener path exists; its own author recommends swapping to Combat or Mutilate after 50. verified

Tips: Rogues cannot self-heal, so carry food and bandages. Healing potions moved to First Aid in Forever. verified Use dungeons for weapon upgrades; main-hand weapon damage is your biggest stat at every level.

Endgame builds

Section titled “Endgame builds”

Every build in this section is theorycraft from the beta client. None has been played at 60.

Assassination 36/13/2

Section titled “Assassination 36/13/2”
  • Talent build: Malice 5, Lethality 5, Seal Fate 5, Improved Poisons 5, Cold Blood, Mutilate, Venom, plus Combat hit and crit filler. verified as published
  • Priority: Garrote or Cheap Shot opener if it is safe, otherwise Mutilate from behind. Slice and Dice at 2+ CP. Build to 4 or 5 and Venom. With both up, 5-CP Eviscerate. Refresh whichever expires first. Expose Armor only if no Warrior is Sundering.
  • Stats: hit to cap (a single unified stat in Forever; the actual cap against level 63 bosses is unpublished, vanilla’s 9% is vanilla baseline), then Agility, crit, attack power and Strength, dagger damage.
  • Poisons: Instant Poison main hand, Deadly Poison off hand.
  • Consumables named by the guide: Elixir of the Mongoose, Juju Power or Elixir of Giants, Thistle Tea, Free Action Potion, Crusader enchant. Every one of these is a vanilla item name copied by a fan guide. vanilla baseline Forever’s Alchemy gets Mixology and new melee AP flasks, but potion cooldown and elixir-slot rules are unpublished. See Alchemy.
  • Raid fit: projects the highest single-target for the 20 (Hyjal Summit) and the 40 (Onyxia). In the 10-man Barrow Deeps, one Rogue is a comfortable slot. See Raids overview.

Combat 18/33/0

Section titled “Combat 18/33/0”
  • Talent build (09-17 guide, pre-removal): Malice 5, Ruthlessness 3, Murder 2, Improved Slice and Dice 2, Relentless Strikes, Lethality 5; Improved Eviscerate 3, Improved Sinister Strike 2, Lightning Reflexes 1, Deflection 3, Precision 3, Endurance 2, Riposte, the Restless Blades slot becomes Flawless Execution or Lightning Reflexes, Dual Wield Specialization 5, Blade Flurry, Hack and Slash 5, Weapon Expertise 2, Aggression 3, Adrenaline Rush. verified as published
  • Priority: Slice and Dice at 1 or 2 CP. Sinister Strike to 5. Refresh Slice and Dice or Eviscerate. Stack Blade Flurry, Adrenaline Rush and trinkets together. Hold Blade Flurry for two-target phases. Feint after Adrenaline Rush.
  • Stats: hit, Agility, attack power and Strength, crit. The guide’s “sword skill” line is vanilla thinking: Forever nerfed weapon skill on items and moved racial weapon bonuses to crit. changed in Forever
  • Consumables: same vanilla names as Assassination. vanilla baseline
  • Raid fit: Blade Flurry cleave makes Combat the safer pick for trash-heavy 10-man groups. It projects lower single-target than Assassination for the 20 and 40, but it is the spec that keeps working on a poison-immune boss.

Subtlety 20/0/31

Section titled “Subtlety 20/0/31”
  • Talent build: Serrated Blades 3, Premeditation, Hemorrhage, Quietus 5, Thousand Cuts, plus Malice and Lethality from Assassination. verified as published
  • Priority: Premeditation plus Ambush or Garrote opener. Slice and Dice. Hemorrhage to 5. Rupture. Keep the Hemorrhage debuff up so Rupture ticks get the 15%. Refresh Rupture before it drops. Vanish plus Ambush mid-fight, then Preparation for a second round.
  • Stats: hit, attack power, Agility, crit. Dagger main hand, fast off hand, Instant Poison on the off hand only.
  • Raid fit: pitched by its author for “plate-wearing bosses with no bleed immunity”. No sim, no in-game comparison. Bring it to the 10-man with friends; do not assume it competes in the 40.

