So you've decided to become a rogue. Roaming invisible through the darkness, lashing out in fury with your blades, the bane of casters in PVP, the most sustainable DPS in PVE, the most mispelled class name of all. You've picked your race, entered the game, rerolled your race because you noticed your stealth animations sucked, and finally started leveling. Then one day while you're grinding in Darkshore or running through Wailing Caverns, a nice weapon drops, and you finally have to face the question that all rogues must answer someday -- what kind of weapons do I want to use?

Whereas other classes are defined by their spec -- "I'm a feral druid," "I'm a prot warrior," "I'm a resto shaman" -- rogues are defined mainly by their choice of weapons. This is because we can only DPS, while many other classes can tank or heal as well. (At least until Dogan's Bandage Spec becomes a reality.) Plus, from my experience in-game, not too many non-rogues know much about rogue talent trees. ("So you're Assassination ... is that the one with the thing that lets you sneak up behind people?")

While you're leveling up early, you'll probably just use the best weapon you come upon, whether it be a sword, a dagger, a mace or a fist weapon. This is a pretty good strategy, since it gives you experience with all the different weapon types and helps you decide which one you like most. But eventually, you'll want to pick a type of weapon and stick with it for a while. No one wants to raid with the rogue who changes his weapons every time something new and shiny drops, and then spends the rest of the instance going "lol sword skill 230" and whacking at trash while the actual sword rogues and fury warriors who lost the roll seethe in anger and plot how to make him autofollow them off a cliff. So here's a quick guide to the types of weapons out there for rogues, their ideal specs, their plusses and their minuses.