Rogue Instance Guide

Rogues have a variety of skills they can utilize to benefit their party / raid members in an instance or just grouping. This guide will cover most of the important skills available to rogues that can help when times get rough or act as an added bonus that would otherwise not be present without a rogue. Rogues have a hard time getting in 5 man groups like hunters because they are one of the most commonly played classes, the majority of rogues are played by new players because they seem to be appealing and easy to learn. Unfortunately, this is a common misconception, rogues are one of the most versatile and one of the harder classes to learn; especially for instances and grouping. There is far more to rogues then mashing on keys in PvP and it is a shame that some of these new players who wish to just PvP must enter an instance at some point for gear, keys, quests, and more because they lack a necessary understanding of the rogue class. Hopefully some of them read this guideline of how to use some of the rogue abilities in an instance. This guide assumes you know how to control your targetting and follow vital raid and group commands.

Stealth

A very important skill for a new instance or an instance a group is not familiar with. Rogues can use stealth to scout ahead and save the group time on wipes and going the wrong direction.

Disarm Trap

As the name states, rogue have the ability to stealth, sense, and disarm traps. Some traps are really annoying and can set off mob spawns, harmful AoE's and more. It's not uncommon to have to use disarm a trap in an instance.

Distract

Distract is one of the most underutilized abilities in raid instances. It can be used to turn mobs away for opening moves, stealth behind mobs, aid in sapping, and more. I want to talk about the most important aspect of it that can save wipes and time. Take this scenario into consideration: Your group wipes, the rogue vanishes out of combat and is still alive, your shaman ankh's back into life because he thought it was clear, then all of a sudden a wandering mob comes out of nowhere. The rogue can go into stealth and use distract to hold the mob into place while the Shaman can find a safe hiding spot or finish ressurecting/healing/or preparing the party for battle.

Vanish

Allows the rogue to Vanish out of combat which can be beneficial for not dying or losing aggro/hate. It can also be used to go into stealth for another opening move on an enemy, perhaps a life saving cheapshot.

Offtanking - Evasiveness / Ghostly Strike

Rogues are usually geared high in agility and stamina (if played properly) which means they have a lot of hit points and dodge rating. By using either Evasiveness or Ghostly Strike (if trained) or both in combination you will find that some rogues depending on gear can get up to or over 100% dodge for a short period of time making them perfect short-term tank. They are also naturally high on the aggro list.

Blind

Blind is perfect for saving your life or that of a caster during an instance run. Typicially you would use this as a quick solution when a caster has aggro and is about to die.

Sap

This is one of the most commonly used skills for grouping / instancing. It's an incapacitating skill like sheep that remains active up to 45 seconds as long as no damage is done to the target. A quick way to piss a rogue off is to hit a sapped mob to early.

Kidney Shot/Gouge

Use to "stunlock" control in PvP but can also be used to buy yourself time, take less hits by repeatedly using them while tanking, or to save a caster or non-tank that is getting beat down by mobs.

Poisons

Some mobs are immune to poison but the ones that aren't I feel bad for. Rogues have poisons that can reduce healing effects, increase casting time, and most important for instances.. snare. Rogues can kite anything around by causing a high amount of aggro and procing a snare on the target. It's like having an offtank who barely takes damage. Proc a snare, run away so it can't catch you, when it runs off you gouge it and run, each time you gouge make sure you run far enough away so gouge is ready to go again by the time the mob catches you, once you have enough combo points you can kidneyshot and go for a resnare.

Shadowstep (if trained)

This can be used before battle or with vanish to quickly save another party member with a cheap shot stun or quick kill with an ambush. If you're fast enough the teleport from shadowstep can do wonders in any instance.

Lock Picking

Rogues can shorten instance time by opening locked doors or increase party loot by opening locked chests.

Weaknesses

Rogues weaknesses on raids and in instance groups are on bosses that cause harmful area of effects because they are a melee class. It can become a nuisance trying to heal a rogue while also watching the main tanks hitpoints that's why it's vital to mix your melee and ranged dps classes wisely. A lot of the rogue abilities are also on timer which may cause the important skills to be down when needed. It is also hard to get into instance groups as a rogue, as mentioned above, because of the surplus of newbs that choose to play the class.