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Assassination Rogue is one of the oldest Rogue Specializations in World Of Warcraft. Now in the age of the Dragonflight expansion, Assassination Rogue is looking deadlier than ever. Finally, Assassination Rogue has the potential to compete with the other Rogue Specializations in all types of content.
The reworking of Talent Trees makes Assassination Rogue much more viable, fun, and efficient in what Rogues do best...DPS. With so many options, it will be easy to build your Rogue to be at the top of the DPS charts. Let's take a detailed look at Assassination Rogue and everything that makes up this fun class.
Why Assassination Rogue?
Assassination Rogue has a lot of great highlights. You may want to play this class if:
1. You love the archetype of Master Poisoner, who slowly Poisons and Bleeds your enemies. Assassination Rogue's biggest trait is its use of Poison and Bleed damaging attacks. There are so many Rogue Archetypes, but if your favorite archetype has Poisons, then Assassination Rogue may be the class for you.
2. You enjoy the use and management of Damage Over Time abilities. Since this class uses Poisons and Bleeds for its damage, that will mean lots of DoTs on the enemy. This will require you to maintain and manage these, so they do not fall off and decrease your damage output. It plays much like the melee version of Affliction Warlock, in a sense.
3. You are competitive and must be at the top of the damage meter charts. Assassination Rogue has the potential to be the top DPS in any content, so if you love high-damage classes that get you to the top of the DPS charts, then Assassination Rogue is a great choice.
Best Races For Assassination Rogue
When it comes to choosing your race, first and foremost, it should be up to whatever race you love the most. That being said, there are some great Racial Abilities that can benefit any Assassination Rogue. There are various races that have the best options for this class.
|
Race |
Racial Name |
Racial Effect |
|---|---|---|
|
Human |
Every Man For Himself |
Remove all stun effects. Shares a cooldown of 90 seconds with similar effects. |
|
Orc |
Blood Fury |
Increase of Melee attack power. |
|
Night Elf |
Shadowmeld |
Extra ability to stealth, usable in combat, but unable to move and damage will break stealth. |
|
Troll |
Beserking |
Melee, ranged, and spell haste increase by 15 percent for ten seconds. |
|
Gnome |
Escape Artist |
Escape any immobilization or movement speed reduction effects. |
|
Undead |
Will Of The Forsaken |
Remove Charm, Fear, and Sleep Effects with a Cooldown of two minutes. |
You may notice that the Horde and Alliance factions differ in their racial abilities. The Horde racial abilities tend to lean more towards damage increase, while the Alliance racial abilities help you maintain free movement and mobility. The Night Elf race's ability is unique. Shadowmeld will allow you to go stealth, leaving combat and granting the chance to use your Rogue's Stealth ability so you can use in-stealth-only abilities in combat again.
Assassination Leveling And General Talent Tree
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While you are on your adventure to 70, it is the perfect opportunity to try out different talents and explore this class. The Talents at this time are not a top priority but a chance to learn what you love. That being said, there are a few notable talents to be aware of.
- Leeching Poisons - This Talent will be your best friend as you level. Ensuring you get some health back from your attacks.
- Echoing Reprimand - This is your big upfront damaging ability. This is a great choice when you want to dish out a lot of damage to the enemy and line up more damage afterward.
- Cheat Death - This will give you a second chance at life, giving you enough time and a chance to use potions to keep fighting or Vanish to run away.
Talents to Consider
- Shadow Dance - Granting the use of in-Stealth-only abilities while not in Stealth. This will increase damage.
- Find Weakness - Find weaknesses in the armor of the target, bypassing 15 percent of their defenses for 10 seconds. Basically, more damage.
- Soothing Darkness - Heal for 30 percent health over six seconds when using Vanish or Shadow Dance. This will allow you to heal while in combat while attacking.
Subtlety Specialization Leveling And General Tree
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The major Talents for Assassination Rogue are Kingsbane, Amplifying Poison, and Lethal Dose. These all play off of your Poisons, which Assassination Rogue thrives at. They work together so well and will increase your damage output significantly.
