Now that we’ve gone over every single skill and talent available to the rogue, it’s time to select which talents will best fit your style. This part depends largely on your play style and weapon choice. If by chance, you don’t want to keep a talent build, you can always visit a rogue trainer and start your talent choices over again for a certain cost, as listed earlier in the guide. There are plenty of good talent tools out on the web that allow you to try out different layouts. A good rule of thumb is that if you select a talent, max out that talent. Partial points in multiple talents makes you a jack-of-all-trades, master of none.
Again, none of this is set in stone. If at any time you want to try something else or you don’t think the talent selection you have already is fitting your playstyle, visit a Rogue trainer to start your talent selection over.

Standard PvP Build
Assassination Talents (24 points)
●Improved Eviscerate - 3/3 points
●Malice - 5/5 points
●Ruthlessness - 3/3 points
●Relentless Strikes - 1/1 point
●Lethality - 5/5 points
●Improved Poison - 3/5 points
●Cold Blood - 1/1 points
●Improved Kidney Shot 3/3 points
Combat Talents (3 points)
●Improved Gouge - 3/3 points
Subtlety Talents (34 points)
●Master of Deception - 5/5 points
●Dirty Tricks – 2/2 points
●Camouflage - 5/5 points
●Initiative - 3/3 points
●Setup – 3/3 points
●Elusiveness – 2/2 points
●Serrated Blade – 3/3 points
●Preparation - 1/1 point
●Hemorrhage – 1/1 point
●Master of Subtelty – 3/3 points
●Deadliness – 5/5 points
●Premeditation – 1/1 points
PvP: Great, PvE: Average, Raid: Low
This build will allow you to easily manage in PvP battles with either swords or maces. You’ll be managing Energy use and is the best option for stun-locking and surviving PvP. Its benefits are mainly the use of Cold Blood on stun combos and the ability to recycle your abilities with Preparation. Master of Sublety and Improved Kindey Shot have a semi-passive damage boost to attacks.
You’re looking at some interesting combo options here. The standard stun-lock combo looks like this (see Section 2.4 for what the abbreviations mean).
CS, SS, Gouge, CB, Evis, Blind, Vanish, CS, SS, Gouge, CB, Evis, Blind, Vanish, CS, SS, Gouge, Evis.
That’s 2 critical strikes guaranteed from the Eviscerates, more than likely, both will be 5pts each, giving you a possible 5000 dmg from both. It will be less on high armor opponents and you might run into energy issues. Thistle Tea can help with that. You will also require a good amount of Fadeleaf for the Blind Poisons. This combo takes a lot of practice to master as the timing of the stuns is important but if you’re able to pull it off, odds are, your target is dead before you’re done.

PvP Dagger Build (PvP)
Assassination Talents (34 points)
●Improved Eviscerate - 3/3 points
●Malice - 5/5 points
●Ruthlessness - 3/3 points
●Murder – 2/2 points
●Improved Backstab – 3/3 points
●Relentless Strikes - 1/1 point
●Lethality - 5/5 points
●Improved Poison - 3/5 point
●Cold Blood - 1/1 point
●Improved Kidney Shot – 3/3 points
●Seal Fate – 5/5 points
Combat Talents (5 points)
●Improved Gouge - 3/3 points
●Improved Sinister Strike – 2/2 points
Subtlety Talents (22 points)
●Master of Deception - 5/5 points
●Opportunity – 5/5 points
●Initiative - 3/3 points
●Improved Ambush – 3/3 points
●Elusiveness - 2/2 points
●Serrated Blade – 3/3 points
●Preparation - 1/1 point
PvP: Great, PvE: Low (solo) Average (group), Raid: Low
Now this is what I refer to as a 2 shot build. You’re trying to get Ambush to hover near 75% crit chance and Backstab near 60%. With Serrated Blades on a cloth user, this is near guaranteed death. Throw in a Cold Blood Evis for good measure. Reducing the cooldown of the most used PvP skills, Blind and and Vanish is great. Preparation just puts the icing on the cake giving you the ability to unleash a very large amount of damage in next to no time. And really, if you need to, you can take down a plate wearer with the following combo, though it requires exceptional timing to pull off and some luck to regen the energy for Evis to go off.
With Seal Fate, you’re looking at 5 combo points per Ambush/Backstab combo with a good critical rate. Without Seal Fate, the best you could get is 3.
Ambush ? Backstab ? Cold Blood ? Eviscerate ? Blind ? Vanish ? Preparation ? Ambush ? Backstab ? Cold Blood ? Eviscerate ? Blind ? Vanish ? Ambush ? Backstab ? Eviscerate

