Level with Swords (high min/max damage main hand/fast off hand). Spec Combat with Assassination. Listen to Metal. Drink Mountain Dew.

When it comes to pvp, there are many different options to fit your style. There are no wrong choices, so long as you enjoy your build and are successful at pvp. Solo pve is different. Your goal is maximum killing speed, anything that doesn't give you the maximum killing speed is wrong. One thing to keep in mind about World of Warcraft talents is that very few make a huge difference. Most deal with small percentages. But together they add up.

The ideal solo grinding build is a combination of Assassination and Combat (20/41/0). We'll start first with Assassination. Lower tier Assassination will give you a large increase to your dps, while Combat starts with more defensive talents. We will first put 2 points into Combat's Improved Sinister Strike. Sinister Strike is your primary attack and the talent increases the number of Sinister Strikes you're able to use. We'll put our next two points into Assassination's Remorseless Attacks. Remorseless Attacks is one of the better solo pve talents. Few talents give as much damage as the crit bonus of a Sinister Strike. Remorseless Attacks also gives you a 20 second timer to be on your next mob, and this works as motivation to keep you moving quickly.

Level 13 - 2/2/0

Improved Eviscerate and Malice are the best ways to increase your dps on the way to Lethality. After Lethality, we reach the single best solo grinding talent; Improved Poisons. In solo pve, a rogue should always use double instant poisons. Until later levels, instant poison hits nearly as hard as a non-crit sword attack. A 20% chance for an extra attack is a lot of dps. Improved Poisons increases the damage by 50% by adding 10% to the proc rate, raising the chance from 20% to 30%. Especially at lower levels, this is a massive increase to damage.

Level 31 - 20/2/0

You have the option of starting into Combat after Improved Poisons. Eventually this will be as far into Assassination as well go. But there are no dps increasing talents yet in low Combat, so I'd recommend staying in Assassination til 40, and pay for a respec later. As a large part of your dps is currently poisons, Vile Poisons is a good choice. There are no essential dps talents after. Quick Recovery is a very nice talent. Cold Blood is nice, but one crit every 3 minutes will not make a significant difference.

At 40, you'll be able to spec 20/11 for Riposte. Riposte is a fantastic talent for solo pve. It's does more than disarm, it's an instant attack. Riposte is nearly Sinister Strike for only 10 energy. Every mob (I can think of) does melee damage, even casters. If they do any melee damage, you can Riposte them. You'll find Riposte is available nearly every 6 seconds, and will add a great deal of damage to your overall dps.

Level 40 - 20/11/0

Somewhere between 50 and 60, you're going to want to respec to take advantage of the full Combat tree. Although Improved Poisons is the best grinding talent, there is a point where late Combat talents outweighs what you're losing in early Assassination. I'm not 100% sure where that is. But you won't be losing much to give up Assassination at 50 for Surprise Attacks. Let's look at talents in Combat.

Improved Gouge is a useless talent for solo pve. Take Lightening Reflexes, but only 3 points to reach Deflection. Deflection opens up the very important Riposte. After Riposte we'll put 5 points into Precision, followed by Dual Wield Specialization.

A word about these talents. When Blizzard was developing melee, it was found that dual wielding did more damage than 2 handed weapons. To balance the damage, Blizzard introduced two penalties for dual wielding. First, any attacks made with the offhand hit for only 50%. In addition, they added a 19% chance to miss with auto attacks. This only applies to auto attacks, it does not affect specials or finishing moves. There is already a base 5% chance to miss with all melee attacks (against equal level opponents, not considering their dodge/parry/block). Unfortunately the 19% dual wielding penalty is added on top of the 5%. So, a rogue has a base chance to miss of 5% with specials and finishing moves, and 24% (5% + 19%) with their auto attacks. As you can see, a rogue's dps is greatly limited by misses. Precision counters the 5% chance to miss with specials/finishing moves, and lowers the chance to miss with auto attacks to to 19%. To further counter the hit penalty to dual wielding, a rogue needs hit rating from gear. The second penalty to the offhand is partially countered by Dual Weapon Specialization. Because Combat rogues are able to partially counter the penalty to offhand weapon damage and chance to hit, their auto attacks (generally refered to as "white damage") become an important part of their overall dps, much more so than to other rogues.

Next you should take Blade Flurry. Blade Flurry allows you to dps two mobs simultaneously (every 2 minutes). This comes in very handy for the situations where you pull multiple mobs. After Blade Flurry, we take Sword Specialization.

Sword Specialization is the reason we use swords rather than Maces. It is the single reason we offhand a sword rather than a dagger. Here is how it works. On each attack, there is a 5% chance that you will be given an additional instant swing with your main hand weapon. This 5% applies to both your main hand and offhand weapon. If sword specialization procs from an offhand swing, you will gain an additional strike with your main hand. This makes a very fast sword ideal for your offhand. Both Sword Specialization and Fist Specialization (5% increased chance to critical strike with fist weapons) are essentially a 5% increase to dps. But Sword Specialization is generally considered superior. While critical strikes hit for 200% damage, an extra attack gives not only the double damage of an additional hit, but the chance that this additional hit will critical strike. This means that while Fist Specialization's 5% crit is a 5% chance for 200% damage, Sword Specialization's 5% for an extra attack is a 5% chance for 200% damage with a small chance for 300% damage. Not to mention, a critical strike with the offhand is only double the damage of the offhand, while offhand sword spec procs give the damage of the main hand. At one time sword specialization could proc off of it's own extra attacks. This is no longer possible.

