Last Revised: 12/01/2011
The most recent changes are in
blue.
Information that is probably out of date is in
maroon.
This guide is specifically written for raiding Assassination rogues to provide answers to the most common questions regarding how to play the Assassination spec, properly gear and spec yourself, and questions that come up when making a character.
I would like to thank Consider for letting me use his very well written DK guides as a guide to write this guide. I also thank everyone who put in the time and effort testing, calculating, and theorizing to provide the information that is present in this guide. I would also like to thank Aldriana specifically for trudging through this guide for correctness and clarity.
[top]Abbreviations
| Abbreviation | Meaning |
|---|
| Agi | Agility |
| AoE | Area of Effect |
| AP | Attack Power |
| Capping | Hitting Max Energy |
| CoS | Cloak of Shadows |
| CP | Combo Point |
| CR | Combat Readiness |
| DP | Deadly Poison |
| EP | Equivalence Point |
| FoK | Fan of Knives |
| GCD | Global Cooldown |
| MH | Main Hand/Main Hand Weapon |
| MS | Mortal Strike Effect (referring to all 25% reduce healing debuffs) |
| ICD | Internal Cooldown |
| IP | Instant Poison |
| OH | Off Hand/Off Hand Weapon |
| SnD | Slice and Dice |
| TotT | Tricks of the Trade |
| WP | Wound Poison |
[top]Specs and Glyphs
31/2/8 or 31/3/7
The above are links to the two recommended specs for an Assassination rogue with one free point to place as you see fit (this is the point in Deadly Brew in the link). Currently 31/3/7 is very slightly behind 31/2/8, in a test set of gear it was
40 DPS behind out of 24000 DPS.
Deadly Brew
This is one of the two highly recommended optional talents to take. While one point in this talent only gives a 50% chance to proc a crippling poison, you will be procing IP often enough that 2 points in this would be unnecessary even if you had 2 points available. Clearly, this talent is only of use where a slow is going to be beneficial (most bosses can not be slowed). Assassination rogues are one of the better sources of a slow since they sacrifice nothing to provide it and can easily provide an AoE slow with FoK and Vile Poisons.
Deadened Nerves
Healer mana is much more tight in Cata than it was in WotLK and taking the least amount of damage possible is a much more important goal (it’s always been pretty important) making this the other highly recommended talent. While rogues have a number of tricks to avoid/reduce damage (CR, Feint, CoS, etc) reduced damage is saved healer mana and more survivability.
Deadly Momentum
This is another feasible option to take though unlikely to yield as much benefit. During AoE, it
could help maintain a SnD since during AoE rogues are generally not generating combo points. However, this is will only happen for 50% of the killing blows you manage to get making this talent a very hit or miss in terms of value.
Improved Expose Armor
Generally, this is not a recommended talent as this particular debuff is easily provided by two tank classes and 50% chance can lead to disruptions in your rotation and DPS. Additionally, it is not a personal DPS gain for an Assassination rogue to maintain Expose Armor with or without this talent.
Quickening
These 2 points are technically optional points but should almost always be taken over other choices. Increased movement speed will of course be valuable for any movement fight whether you need to move to DPS or to avoid boss mechanics. This unfortunately will not stack with Sprint but does allow you to take a straight DPS enchant on your boots instead of a lesser-DPS movement speed alternative. Again as mentioned earlier, healers are more strained for mana and more often then not this will translate into less casted heals and not more overhealing.
Improved Ambush and Nightstalker
Technically the 2 points in Nightstalker are also your choice though; Ambush is not considered a viable option to open with as Assassination. It is instead best to open a fight with Garrote if you can do so without delaying the start of your attacks by more than a second or two, otherwise just open with Mutilate. This means Improved Ambush is completely useless compared to Nightstalker which will allow you to open from stealth more often than you normally are able to by increasing your movement speed in stealth which stacks multiplicatively with Quickening or Sprint.
Elusiveness
2 points in Elusiveness reduces the cooldown of Vanish to 2 minutes allowing you to gain the Overkill buff and Garrote more often. To spec into this, you must sacrifice points from either Precision or Opportunity, both of which are vastly superior to Elusiveness. In the extreme cast were Precision only gives you white hit rating, points in Precision are still better than in Elusiveness. Both Precision and Opportunity will always be better than Elusiveness by a huge margin.
