Levels 10-11: Improved Sinister Strike (2/2). This reduces the energy cost of your primary skill by 5 points, making it a multiple of 10. This is very, very nice if you plan to spam it (as you should).
Levels 12-16: Master of Deception (5/5). This reduces your stealth detection radius substantially. A must have for both PvE and PvP. If you do not get this, you will wish you had.
Levels 17-21: Malice (5/5). This gives our regular attack an additional 5% chance to crit. As our base crit chance is about 5% to begin with, 5 points here effectively doubles crit chance.
Levels 22-24: Improved Eviscerate (3/3). This adds 15% more damage to Eviscerate. Must-have imo.
Levels 25-27: Ruthlessness (3/3). Three points here gives us a 60% chance to gain a combo point on the target after using a finishing move. Worth the points, especially with the next talent:
Level 28: Relentless Strikes (1/1). This gives us a 20% chance per combo point to regain 25% of our energy after a finishing move. Combined with Ruthlessness, this makes a second 5 point Evis easier to attain in a PvP fight. This is, at its core, an upgrade to our efficiency.
Levels 29-33: Lethality (5/5). Five points here enhance the damage of our SS crits by 30%. Actually, it affects the crit damage of just about every rogue ability, but I would get it even if it only affected SS.
Levels 34-36: Improved Instant Poision (3/5). Each point here adds a 2% chance per attack that our instant poison will trigger on the target. We'll eventually max this out, but not now. This talent enhances our overall DPS, so it is worth every point.
Level 37: Cold Blood (1/1). When activated, this ability gives us a 100% crit chance on ambush, backstab, SS, and Eviscerate. We can use it every 3 minutes, so just about every fight (every other fight in PvE). Don't waste this for SS; save it until you're ready to unleash a 5 cp Evis. At level 60, an Evis crit can do more than 2k damage.
Levels 38-42: Camouflage (5/5). This is a flat increase to movement speed while in stealth mode. You will need to spend the majority of your time in stealth if you plan on taking anyone by surprise. Also, with 5 points here and the highest-level stealth, your movement speed while invisible is 85% of your regular speed. Not bad at all.
Levels 43-47: Initiative (5/5). This is another efficiency tweak. With 5 points here, you have a 75% chance to gain 3 combo points from cheap shot. Follow up with a SS and Gouge and you have 5.
Levels 48-50: Improved Sap (3/3). With three points here, you have a 90% chance to remain in stealth after using sap. This allows you to take on two enemy players; sap one and you will still have your opener available for the second one. After you make the kill, you can run away and come back in a minute for the first player.
Level 51: Ghostly Strike (1/1). This is an instant attack that does 125% weapon damage, awards a combo point, and increases the rogue's dodging by 15%. I'm going to use Yojack's argument for this; with Evasion and the rogue's raw dodging rating, this makes you almost impossible to hit for 7 seconds; the duration of the effect. My reason: why not? It's either a point here or another point in Elusiveness, and while I like both, I'd rather get a new ability as opposed to lowering my timers by 20 seconds.
Levels 52: Elusiveness (1/5). We will be putting more points here later; this first one serves to unlock further talents for now. Elusiveness is another efficiency tweak; reducing the timers on Blind, Vanish and Evasion.
Level 53: Preparation (1/1). Usable every 10 minutes, this ability resets the timer on every other rogue ability. Yes, this includes Sprint, Gouge, Vanish, Cold Blood, even Thistle Tea. The real value of this is that you will be able to use Cold Blood twice per battle, as well as Vanish and Blind. With this ability up, it's hard for a rogue to lose in a 1v1 fight.
Levels 54-55: Improved Cheap Shot (2/2). Two points here and you finally have stunlock capability. I will describe how this works below. For those who don't know, each point in this talent trims 10 energy from the cost of using Cheap Shot.
Levels 56-57: Elusiveness (3/5). Three points in Elusiveness shaves 45 seconds from the timers on Blind, Vanish and Evasion. Personally, I like the idea of having my most powerful abilities on quicker timers. Some will warrant that Improved Rupture is worth these points instead, but they haven't convinced me.
Level 58: Hemorrhage (1/1). Again, I am covering stunlock further down in this guide; for our purposes, this is the cheapest combo point possible. Also, at the highest rank, this ability acts like a +7 damage modifier to each of your weapons for the 15 seconds during which it is active. Note that, like SS, this is an instant attack that deals weapon damage, and like SS, it can crit and is modified by Lethality.
Level 59-60: Improved Instant Poison (5/5). I'm placing my final points here. An alternative would be to put one or both into Elusiveness; this is a decision that I may yet opt for as time flows.