After Sword Specialization, you should take Aggression. Aggression is an example of a talent that only causes a few percentage of change. But it adds up with other talents to make a large difference. After Aggression take Adrenaline Rush. Adrenaline Rush is a very powerful talent that allows you to throw out an enormous amount of damage. Blade Flurry together with Adrenaline Rush allows you to drop a crowd of mobs you'd otherwise run from. Adrenaline Rush also allows you to complete many of the elite quests you'd otherwise be unable to solo.

Next you're going to need 4 filler points to reach Combat Potency. I would recommend putting 2 of those points in Lightening Reflexes. The other two points should probably go in Weapon Expertise (Vitality isn't bad either).

Weapon Expertise is a great talent if you need to fight higher level mobs, and an...eh, ok talent against all other mobs. A mob that is 3 levels higher than you has it's level number in yellow. 4 levels is colored red. If you've fought a red mob, you've no doubt noticed that it's nearly impossible to kill. The majority of your attacks miss or hit for reduced damage and rarely critical strike. This is not because mobs are so much more powerful in 4 levels. This is part of Blizzard's combat system, designed to prevent you from fighting higher level mobs. Because the mob is higher level, your attacks are penalized. You will miss more often, you will crit less often, and your attacks will glance the target, which causes you to hit for reduced damage. Your opponent is also given an increased chance to parry, dodge, and block. Weapon Skill partially counters this level difference. Your maximum weapon skill increases by 5 every level, the talent Weapon Expertise gives you two extra levels of weapon skill. Therefore, a 5+ red mob is now a 3+ orange mob. A 3+ orange mob is a 1+ yellow mob. It doesn't counter all of the penalties. Weapon Skill doesn't affect glancing blows (at one time it did), but it will affect the miss and crit chance. While Weapon Expertise is a great talent for raiding, you aren't going to be grinding higher level mobs. Weapon Expertise is less effective against same/lower level mobs, but still ok for 2 points. The 10 weapon skill will give you +0.4% chance to crit and hit against same/lower level targets. It also reduces the mobs chances to block/parry/dodge your attacks by 0.4%. BTW, weapon skill does not affect players in pvp, only mobs.

Now we can take Combat Potency. Combat Potency is a very nice talent that can result in high burst damage. Side Note - One of the interesting things about Combat Potency is its potential use with Shiv. Shiv/Combat Potency is one of the fastest way to generate combo points as a rogue. With an instant poison, Shiv will do comparable damage to a Sinister Strike (non-crit (depending on your gear)), and can potentially out damage a non-crit Sinister Strike against high armor opponents as the nature damage isn't mitigated. If you have a low crit chance, I'm not 100% sure Shiv can't substitute some Sinister Strikes (Open with Sinister Strike for Remorseless Attacks, Shiv to 5 points for Eviscerate). Shiv depends on your offhand weapon, as the weapon's speed determines the cost. One way or another, not having played recently, I haven't fully discovered Shiv's role yet. But it's obvious that a combat rogue has the Shiv advantage due to Combat Potency.

Finally Surprise Attacks for a 10% increase to your primary attack.

Level 50 - 0/51/0

So, here's how I'd spend my talents if I was leveling 10 to 70.

10-11 - Improved Sinister Strike 0/2/0
12-13 - Remorseless Attacks 2/2/0
14-21 - Malice/Improved Eviscerate 10/2/0
22-31 - Lethality/Improved Poisons 20/2/0
32-37 - Vile Poisons/Quick Recovery/Cold Blood 28/2/0
38-39 - Filler Points - Relentless Strikes, or Murder, or a few points in Seal Fate, doesn't really matter.
40 - Respecialize - 20/11/0
41-49 - Precision/Dual Wield Specialization 20/21/0
50 - Respecialize - 0/41/0
51-70 - Assassination to Improved Poisons 20/41/0

If you'd rather not ever respec, I'd recommend going

10-11 - Improved Sinister Strike 0/2/0
12-26 - Assassination to Improved Poisons 20/2/0
27-70 - Combat to Surprise Attacks 20/41/0

I'm not 100% sure exactly where the best spots are to respecialize at 40 and 50. Vile Poisons may add more damage than Riposte, and therefore you may want to keep going in Assassination until you're able to spec deeper into Combat. And you may want to wait until later than 50 to give up Improved Poisons for Surprise Attacks. The higher ranks of Instant Poison are less significant to your overall dps than at lower levels. I can't be sure without comparing builds with a dps meter. I do know that a 60 combat sword rogue will far out dps a higher level assassination sword rogue with superior gear.

Weapons - Main hand

The majority of a rogue's damage comes from instant attacks (backstab, sinister strike, etc). Understanding how these attacks work is important to playing a rogue. You will need to understand this concept in order to select the proper weapons, and to pass any noob detection tests that might be thrown at you. Unfortunately, instant attacks are one of the most misunderstood subjects in WoW. I've had the opportunity to talk to great many of the rogues in WoW. I can confidently say that most do not completely understand how their instant attacks work. Because it is a misunderstood subject, we will go over this very thoroughly until there is no room for misunderstanding.

