Rogue Sword Talent Builds

The primary benefit of any sword build is some degree of consistency in damage dealing, as well as a few tricks and useful abilities provided by the Combat tree. The ability to disarm opponents who attack you and hit multiple targets at once through blade flurry put the combat Rogues in a unique position to defend themselves as well as more easily farm monsters for items and gold. The adrenaline rush talent makes up for the loss of cold blood by the sheer damage output that can be obtained when all the energy generated is put to use.

ADRENALINE RUSH BUILD (20/31/0)

From the Assassination tree, the Rogue talents’ blessing and curse is the Lethality talent. There is no Rogue build that does not benefit from this talent in a significant way. So as before, you can expect to take at least 15 points in assassination. Improved eviscerate is a must, 5 points into Malice. At this point you can decide whether or not to put the full 20 points into assassination or just 15 to get Lethality. If you spend only 15 points in Assassination you will have 5 points left over for either various talents in combat or a full bottom tier talent in Subtlety. This is not recommended however, as many of the leftover talents are novelty or utility, and do not serve much practical use in dealing damage and defeating your enemy. Many Rogues prefer the inclusion of 3/3 ruthlessness and relentless strikes. For the combat Rogue especially, the last 3 points of the tree are well spent on either improved expose armor or improved slice and dice, as the combat Rogue is well suited to dealing damage even through auto attack damage (often called “white damage” as the damage is not caused by specials).

Obviously, the rest of this build takes place in the Combat tree. Unlike dagger builds, no points in subtlety are required, as opportunity does nothing to improve the damage of sword abilities. The Combat tree should start off with 3/3 improved gouge and 2/2 improved sinister strike as before. And this is where we start delving into actual sword Rogue talents. From the tier two talents you should put 5 points each into Deflection (Increase Parry chance by 5%) and Precision (Increases melee chance to hit by 5%). These talents may seem somewhat insignificant but the importance of these can be explained by the talents that follow them. From the third tier after Deflection you should take Riposte (available after parrying, does 150% weapon damage and disarms the target for 6 seconds). This talent is extremely useful for fighting Warriors and other Rogues. Though many Warriors and Rogues have gauntlets with an immune to disarm effect on them, many times this ability will save your life. Also considering that it only costs 10 energy, the extra damage output attained is an added bonus. The next talent should be 5 points into Dual Wield Specialization (increases the damage done by your offhand weapon by 50%). If you’re coming from a dagger spec this may seem somewhat odd, as many dagger Rogues rely solely on backstab and ambush damage to subdue their opponent, but you may be interested to know that with this talent a Rogue will deal more white damage than a Warrior with dual wield spec (theirs is only 25% extra damage) with the same weapons. Add to this more damaging specials that don’t reset swing timers, and the ability to have 30% haste to attack speed constantly active, and an equivalently geared combat Rogue can blow away a fury Warrior in terms of constant DPS in a PVE situation.

The next talent you should take is blade flurry (Increases melee attack speed by 20% and attacks hit one additional target). This provides a lot of the sword Rogue’s unique ability as it is melee haste and hits 2 targets at the same time. The 20% haste stacks with Slice and Dice as well, allowing a huge attack speed boost when needed. The damage done is added directly to the second target, which can be a huge advantage considering that unlike the Warriors’ cleave, damage is copied directly including criticals.

At this point in the talent tree you have 3 options. Considering that many good weapons for a combat spec are hard to obtain, you may want to decide your weapon specialization based on what you have, or what you are soon to get. The three choices are Maces (5% chance to stun the target for 3 seconds), Swords (5% chance for an extra attack), and Fist weapons (+5% critical rate). All three are useful in their own right but mostly will be decided on based on whatever weapon you use anyway. The next talent to take after this is Aggression (increases sinister strike and eviscerate damage by 6%). This talent, coupled with improved eviscerate and lethality from Assassination, will add more punch to your sinister strikes and eviscerates. Finally you should take adrenaline rush (increases energy regeneration rate by 100% for 15 seconds). However, it is important to note that at this point you can take cold blood instead of Adrenaline rush. On the whole adrenaline rush will put out more damage, but it is very easy to circumvent in PVP, as the opponent can stun you, crowd control you or run away for the duration, rendering it useless. The cool down on adrenaline rush is also twice as long as cold blood’s, so that is important to take into consideration.