Mutilate (PvE)
Assassination Talents (41 points)
●Improved Eviscerate - 3/3 points
●Remorseless Attacks – 2/2 points
●Malice - 5/5 points
●Murder – 2/2 points
●Relentless Strikes - 1/1 point
●Lethality - 5/5 points
●Improved Poison - 5/5 points
●Cold Blood - 1/1 point
●Improved Kidney Shot – 3/3 points
●Quick Recovery – 2/2 points
●Seal Fate - 5/5 points
●Vigor – 1/1 point
●Find Weakness – 5/5 points
●Mutilate – 1/1 point
Combat Talents (8 points)
●Improved Gouge – 3/3 points
●Improved Sinister Strike - 2/2 points
●Improved Slice and Dice – 3/3 points
●Note: if you don’t plan on solo work, you can forgo these points and invest in Vile Poisons instead.
Sublety Talents (12 points)
●Master of Deception – 5/5 points
●Opportunity – 5/5 points
●Dirty Tricks – 2/2 points
PvP: Low, PvE: Great, Raid: Great
This is the build that shows big numbers but is very costly in energy and requires Crippling Poison (solo) or Deadly Poison(group) on your target. The goal is to get 2 daggers with high top end damage. Whispering Blade of Slaying is a good example with 164dmg at max. Timeslicer with 121dmg at max is not. This is a good build for grinding the levels but you need to time your stuns properly. In a group setting you will shoot out huge spikes of damage, and then slow down while your energy regenerates, so you need to have a good handle on your Hate generation. I select Dirty Tricks over Initiative because you’re getting your combo points from Mutilate already and if you plan on doing any grouping at 70, Dirty Tricks will serve you much better. The standard combo while solo is
Ambush?Wait?Gouge?Wait?Kidney Shot (need 3 combo points here)?Mutilate?Mutilate?Cold Blood?Eviscerate
In a group, I generally use Ambush?Feint?Mutilate?Mutilate?Cold Blood + Eviscerate. Ambush and then Mutilate at the start of a fight, even with 2 Sunders on the target will get you on top of the Hate list, use Feint.

At level 70, you will open with over 2000 damage as Relentless + Improved Ambush = 100% crit rate. Mutilate should crit from time to time and receives a bonus from Improved Kidney Shot (9%) and Find Weakness (10%). Cold Blood + Eviscerate is over 2500 damage. And the whole time, you’re getting hit for about 2-4 seconds, waiting for Energy to come back. Once you get in the groove with this combo, you’re going to find it difficult to try something else.
Combat Daggers (PvE)
Assassination Talents (15 points)
●Malice - 5/5 points
●Improved Backstab – 3/3 points
●Murder – 2/2 points
●Lethality - 5/5 points
Combat Talents (41 points)
●Improved Gouge – 2/2 points
●Improved Sinister Strike - 2/2 points
●Lightning Reflexes – 5/5 points
●Improved Slice and Dice – 3/3 points
●Precision - 5/5 points
●Dual Wield Specialization - 5/5 points
●Sword Specialization - 5/5 points
●Fist Specialization - 1/5 points
●Blade Flurry – 1/1 point
●Weapon Expertise – 2/2 points
●Aggression - 3/3 points
●Adrenaline Rush - 1/1 point
●Combat Potency – 5/5 points
●Surprise Attacks – 1/1 point
Subtlety Talents (5 points)
●Opportunity - 5/5 points
PvP: Average, PvE: Low (solo), Great (group), Raid: Great