Let's look at Sinister Strike. When you press your hot key to Sinister Strike, your rogue takes his main hand weapon and instantly strikes with it. He is charged 40 energy, leaving him with 60. If you spam the button, your character will again instantly strike with his main hand weapon. He will be charged another 40 energy. By now it's likely he has regenerated 20 energy energy, allowing him to Sinister Strike a 3rd time. Again he instantly strikes with his main hand weapon. You will have to wait until he has regenerated another 2 times for the next Sinister Strike. Every time your energy regenerates to 40, you will be able to Sinister Strike.

You were able to open up with 3 quick Sinister Strikes, and an additional Sinister Strike very 4 seconds afterwards. The only limitation to the number of Sinister Strikes was your ENERGY. It did not matter if you had a 1.3 speed dagger in your main hand, or a 2.9 speed mace. The number of Sinister Strikes would have been the same. You can not affect the number of Sinister Strikes possible during a fight through your choice of weapons. All you can affect, is how HARD each Sinister Strike hits. Let's take a look at 2 swords;

The Assassination Blade and the Hanzo Sword.

Assassination Blade
Binds when equipped
One-Hand
Sword
71 - 132 Damage
Speed 2.70
(37.6 damage per second)
+3 Strength
Durability 90 / 90
Requires Level 52
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 14.

Hanzo Sword
Binds when equipped
One-Hand
Sword
38 - 71 Damage
Speed 1.50
(36.3 damage per second)
Durability 90 / 90
Requires Level 50
Chance on hit: Wounds the target for 75 damage.

Both weapons have similar DPS. Both are just as good right? WRONG. Remember, with either of these swords in your main hand, you will be able to Sinister Strike the same number of times. See the speed on those weapons; 2.7, 1.5? Sinister Strike is always instant. Those numbers mean nothing. We can not change the number of Sinister Strikes. All we can change, is how hard each Sinister Strike hits. Look at the minimum/maximum damage on each sword. This number tells you how much damage the weapon will do when it hits. For the Assassination Blade it is 71 - 132 (101.5 average). For the Hanzo Sword it's 38 - 71 (54.5 average). Now which weapon do we want? You will get the same number of Sinister Strikes with either Sword. With the Assassination Blade, your rogue will take his main hand weapon, and instantly strike for 101.5 damage. With the Hanzo Sword, your rogue will take his weapon and instantly strike for 54.5 damage. You understand? "But what about the DPS? They have the same DPS!" NO, DAMN IT! ALL THAT MATTERS IS THE MIN/MAX DAMAGE PER SWING! THE SPEED IS MEANINGLESS! THE DPS IS MEANINGLESS! "Ah... so I only look at the Min/Max Damage when selecting a main hand weapon?". That's correct. You only look at the Min/Max damage. Nothing else matters to a rogue when selecting a main hand.

No matter what weapon you have, it's always instant, so speed doesn't matter at all. And no matter what weapon you have, you will be able to get the same number of instant attacks. So you always pick the weapon with the highest min/max damage, and ignore the speed. This means the Assassination Blade is a much better main hand weapon. When looking at two weapons of the same dps, the slower weapon will have the higher min/max damage. And so in general, a rogue will select a slow weapon for his main hand.

The majority of Instant Attacks use only your main hand weapon. There is a different set of rules for selecting an offhand (see below). There are two exceptions when it comes to Instant Attacks. Mutilate uses both your main hand weapon and offhand weapon simultaneously. For this reason, Mutilate rogues will select an offhand using the same critera as their main hand. The other exception is Shiv. Despite the fact that Shiv is an instant attack, you will not select a high min/max damage weapon for it's use. The energy cost of Shiv is also determined by your offhand weapon's speed (20 + (offhand weapon speed * 10)). For this reason, a fast weapon is preferrable for Shiv.

Weapons - Off hands

Depending on your build, Offhands have different roles.

Mutilate Rogues: As a Mutilate Rogue, you're offhand weapon is used along with your main hand in instant attacks. For this reason, you'll look for the same type of weapon as you would for a main hand; a high min/max damage weapon.

Non-Combat Rogues: Unless a rogue has the talent "dual wield specialization", his offhand attacks will do only half damage. As a weapon that's doing only 50% damage with a 24% chance to miss, the offhand will not be a significant part of their dps. For this reason, the offhand weapon's dps is not the major factor in selecting a weapon. One consideration is the weapon's speed. A faster offhand provides more poison procs. But usually an important factor when selecting an offhand weapon as a non-combat/non-multilate rogue is the weapon's stats; critical strike rating, attack power, agility, etc. Along with the stats, you consider speed and dps.

For a Combat Rogue, the most important aspect of an Offhand weapon is speed. And this is followed by DPS. Any stats are insignificant compared to the other factors. A combat rogue's offhand speed plays a role in 1) Combat Potency Procs (the faster the offhand, the more energy a combat rogue has) 2) Sword Specialization Procs (a faster offhand sword means more chances for an extra attack with the main hand) 3) Shiv Energy Costs (the lower the speed, the lower the cost) 4) Poison Procs (always important, especially for a solo grinding rogue who's using Instant Poisons). The only reason a combat rogue should choose an offhand other than a fast dagger is because of weapon specializations. Because of the 5% chance at an extra attack, a sword spec rogue will sacrifice offhand speed to equip a sword. Without Sword Specialization, I would equip the fastest possible offhand; a 1.3 speed dagger (there is a very nice one available from heroics). There are Mace/Fist specialized rogues who will equip mace/fist offhands to take full advantage of their specializations. Because a combat rogue (or a rogue who spec's at least 20 points into combat) can take better advantage of his offhand's damage, dps is still a factor.

