Breakfast Topic: What makes a leveling spec work for you?
by Vincent Brodbeck 
Jan 9th 2011 at 8:00AM
This Breakfast Topic comes largely in response to this very insightful article about how rotations have changed over the ages. While reading it, I began to think about how I will pore over theorycrafting sites to find the optimal DPS rotation, healing build, or tanking strategy. But I only do this for my max-level characters. While I'm leveling, it's pretty much happy-go-lucky. I'll occasionally look up what spec might be best for leveling, but sometimes I don't care about optimal leveling. I just want to have fun and mess around with the character and how to play it.
For example, everyone always said that combat is the best leveling spec for a rogue. I however, loved assassination, so that's what I stuck with. I tried out combat, but I hated it. No stealth? Swords or maces, not daggers? That's not a rogue, that's a weak warrior! Same with my warlock; affliction is supposed to be best, but to me, warlocks are all about demon summoning, so I went with demonology. It just made sense.
Of course, when I hit the level cap and start doing raids, that's when I'll delve into what are the optimal rotations, enchants, gems, itemization, etc. That stuff matters at that point. But leveling for me is all about having fun and learning your class. Leveling is a long and tough process; it doesn't make any sense not to enjoy it as much as you can.
How do you like to level? Do you play it fast and loose with your talents, or do you carefully consider where each precious point goes?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Udderpowered Jan 9th 2011 8:08AM
No mana breaks is something I always aim for. Leveling a new priest post 4.0 made me curse blizzard for removing my early spirit tap. :( (No, I don't have 100g+ to spend on a single glyph when I'm on a new realm, poor newbie priests must want to die)
I completely agree with you on assasination for rogues, I too was talked into combat, but it just felt so slow and boring. At least with assas you open with a move that brings them down to 50%, so much fun!
Udderpowered Jan 9th 2011 8:12AM
Wait! I suspect my own rogue-ignorance is showing. Was it subtelty that made ambush awesome? It was whichever tree got little to no attention but I personally found to be amazing.
Necromann Jan 9th 2011 8:20AM
Yeah sub got the ambush boost. That's how I'm lvling my rogue right now, I tried combat but doesn't flow like sub, at least at the lower levels.
MW Jan 9th 2011 8:23AM
My rogue is Assassination also. My son likes Subtlety, though when he dual speced to Assassination and tried it out, he like that almost as well. To me, Assassination is what a rogue is all about. Stealth, backstabbing, and poisons. What's there not to love?
razion Jan 9th 2011 8:23AM
Sounds like Subtlety to me.
MW Jan 9th 2011 8:25AM
WTB edit button: *liked* that almost as well
MW Jan 9th 2011 8:27AM
It's the boost to poisons that makes Assassination more roguish for me over Subtlety. When you can watch your victim try to run away and drop in two steps from the boosted poison ticking away, then you can cackle maniacally. Stealthed, of course.
Helston Jan 9th 2011 8:47AM
I've found I can't get into leveling as combat or subtlety. My rogue used to be combat a while back, but I started a new one after the Shattering. I found I couldn't get into those two, the talents just seemed too boring, and didn't really have any overall direction. Assasination feels like the only spec where talents have any interaction with each other at all.
AltairAntares Jan 9th 2011 9:02AM
My 69 rogue is subetly. Two shotting mobs is just made out of awesome. (Of course doing that in PVP is also awesome!)
Diop Jan 9th 2011 9:13AM
What works for me is that crazy leveling talent in the first tier of the assassination tree, that refreshes SnD and recuperate on a mob death, since both last about 30 seconds and it took me about 10s to kill a mob until I was fighting level 85 mobs it really pushes you to carry on moving forward, having only 20s to reach your next target. I leveled insanely fast due to not wanting to lose my two buffs.
Also I'm tired of people saying Rogues should be just about stealth and sneaky, if that is what Blizz wanted they should have named the class Assassin. To me a Rogue is someone who's a bit of a cad and a rebel, the kind of guy that turns up to the duke's party, steals his stuff, shags his wife, challenges him to a duel and escapes through a window, not someone who puts a little bit of poison in his night time drink.
Tom Jan 11th 2011 7:09PM
For me I want a spec that gives me the button I want whenever I want it -
For me as a Rogue that was Subt.
Stealth was on a short enough cooldown that it always seemed ready.
Vanish was there with a short CD whenever I got in trouble, or wanted to just ignore a mob.
And if it wasn't I had preparation.
Shadowstep let me ignore trying to climb around hills or jump over stuff letting me move around easily.
And I could kill mobs with just Ambush -> Hemo -> Eviscerate.
And finally and very importantly - hardly took any damage which meant no drinking time.
