PvP is a big part of World of Warcraft. About 50% of the servers are PvP in fact. There is an important factor to consider compared to regular combat; your opponents do not follow set patterns. 90% of the time it will be skill and luck that decide combat, not just overwhelming numbers. Every class has its advantages and disadvantages in combat and your job is to exploit them. I will go over the other classes in the game and see what you can do to counter.
In all cases, I suggest only having Crippling Poison on your main hand and Mind Numbing on the off. The added bonus from Instant Poison is nice but PC opponents love to run away, especially casters. The only classes that will stand toe to toe with you are Warriors, Paladins and other Rogues. Everyone else wants to get far away from you, don’t let them. Delaying casting is a good thing.
General PvP Information
Preparation
You need to be well equipped if you want to do some serious PvP. Ensure that you have enough ingredients for Vanish, Blind and your Thistle Tea. Carrying around Tubers and Healing potions is vital as well. Keep some good bandages on hand for when you have the chance to breathe. Make sure that you have the proper gear on as well. Since PvP and PvE are so different, many rogues have different sets of gear depending on what they want to do.
Have lots of crippling poison. I put this in its own paragraph because so many rogues forget about it. You must have this on your weapon at all times in PvP. Some people like using Mind Numbing in the other hand, makes fear take 9 seconds to cast.
There are trinkets that allow you to escape charm/fear/polymorph (Insignia of the Alliance/Horde) available from the Battlegrounds vendors. Useful tools that require very little time to acquire.

Battlegrounds
If you’re doing any battleground combat, only do it at the following levels, 19, 29, 37-39, 45-49, 70. Why you ask, because BGs are divided into 10 level sections; 10-19, 20-29 and so on. If you show up at level 20 and are fighting 29s, you’re useless. As you get higher, the discrepancy gets smaller and smaller. Once you hit the 60s, I seriously advise you to get to 70 before entering. Since that last group has people that have been PvPing for months, they are guaranteed to be much much better equipped than you can possible be, you would be more like a mosquito to someone who has tier 3 or better gear.
You generally want to be in a team with another rogue. One of you will always be on the opponent’s backside, tearing through. It’s common to see groups of 4-5 rogues in the larger BGs as they can sneak around the opponents and cause some heavy surprise damage. You will find yourself generally right behind the enemy’s main attack force. The less people see you, the more damage to the casters in the back.
As a general rule, on pretty much every server I’ve played on, Horde has the advantage in PvP. Their racial abilities are PvP focused and the shaman is better in PvP than a paladin.
Warsong Gulch
Designed for 10 people per side, it’s your classic Capture the Flag event. This BG is available starting at level 10. It’s considered courteous to hold the opponent’s flag at your base until you are able to recover yours. The average battle lasts 30 minutes though I’ve seen some over an hour.
As a rogue, you don’t want to be carrying the flag. You can’t stealth with it equipped and don’t have the hitpoints to get very far. Leave that to the Paladins and Druids. Your role here is to get the casters in the middle of the field for the most part. You are the best class to retrieve a flag from an opponent due to stealth attacks. You’ll often be 1vs1 or 2vs2, so it’s a great place to practice combat techniques.
If you see a flag runner, use distract if you can. Most times they will stop in their tracks, giving you time to catch up. This zone requires Crippling Poison for that exact reason. If you find yourself chasing a flag

runner, remember that you can stun and snare them. Use your mount or Sprint to catch up and just past them. Stealth and Cheap Shot. If you can’t use Stealth, Gouge by quickly jumping and turning in the air. Having Crippling Poison will have a large effect on their speed. Worst case, you can try for a SS/Hemo and then Kidney Shot for a 2 second stun.
Arathi Basin
It’s designed for 15 people per side and starts at level 20. The goal is to control specific locations on the field and acquire 2000 resources from them. You can play one of two roles. Either you’re a guard with another member or you’re part of the advanced fighting force. I personally prefer the advanced attack as you tend to die less often than defending against an onrush of 8-10 players. I find most fights here are 3vs3, though if you’re part of a defensive team, you might be 2vs10. The battles lengths vary tremendously due to player skill. I’ve seen some last 10 minutes as I’ve seen some last 2 hours. Most though tend to be over in 30 minutes.
Alterac Valley
It’s pretty much a raid zone in itself as it takes up to 40 players starting at level 50. I highly suggest waiting until you’re 60 to do this BG. The goal is to kill the opponent’s leader, slowing moving your way across the field capturing spawn points and destroying towers. It’s very similar to RISK. Battles last at a minimum an hour and some last days (I actually saw one last over a week). Most are complete in 2 hours.
Generally, I like grouping with 2 other rogues and a druid. You can be an advanced force and take out every single other spot on the map if no one from the other side shows up. An alternative is to stand in the back lines of the opponent and take out the casters. This doesn’t work really well though, since you basically have to go through 20+ opponents to get back to your main force. You’ll find that there are many bottlenecks and that you can have fighting at one location for hours. You need excellent coordination to win this BG.