Notable Weapons 1-70.

Level 26 - The Butcher; the best main hand weapon until well into the 30s. It's easy to find on the AH, and usually around 20g. If you have a higher level alt, or a friend, this is a good investment.
Level 44 - Phantom Blade; Between 40 to 50, there are several great main hands obtainable from the AH. If you're extremely rich, you can upgrade every few levels. If you can't afford them all, one of the better choices is a Phantom Blade. It's an inexpensive crafted item that is usually available pretty cheap. It's also the best main hand sword at 44.
Level 45-50 - Thrash Blade - A quest reward from killing the Princess in Maraudon (LINK). It'll require a group, but since it's one of the best main hands, you may want to make an exception to solo pve.
Level 50 - Hanzo Sword; this is the best offhand sword available for quite a while.
Level 51 - Krol Blade; the best main hand weapon until nearly 60. They sell for around 150g. If you've got a rich friend...

Some basic info on procs - Unless a proc is given a specific percentage in the description (instant poison = 20%, sword spec = 5%, etc), it's chances are based on a "procs per minute" formula. This is how it works; the game takes your weapon speed, and sets the percentage on each swing to achieve a certain number of "procs per minute". For example; Crusader is thought to have 1 proc per minute. So if you enchant Crusader on the Assassination Blade, the game looks at its weapon speed of 2.7 seconds. 2.7 seconds per swing means 22 swings in one minute. For there to be one proc per minute, each swing needs to have 4.5% chance to proc Crusdaer. Now, if you put the same enchant on the Hanzo sword, you would get a different chance. The Hanzo sword can swing 40 times in a minute, so each swing needs a 2.5% chance to proc Crusader.

Ok, now here's why procs are special for rogues. Rogues don't just autoattack. You won't just get 22 swings per minute with the Assassination Blade, because of Sinister Strike, Riposte, etc. You will notice as a rogue, that you always use poison charges faster on your main hand than on your offhand. Even if you're using a 2.7 speed Assassination Blade in your main hand, and a 1.5 speed Hanzo Sword in your offhand, you will go through the poisons on your main hand much faster. Instant Attacks account for a ton of extra hits. And all of those swings have the same proc rate from Crusader as if you were autoattacking. So, if you have the same speed weapon with the same enchant in both your main hand and offhand, your mainhand will give you far more procs.

Remember that you get the same number of instant attacks with a slow weapon as with a fast weapon. So if are going to get 10 instant attacks in a fight, an Assassination Blade will give you far more procs than a Hanzo. This makes slow main hand weapons (swords/maces) very good for proc enchants. Faster weapons (daggers) are not as good for proc enchants. Offhand weapons don't get instant attacks, so proc enchants are usually poor choices.

I would recommend keeping Fiery Weapon on your mainhand until 70. Then save up for mongoose if you decide to stay Swords for pvp. Fiery weapon is a 40 fire damage proc, with a rate of 6 per minute (same as lifestealing). It's very cheap compared to others. For you offhand, I would recommend a static enchant like Agility, but it's simply too expensive for the weapons we'll be using to level. Although Procs are far less useful on offhands, you'll probably end up putting Fiery Weapon on it because of the low price. That's what I'd do. Then at 70, put different enchant on your end game offhand (or weapon chain for pvp).

For non weapon enchants; As soon as you're high enough to keep armor a significant length of time, I'd recommend enchanting Minor Speed Increase on your boots and Assault on your Bracers and Gloves.

BTW, while we're talking about enchants, let's say you've decided (like a fool) to level with daggers. The best enchant for a main hand dagger is striking (+3/4/5 damage). That damage is added directly to your weapons base min/max damage. It would take 41 attack power to give you the same damage as +5. Its much better to have 41 constant attack power than the chance for 100 attack power (from crusader) especially when you can't open a fight with crusader active. Also because daggers are so fast, you won't get as many procs as a slow swords, not to mention BS is more expensive than SS, so you'll also get fewer instant attacks.

Let's talk about Stats for a moment.

Stamina - 1 stam = 10 health, not a mystery. Stamina is not going to help you kill mobs faster. It's vital for pvp, but less important for solo pve. You will need enough health to survive the mobs. Too little and you'll risk frequent accidental deaths. Luckily, stamina comes in generous amounts on almost all outworld items.

Agility - 2 Armor/1 Attack Power and Crit/Dodge scaling by level. The amount of agility needed for 1% crit is ~(Your Character Level / 2). Dodge is ~(Your Character Level / 4). At 60, 30 agility gave about 1% crit, and 2% dodge. At lower levels, Agility is much more valuable than it is at 70. It will always be a primary stat.