Prime MajorMinor- [Individual's Choice]
- [Individual's Choice]
- [Individual's Choice]
Just to acknowledge
[Glyph of Hunger for Blood] (mouseover it), this glyph basically adds another 6 seconds to your Vendetta debuff which works out to be 1% more overall sustained DPS. Currently, as long as you are even using the other 3 glyphs aka Mutilating, Backstabbing, and putting Rupture up (which you will be for the majority of encounters) they come out significantly ahead of the Vendetta glyph such that it will almost never be worth swapping per encounter. Other things to keep in mind are that for some encounters you will not have the chance to stick to the same target for 36 seconds (because you need to run away or change to a different target) every 2 minutes (phase changes is the common example), further diminishing the value of the Vendetta glyph.
The Tricks of the Trade glyph is a raid DPS increase regardless if you have another rogue to trade tricks with or not and is additionally a personal DPS increase if you are using T12 4pc or T13 2pc; it's recommended that you always have this glyph. A glyphed TotT will provide your target with 2% more overall DPS (3% unglyphed at the cost of 30 energy per minute).
The FoK glyph will obviously be useful for most encounters were you will need to AoE.
Feint is a tremendously valuable ability for reducing damage taken from AoE abilities which increases your survivability and saves precious healer mana. For any encounter were you use Feint regularly, it is worth glyphing (refer to the
Cataclysm 4.3.x Raid Mechanics for various places Feint will work, older encounters are linked in the below resource section).
Glyph of Sprint allows you to move at ground mount speed (100%) with Sprint up which can be helpful for target swaps where you need to move to get in range and for various boss mechanics. In short, carry
[Dust of Disappearance] around and chose your major glyphs per encounter.
None of the minor glyphs directly impact your DPS and can be chosen to your preference.
[Glyph of Safe Fall] will increase your survivability for some encounters.
[top]Combat and Rotation
You will always want to put IP on your MH and DP on your OH. For most fights where you need to use FoK, you will want DP on your throwing (you cannot poison other ranged weapons or use FoK with them). If a slow is needed, consider specing into Deadly Brew (explained above) instead of actually putting Crippling Poison on your weapon. It is very detrimental to an Assassination rogue’s DPS to provide MS with WP and is provided by several specs at no sacrifice (Shadow Priests for example). Remember, Anesthetic Poison no longer exists and is baked into your Shiv.
[top]Single-Target
Opening
You will always want to open from stealth such that you use as much of your 20 seconds of Overkill as possible. It is better to open a fight with Garrote rather than Mutilate if you can do so without delaying the start of your attacks by more than a second or two. This may not always be possible either due to unpredictable movement of the boss in the first few seconds of the fight or to a stealth-breaking pulse at the start of the encounter - but when its possible, its worth doing. Once in combat, there are various sequences of abilities that work but ultimately you will want to get Rupture and SnD both up as quickly as possible, neither has to be a lot of combo points at the start.
100% to 35% target HP
The priority of finishers is as follows.
SnD > Rupture > Envenom
At this point, you will use Mutilate as your combo point generator and maximize your Rupture uptime then maximize your Envenom uptime. Your rotation will be 1+ Rupture and 4+ Envenom; meaning if your Rupture is falling off, put whatever combo points you have into a new one otherwise do 4 or 5 combo point Envenoms. When possible, you want pool ~90 energy (less with haste or if you are consistently overlapping your Envenom buff) just before using Envenom such that when you Mutilate after, you have an increased chance to proc your poisons. To maximize your Envenom uptime, you should try to not overlap the Envenom buff when possible but never do this at the expense of capping out or wasting combo points while waiting for your Envenom buff to expire. Below is a table of the damage lost for various actions.
| Action | Estimated Damage Loss |
|---|
| Wasting all CPs from 1 Mutilate | 19289 |
| Wasting all CPs from 1 Backstab | 12500 |
| Capping for 1 second | 8985 |
| Leaving Rupture down for 1 second | 3375 |
| Using a 1 CP Rupture instead of a perfect 5 | 1871 |
| Clipping 1 second of Evenom | 1368 |
| Using a 2 CP Rupture instead of a perfect 5 | 1301 |
| Using a 3 CP Rupture instead of a perfect 5 | 846 |
| Using a 4 CP Rupture instead of a perfect 5 | 425 |
Ideally none of these situations would come up, but you will often find yourself in a situation of either or. We can see clearly from this table that there is a heavy penalty for capping out or using Mutilate/Backstab as an energy dump (at 4-5 combo points) and that it is instead just better to clip an Envenom. We also see that it is better use an undersized Rupture or to clip a second (up to 2.47 seconds) of Envenom instead of letting Rupture fall off for a GCD. This is the reason why there is a heavy emphasis on maintaining a high Rupture uptime.
