Abilities

Stealth: Your primary ability, allowing you to become invisible to NPCs and players of the opposing faction, provided you are not too many levels below them. Use the Distract ability to halt a patrolling NPC (non-player character — anyone the game controls, not you) temporarily, enabling you to plan your next move. While in stealth, your first action bar changes to an alternate one, providing hotkeys for stealth abilities. It is recommended to assign Distract to one key, Unstealth to another, and stealth attacks to subsequent keys.

Poisons: Primarily four types are used: two for PvE and two for PvP. Crippling and Wound poisons are recommended for PvP. For PvE, Instant poison is for your main hand, and Deadly poison is for your off-hand. Mind-numbing poison is considered less useful, and the rage poison has limited PvE applications and few PvP targets. It is advised to keep all poisons in your main bag, with approximately 20 of each. Poison vendors can be tracked on your minimap (a small map displayed on your HUD (heads-up display — the on-screen icons showing health, ammo and the minimap)).

Sap: When combined with Sprint and Distract, Sap can significantly aid in crowd control (CC) of difficult mobs and can also be used to harass other players.

Sprint: This is your sole method of increasing movement speed, with a cooldown that can take up to two minutes. It is essential for escaping enemies but also allows for faster travel. In PvP, Sprint can be used to maintain a position behind an enemy, making you harder to target, to flee, or to close distance to an opponent.

Blind: This ability causes a single enemy to move in circles for a short duration, as long as they are not taking damage. It is useful when facing multiple enemies; blind one and focus on defeating the other within 10 seconds. This is your only CC ability in live combat, so ensure allies are aware of the target you have blinded.

Cheap Shot/Kidney Shot: Cheap Shot is a surprise attack that grants 2 combo points and stuns the enemy for a period. Kidney Shot consumes combo points to stun the enemy while in combat. In PvE, stunning an enemy reduces damage taken or serves as crowd control, though using a finisher on a nearly defeated enemy might be more effective. Kidney Shot can also interrupt enemy casting, even for a brief moment. In PvP or against mobs, these are best used for crowd control, damage reduction, or stalling for time. Attacking a rogue who has just used Cheap Shot often draws immediate attention from other players, even if other targets are more advantageous.

Sinister Strike / Mutilate: These are your primary combo point-generating abilities, dependent on your chosen talents.

Slice and Dice: In PvE encounters with multiple mobs, this ability significantly boosts your DPS. When combined with Blade Flurry, it allows you to engage two enemies simultaneously or leave one significantly weakened.

Eviscerate: This is your primary burst finisher for single-target PvE encounters. If facing multiple enemies, Slice and Dice is a better option.

Envenom: Assassination rogues can acquire most poison talents and effectively substitute Eviscerate with Envenom. With full stacks of Deadly Poison and Envenom, it bypasses enemy armor and deals nature damage, functioning similarly to a nature spell.

Rupture/Garrote: Rupture consumes combo points and causes damage over time that ignores armor. Garrote is a stealth attack that applies a minor silence effect and also deals armor-ignoring damage over time. In PvE, Rupture is excellent for increasing boss damage. In PvP, Garrote can provide an advantage against casters, potentially disrupting their gameplay. Both can be applied simultaneously in PvE, and Vanish can be used in PvE to apply additional Garrotes.

Shiv: This ability instantly applies your off-hand poison, making it excellent for applying Crippling poison in PvP. Due to its non-critical strike nature, it is less effective for PvE unless using an Envenom build, and even then, Deadly poisons should be stacked through auto-attacks.

Lockpicking: This functions as a pseudo-profession, allowing you to open lockboxes for other players as a service. The fee for picking locks is variable. Players can leave tips optionally, especially if using lockpicking for leveling. Several doors and chests in the game can be opened with Lockpicking, but their availability is limited to specific dungeons. To level Lockpicking, begin at approximately level 50 where the skill is acquired. Look for areas with numerous locks nearby, such as the bottom of the lake in Redridge. Rogue trainers can provide guidance for further skill advancement. Skill-ups beyond your current maximum are only possible by leveling up. For instance, reaching level 65 is required to open lockboxes up to 325 skill, with the skill cap increasing by 5 for each character level. This progression is similar to weapon skills.

Pickpocket: This ability is used to acquire lockboxes for leveling Lockpicking. At higher levels, it can be used to obtain gold from enemies, and there is a small chance (1%) to find items like a slow sword in the stolen boxes.