Strength - 1 Attack Power. That's all Strength gives rogues; 1 Attack Power. But because the stat is far more powerful to other classes, Strength is a very expensive stat. Strength is far more expensive than Attack Power. This means, if you found 2 level 60 green items, one "of Strength" and one "of Power", the "of Strength" item would have 28-29 Strength, while the "of Power" would have 56-58 Attack Power. But both Strength and Attack Power are identical stats for Rogues. So any time you take an item with Strength, you're getting cheated as a rogue. Instead, always look for items with Attack Power, rather than Strength. This problem was recognized by Blizzard, and in the expansion they stopped cluttering rogue items with Strength, and started replacing it with the less expensive Attack Power (meaning, rogues get more total stats from their items). Old items, basically anything from 1-57 still have the old stats. And you can't always help but take items with Strength. For example, 57+ blizzard has introduced the "of the Bandit" greens. These items contain a mix of Agility, Stamina, and Attack Power. There's really nothing like that 1-57. Instead you have "of the monkey" with Stam and Agility, or "of the Tiger" with Agility and Strength. You may find yourself taking "of the Tiger" items for higher attack power, because there just aren't as many options with Attack Power.

Attack Power - Attack power adds to your weapon dps. 14 attack power = 1 dps. So for example with the Assassination Blade. It swings every 2.7 seconds, so 14 attack power adds 2.7 damage per swing (to give 1 more damage per second). This works differently for (most) instant attacks. For Sinister Strike, the attack power bonus works as if every weapon of a type (Swords/Daggers/Etc) have the same speed (2.4 for swords/1.7 for daggers). So, regardless if you're using a 2.0 or 2.9 sword, both will be given the same attack power bonus with Sinister Strike; (Attack Power / 14) * 2.4. This "normalization" only applies to instant attacks. Auto attacks (and also the instant attack Hemo) are given the regular bonus of (Attack Power / 14) * Weapon Speed. Attack Power increases the damage of every move. It is a very important stat.

Hit Rating - Scales with level (1% is 10 rating at 60, ~16 at 70) - As explained in the talent section, a rogue has a 5% chance to miss with specials/finishing moves, and a 24% chance to miss with all auto attacks (white damage). Beyond the talent Precision, you need hit rating from gear to counter these percentages. Before the first 5%, hit is extremely valuable, more valuable than critical strike rating. After the first 5% (which can be gained from Precision), hit is only increasing your white damage, and is less valuable. This of course is only when it comes to fighting equal/lower level mobs/players. In raids, the worth of Hit is far more complicated.

Critical Strike Rating - Scales with level (1% is 14 rating at 60, ~22 at 70) - A critical strike does double damage. Yeah, it's a good stat. You're not going to see as much of it as you will other damage increasing stats (hit or attack power).

Dodge Rating - Dodge doesn't help us kill mobs faster. Dodge may lower downtime, but not enough to bother looking for. Don't trade any damage increasing stats for dodge rating.

Parry Rating - Parry Rating? You're not going to see this. It's a better stat than dodge rating, since a parry means riposte.

If you have a choice between upgrading weapons, and upgrading gear, upgrade the weapon. Aside from a new weapon, you'll find the easiest way to increase your damage is through attack power. While leveling, I valued Agility as being worth about 2 Attack Power. A hit rating was worth about 1.5 Attack Power, crit rating a little more. Stamina isn't as valuable for grinding (In pvp, Stamina's value is easily worth as much as Agility).

I'd recommend skinning along with another gathering profession (Herbalism or Mining). Skinning at higher levels is an amazing source of gold, adding 10-50 silver to every beast mob. Herbalism/Mining are also amazing sources of money at higher levels, but since you can only have one form of tracking active at any time, I wouldn't recommend taking both. There's no reason to take a crafting profession unless you're sure you'll want it at 70, and want to skill it while leveling. For the most part, you won't be making your own gear. You won't be using Engineering while leveling. Crafting professions are a money sink you can spend your time on later. For now just worry about raising money for your mounts, etc.

Make sure you keep your First Aid up, you will be burning through bandages as you grind. Cooking is also a helpful skill. It's easiest to skill up while you're grinding. You'll never have to buy food. And at later levels, nearly all of the foods you make have buffs.

Check the Auction House regularly for cheap consumables. I recommend making an alt, and running him into Silvermoon/Org/Undercity. That way you can mail items between characters, and buy consumables and sell junk without leaving your grinding area. There are some amazing consumables, and most can be used as early as 35. A word about consumables; You will find that consumables do not stack if they buff the same primary stat. For example, a Elixir of the Mongoose (25 agility and 28 critical strike rating) and an Elixir of Greater Agility (25 agility) will not stack. But, an Elixir of Greater Agility and an Onslaught Elixir (60 Attack Power) will. You can maximize your buffs, by stacking several buffs to different attributes. An Elixir of Major Agility (35 agility, 20 critical strike rating), an Elixir of Fel Strength (120 Attack Power), an Elixir of Major Strength (35 strength), and an Elixir of Mastery (15 all stats) all stack for an enormous hour long dps boost. I wouldn't recommend popping all of your consumables until you're set for an hour of non-stop mob grinding. Look for good deals on the AH and you'll usually find that they're worth the cost.

Make sure you have winamp or a video player installed, and a large selection of Music/Videos to keep you occupied. Might I recommend Megadeth, Rammstein, Guns&Roses, or other 80s/90s metal? Avoid Pantera, I find it causes me to black out and/or attack family members who come too close. Your video player can be set to "Always On Top", then you can reduce its size and set it in the corner of your screen. I enjoy watching movies this way while grinding.

