Epic Warcraft's Site Reviews WoW-Gold-Price-List.com is a great tool to determine what RMT company can offer you the best prices on wow gold...read more MMOBay.net is pretty much the place to be if you're looking for something WoW related, be it wow gold, wow accounts, items or powerleveling...read more

It’s really no secret that rogues are considered amongst the best gold grinding classes in the game, next to hunters and mages/warlocks for AOE spots. Still, with small clusters of mobs that are tough and hit hard, rogues are on par with hunters, as both classes can get high HP bars down fast and have some CC capabilities. As a rogue, your grinding advantages are as follows:

1. You can take one mob out of the fight and finish off the other(s)
2. If things get icky, you can vanish or sprint away
3. You have high focused DPS, which works great with the “one at a time” tactic above
4. You tend to get ganked less by the other faction. No one wants to mess with a rogue, because they know you’ll ruin their grind day afterwards.
5. You can eliminate opposing faction grinding competitors more easily than any other class. Just gank them a few times while they’re taking on a mob and there’s a good chance they’ll either A. run for help, B. Find another grinding spot. Hopefully it’s B :)
6. You can pair up with a healer for an extremely efficient grinding session

There isn’t such a well defined “best rogue grinding talent build” such as is the case with other classes, but one setup seems to be favored by a large number of rogues: the Combat Swords build, with Riposte, Adrenaline Rush and Surprise Attacks. You can find a variation of this build in our Rogue Talent Build Section or at this address, on the World of Warcraft talent calculator (the two builds vary slightly, but in concept they cover the same purposes).

Remember, these aren’t THE rogue grinding builds, they’re just two versions that are very popular and that I use myself for grinding, with great results. Ultimately, if you can do better with a dagger build, or with a combination of combat and subtelty, full assasination or whatnot, it’s your call. Take note, if you use a dagger build for grinding that you can’t backstab a mob if you have aggro from it, unless you stun him, which is sometimes impossible to do, or takes more time than you really should be spending on a single mob. This is one of the main reasons swords are better for grinding, but if daggers are your cup of tea, feel free to try them out.

As for Assasination builds, their advantage is that you do high burst damage and can take out single opponents faster, if you’re facing a group of mobs. You can even stun and kill the first mob before your stealth cool down recharges, then move on to the next with a stunlock. However, the time you save by killing mobs faster, you lose by going around mobs stealthed and downtiming with food or bandages as you will get hit more often than with a combat build.

While leveling up, Stamina was probably on your priority list in what regarded armor and weapon stats. When you’re grindind gold as a rogue, Stamina can be downgraded a bit, in favor of Agility, Crit chance and Attack Power. Remember, your main objective is to get the mob down fast, you shouldn’t even have to consider dying in the first place. If things get really messy, you draw an extra or you get some spawns, it’s best to try and vanish or sprint, because extra HP might not help you anyway in this case. Lastly, if you went for Lightning Reflexes and Riposte, the chance you’re getting hit is even smaller, which further imposes you to lose your Stamina in favor of some damage dealing stats.

So when grinding for gold as a rogue, AGI, +crit and AP should be prioritized. Chance to hit won’t matter THAT much either, because it’s mostly very useful on mobs that are way higher level than you and the only way you’ll make full use of it is in raiding and group instances, or in PVP with dagger builds.

Personally, I tried going for the highest AP I could get, in favor of AGI and crit. But that’s just because I tend to prefer higher normals rather than impressive crits. You could also go for an awesome crit-based gear setup, but in most cases you probably won’t have very much leverage in choice, so take whatever you can that has the highest AGI, AP and +crit.

The following areas can truly become gold mines for a rogue. Most of them will have mobs that can be tackled one by one, or in small clusters, which is where the rogue excels due to his combination of high burst DPS and crowd controlling capabilities. Mages and Warlocks tend to avoid these areas, as they will prefer heavy AOE zones for gold grinding, so you’re up against fewer classes.