35% or less target HP
Once your target reaches 35% HP, you will stop using Mutilate and instead use Backstab to generate combo points. You will want to do 1+ Rupture and 5 Envenom instead and still follow the same priority order; maximize your Rupture uptime and then Envenom’s and pool before using Envenom. If you are struggling to prevent yourself from capping out (because of bloodlust for example), you should use Mutilate instead until you can stabilize your energy.
[top]Multi-Target
Of the three rogue specs, Assassination is capable of providing the most AoE damage using FoK. Keep in mind that FoK it self hardly does any damage; it’s the poisons that are easily applied from your throwing and melee weapons (via Vile Poisons) that do all the damage. This means that it does take several FoKs before your DP stacks up to 5 so that you can proc substantial IP damage from your MH and that, most of an Assassination rogues’ AoE damage “bypass” the AoE damage cap. Just to note, it is not yet know how many targets need to be in your vicinity for FoK to be worth using.
Assassination rogues have three DPS cooldowns.
Vendetta
You will want to use Vendetta when it is available and when you have a 30 second window (36 seconds glyphed) to deal uninterrupted damage and if possible when trinket and weapons procs, bloodlust, a potion, and/or Overkill are up. Keep in mind that Vendetta is a debuff that is placed on your target so if you swap targets you will lose the benefit of the debuff and used in an AoE situation, you are really only increasing your AoE damage on one target.
Cold Blood
Cold Blood is also something you want use as soon as you can match it up with your hardest hitting ability, Envenom. If you use it on Envenom, use it for a 5 combo point one and keep in mind that it generates 25 energy when used so if you are pooling before using Envenom, pool less energy so you do not cap out. Coldblood can also be used with Mutilate or Backstab to generate a guaranteed extra combo point (via Seal Fate). Coldblood is generally not worth using to increase FoK damage since the direct FoK damage is quite insignificant as mentioned earlier.
Vanish / Overkill
Vanish is a DPS cooldown because it allows you to gain Overkill again during an encounter. Similar to Vendetta, you will want to use Vanish in combination (just before if possible) with other DPS enhancements. You will want to avoid using Vanish while you have an Envenom buff and reopen with Garrote in less then 4 to 5 seconds.
[top]Stats and Gearing
[top]Stat Weights
Below are the current estimated EP values for stats in heroic gear and full raid buffs (1 EP = 1 AP). As a special note for T12 stats, mastery, haste, and crit are somewhat higher with 4pc then without, it is best to check with
Shadowcraft.
The T13 EP values have not been finalized but nextormento has provided some preliminary number for us to work with. The value of yellow hit, mastery, and expertise will go up for rogues using the legendary daggers which will could make capping expertise worthwhile.
| Stat | T11 EP | T12 EP | T13 EP |
|---|
| Agility | 2.6 | 2.7 | 2.75 |
| Yellow Hit Rating | 1.75 | 2.0 | 2.24 |
| Spell Hit Rating | 1.4 | 1.6 | 1.72 |
| Mastery Rating | 1.3 | 1.4 | 1.62 |
| Haste Rating | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.40 |
| Expertise Rating | 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.40 |
| Crit Rating | 0.9 | 1.2 | 1.21 |
| White Hit Rating | 0.75 | 0.82 | 0.87 |
| MH DPS | 3.36 | 3.32 | 3.15 |
| OH DPS | 1.04 | 1.04 | 0.97 |
Agility
Agility is by far your strongest stat simply because each point provides 2 AP and some crit and because you get an extra 5% more Agility for wearing leather via the rogue version of
Leather Specialization.
