Abilities

Stealth: Your primary ability, rendering you invisible to NPCs and opposing faction players below your level. Use the Distract ability to momentarily halt patrolling NPCs, allowing you to plan your next move. While in stealth, your first action bar changes to an alternate one, granting access to stealth-specific abilities. It is recommended to hot key Distract to one key, Unstealth to another, and stealth attacks to subsequent keys.

Poisons: Four main poisons are used: two for Player vs. Environment (PvE) and two for Player vs. Player (PvP). Crippling and Wound are recommended for PvP. Instant is your main hand poison for PvE, while Deadly is for your off-hand in PvE. Mind-numbing is considered ineffective, and the rage-inducing poison has limited PvE uses and few relevant targets in PvP. 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 showing your immediate surroundings).

Sap: When combined with Sprint and Distract, Sap can be instrumental in crowd control (CC) for difficult mobs and can also be used to disrupt other players.

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

Blind: This ability causes a single enemy to move erratically for a short duration, provided they are not taking damage. It is useful when facing multiple enemies; blind one and focus on defeating the other within 10 seconds. Blind is your only crowd control ability in live combat.

Cheap Shot/Kidney Shot: Cheap Shot is a surprise attack that grants 2 combo points and stuns the enemy for a duration. Kidney Shot consumes combo points to stun the enemy for a duration while in combat. In PvE, stuns reduce damage taken or serve as crowd control. In PvP or against mobs, these stuns are best for controlling enemy numbers and reducing damage, or for stalling.

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

Slice and Dice: In PvE, this ability significantly increases your damage per second (DPS). When combined with Blade Flurry, it allows you to engage two enemies simultaneously, or leave one with minimal health.

Eviscerate: This is your primary finishing move for splash damage and burst damage in PvE against single targets. If facing multiple enemies, Slice and Dice is a better option.

Envenom: Assassination rogues can utilize poison-related talents to effectively replace Eviscerate with Envenom. With maximum stacks of Deadly Poison, Envenom 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 weak silence effect and also causes damage over time, ignoring armor. In PvE, Rupture is excellent for increasing boss DPS. In PvP, Garrote can be used to gain an advantage on a caster. Both can be applied simultaneously in PvE, and vanishing can allow for multiple Garrote applications.

Shiv: This ability instantly applies your off-hand poison, which is particularly useful for applying Crippling Poison in PvP. Due to its reliance on critical strikes, it is less effective in PvE unless using an Envenom build, and even then, stacking Deadly Poison through auto-attacks is generally preferred.

Lockpicking: This functions as a pseudo-profession. You can offer your services to open lockboxes for other players or advertise it in trade chat. The fee for picking locks is up to you. It is recommended to make the tip optional, especially if you are using lockpicking to level up. Certain doors and chests in the game can be opened with Lockpicking, but their availability is limited to specific dungeons. To level Lockpicking, start at around level 50 where you acquire the skill. Look for nearby areas with more locks, such as the bottom of the lake in Redridge. A rogue trainer can then direct you to further advancement locations. Skill-ups beyond your current maximum are only possible by leveling up. For instance, you can only open 325 lockboxes at level 65, 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, with a small chance to find valuable items like a slow sword.