Keep thottbot.com open in a browser for easy alt/tabbing. There's no need to waste your time figuring out quests when you can just check thott for the coordinates. On that subject, make sure you have a map coordinate addon installed. I use CT's map mod.

Select an area with mobs of the same or lower level, and lots of quests. When you have finished the quests, move on the next area. At 58, go immediately to Outworld. Outworld mobs give twice the experience.

Mobs of the same or lower level. Do not fight higher level mobs. Level differences are figured into your offense and defense. A higher level mob will have a higher chance to crit you while you will have a lower chance to crit it. A higher level mob will have a higher chance to dodge/parry/block your attacks, while you will have a lower chance to dodge/parry it's attacks. On the other hand, a equal/lower mob will crit you less, you'll crit it more, it'll defend against fewer of your attacks While you will parry/dodge more. You do receive more xp from higher level mobs, but it's generally not worth it. It's also not worth fighting mobs that are too low. The perfect spots are areas with mobs close to your level (or slightly lower), that are very close together (to minimize time spent running between them), but not in groups, allowing you to fight one at a time.

If you have skinning, you're going to want to aim for beasts rather than humanoids. Although you will want to spend some time grinding humanoids if you find yourself low on bandages (or need to skill up lock picking (you can keep your lock picking up just by pickpocketing junk boxes at the same time, Junk boxes are an excellent source of rogue reagents)). If you are planning to reach exalted with Aldor (or other factions), you will want to spend some time grinding those mobs that give rep.

You've got a ton of bandages right? Ok then, we're not that worried about downtime. Run up to the mob, don't stealth, there's no point. Don't waste your energy on cheap shot, it doesn't help kill the mob faster. Don't waste your time on garrote, the mob won't be alive for 18 seconds to make it worth it. Just run up to the thing, and start sinister striking. Have 5 points? Eviscerate. Dead. We're done. Run to the next mob. You only have 20 seconds. Sinister Strike, Sinister Strike, Sinister Strike, what? The mobs at 20%, but you only have 3 combo points? No point waiting for 5, it'll be dead by then. Eviscerate. Dead. Next mob. We're at half health? Bandage.

What!?! You don't have any bandages? You haven't been fighting any humaniods. Ok, you have no way to quickly regenerate life, so you need to minimize downtime. How do you do that? You stun. Run up to the mob, as you approach Stealth, Cheap Shot. Do not stealth until you are right on it. Now Sinister Strike, Sinister Strike, Sinister Strike, Eviscerate. Done. But wait, you're still taking too much damage? Ok. Run up to the mob, stealth, cheap shot, sinister strike, sinister strike, sinister strike, Kidney Shot. Continue Sinister Striking. The problem here is, we're going slower. If you have no bandages, you'll have no choice but to stun. It's faster than sitting to regenerate after the mob dies. This is why you always carry lots of bandages.

You may find yourself becoming slightly bored, so take some time to work on quests. Do you grind or do quests? A combination of questing and grinding is considered the fastest method. Especially quests that require killing. Using Thottbot, you can try to minimize your traveling time by working on several quests in the same area.

You go to your Inn. You generate rested xp 4 times faster while in a Inn (or major city). You'll know you're generating rested xp faster when your character's portrait flashes yellow. Always log off in the Inn.

For an arena rogue with full epics, I'd go combat with swords or maces.

Choosing a build depends greatly on your gear. Stat/damage talents like Dual Wield Spec, Sword Spec, Adrenaline Rush, Surprise Attacks, become better as your items improve. On the other hand, some talents which don't scale with gear (like CD reducing or poison talents), may be better choices at first. Someone in blues and greens may do better with Adrenaline Rush/Prep. But as you become decked out in epics, the talents that take advantage of your gear (like Surprise Attacks) become more powerful.

Resilience is moving pvp away from burst damage. Dagger builds rely on crits for damage. These builds take a heavy penalty from resilience's reduced crit chance/damage. On the other hand, combat, which does not depend on crits but sustained damage, is affected little. As resilience increases (more players will gain arena gear, more people will wear it as they realize how powerful it is (especially with the change to dots), each season's gear has more), and the common gear level increases, combat will only become stronger in pvp.

Combat Maces/Swords - My first choice for rogues with epic gear
Adrenaline Rush/Prep - For a rogue with poor items
Mutilate - If I wanted to pvp using daggers
Subtility Backstab - I would not spec backstab
Hemo - I would not go hemo ever

Weapons - Combat
Main Hand - Highest min/max damage
Off Hand - Fastest speed. Then look at the dps, and stats.

Weapons - Mutilate
Main Hand - Highest min/max damage
Off Hand - Highest min/max damage

Weapons - Backstab
Main Hand - Highest min/max damage dagger
Off Hand - Best stats. Also dps and speed.

See also; What weapon should I pick?

Combat
Main Hand - Mongoose
Off Hand - Weapon Chain (I don't know of any level 70 static enchants, so I'd probably get Mongoose if not Chain)

Mutilate Main Hand - Striking (+7 damage)
Off Hand - Striking (+7 damage)

Backstab
Main Hand - Striking (+7 damage)
Off Hand - Agility (my choice at 60, but I don't know the level 70 static enchants)

If you do not have the talent in Assassination, you need a speed enchant on your boots. I am not aware of all the current enchants. A general recommendation would be to take enchants that give Resilience, Stam, or Attack Power.