Tier 1 set claim: wowforeverbuilds lists a “Grimstitch Armor” set with 2pc +1% hit, 3pc 3 sec off Kidney Shot, 4pc +36 AP vs Humanoids, 5pc 5 Energy off Eviscerate. The site itself flags it “partly unconfirmed”. unverified

No source ranks Rogue against other melee for Forever raids beyond expcarry’s unexplained “B tier”. verified

PvP notes

Section titled “PvP notes”

Level-60 PvP cannot be tested in beta, so all of this is theorycraft. Forever has Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, Alterac Valley and the new 15v15 Darkspear Islands, plus a 14-rank honor track that resets each patch cycle. verified Rank thresholds and decay are unannounced.

  • Subtlety 19/0/32: Premeditation into Cheap Shot then Kidney Shot; Preparation for a second Vanish, Evasion and Sprint; Dirty Tricks, Elusiveness, Ghostly Strike; Cold Blood plus Lethality finisher. Weakness: without Seal Fate or Adrenaline Rush “a target who survives the stun chain can outlast you”. verified as published
  • Combat 17/34/0: Kidney Shot, Sinister Strike to 5, Eviscerate under Adrenaline Rush. Strong vs Warriors (Riposte disarm), weak vs kiters. verified as published
  • Assassination: Cold Blood Mutilate burst, Improved Kidney Shot damage amp. verified as published
  • Racials that matter: Human Will to Survive (stun break), Undead Will of the Forsaken (no immunity window any more), Orc Hardiness, Gnome Escape Artist with 3 sec immunity, Night Elf Shadowmeld.

Race choice

Section titled “Race choice”

Rogue is available to every race except Tauren. verified All +10 resistance passives are gone and weapon-skill racials became crit. Numbers come from the classicwow.gg beta snapshot and can be tuned. No source ranks Forever Rogue races numerically.

Alliance

Race Rogue-relevant racials Take
Human Sword Specialization +2% crit with a sword; Perception (stealth detection); Will to Survive (stun removal, 3 min CD); +5% Spirit Best Alliance Combat swords pick. Strong PvP
Dwarf Mace Specialization +1% crit; Stoneform (removes bleed, poison, disease, 10% less physical damage 8 sec); Find Treasure; +5% vs Beasts Mace Combat gets 15% armor ignore from Hack and Slash. Stoneform counters enemy Rogues
Night Elf Elune’s Light +10% crit 15 sec (3 min CD); Shadowmeld; Quickness +1% dodge, +2% run speed Best Alliance dagger burst on-use. Stealth utility
Gnome Expansive Mind +5% max Energy; Escape Artist (root and snare removal, 3 sec immunity); Eureka! (next 3 abilities cheaper and 10% stronger); 20% fewer Engineering failures Sleeper for energy-starved specs. PvP mobility
High Order Skyborne (paid) Wind Blessed +1% haste; Walk on Air (glide); Read Ley Line (+100% regen 15 sec); +5% vs Elementals Modest. Paid unlock, see Editions

Horde

Race Rogue-relevant racials Take
Orc Blood Fury +10% AP for 15 sec (2 min CD); Axe Specialization +1% crit; Hardiness (stun duration minus 20%); Shatter Curse Best Horde PvE if One-Handed Axes are truly trainable. PvP stun resistance
Undead Will of the Forsaken (charm, fear, sleep removal, no immunity window); Cannibalize (7% HP and mana per 2 sec); Touch of the Grave; Underwater Breathing PvP staple
Troll Berserking +10% attack speed 10 sec (3 min CD, no health condition); Rapid Regeneration (50% HP over 6 sec); Beast Slaying; Regeneration Strong Horde PvE. Leveling sustain
Windshaper Skyborne (paid) Wind Blessed +1% haste; Walk on Air; Skysight +10% run speed 30 sec; +5% vs Elementals Modest. Paid unlock

Racial text is verified across three fan transcriptions (Method, zockify, classicwow.gg) that agree with each other; Blizzard’s own racial post could not be loaded.

