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Rogue Profession Choices
The Rogue is one class that can benefit from almost any profession in some way or another. A Rogue concerned with gathering professions can utilize stealth to approach resource nodes that may be blocked by monsters for those without the ability. A Rogue may find the buffs given by potions powerful enough to change the outcome of a fight. The Rogue may even craft his own armor with the Leatherworking skill, or sell his crafts with any of the crafting skills. A Rogue may even supplement his combat technique with unorthodox weapons such as bombs, death rays, net guns, and special defensive items from engineering. To choose the appropriate profession its ideal for a Rogue to first decide on his play style and then evaluate which profession would benefit him best.

Crafting Professions:
Tailoring:Tailoring is primarily concerned with the creation of cloth armor and accessories such as bags and shirts. Tailoring is not ideal for a Rogue, as a Rogue will most likely never wear a piece of cloth armor. Though the ability to make your own bags will have some merit at earlier levels, the benefits of other professions for a Rogue will far outweigh those of tailoring.

Leatherworking and Skinning: One of the ideal professions for the new Rogue, leatherworking gives the Rogue the benefit of being able to make most of his own armor until later levels, as well as kits to augment the strength of his armor. Coupled with skinning, grinding levels will become a profitable enterprise. Although crafted armor is often not as good as lootable armor as you level there are some high level armors the Rogue may want to consider. The first set is craftable by devilsaur leatherworkers: Devilsaur Gauntlets and Devilsaur Leggings are a great set for Rogues who haven’t started doing end game instances. Another set, craftable by elemental leatherworkers: Stormshroud Shoulders, Stormshroud Pants, Stormshroud Gloves, and Stormshroud Armor. Both of these sets are good, and one might notice that Stormshroud armor has more +crit stats while Devilsaur armor has more +attack power, which may cater to your preference.

Blacksmithing and Mining: Blacksmithing allows the creation of goods made from metal, and later can branch off to specifics such as weapon smithing and armor crafting. Though these professions cater mostly to the more heavily armored classes, the ability to craft some weapons may be of use to a Rogue at some points. However, these weapons are usually of a lower standard than those that can be found in instances, so the true value of blacksmithing to a Rogue is in making money. The ability of a Rogue to sneak from mineral deposit to mineral deposit, usually without fighting anything, makes the Rogue the most productive mining class, along with druids. The more you can mine, the more you can sell.

Alchemy and Herbalism: Alchemy is the profession which allows the creation of various potions which can be used instantly in almost any situation. Though the benefits of stealth in terms of gathering resources applies as well to herbalism as it does to mining, the main benefit of this combination actually lies in the production skill itself. The ability to create potions with various affects ranging from healing to poison cleansing, strength, armor, and life buffs, to even invisibility and invulnerability are invaluable to one who prefers a varied and powerful combat technique. At later levels many of the resources gathered from herbalism fetch a good price in the AH and may double as a good source of income. A very important benefit of herbalism for a Rogue is that the Rogue will not be reliant on the auction house for their fade reagent. Fade leaf can be farmed, and swiftthistle for Thistle Tea is easily obtainable as well.

Enchanting:Enchanting is a unique and valuable ability in World of Warcraft. It allows you to add permanent stats to weapons and armor using unique materials gathered from disenchanting weapons and armor of green quality or better. It is arguably the hardest profession in the game to level and can sometimes be very difficult to make money from considering the cost of materials on the player market, and the lost value from items disenchanted to make enchanting materials. The obvious benefit of enchanting is that the profession and the ability to gather materials for it are contained as one profession, so you may pick another gathering profession to supplement your income. It is not likely that a Rogue will benefit from enchanting in any particular way over any other class.

Engineering: An ideal profession for the level 60 Rogue without money problems, engineering will give you a number of novelty items and items to cover gaps in Rogue abilities, or even reinforce existing ones. The mainstays of engineering are things such as dynamite, a thrown item that does area damage, goggles with various abilities such as Catseye goggles, and several novelty devices that do things such as root the target, reduce attack power, temporarily stun enemies, even items that allow the wearer to slow fall or stealth without the stealth ability. Obviously some of these abilities overlap with Rogue abilities, so it’s important to pick a branch of engineering that best suits how you like to play your Rogue. Goblin engineering tends to have more offensive items such as better dynamite and bombs, a rocket helmet which stuns the enemy for a considerable amount of time, great for when sap just isn’t reliable enough. Gnomish engineering tends towards more ability oriented items. For instance, the gnomish mind control cap allows you to mind control one target, and for the duration they will follow you like a pet and attack your targets. The Gnomish Net-o-Matic Projector nets the target (some monsters have this ability so you’ve probably seen it before) and they can’t move for 10 seconds. Its great to temporarily take someone out of the fight. Both branches have a transporter you can make, goblins for Winterspring and gnomes for Gadgetzan. Rogues that raid may want to consider the value of going gnomish engineering simply for a quick way to get to tanaris, considering how far apart Molten Core and Blackwing Lair, located in blackrock mountain, are from Silithus and Ahn Qiraj. However, there are two very important things to remember about engineering. The first thing to consider is that most of the items have a chance of failure. So while you might be able to use a net gun or a rocket helmet to take someone out of the fight and save your life, it could very well fail and put you at a disadvantage. The second thing to consider is that most engineering items take up a trinket or armor slot. Its important to decide beforehand if the trade off is worth it depending on the situation, because you won’t be able to exchange items during combat. And even if you vanish and switch your trinket/item most have a 30 second warm up before you can use them.