If you're a Rogue in World of Warcraft looking for the best tips for gearing up, gemming, enchanting, and more then this is the guide for you. We'll be taking a look at what's the best gear to search for, what to gem and enchant it with, and a look at consumables as well.

As a note, Rogue DPS is very gear dependant and customizing your gear will become an art form. By the time that you're raiding at that kind of level you will have a really good grasp on what works for you and what doesn't. This is a primer on what's the best overall for Rogues, especially ones new to heroics and raiding. With that in mind let's get started!

Gearing Up while Leveling Up

Rogues wear leather and gain attack power from Strength, Agility, and Attack Power. So any leather with any combination of those stats plus Stamina is beneficial. Since Rogues are not spellcasters there will never be a time where you'll want to downgrade your gear to cloth. At higher levels seek out Hit Rating and Expertise (level 60+) along with Critical Strike Rating. These three stats can help push you over the edge in combat and make you one monster of a killing machine.

Expertise lowers the chance an enemy will dodge or parry your attacks (one point of Expertise decreases the chance by 0.25%). Hit Rating determines the chances your melee and poison attacks will actually hit. These two stats can make a world of difference against enemies of equal or slightly higher levels. If your attacks connect most of the time then you'll be able to really strike them down.

Critical Strike Rating is an obvious choice, because it increases your chance to critically hit. That's a good thing.

Overall, though, once you hit Outland the gear will become quite linear and quests will give you upgrades as you go.

[protip]Remember that you can wear all leather, but not all leather is made equal. There is caster leather which will give you no benefit outside of the stamina boosts. Avoid buying leather off the AH as well. A lot of people make BG alts and good leather is often sold for higher prices to those alts. You can do fine off of quest rewards and instances.[/protip]

Heroic and Raiding Gear to Look For

Let's talk weapons first, since Mutilate and Combat require two different weapon types. Combat Rogues will want to look for swords or axes which currently have the best talent (Hack and Slash). You'll be able to easily find swords in heroics, on the vendors, and all over the place. You can do Mace Specialization, but it's all up to you. Mutilate specs will need daggers, for obvious reasons. In Combat, Rogues will need a slow main hand and a fast offhand weapon, while Mutilate just needs a fast offhand.

Combat Daggers/Fists has not been viable for a long time, so if you're looking to snag some daggers then head over to the Mutilate side of things. That isn't to say that you couldn't do it, but as you get better gear the bonuses from going Swords & Axes or Maces will be much higher. You can also read our combat article for more details.

You're going to want to look for and gem Agility, Expertise, Haste Rating, and Hit Rating if you need it. The primary gem you're going to use is the 40 Agility gem (Delicate Inferno Ruby) until epic agility gems come out. As for on gear, most all DPS leather has these stats and if it doesn't have the stats in the way that you want it you can easily just reforge your gear to give you the stats that you do want. You'll also want mastery, but the amount of mastery you'll want depends on if you're at a level where it matters and which spec you are.

Enchanting

Enchanting is very subjective and is based heavily on your spec. If you look at the above best stats you may find yourself wanting to enchant for something else. The following is a general baseline that most Rogues will find viable no matter their build.

• Head: Arcanum of the Ramkahen
• Shoulder: Greater Inscription of Shattered Crystal
• Chest: Peerless Stats
• Legs: Dragonscale Leg Armor
• Feet: Major Agility
• Bracers: Agility
• Gloves: Greater Mastery
• Cloak: Greater Critical Strike
• Weapon: Landslide (on both)

Gems

In our gearing up section we went over the best stats for each spec. Those stats are what you should gem for. To recap:

Agility, Expertise, Haste Rating

Hit rating is important until you hit poison cap (and still important even past there), you can see our basics guide for more info on hit caps. You can NEVER go wrong with Attack Power and Haste no matter what build you have. Armor Penetration used to be good, but it's out of the game now.

Critical Strike rating doesn't have as much weight as haste, mastery, or expertise, so make that your lowest priority unless you're stacking it.

Agile Shadowspirit Diamond should be your meta socket. At 54Agility and 3% increased critical strike damage you can't really go wrong.

Consumables

• Flask: Flask of the Winds
• Food: Skewered Eel / Fotune Cookie / Seafood Magnifique Feast
• Potion: Potion of the Tol'Vir

Glyphs

Combat

• Sinister Strike
• Adrenaline Rush
• Slice & Dice

Mutilate

• Hunger for Blood
• Rupture
• Backstab

Minor Glyphs

• Glyph of Vanish
• Glyph of Safe Fall

That's about it! Remember, gearing up, gemming up, and enchanting up a Rogue can be a difficult thing to do, but with enough practice and enough time playing you will get the feel of what you can do.