Hit
| | Yellow | Spell | White |
|---|
| 3/3 Precision | 241 (2%) | 1127 (11%) | 2523 (21%) |
| 2/3 Precision | 481 (4%) | 1332 (13%) | 2763 (23%) |
The above table gives the amount of hit rating required to reach yellow (specials like Mutilate, Rupture, Envenom, etc.), spell (your poisons), and white (autoattacks) hit cap raid bosses. As you add hit rating to your gear, you reduce the chance to miss yellow, spell, and white attacks until you reach the yellow hit cap of 8% at which point you can no longer miss specials on raid bosses. If you are looking at your character sheet in-game, this is found under “Melee”, hit rating converts to melee and spell hit chance at
different rates (remember 4/6% comes from Precision). Additional hit rating will only reduce your chance to miss spells and white attacks until you reach the spell hit cap of 17% (under “Spell” on your character sheet) where your poisons will no longer miss raid bosses. From here, hit rating will only reduce your chance to miss white attacks until you reach 27% (under “Melee” on your character sheet).
Assassination rogues do predominately poison damage (spell) and generally will reforge to hit rating until spell hit cap. From there hit rating will only worth 0.75 EP, the weakest of all secondary stats.
Expertise
| | Expertise Cap |
|---|
| Gnomes | 691 (23) |
| Everyone else | 781 (26) |
The table above gives the amount of expertise rating required to reach the expertise cap for dodges. Despite what your character sheet displays, expertise is not truncated and each point of expertise rating reduces your chance to be dodged until you reach cap. When a combo point generating ability (Mutilate, Backstab, etc.) or a finisher is dodged you are refunded 80% of the cost. When Envenom is dodged, you still get the Envenom buff but depending on how much time you have left on your SnD, your SnD may fall off and have to directly refresh your SnD. These mechanics play a part in expertise's relative poor value and it is likely most Assassination rogues will not gear for expertise cap unless they have cycle stability issues. The expertise cap for Gnomes is given because they are the only race that has dagger expertise, playing an Assassination rogues with non-daggers is ineffective.
Mastery
Mastery is your most valuable secondary stat after spell hit cap and acts on well over 50% of your damage composition (IP, DP, Envenom, and Venomous Wounds) by increasing the bonus you get from
Potent Poisons. Baseline Potent Poisons increases your poison damage by 28% and 3.5% for every point of mastery you have (179.28 rating). Similar to expertise, mastery is also not truncated and each point of mastery rating will increase your poison damage.
Haste
Haste in addition to reducing your weapon swing timers, increases the rate at which you regenerate energy (baseline is 10 energy per second). The value of haste does not pass mastery with full BiS T12 as mentioned early in the 4.2 patch and it will be best to reforge full mastery after achieving spell hit cap.
Crit
Crit is a relatively poor stat for Assassination rogues because a large part of our damage is from spell damage that crits with a 150% multiplier instead of the typical 200% for physical attacks. Using T12 2pc will certainly increase the value of crit slightly however it will remain one of your worst secondary stats.
[top]Set Bonuses
This section is for covering the relative value of set bonuses and to discuss changes in play style if they produce any.
- [Jaws of Retribution] Your melee attacks have a chance to grant Suffering, increasing your Agility by 2, stacking up to 50 times.
- [Maw of Oblivion] Your melee attacks have a chance to grant Nightmare, increasing your Agility by 5, stacking up to 50 times.
- [Fangs of the Father] Your melee attacks have a chance to grant Shadows of the Destroyer, increasing your Agility by 17, stacking up to 50 times. Each application past 30 grants an increasing chance to trigger Fury of the Destroyer. When triggered, this consumes all applications of Shadows of the Destroyer, immediately granting 5 combo points and cause your finishing moves to generate 5 combo points. Lasts 6 sec.
This is the progression of the set bonuses provided by the daggers leading up to the legendary dagger set completed in T13. The stacking Agility buff is pretty straight forward and lasts 30 seconds. In the case of Assassination, during Fury of the Destroyer you absolutely want to perform six finishers; do not worry about clipping Envenom and it is ok if you refresh Rupture during the proc (Envenoms and Ruptures done during the buff are not any more special than ones without the buff).