Notable Talents:
- Kingsbane - Release Poisons from your weapons and inject the target. Dealing damage immediately and damage over time. Each application of a lethal poison to the target will increase Kingsbane's damage by 20 percent. This is a huge damaging ability.
- Amplifying Poison - Chance to apply a lethal poison to the enemy for 12 seconds, dealing damage. Envenom can consume ten stacks to increase its damage by 35 percent. Maximum of 20 stacks. This will play off of Kingsbane greatly and is another poison in your repertoire.
- Lethal Dose - Your weapon poisons, bleeds, and Nature damage over time abilities deal two percent extra damage to the target for each poison, bleed, and Nature damage effect active. This will increase your damage output, especially with the two Talents mentioned above.
In the process of leveling, these talents will help you greatly, but in the overall scheme of the Talent Tree, do your best to explore, discover and create a build that works for you.
The adventure to 70 is all about exploration, whether that be in the land or in your class itself. You may even discover a new build that works great for various content.
The best part about the new Dragonflight Talent Tree is that you can change talents and specializations anytime. So, if you find that some Talents aren't working for you or if Assassination isn't the Specialization for you, feel free to change whenever you like.
Assassination Talent Tree For Dungeons and Mythic+
Assassination Rogue Mythic+ and Dungeons Talent Tree Import String:
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Any DPS' best friend in Mythic+ and Dungeons will be a great balance between AoE/Cleave and Single Target damage. This build will give just that in your dungeon-delving adventures and fights. The right side of this tree, specifically Indiscriminate Carnage, will make this build shine.
Your AoE cornerstone talents will be Indiscriminate Carnage, Thrown Precision, and Flying Daggers. These will ensure that your AoE is efficient and deadly. Increasing the damage and Critical Strike chance of your AoE abilities with these talents will help make those Dungeons and Mythic+ fights much easier.
- Indiscriminate Carnage - Your next Garrote and your next Rupture are applied to enemies within eight yards. Up to eight enemies.
- Thrown Precision - Fan of Knives' damage and Critical Strike chance is increased.
- Flying Daggers - Fan of Knives' radius is increased to 12 yards and deals more damage when it hits five or more targets.
While you can certainly deal great damage with these AoE Talents, you also have great Single-Target damage with this build. Your Single-Target damage will mainly come from Echoing Reprimand, Resounding Clarity, and passive Talents that help your bleeds and poisons do extra damage.
- Echoing Reprimand - Deal Arcane damage to the enemy and Animacharge a combo point for 45 seconds. Damaging finishing moves consume the same number of combo points as your Animacharge function, as if they consumed seven combo points.
- Resounding Clarity - Echoing Reprimand now has three additional Animacharges.
- Deathmark - Carve a Deathmark into the target, dealing bleed damage over 16 seconds. When marked Garrote, Rupture, and Lethal Poisons' damage is doubled, dealing 100 percent of normal damage.
Assassination Talent Tree for Raids
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In Raids, you want to prioritize single-target passive and active abilities, so this build does just that. The Rogue Tree doesn't differ much from the Leveling/General Tree, but the Assassination Specialization Tree is vastly different from the previous two builds.
The big difference here comes from an emphasis on the middle of the tree. Namely, Dashing Scoundrel and Dragon-Tempered Blades. The big Talents to be aware of for Single-Target effectiveness are:
- Dashing Scoundrel - Envenom increases the Critical Strike chance of poisons by 15 percent, and their Critical Strikes generate 15 Energy.
- Dragon-Tempered Blades - You may apply one additional Lethal or Non-Lethal Poison to your weapons.
- Serrated Bone Spike - Embed a bone spike in the target, dealing damage immediately and applying a bleed DoT every three seconds until they die or leave combat.
Those will all play off each other and pair so well together to ensure you deal as much damage with your bleeds and poisons as possible. That being said, there are some other notable talents to be aware of.