Daggers benefit the most from talents as do their associated skills. Backstab is already more efficient than Sinister Strike and adding these talents makes it even more so. Throw in some haste with Slice and Dice and Blade flurry, well, you’re a wrecking ball waitinig to happen. This is by far the most damaging talent build for raiding.
Looking at the talent selection however, you’ll notice that the standard Improved Eviscerate, and Relentless Strikes aren’t selected. Since Backstab is the bread and butter of this build, you want to pump it up as much as possible. Opportunity and Surprise Attacks give a +30% bonus to damage and Lethality gives a +30% bonus to criticals, which should be at least half the time with Improved Backstab. Quick math on that: your Backstab deals on average 720dmg with a 20% critical rate and no talents. With this build, you will average 1290dmg, which is nearly double from before.
The downside is that you can’t effectively solo with this build as backstab is difficult to use over a long term fight. It has some uses in PvP but after the initial attack burst, you have to go toe-to-toe and hope to win.
Combat Sword/Fist(PvE)
Assassination Talents (20 points)
●Improved Eviscerate – 3/3 points
●Remorseless Attacks – 1/2 points
●Malice - 5/5 points
●Ruthlessness – 3/3 points
●Murder – 2/2 points
●Relentless Strikes – 1/1 point
●Lethality - 5/5 points
●
Combat Talents (41 points)
●Improved Gouge – 2/3 points
●Improved Sinister Strike - 2/2 points
●Lightning Reflexes – 5/5 points
●Improved Slice and Dice – 3/3 points
●Precision - 5/5 points
●Dual Wield Specialization - 5/5 points
●Sword Specialization - 5/5 points
●Fist Specialization - 3/5 points
●Blade Flurry – 1/1 point
●Weapon Expertise – 2/2 points
●Aggression - 3/3 points
●Adrenaline Rush - 1/1 point
●Combat Potency – 3/5 points
●Surprise Attacks – 1/1 point
PvP: Low PvE: Good, Raid: Great

Similar to the Combat Daggers build, it is difficult to find proper point placement to get down to Surprise Attacks. However, since you use Sinister Strike a lot more than Backstab the bonus is worth a lot more. You want your main hand to have as high a damage max as possible, to get the most out of Sinister Strike. It doesn’t work well in PvP because you’re not able to stun as well as other builds, meaning you’re going to take damage while dishing it out.
In a group or a raid, you want Slice and Dice up all the time. This will cause Combat Potency to proc more often, generating more Energy for the next Slice and Dice. The core damage output from combat builds is auto-attack damage. The faster you attack, the more damage you do. A combo would be similar to:
Cheap Shot ? Slice and Dice? SS until 5 points?Eviscerate?SS? Slice and Dice?repeat
Many rogues use this build as the weapons tend to be easier to find than daggers.
Combat Maces(PvE)
Assassination Talents (19 points)
●Improved Eviscerate – 3/3 points
●Malice - 5/5 points
●Ruthlessness – 3/3 points
●Murder – 2/2 points
●Relentless Strikes – 1/1 point
●Lethality - 5/5 points
Combat Talents (42 points)
●Improved Sinister Strike - 2/2 points
●Lightning Reflexes – 5/5 points
●Improved Slice and Dice – 3/3 points
●Precision - 5/5 points
●Endurance – 2/2 points
●Improved Sprint – 2/2 points
●Dual Wield Specialization - 5/5 points
●Mace Specialization - 5/5 points
●Blade flurry – 1/1 point
●Aggression - 3/3 points
●Vitality – 2/2 points
●Adrenaline Rush - 1/1 point
●Combat Potency – 5/5 points
●Surprise Attacks – 1/1 point
PvP: Good, PvE: Good, Raid: Great
Pretty much the same as Combat Swords but you fill in Vitalty from not spending on Weapon Expertise. Maces are the most damaging weapons in the game for Sinister Strike attacks, which this build takes great advantage of.