Pick your fights
This is very important. If you just go around and attack anything that moves you’re in trouble. You want to aim for people that are already engaged with someone else. Examples are casters that are currently casting, hunters whose pets are already attacking and so on.
You should also factor in the world geometry. Since many attacks require line of sight to succeed, fighting indoors and close quarters is to your advantage. I personally like to hide near shrubbery or just around a corner. Even if they detect you in stealth, they can’t see you, giving you the chance to move into a better position.
Do not let someone fear you. Learn to recognize the casting (get a UI mod if you want) and stop it. Fear will destroy rogues as it takes you out of melee range for a long time.
If something goes wrong, Gouge and Vanish away.
Stun Lock
This technique came around when Battlegrounds first came out and is widely used due to its power. It follows the simple principle where your enemy is constantly stunned while you use small moves to gradually remove their health. This tactics was extremely cheap in the early days but with the dimishing returns of stuns, you need to be reasonably quick in dealing your damage. Here’s the general idea of the combat.
Cheap Shot ? SS ? Gouge ? Kidney Shot ? SS ? Thistle Tea ? SS ? SS ? SS ? Gouge ? Cold Blood ? Eviscerate
Looking at the combo, it seems rather simple to execute but you need to have exact timing on the stuns as your enemy will be constantly pressing an attack while they are stunned and the split second delay will break your combo. You also need to monitor your energy use throughout as you may need to use a Thistle Tea to regenerate if things go wrong.
The deadliest combo requires a specific talent build to accomplish and can only be done every 10 minutes. Obviously, this doesn’t work in Battlegrounds and is meant for outdoors random PvP.

Cheap Shot ? SS ? Gouge ? Pause ? Cold Blood ? Eviscerate ? Blind ? Vanish ? Regen ~8 seconds ? Cheap Shot ? SS ? Gouge ? Preparation ? Cold Blood ? Eviscerate ? Blind ? Vanish ? Regen ~8 seconds ? Cheap Shot ? SS ? Gouge ? Eviscerate
This one takes extreme control in timing and requires that you not miss a single attack. You could exchange waiting for popping a Thistle Tea to get your Energy back.
I strongly urge that you get a stun monitoring UI, such as StunWatch. It will show a progess bar for the stun duration, not entirely accurate all the time but much better than counting in your head.
Rogue
The rogue’s biggest advantage in PvP is stealth. It’s also the biggest disadvantage as many tactics are lost if they get detected. A rogue can unleash a very high amount of damage in a very small timeframe so it’s best to not let them attack you at all, especially not from the back. The solution? Stun your opponent.
Since most rogues will be stun lock rogues, you’re basically waiting for them to mess up and get in a Gouge and Vanish/Run away. Then come back and demonstrate how it should be done.
Druid
Druids are very good in PvP. They have a very large amount of spells and physical attacks at their disposal. Their damage shields are especially deadly since it’s based on the number of times they get hit, and no class hits faster or more often than a Rogue. They also have the ability to cast regenerate on themselves, offsetting a very large amount of damage you can possibly inflict.
If you fight a druid and they turn into an animal, you’ve pretty much won the fight as they won’t be able to cast.
If they are in caster form, remember the Kick attack. It stops casting of that spell line for a set amount of time. It will not interrupt instant cast attacks though. They will most likely try to kite you with a snare, so you need to snare them and keep in very close quarters.

Basically, if they have a damage shield on, you’re looking at taking a large amount of damage without them every even hitting you so try to stun them to offset the increased damage.
Hunter
Hunters are a pain simply because they have a pet. Pets can do a very large amount of damage to you and hunters can kite you all over the place with speed decreasing shots. It’s even more annoying when they attack with their pet before they shoot you as it takes time figuring out where they are. The only telltale sign is perhaps a puff of smoke from a gun, as bows have no indication. This makes hunters deadly if they stay near foliage. You need to Sprint and Gouge/Blind and get going on the damage.
If you are faced with one, kill the Hunter and not the pet. Sure, you can take a lot of damage from the pet but even if you kill it, the Hunter will have you to no life in a flash. If they start kiting you, you’re pretty much up the creek as they do a tremendous amount of damage from range.
Thankfully, the Hunter is very weak at close range. Make sure you hit the pet with Crippling Poison if the opportunity presents itself. A pet that moves slowly means you can get away from its damage fairly easily.
Mage
Mages are the only other class that can compare to us damage wise. The good thing is that they have little to no HP and armor. Mages love to use Polymorph and Frost Nova so they can move out and attack us from range. Obviously, Polymorph can be stopped with a Kick or a Gouge. Frost Nova is an instant attack though, and the only counter that I know of is to use a ranged attack. Bombs are great here as they can stun the mage for 3 seconds. If you don’t have any, use your ranged attack that will slow down their casting time.
When you use Kick, there is a cool down time, same with Gouge. Try to not use the skill back to back, as you will be open for attack while you can’t use the skills.
The stun combo works great here as well, but Mages can Blink out of a lot of our stuns. This can be fairly easily offset with Crippling Poison as you can catch up to them quickly. You might be tempted to use Mind Numbing