- Zoldyck Recipe - Poisons and Bleeds deal 15 percent increased damage to targets below 35 percent health.
- Poison Bomb - Envenom has a ten percent chance per combo point spent to smash a vial of poison at the target's location. Which will create a pool of acid and deal damage over two seconds to all enemies in the AoE.
- Systemic Failure - Garrote increases the damage of Ambush and Mutilate on the target by 20 percent.
Though Poison Bomb sounds like it is an AoE move, it is exceptionally great for a single target as well, especially if the target isn't moving much. Essentially, more Poisons mean more damage. Systematic Failure will be so helpful with your damage output. All it will take is steady maintenance of your Garrote ability on the target, so don't let it fall off. Zoldyck Recipe will help ensure those pesky DPS checks that sometimes arise with bosses by increasing your Poison and Bleed damage when the fight is about one-third of the way done.
Rotation
The Rotation for Assassination Rogue will, in the end, be up to you to maintain and apply your DoT abilities whenever they are about to fall off. There is also a slightly different Rotation for each build. That being said, there is a general Rotation to follow.
If Rotation isn't your strong suit, or you are not great at knowing when to apply various abilities, you may want to try some addons to help with this. The Hekili and Weak Auras addons are great for this and will help with rotation and management of your abilities.
Knowing when to use interrupts is half the battle of any rotation, but without considering those, this is roughly what your rotation will look like.
|
Sequence |
Ability Name |
|---|---|
|
1. |
Slice and Dice with one or more Combo Point Use Envenom to maintain this by spending five or more combo points |
|
2. |
Serrated Bone Spike (if talented) |
|
3. |
Garrote (from Stealth when possible) |
|
4. |
Rupture - Maintain with five or more combo points. |
|
5. |
Echoing Reprimand or Kingsbane (if talented) |
|
6. |
Shiv (to go with Kingsbane) |
|
7. |
Exsanguinate on Cooldown, and try to line up with Deathmark right after. If not, use both on Cooldown. You may want to do Exsanguinate, Vanish, Garrote, and Deathmark in succession here. If so, ignore step 8. |
|
8. |
Vanish on Cooldown, use Garrote immediately after for an empowered version. If can use Deathmark after Garrote that is even better |
|
9 |
Use Shiv when charges are about to max out. |
|
10. |
Serrated Bone Spike to avoid maxing out on charges. |
|
11. |
Envenom. Use with at least five combo points |
|
12. |
Ambush, to generate combo points when possible. |
|
13. |
Mutilate, this is your main combo point generator, use it whenever possible. |
|
14. |
Thistle Tea, use when you need more energy to keep damaging if you run out. |
Some Tips
Mutilate is your backbone when it comes to combo point-generating abilities. You will want to use this whenever possible and maybe in between each step mentioned above if necessary. Steps seven and eight are flexible; if you can line every ability up (as mentioned in step seven), then by all means, do. However, don't let the wish to line everything up stop you from using those abilities on cooldown. Steady damage over time is better than a single big burst in many cases.
Macros
Macros play a big role in World of Warcraft and can help make your rotation and life in the battle much easier. Essentially, the Macro will bind two or more abilities to a single key and can even be programmed to a specific target. Like the other Rogue Specializations, Assassination doesn't have many Macros. The biggest Macro for Assassination Rogue will be applied to Tricks of the Trade and will look like this:
- /cast [@focus] Tricks of the Trade
This Macro will require you to focus on the Tank of the Party or Raid. To set the focus, right-click on the Tank's Party Frame and choose "select focus" in the menu. This will allow you, with one easy push of a button, to cast Tricks of the Trade without having to mouse over anything.
This will save you a lot of time and effort in battle, so you can keep doing your job as DPS. The other party members may even thank you since the Tank will take more of the focus in the fight.
Macros can be overwhelming to create. If you need help making Macros feel free to check out our Guide to Creating Macros.