See also; What Enchants should I get?

Stamina and Resilience are the primary stats to get. To increase my damage I would take attack power over crit rating for pvp. Attack power is less effected by resilience than crit.

Experience in other games helped Mute as a rogue. First person shooters (Counter Strike) are a great way to develop fast reflexes.

Make sure you practice often. Think of ways each ability can be used in different situation, and experiment to find what works. Talk to rogues who are successful in pvp (rogues in high ranked arena teams), and ask themm for tips. Anyone who tells you "rogues are bad!" is not anyone you want help from. That tells you immediately that they are not successful, and they will not know how to help you. This is the reason I avoid Blizzard's official rogue forum. It has become a den of unskilled and unknowledgeable players who moan about ancient and exaggerated nerfs. There are exceptions, but it's rarely worth sorting through. There are better sites with real information from excited and skilled players.

Not now. We would only consider making another video if we could improve on our others. We don't want to make movies only to make them. If we did decide to make another, you can be sure it'll be good.

Anyone who is afraid to post on their main knows they are full of shit. Why else would they have to hide behind alts? People post on alts because they are unsure of what they are saying, and don't want to look dumb if it's refuted. Or if they know what they are saying is false, and want to sling mud with complete anonymity as not to affect their own reputation

I do not read posts by alts. I know as soon as I see the level that the post isn't worth reading or responding to. This results in very few responses to rogues.

Let me give one example. A 49 twink shadow priest stalked Mute for nearly 4 months demanding he fight him naked in a set of 10 duels. He claimed that Mute must beat him (a twinked out shadow priest) 10 times while naked, to prove that he beat the hundreds of opponents in the videos, or all of the thousands of people he's beaten in pvp. No one with half a brain believes Mute really staged the fights. And the angry bitter players who hate Mute aren't going to accept him because he beats some no-name twink. It was easy to see the real motives though through his desperate demands.

He knew Mute would easily beat him 9 out of 10 times, which is why he demanded 10 duels. He was betting on the chance he would get lucky at least once. And given enough duels, eventually he would. That's how shadow priests work. A 15% chance to resist stuns. If he resisted a stun, he'd be able to get off an instant cast with a 10% chance for a blackout proc (3 second stun). He was twinked out the ass with more spell damage than many 60s, so it's not like it would take much to kill a naked undead with 2k life. All he needed was one win. And then he and other angry rogues would make it into a huge deal. He'd get his his 15 minutes of fame. Mute lost to a twink! And if he lost 10/10? He could lose a thousand times and no one would care. Who's going to remember that Mute beat some no name retard? He wouldn't even reveal who his main was, so it's not like he was risking reputation. Nothing to lose, everything to gain. So why would Mute waste his time?

It's the same as if a mental retard challenged the champion card player to a game of poker. He could follow him around for months screaming "dur-er, you fraid of me! Can't not even beat a re-ah-tard! You fake! Beat me best of 10 and you fa real! FAKE!" No matter how much skill is involved in poker, there's always the element of chance. And given enough matches (best of 10 is a good number), it's likely that even the most limited mental handicap will get lucky. And when it's obvious that the retard's motivations are bragging rights, why even bother?

Mute got multiple demands for duels per day. Almost always from people with the same reason. They demand duels, often very rudely, or with absurd requirements (like "reroll on my server!", or "meet me on the test server in five minutes!"), and if he turns them down, they respond "you're afraid! you have to prove yourself by beating ME! You're a fake until you beat ME! MEEE!!!!! GIVE ME MY CHANCE TO SAY I BEAT MUTE!!!!!". That's why Mute had so many random demands for duels. He doesn't do requests. That's why your random demands for duels aren't granted.

If Mute wanted to fight you, he'd fight you. When he duels, it's typically against guild mates. If you'd like to know what it's like, message a member of RTZS.

Because he didn't care. It looked cool, and it's always immediately before preparation.

That's life as a warlock. Take a look at the rogue spellbook, then take a look at the warlock spell book. There's quite a difference. Warlocks have countless more abilities. It was not possible to hotkey every necessary ability. When Mute first switched to a rogue, he still played as he did a warlock.

The fight was discussed by warlocks as being extremely impressive and showing inventive new strategies. Mute was facing the Demonlogy Warlock with an anti-caster Felhunter while Affliction without a pet. It was a battle between two extremely skilled players who both understood their class and used it's abilities to the fullest.

Only the most bitter rogues use this childish insult.

After Mute got his Thunderfury, he was constantly sent tells from players wanting to look smart. If Mute had his Thunderfury in the mainhand, they'd whisper him and say "Noob! The Thunderfury is an offhand!". If he had it in his offhand, they'd whisper "Noob! The Thunderfury is a mainhand!". The truth is that they had no idea what they were talking about. Here's how things work; the Thunderfury is orange for one reason; the proc. Not because of dps, or weapon damage, or stats, but because it had the best proc of any weapon in the game. There is no class that can get more procs than a rogue. A rogue has instant attacks with his main hand, and when a Thunderfury is placed in his main hand, it will proc far more often than with the offhand (this was before shiv). Since the proc ignores armor, it tore warriors and high armor melee targets up. Against a low armor caster, the proc was far less useful. Mute also had a Chromatically Tempered Sword equipped, and it's higher min/max damage was more effective against them. Depending on his opponent, he switched the weapons between his hands. Against warriors, the Thunderfury was a mainhand. Against a mage, the Thunderfury was an offhand, and the Chromatically Tempered Sword went in his mainhand. He also had a Maladath he often used as his offhand for raiding, and he would use his Thunderfury or Chromatically Tempered Sword depending on the need for the proc (stacked with Thunderclap) or higher dps and lower threat. The Thunderfury was not used as a main hand or off hand, it was used as the situation required.

