In World of Warcraft, the Rogue is primarily designed to inflict massive amounts of damage in combat. The Rogue is a Melee DPS class, which means that the Rogue is designed to get into the thick of combat and deal out big chunks of damage to their foes. The Rogue excels at dealing out damage,and is also extremely versatile in other abilities.
 

Flavor

Playing a Rogue isn't for everybody. You want to be active and constantly in the thick of things, not hanging back. You must enjoy melee combat if you're to play this class. If you like being sneaky, getting the drop on your enemies, and laugh as they try to run as you tickle their spleen with your blades, then this class is for you. "Lone Wolf" type players are a perfect match for the Rogue. With a multitude of abilities such as stealth, the ability to use poisons, lockpicking, and dual wielding weapons, the Rogue offers a lot gameplay options to the player.

Starting at level 10, you can begin to choose talents from 3 different talent schools. The schools are Assassination (emphasizing burst damage and finishing moves), Combat (focusing on weapon DPS), and Subtlety (fighting from the shadows). Each has its own strengths. For leveling purposes, the Combat tree is considered the most useful. However, you can respec your talents by paying a few gold.

Let's take a quick look at what's good and not-so-good about Rogues. Foremost, the Rogue deals out a ton of damage. People will fear you because of your ability to drop them quickly. The bad thing is that other players know this and will try their best to kill you first. You will attract a lot of attention from enemy players once they know you're there. A Rogue can use only one-handed swords, daggers, fist weapons, and one-handed maces in melee combat. You can use guns, bows, crossbows, and throwing weapons as ranged weapons. Starting at level 10, you learn the ability to dual wield; that is, wielding 2 weapons at once in combat. Dual wielding is an essential ability, especially since you can't carry a shield. The negative side of dual wielding is that your hit percentage drops a bit and the damage for the off-hand weapon is reduced. However, talents can offset those negatives to some degree. As a Rogue, you'll have a good number of hit points and can take a few shots before dying. However, you are restricted to cloth and leather armor.  Leather armor is decent, but it doesn't protect as well as mail or plate. You're not totally squishy, but you're not a solid block of granite either. You can't take the punishment that a Warrior can take. The greatest ability of the Rogue is stealth. With stealth, you can sneak up on opponents, which is a huge advantage. From stealth, you can launch a vicious attack, stun them, or inflict a lingering injury. The Rogue is great for playing solo due to their high damage output, ability to take some damage, and by using stealth to bypass tougher foes or to stun one opponent to reduce the number of active enemies that they have to face at one time.

Rogues are great at PvP if played smartly. One on one, you're tough to beat. You can disrupt enemy spellcasters and you can reduce the armor of those pesky plate-wearing warriors. In groups, attack from the flanks or rear. Use your stealth! It's your greatest asset. You cannot survive being ganged up on. In raids and instances, your role is to inflict the most damage possible that you can without drawing aggro off the tanks in the group. You have several abilities, such as Feint and Vanish, to lessen your threat so your enemies will keep their attention away from you. Let the tanks keep the enemy focused on them while you stab (or bludgeon) the enemy unnoticed.

Rogue Strengths

• High DPS
• Ability to stealth and sneak up on enemies.
• Difficult to defeat in one on one PvP combat.

Rogue Weaknesses

• Viewed as dangerous, rogues become a primary target in PvP.
• Dual wielding causes for lower hit and damage ratio from the offhand weapon.

Defining Abilities

End game (level 70+) Rogues are masters of dealing damage. Your main choice is how you wish to inflict that damage. Common builds are Mutilate (heavy emphasis on Assassination) or Weapon DPS (main emphasis on Combat). The choice really depends upon your play style. Your ability to inflict maximum damage will be of great benefit to any group or raid.

All in all, the Rogue is an extremely fun class to play. You are a master at dealing damage in combat and have cool abilities such as stealth and lockpicking. Using stealth provides a nice bit of strategy for you to employ in gameplay. You can easily solo and yet be an integral part of a group.  You will never be the focus of a group, but that's all right. Rogues thrive in the shadows.