Starting a new WoW character is always a daunting task. Today we'll talk about the early levels of Rogue. This Rogue leveling guide and its Rogue leveling spec counterpart will help ease your journey to level eighty.

At lower levels it can be a major hassle leveling a rogue, and this is only compounded if you aren't sure what you're doing. At low levels, Combat is the best spec, as it allows you to minimize misses and deal strong, consistent damage.

Your Combat Rogue Leveling Spec should look like this:

Dual Wield Specialization - Rank 5/5

Improved Sinister Strike - Rank 2/2

Improved Gouge - Rank 3/3

Improved Slice and Dice - Rank 2/2

Precision - Rank 5/5

Endurance - Rank 1/2

Lightning Reflexes - Rank 3/3

Aggression - Rank 5/5

Blade Flurry - Rank 1/1

Weapon Expertise - Rank 2/2

Blade Twisting - Rank 2/2

Vitality - Rank 3/3

Adrenaline Rush - Rank 1/1

Combat Potency - Rank 5/5

Surprise Attacks - Rank 1/1

This will get you to level fifty, where you should respec to a common Mutilate PvP spec; we'll cover that in another article. That covers the Rogue leveling spec...onto the Rogue leveling guide

First, a few tips that go for anyone playing Warcraft:

Stop clicking, and stop keyboard turning! Make sure all your skills are bound to keys-you should never ever click anything. This in turn frees up your mouse for movement.

Don't bother with professions, especially creation professions. If you're smart about your gold, and sell everything you don't need on the Auction House, you can afford to just buy anything you'd make, and you won't have to waste time until you really need them at level eighty.

Hearth before you log; don't let potential Rest XP go to waste! Use a good questing guide! I'll link my review of the most popular ones at the end of the article. Keep Food and Drink in your inventory; the time it saves is unmatchable.

Now, let's talk about rogues in particular!

You are wearing weak armor, so don't try to tank things! Use CC abilities to optimize the damage you do and minimize damage taken. For example, Gouge can be used to regain energy while not taking any damage. Especially with the Glyph!

Get all your weapon skills learned, so you can equip the strongest weapon at any level; Combat rogues should look for whatever has the highest Min/Max,usually a slow weapon, for their main hand, and a fast, high dps weapon for their off-hand.

Keep your First Aid skill maxed; Rogues don't have any other way to heal, so it can be a real life saver, especially if you Blind or Gouge the enemy for a quick opening.

Learn when you need to use defensive cooldowns, and make sure to use offensive cooldowns liberally; they do no good sitting on cooldown for five minutes!

Keep the right poisons on, and keep them on at all times; double Wounding is best for leveling, and Double Instant works until you get it. Deadly takes too long to stack to be effective for leveling, and it makes Gouge break.

Go for Hit Rating, Agi and Attack power over other stats! Stamina isn't that great, as the loss of damage means your losing as big a percent of health per fight, it just takes longer!

Now, how exactly do you play your rogue? It depends what level you are! I won't mention cooldowns, just use them as often as is practical; defensive cooldowns and offensive cooldowns both reduce downtime, so both should be used frequently.

1-10: Sinister strike spam is all you have. Eviscerate at three combo points. Gouge often, using the time to regain energy and finish bursting the enemy down. Don't bother using a dagger to Ambush or Backstab, it isn't worth it.

11-13: You have Slice and Dice now; use it right off the bat every time with your first combo point or two. Nothing is as important as keeping Slice and Dice up; it's incredibly powerful for Rogues of all specs.

14-19:You get your first worthwhile opener, Garrote. You can't Gouge with it on the enemy, but it does a lot of damage so it's a worthwhile trade. Otherwise, keep things the same.

20-25:Now that you have poisons, ALWAYS KEEP THEM ON. Your damage is SOOO much higher with poisons!

26-29:You can now trade Garrote for Cheap Shot, if you like. The trade is pretty even; garrote is faster kills, but Cheap shot is safer and doesn't require difficult positioning.

30-50: You get Kidney shot here, replacing Eviscerate as your finisher. Between Cheap Shot and Kidney Shot, you can often keep a mob completely stunned from beginning to end.

You should respec to Mutilate here; a PvP style spec is best, as they emphasize the kind of burst that works best for leveling. This is beyond the scope of this guide, though.