Poison but it really is not as effective as Crippling Poison and mages have a lot of instant cast spells that aren’t affected by it. Line of Sight is very important to mages, so stay on their backs even if you don’t have a dagger, that way, they can’t hit you.
Even if you’re caught off guard, the odds are in your favor when 1on1 with a Mage. Just remember than you can interrupt their attacks and you’ll be fine as you can dish out a lot of damage in a short period of time.
Paladin
They’re the bane of the Rogue, heck of all PvP. Paladins have nearly all the benefits of Warriors and the ability to heal at the touch of a button. They can use Divine Shield, which gives them 12 seconds to heal themselves without taking any damage at all. Very deadly and it’s Instant Cast, so you can’t interrupt it.
If you don’t finish off a Paladin with the Stun Combo, odds are you’re dead. Point of fact, about the only combo that does work on them is a stun combo due to the fact that they have such high armor values. It’s not uncommon to see some with 7000armor, giving them near 50% damage absorption, practically eliminating the use of Backstab and Ambush.
Mind-Numbing poison can be useful here on their healing spells. You’re basically hoping to drain their mana reserves as these fights can take forever.
Priest
With all their healing abilities, you’d think a Priest would be a deadly opponent, dragging the combat on for a long time. Fact is, they are very weak in PvP and do less damage than Mages. They do have an instant heal that heals for about 1400dmg but with a 30 minute cool down, it’s not something you need to really worry about. They are only cloth wearers and 1400 damage is practically the same damage you’d do with a non-critical Eviscerate. Their deadliest attack has to be their ability to Fear, making you run away for 8 seconds. Fear can destroy a Rogue, especially in the middle of a combo.

That being said, a good priest will cast Fear and DoT you, then heal to full. Use your trinket as soon as you’re feared. I find that a lot of priests are used to the “heal-only” mode and are relatively soft targets. Those that know what they are doing however are a sight to behold.
Mind Numbing Poison could be an option here since Priests don’t gain anything from running around. Also, try to stay behind them, as Line of Sight is what they need to cast on you.
Shaman
The deadliest opponent in PvP bar none. With their damage shields, instant cast spells, multiple totems (magma and earthbind), heals and fairly decent melee ability, a rogue should just leave them alone. I’ve taken a few on and died even though I had more levels.
Regardless if you can get the Stun Combo to work, you’re still looking at 200dmgx3 from their damage shield. Their instant cast spell is 550dmg, it also only has a 6 second cool down. In a 30 second fight, that’s over 3K in damage that you can’t stop. A fire totem can do 40dmg per 2 seconds, which would also break a Vanish. If you mess up the stun or get caught off guard, you’re in for a rough ride. If they don’t have a damage shield up, you have a decent chance of taking one down. If they are guarding something, expect 4 totems and no way to reach them without stealth breaking and being snared.
This is also the main reason you avoid shaman with damage shield in PvE. They run through a Rogue in no time.
Warlock
Ahh, another pet class. Warlocks should be treated like all other casters. Interrupt their casts. Their only instant cast damage spell which you need to worry about is Death Coil. It hits for 470 damage and heals the caster for the same amount but has a 10 minute cooldown, so it’s not something you’ll see very often. You can interrupt nearly all of their casts with ease, as they tend to take time to come into effect. Mostly damage over time spells as well. Their deadliest spell by far, is their Fear spell. It can make combat a real pain since you can’t control yourself. Undead have an advantage here, since their racial ability makes them immune to the effects.

As much as you’d think a pet would be a problem, it truly isn’t. The Imp would be your deadliest foe, being able to nuke from a distance. Voidwalker is simply a tank, and really doesn’t hit hard enough to be a problem. Pets can be sacrificed to have some uninterruptible spell casting for a short time. Rarely will you see a Succubus and as long as they are not on your back, don’t worry. Felhunters are nothing to fret since you have no spells and that’s about all they’re good at taking down. Sap works reliably on Warlock pets and essentially removes them from the fight altogether.
Just concentrate on the Warlock and they’ll go down eventually. Some Warlocks have ridiculous amounts of health but as long as they don’t fear you, it’s not so bad. Being a pet class means they have very little defensive skills. Even if you don’t get a stun combo to work, just your standard melee will drop them.
Warrior
Very similar to Paladins, minus the ability to heal. This makes them a bit easier but they can unload a ton of damage, all instant strikes. Overpower comes into effect when you dodge and you can’t stop it, not too good for Rogues. They can also Rend your armor, reducing it by 450 and it stacks up to 5 times. That’s basically putting you at 0 armor if you think about it. They have Thunder Slap that can reduce your attack speed by 10% and a few skills that increase their next swing by 100dmg or more.
Did I mention that their armor values are through the roof, especially with a certain talent?. Don’t be surprised to see a Warrior with 8000armor, which equates to a 60% damage reduction.
The problem lays simply in the fact that they can make a fight last a long time, which is not good for a Rogue. Open with stuns to keep the damage they can inflict on you to a minimum and if after the combo they are still alive, you might be able to stand toe to toe with them. You might even want to throw in a Kidney Shot to finish the combo instead of an Eviscerate, just to keep them stunned that much longer. If you don’t kill the Warrior in the stun lock, you’re likely to die shortly after.