Ok, so returned to EQ about 5 months ago and had started playing my SK again but around October time frame I got lured back to my Rogue. From reading through the forums, speaking with Rogues in game, and reading through the AA's I know which ones are the primary DPS and in general which order to buy them. So here goes:

Level 71 with about 210 AA's. Sporting almost all Gnollish Hide Chain, and pretty good weapons for my level. Currently I can solo about 12 AA's per lesson, probably about 3-5 more if I was using DS pots, in Griegs End.

Questions:
1) Is there a better spot to solo/molo AA's faster?
- The Hole is ALWAYS camped.
- BoT might be an option, but it seems my dps isnt high enough yet to make it more efficient than GE.

2a) How many well placed AA's should I have before level through to 90?
Here is my thought:
- 71 and 700-800
- 75 reach 1k
- 81 1250-1500
- 85 1500-1750
- 90 1750-2000

* I do not have VoA yet will be buying that soon.

2b) Am I trying to farm too many AA's before leveling?

3) or maybe 2c) Does anyone recommend assassinate farming? I know it could suck for straight leveling, but it might be good for farming AA's?

4) Lastly, does anyone have any other advice other than the questions I listed?

- I do use poison, and I need to get that Leggings that summon the poison.
- I don't mind taking some time to learn the class at higher levels but I dont want to spend the next three months farming AA's. I can bust out about 40-60 minutes per day of playing.

Thank you in advance for any help.

Assassinate xp works out well. Hit Plane of Fire at your lvl and stock up on some AA. It's too easy to not AA front load there.

Train Rogues Fury
Learn Counter Attack

Then use them in tandem and test your limits.

Thank you for your response. A guildy pl'd me to 75 today and I have like 2 ranks of assassinate, and Knaves Return Strike for the riposte back stab.

My next AA's that I think I think I will max but not in this order are:
Knaves Return Strike
Double Riposte
Anatomy
Seized Opportunity

I understand at 75 I can Assassinate in HoH as well. Maybe I will alternate with that and Fire, or when Fire is being swarming or headshotted.

thanks again

In the 70's you'll do more damage with Strike of Ssraeshza than weapons.

Ingenuity
Empowered Ingenuity
Concentration (1 rank)
CA/CS

and work up Make Poison.

Yeah, right now my poison hits for about 4k and change. Doing pretty good with the exception of not getting a lot of assassinate proc's in HoH. I have max level for level 75 and I think I got 4 procs last night during a whole lesson plus 20-30 minutes.

Tonight if I log on I am going to head back to CoD and probably try to farm max CA/CS, only missing 2-4 points for each I think.

Besides maxing out SO, can anyone think of what would prevent my assassinate from procing? I do have chaotic stab.

Thank you for all the advice so far.

If it's procing that rarely, sounds like maybe some of the mobs aren't flagged humanoid, or are too high level.

I went to CoD and it did proc a little more but not as much. I think I am just going to forgo the assassinate farming and just head to PoF with the merc and do a little rogue pseudo-swarming with a nice DS at C1. If assassinate starts to proc, then so be it. After I hit around 7-800 I will probably hit 80/81 and hit up VM.

It's perhaps based off dex. I know when I was a wee nipper of a rogue assassinate didn't fire much, even on things it could do.

I'm not sure what changed to make it a proccing monster, but it's probably one of the stats.

I know dex is used for crit chance, and (i think) assassinate was originally a crit type, not a proc. Would make sense that, with the tons of heroic dex we can accumulate now, even if the heroic does nothing, the raw dex stat would change a lot.

It seems to have started proccing a little more. Maybe I am just expecting it too much and wanting that to get me all my exp. Now I will work on maxxing my other DPS AA's.

The Ingenuity Line and Minimum back stab damage are some definite. After I max those and CA/CS I will probably get a couple levels and try some of the other zones.

Thank you all for the advice.