Netherstorm – Ruins of Enkaat (North of Area 52)

I have no idea if this was a problem strictly on my server of if it’s the same on most (I didn’t take the time to research this, admittedly) but Primal Manas always seem to be in high demand and also in a shortage on the AH. They can be sold up to 20-25g and one of the best places to pick them up as a rogue is in the Ruins of Enkaat, from the Mana Wraiths there. They’re rather easy for rogues and they have a good drop rate for Motes of Mana. When you’re out of wraiths, feel free to fill your time with the Rock Elementals in the vicinity, which can get you some Motes of Earth to use for yourself or to sell, for a lower profit than the Manas. Sometimes the area can get quite populated, but if you catch it free of enemy and friendly players, take advantage, because this is a gold mine.

Shadowmoon Valley – The Hand of Gul’Dan (Area around the mountain)

Usually, when people want Primal Fires, they’ll go get them in Nagrand, at the Elemental Plateau, or in the Blade’s Edge Mountains demon camps (one of them got nerfed of Fire Elementals though). The Hand of Gul’Dan is usually considered a third alternative, but I found it to be way more effective to grind for Primal Fire here than in Nagrand, because it’s always way too crowded there to acomplish anything. Ok, Fire Elementals in Gul’Dan aren’t as abundant nor do they spawn back as fast as the ones in Nagrand, but less is more, in this case. This might be another server-to-server issue, although I doubt there’s a World of Warcraft server online that doesn’t have the Elemental Plateau farmed extensively. Oh and, just like in The Ruins of Enkaat, you can fill in your time by killing Earth Elementals, if you’re out of Fires.

Shadowmoon Valley – Legion Hold (North-West of Illidari Point)

Hehe, this is one of my favorite grinding spots as a rogue. I didn’t really think it’s a good gold grinding spot, but while leveling my rogue, at level 69 I noticed I can get huge amounts of xp here in no time. What I didn’t immediately notice is that I also made a ton of gold and items from those guys. The mobs you should aim for are the Shadow Council Warlocks, but there are two things you should really be careful of: avoid the elite mob roaming the area, he’ll kick your ass in no time, especially if he aggroes you while you’re already fighting something else. Number two: avoid pulling too many warlocks. I often got way too cocky grinding here and pulled more than I could chew and had to sprint away, vanish or come back from the grave. It’s a rather difficult area for grinding, that’s why many people tend to avoid it and go for easier spots, but trust me, it will be worth it once you get the hang of how to pull, avoid the elite and where to regen.

If you’re going after elite mobs, which is a viable grinding strategy sometimes, make sure you pick evasion. Unless you have really good gear with a high burst and some added Stamina, many Elites around your level will be hard to tackle without Evasion.

When sapping, follow Osiris’ tips and try to sap mobs when they’re furthest away from one another, giving you a chance to take the free mob and go OOC after you’re done with him. Especially useful when you’re up against two tough mobs at a time.

Feel free to lose Slice and Dice in favor of another talent. It was useful while leveling, but gold grinding in TBC at level 70 with SnD won’t give you the best results.

A useful attack pattern when grinding for gold as a rogue is popping in a Kidney Shot in between sinister strikes and gouges. You can open with a CS, sinister, sinister again, gouge, pop in a kidney shot, then follow the same routine until you can get an Eviscerate in. Many rogues however will prefer to get an eviscerate instead of the kidney shot, especially ifthe mob isn’t that hard as to require its kidneys to be stung.

In a tricky grinding situation, you have several ways to get out and regen. However, one of the silliest mistakes I have seen made is vanish when there’s absolutely no need to. A sprint is often as effective as a vanish and it doesn’t take the flash powder that the Vanish eats, so why panic? Just make sure you know how to evaluate a dangerous situation and start running in time. If you’re fighting a single mob or two, stun one then start running, because chances are they’ll still be able to get a hit or two before you can get the required distance.

One last thing. Rogues are a many-buttons-to-push-around-often type of class. We’re not hunters, we can’t autoshoot, send in pet and watch TV. If you want to be a good gold grinder as a rogue, you need to lay off the chat, because it’s a time waster and you can’t focus on your button mashing. Seriously, at night, when most of my guildies are asleep and I go in for a grinding session, I increase my profit with 50%, because there’s no one to chat to.