PvE Combat Rogue
Stat Priority
Best Races
Best Professions
Beyond directly making your character stronger through talents, equipment, enchants, etc, there are 2 more things you can use in order to improve your performance as a player: addons & macros. It cannot be understated how much of an impact they can have on your gameplay — increasing your DPS or healing by a large percentage, preventing you from dying, etc. You will need the best addons & macros to be the best Combat Rogue you can be!
Addons
General
Rogue don’t really have any useful class-specific addons, so we recommend the basics:
- DeadlyBossMods – Allows you to track boss abilities. A must-have for raiding.
- Details – Shows you how much damage, healing, etc everyone in your raid is doing. Flex on your friends!
WeakAuras
WeakAuras is a versatile addon with almost limitless possibilities. It allows you to install mini-addons created by other players, which are confusingly also called “WeakAuras”, in order to perform specific tasks, such as tracking the cooldown of a spell, having a visual or audio notification when something procs, giving you a warning when a boss uses an ability, etc. You can find WeakAuras that suit your needs on wago.io. It’s strongly recommended that you use WeakAuras; they’re a huge quality of life boost.
Combat Rogues can greatly benefit from WeakAuras. First of all, keeping up your Slice and Dice buff is arguably the most important part of playing a Rogue, and it is significantly easier when you have a WeakAura showing you its remaining duration, so you don’t have to constantly glance at your buffs. Moreover, your combo points and multiple cooldowns become a lot easier to track with WeakAuras. Tricks of the Trade is particularly important, so it’s strongly recommended that you have a WeakAura tracking its cooldown.
Speaking of cooldowns, in Wrath you can get a huge damage boost by using your DPS cooldowns (Killing Spree, Blade Flurry, Adrenaline Rush, Potion of Speed, Hyperspeed Accelerators, any Use: trinkets you may have) when your DPS-boosting procs (Enchant Weapon – Berserking, any Equip: trinkets you may have, like Grim Toll) are up, so it can be beneficial to have WeakAuras tracking their cooldowns & when they proc, respectively.
Macros
Essential
These macros will help you significantly, potentially increasing your DPS by a modest amount.
Cooldown Macro (AKA Swifty Macro)
As previously stated, it will generally be very beneficial to use all of your cooldowns at the same time, rather than using them separately. Macros make this possible to do very conveniently.
Note that you generally don’t want to use Adrenaline Rush and Killing Spree at the same time, as you run the risk of wasting energy if you do so. Therefore, this macro does not include Killing Spree — you have to use it separately, after you have used up all of your energy so you don’t waste energy.
#showtooltip/use [combat] 13/use [combat] 14/use [combat] Potion of Speed/use [combat] 10/cast Blade Flurry/startattackStartattack Sinister Strike Macro
It is optimal to have the /startattack command on all of your damaging abilities as a melee DPS character. Doing so allows your character to begin auto-attacking your target right away, which can translate in a little bit of extra damage.
#showtooltip/startattack/cast Sinister StrikeTricks of the Trade Macro
Allows you to use Tricks of the Trade on a specific ally without having to target them. Also whispers them to let them know you buffed them.
Make sure you replace NAME with the name of the ally you’d like to get your buff!
#showtooltip/cast [target=NAME] Tricks of the Trade/w NAME You got Tricks -- 15% extra damage for 6 seconds!Lazy Tricks of the Trade Macro
Let’s face it, pressing a button to use Tricks of the Trade on someone every 30 seconds is a bit of a pain. As Rogues, we have perfected the art of laziness and this macro reflects that — using your Tricks of the Trade automatically for you every time it’s available, while you’re simply spamming your Sinister Strike. Unlike the previous macro however, it cannot whisper your target.
#showtooltip Sinister Strike/startattack/cast Sinister Strike/cast [target=NAME] Tricks of the TradeHelpful
These macros will generally not be make-or-break in terms of your performance, as they don’t directly improve your ability to deal damage. However, they can help you in smaller but very real ways, offering significant quality of life improvements, so we recommend having them.
Survive! Macro
This macro quickly instantly uses your defensive cooldowns — used for those “oh snap!” moments of pure panic.
#showtooltip/cast Evasion/use [combat] Runic Healing PotionOne-Button Stealth Ability Macro
This macro allows you to instantly use your abilities that require stealth, with just 1 button — no need to fumble around pressing Vanish first.
You can replace Garrote with any other stealth ability you want to use, such as Cheap Shot and Sap.
#showtooltip/stopattack/cast [nostealth, combat] Vanish; [nostealth] Stealth/cast [stealth] Garrote/startattackInstant Distract Macro
Allows you to instantly use Distract at your cursor’s position, without having to double tap the Distract key.
#showtooltip/cast [@target] !Distract