Professions for this class

Section titled “Professions for this class”
  • Engineering + Mining for raid and PvP utility (Sapper Charges, grenades, Rocket Boots). Gnome Engineering Specialization makes devices more reliable. verified
  • Skinning + Leatherworking for leveling and self-gear. verified
  • Herbalism + Alchemy for consumables and Mixology. verified
  • Poisons and Lockpicking are secondary skills in Forever, so they never cost a primary slot. Pick Pocket and lockboxes are a class-only gold source. verified
  • First Aid now holds healing potions. Take it. verified

Pre-raid gear philosophy

Section titled “Pre-raid gear philosophy”

No trustworthy Forever pre-raid BiS list exists; the BiS sites are “data pending” vapor. Principles instead:

  • Main-hand weapon damage first, because most of your attacks scale off it. verified
  • Hit to cap (one unified stat), then Agility.
  • Weapon-skill items are deliberately weaker in Forever. Do not chase them. verified
  • Match your weapon type to Hack and Slash and your racial: swords for Human, maces for Dwarf, axes for Orc, daggers for Assassination and Subtlety.
  • Nine new dungeons exist, but their Rogue loot is unindexed by any loadable source. unverified

Common mistakes and pro tips

Section titled “Common mistakes and pro tips”
  • Sitting at full Energy. Always spend. verified
  • Letting Slice and Dice drop. Refresh at low CP on long fights. verified
  • Assassination: Eviscerate only when Slice and Dice and Venom are both up. verified
  • Subtlety: never let Rupture lapse. Thousand Cuts stacks depend on ticks. verified
  • Copying Combat guides that still contain Restless Blades or “Surprise Attacks” (retail contamination).
  • Rogues cannot self-heal. Carry food and bandages.
  • Poison-immune bosses gut Assassination. Keep a swords or maces set and a Combat respec plan. Respec was observed at 1g then 5g at level 20; dual spec is unannounced. verified
  • Combo points stay on the old target: Kick a caster and go back without losing points. verified (community claim, no Blizzard text)
  • Check the guild loot rules before rolling on daggers you only want for a spec you do not play.

Addons and macros under the Forever API

Section titled “Addons and macros under the Forever API”

Forever uses the retail (Midnight) addon API. Old Classic addons do not load. See Addons that work.

  • Combo points are a secret value in the beta. Addons cannot read your CP count, so CP trackers and nameplate CP displays are broken. Players asked for Personal Resource Display support; no Blizzard reply as of 09-18. verified Use Blizzard’s default target frame CP display.
  • Energy: UnitHealth is secret and UnitPower is assumed to share the restriction. unverified The community “Forever Classmate / ForeverUtilities” resource bar uses a percent-based API and leaves secret values blank. verified Classic energy-tick trackers from Wago will not load.
  • Swing timer: built in (interface options), plus a native PLAYER_SWING event. A lightweight community “ForeverSwing” targets 1.60.1.69893. unverified (search snippet only)
  • Damage meter: built in. Details! has no Forever flavor yet. DBM and BigWigs do.
  • Macros (vanilla baseline, untested on this client): vanilla baseline
#showtooltip
/cast [stealth] Cheap Shot; Sinister Strike
/cast !Stealth

Standard conditionals (@mouseover, @target, exists, harm, mod:) work in beta. verified Whether [stealth] and /startattack behave identically on Forever is unverified. Retail Midnight Rogue macro pages reference retail spells and do not apply. New spell ranks do not replace old ones on your bars; cast by name uses the highest rank. verified

Unknown as of 2026-09-24

Section titled “Unknown as of 2026-09-24”
  • Which build removed Restless Blades (69876 vs 69913), and whether Flawless Execution gets buffed.
  • Mutilate’s per-weapon bonus: 17 or 13.
  • Sap Rank 3: “no longer requires stealth” vs “no longer breaks stealth”.
  • Whether Energy regen is continuous, and whether One-Handed Axes are trainable in the client.
  • Subtlety raid viability: zero sim or in-game data. Grimstitch set bonuses unconfirmed.
  • Forever’s hit and crit caps at 60. Vanilla caps are baseline only.
  • Official names of the 16-point milestone talents.
  • Whether combo points and Energy stay secret values at launch.
  • Level 30 cap raise timing and any 21 to 30 data.
  • Dual spec: strings exist in the client, nothing announced.

Sources

Section titled “Sources”