Though Chase has (much?) more experience than I when it comes to end-game rogues, I thought I'd offer something I've learned from leveling 2 rogues to 80.

On "best" leveling spec: As always, the best leveling spec is primarily something that's similar to how you actually want to play your rogue. Combat swords + Blade Flurry + 8 mobs works, but if you enjoy playing your rogue as a single target/take no damage assassin, you should be looking at assassination or subtlety builds. This is so obvious but it needs repeating: if you don't enjoy your leveling spec you'll tend to level slower. It's hard to do something you don't enjoy for 80 levels, believe me, I tried that with my first rogue and ended up putting him aside for weeks at a time.

Second, I'm utterly convinced that there are different "best" leveling specs depending not only on your preference but also on your current level. For example, I went to Riposte immediately because that's an awesome ability. At 30 I specced out of combat and went to subtlety for Hemorrhage because I preferred that to Blade Flurry "gather up a bunch of mobs every 2 minutes" approach. At 50 I went to assassination for Mutilate. After Mutilate I went straight to Initiative.

In the end my favorite end leveling builds are somewhat unorthodox:

1. Mutilate + Initiative (stealth from mob to mob, single target very quick kills)
and
2. Unfair Advantage + Setup (gather up a few mobs, many if blade flurry is up, you'll want to ghostly strike and riposte whenever those are up)

Both of these are odd, but they fit well how I play. There's plenty of time to go PvE cookie-cutter spec when you're 80 (and you'll pretty much have to, at least till Cataclysm).

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