Stat Priority
Luckily, the stat priority is the same when it comes to Raiding or Mythic+ Dungeons. This will make your life easier as you traverse various content. An Assassination Rogue's Stat Priority will be as follows:
- Critical Strike
- Mastery
- Haste
- Versatility
Critical Strike and Mastery are near to equal importance here. You will want to balance these out as you level up your stats, while Haste and Versatility will take the backseat but are still important. You will want to get these all as high as possible, emphasizing the top two. Not letting any single stat fall significantly behind is important when building up your stats.
Diminishing Returns are important to remember. Any Stat above 30 percent will take penalties on their continued effectiveness.
Enchants
Though Enchants will vary depending on Crafting Tier. These are the best Enchants for any Assassination Rogue.
|
Gear Slot |
Enchantment Name |
|---|---|
|
Chest |
Waking Stats |
|
Cloak |
Regenerative Leech |
|
Legs |
Frosted Armor Kit |
|
Bracers |
Devotion of Leech |
|
Boots |
Plainsrunner's Breeze |
|
Main Hand and Off Hand |
Sophic Devotion |
|
Rings |
Devotion of Critical Strike and Devotion of Mastery |
Phials
Phials play an important role in combat. The best Phials for Assassination Rogue are Phial of Glacial Fury and Phial of Static Empowerment. The Phial of Glacial Fury will come in handy in non-stationary fights, while Phial of Static Empowerment will be used for stationary fights.
The Phail of Glacial Fury will give you a stack of Glacial Fury for 15 seconds after first attacking the target, dealing damage has a chance to deal extra damage to the enemy. Damage is increased by 15 percent for each stack but maxes out at five stacks. The Phail of Static Empowerment will increase your primary stat over five seconds. Movement will remove this effect and grant increased movement speed for five seconds.
Combat Potions
The Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power is any Assassination Rogue's Combat Potion. You increase your Primary Stat 30 seconds by consuming this. The cheaper version of this is called the Elemental Potion of Power.
Health Potions
The Refreshing Healing Potion will be the best pick for Health Potion. This will heal you for a significant amount.
Weapon Buffs
The Buzzing Rune is the choice for weapon buffs. Increase your Critical Strike Rating for two hours by using this.
Food Buffs
The best choice of food for Assassination Rogues is the Thousandblade Tongueslicer. This will increase your Critical Strike and Mastery. If you can bring the Grand Banquet of the Kalu'ka or Hoard of Draconic Delicacies to the Raid or Mythic+ these will also suffice.
Gear
When you are on your adventure to 70, you will want to replace any gear whenever you find it. The best way to find gear as you are leveling is by doing as many quests as possible, running dungeons, and killing rare mobs. Crafting is also a great option for gear.
Since you are a Rogue and wear leather, you may want to pick up the Leathercrafting and Skinning Professions. If you make this a priority, gear up to and at 70 (at first) will not be a problem whatsoever. If professions aren't your cup of tea, don't be afraid to spend some gold at the Auction House for better gear.
Level 70 End Game Gear
While you prepare for Season One of Mythic+ and Raid, you will want to get your hands on the best gear possible. You will want to run dungeons until you can run Heroic Dungeons to get geared for this content. You will want to get your hands on the following gear from Heroic Dungeons.
|
Slot |
Item |
Location |
|---|---|---|
|
Neck |
The Nokhud Offensive |
|
|
Head |
The Nokhud Offensive |
|
|
Cloak |
Neltharus |
|
|
Shoulders |
The Azure Vault |
|
|
Wrist |
The Azure Vault |
|
|
Chest |
The Nokhud Offensive |
|
|
Legs |
Neltharus |
|
|
Gloves |
Ruby Life Pools |
|
|
Belt |
Uldaman |
|
|
Boots |
Uldaman |
|
|
Ring |
Algeth'ar Academy |
|
|
Trinket |
Algeth'ar Academy |
|
|
Trinket |
The Nokhud Offensive |
|
|
Ring |
Neltharus |
|
|
Main Hand and Off Hand |
Brackenhide Hollow |