Of course not. Rogues pretend we set out with some secret agenda to ruin the game for them. What purpose would that have served? Mute's main has been a rogue ever since the movies. If he was willing to quit his warlock, raid for months to gear his rogue, and pvp exclusively with the rogue, maybe he really doesn't hate the class.

Both Mute and I love the rogues. We dislike the arrogance of many of the players. But the players are not the class.

Of course not. The class wasn't nerfed. If you ask a rogue to name their nerfs, they'll list buffs to the other 8 classes. Blizzard has made it clear that rogues were one of the more finished classes at release. There was no way Blizzard was going to let the other classes remain unfinished because it might make rogues mad. That was going to happen anyway, even if we hadn't made Roguecraft.

The only real rogue "nerf" was the instant attack normalization. See "Rogue Nerfs"

Blizzard has made it clear that many classes were not finished at release. There was no way that Blizzard would have left Warlocks unfinished. It was going to happen anyway, even if we hadn't made Roguecraft.

The movies certainly gave warlocks more attention. And it might be true that Roguecraft prevented a major warlock nerf. Prior to Roguecraft Episode 2, it was widely (and falsely) believed that warlocks were capable of constantly getting enormous shadow bolt crits. This was spread by theorycraft until it became accepted as fact. Eventually Blizzard revealed plans to nerf warlocks. I can't see any reason why they would do this except for bending to overwhelming player opinion. They certainly must have known the mechanics of their own game. After Episode 2, this idea was almost entirely wiped out. Blizzard canceled the plan to nerf warlocks. It's possible this was a coincidence, but it seems likely that the change in player opinion (which resulted largely from the video) was involved.

The proposed nerf was to the Destruction talent Ruin. Ruin increases spell crits from 150% to be equal a melee crit's 200% damage. The change would have lowered Ruin's effect on crits to 180% damage.

After the reviews, all classes were balanced. I have no reason to believe rogues or warlocks are unbalanced today. While rogues had advantages over other classes, we've never said that warlocks were broken. We used them as an example to contrast against the complaints of rogues. And we demonstrated the advantages of rogues and lack of effective defenses by warlock against melee. Balance issues can exist between a few classes without that class being completely broken. Warlocks primarily had problems with melee and dispellers. For more information on warlock concerns, see Warlocks prior to 1.8.

Congratulations. You do realize that warlocks became a completely different class after Roguecraft? Before Episode 2, there was no Death Coil, the move that completely changed pvp for warlocks (there was a move with the same name, but it was not the same spell). After Episode 2, warlocks were given far stronger dots, new abilities, overhauled talents, and completely reworked gear.

You want to experience warlock pvp prior to 1.8? Buy "of stamina" greens, you can not wear any spell damage. The dots were made far more powerful after Roguecraft, so only use Corruption. The most popular build was 35/5/11 because it was the only dependable tree. Demonology had one powerful talent at the end of almost 30 useless points. There was almost no crit gear to allow Destruction to be anything other than a "lucky fight" build. You had no Death Coil.

Oh no! There's a rogue on you. What are you going to do? Death Coil? Nope! Fear him? Try it. Keep your back turned to him to prevent gouge. If he's trying, you will not cast Fear. Curse of Exhaustion? His Crippling Poison has you slowed by 70%, you're not going anywhere. You put your dots on, because all you can cast is instants while he interrupts you with his attacks, turning 2.5 second casts into 5 second casts, and his kidney shot, kick, gouge (he can just step through you to gouge), blind, etc will stop anything that looks like a fear. You cast your "death coil" which has a 10 minute cooldown, and you get back around 400 health. No guarantee it's up, because he chose when to fight, not you. What are you going to do? If you had your Succubus out, you could Seduce him, so long as he's not wearing his pvp trinket (which he is) or undead (hope you're not alliance!), but you don't, because you were fighting a mage with your Felhunter, and not every pet is ideal for every target. Want to change pets? Hope you don't have any opponents around, because it'll cost you 10 seconds and half your mana. So you're praying your dots and Shadow Burn are enough to take him down, maybe you'll get a Nightfall proc, too late, you're dead. He's at 50% to 70% health. Now he's stealthed, waiting for you to res. You aren't so awesome anymore?

Today, if a rogue hits you, you Death Coil him off, guaranteed chance to fear, guaranteed time to load your dots without interruption. Your spells are doing far and away more damage than a pre-1.8 warlock ever dreamed of, because not only were they given more base damage, but you've also got high amounts of spell damage (and you didn't have to give up stamina for it). Now he's the one racing to dps you down before he's finished off. It's not anything like it used to be. You're playing a different class. And I haven't even started talking about TBC talents and spell formulas.