Metalupis Jan 9th 2011 1:16PM
While I am currently assasination due to weapon drops my first and longest love of playing a rogue is combat, grabbing two or three mobs, poping cool downs, kill them all, move on, repeat.
Rogues are not just about stealth, they are first and foremost about laying the hurt on anyone they meet
/so want the ptr combat changes on live
Spark Jan 9th 2011 3:54PM
I'm rather enjoying this thread as there seems to be a lot of different views of what a rogue is all about. And to a large extent, I suspect that's the point of the "rogue" class in WoW. Rogues are many things.
The wonderful thing about rogues, is that rogues are wonderful things. They're tops at stealthily sneaking, as well as killing many things. They're stunny, steppy, slashy, stabby, ambush fun, fun, fun, fun. And the wonderful thing about rogues is that there's more than one.
I like to go with subtlety when I level my rogue. There's something particularly amusing about sneaking in to an objective, setting up the fight, taking out the target and/or whatever else is in the way, then sneaking out and leaving the front-line defence intact. And that's saved me a few times as well. I'm on a PvP server and I've been sneaking out of an area to find several opposing faction players working their way in to the objective. It isn't uncommon to have a larger group come in and claim the objective by killing you first. Leaving the front-line in place creates a buffer to slow down would-be kill-stealers.
Granted - this is all probably sub-optimal for efficient leveling. I'm taking my time, I'm leaving XP walking around, and even when I do enter combat I lose time to the stunlock. But it's fun.
nieboh Jan 10th 2011 1:24AM
I play an assassination rogue. She has always been an assassination rogue. While always maxed on daggers, I think she had about 110 weapon skill with swords and 60ish with maces until they did away with weapon skill. When I wanted to see what combat was all about I rolled another rogue so I could get a feel for it while leveling. I did have fun with it while leveling, but eventually I just couldn't deal with it. Soon I'll have two lvl 85 assassination rogues.
And to comment a little on Metalupis, I have the opposite feel. If I see a group of 2 or 3 mobs, I'm not in a rush to take them all on at once, instead I have fun with picking them off one by one. If they're a pat, sapping one and watching the other two walk away makes me cackle with glee and I annihilate the loner as soon as I can. Or if they're not moving I'll sap one, open on another, and blind the third and try to burn down the second before it wears off. Of I wanted to take on 3 at a time I'd be a...well...I never really like that. I'm all about the single target dps.
blake.norton Jan 10th 2011 1:30AM
When I level I want to keep moving. Killing things fast is important but killing things quick and being at full health after the fight is more important. I am not one of the people that enjoys leveling. To me wow has about 10 quests and you just repeat them until you're done. I want to get it over with as fast as possible.
This is the spec I started with at 80
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#fbhZfGccRc0RGo:k0ozbmm0c
I put the next two points into quickening.
Deadly momentum + Imp recoup and imp slice and dice is pretty much the best leveling combo you can have. Add in reinforced leather and lightning reflexes and there is no reason to stop.
Stealthing while leveling is a huge waste of time. Even if you kill the mob in a couple GDCs the slowness of getting up to the mob and positioning yourself kills your time. Shadow step doesn't come close to blade flurry in killing ability. You might be able to kill one mob faster but forget about 2 or more.
woshiernog Jan 10th 2011 2:39PM
I specced assassination strictly for the poisons.
Miz Jan 9th 2011 8:13AM
I go for what I have the most fun playing with. I'd rather spend 5 extra hours leveling with a sub-optimal specc which I love playing with than boring myself to death with a specc that doesn't work for me but which kills mobs 0.1 seconds faster.
Anathemys Jan 9th 2011 9:35AM
Same. Multiple people have told me frost is awesome for leveling, but I tried it, got bored, switched to arcane (around patch 4.0), and never again looked at any other tree. Plus, arcane does pretty freakin well at killing things now that Arcane Blast is lower level, and you get Arcane Barrage when you spec into the tree.
I can't WAIT for slow...
Eyhk Jan 9th 2011 10:03AM
I like to experiment with different stuff while leveling so that I get a feel for each spec. I usually end up with some favorites and one spec I hate ( fire Mage, balance Druid, combat rogue, demonology warlock, etc). I leveled my Mage as dualspec frost/arcane, going frost whenever I had a pack of five or more mobs I could gather with no casters. Insta-10k+ xp is awesome. The huge numbers of arcane on single target is awesome as well for dungeons. I leveled my lock as affliction in BC which was hella fun as there was never any downtime at all. Destruction in northrend was fun with incinerate, wish all our spells looked so cool.
woshiernog Jan 10th 2011 2:38PM
If only we could keep our sub-optimal specs when we hit 85.