- [T13 2P] After triggering Tricks of the Trade, your abilities cost 20% less energy for 6 sec. (711 EP)
- [T13 4P] Increases the duration of Shadow Dance by 2 sec, Adrenaline Rush by 3 sec, and Vendetta by 9 sec. (388 EP)
The 2pc will make using TotT on cooldown necessary to maximize your personal DPS similar to the T12 4pc. Keep in mind that during execute phase you may have trouble with capping and may need to weave in Mutilates in place of Backstab. The 4pc is fairly straight forward and extends your Vendetta to a 39 second duration, you may have trouble getting the full benefit of this for some encounters were you cannot attack the same target for 39 seconds.
- [T12 2P] Your melee critical strikes deal 6% additional damage as Fire over 4 sec. (400 EP)
- [T12 4P] Your Tricks of the Trade ability also causes you to gain a 25% increase to one of your combat ratings at random for 30 sec. (400 EP)
As mentioned above, 2pc will certainly increase the value of crit slightly however it will remain one of your worst secondary stats. The debuff applied works very similar to
Ignite in that an existing DoT will update and add in new crits and decrease as old crits expire; in short all of your crits will get their full DoT damage in. The 4pc will pick either
Mastery,
Haste, or
Crit and will never pick the same one twice in a row. You will of course want to use TotT on cooldown to get the full benefit of this set bonus and you should continue to gear normally.
- [T11 2P] Increases the critical strike chance of your Backstab Mutilate, and Sinister Strike abilities by 5%. (300 EP)
- [T11 4P] Each of your melee autoattacks has a 1% chance to activate Deadly Scheme for 15 sec, increasing the critical strike chance on your next Eviscerate or Envenom by 100%. (200 EP)
Both of these set bonuses are quite passive in that you will play the same way you would without them. While you generally don’t have to think about it, there is a limited duration on the 4 piece bonus and you will want to get an Envenom off before it expires. An additional note, while the 2 piece T10 bonus is very good, you will not want to sacrifice two pieces of current gear to retain this bonus in the same way we did with T6 during the first tier of WotLK.
A note about dagger choice, it will always be best to have a slow MH (1.8 speed) and a fast OH (1.4 speed). This is because Assassination rogues no longer have Focused Attacks or Dual-Wield Specialization. It may be plausible to use a different set up because of unfortunately drops but the ideal case remains overwhelmingly the same.
Below is an incomplete and estimated BiS list of gear based on T12 EP values and will be completed later.
Best in Slot Gear
*If you only have the first stage of the legendary daggers, use [Blade of the Unmaker] for a MH and [Electrowing Dagger] in your OH
Trinkets
* Modeled with an unconfirmed 115 second ICD
These trinkets vary in value at different rates over time since some of them are on use, procs, or provide a stacking buff. Yurifel created an
Average EP vs. Time graph (out of date, uses T11 EP values) which you may use to get an idea of how different types of trinkets change in value over the duration of an encounter.
[top]Reforging, Gemming, and Enchanting
Reforging is used to reduce a secondary stat by 40% (always round down) and add that amount as another stat that is not already on that piece of gear. This makes it possible to tune your gear to focus on your best stats and avoid "wasting" stats by exceeding caps.
As a general strategy, you'll want to reduce the weakest stat and add more of a better stat that isn't already present on that piece of gear. Using
[Wind Dancer's Spaulders] as an example, between crit and haste, crit is the weakest of the two. If you are below the spell hit cap, you will want to add hit and if you are above it, you will want to add mastery rating instead.
Yellow hit cap should be quite easy to reach, the next most valuable and reforgable stat is still hit again but for spell hit cap. You basically want to first go to your pieces of gear that have crit (your least valuable stat) and do no have hit on them and reforge crit into hit. Since spell hit has a cap, you may want to reforge different pieces of gear until you get as close to the cap as possible without going too far over. Once at the spell hit cap, you want to reforge weaker stats into mastery rating (the next best stat).
Below are some of the gems an Assassination rogue may consider for their gear (some are there for reference and are generally not recommended).
Epic-quality gems are always superior to their blue-quality counterparts however, since the epic-quality gems are not readily available the blue-quality ones are listed. The EP values are based on BiS heroic T12 gear.
Red Sockets
Yellow Sockets
Blue Sockets
*below spell hit cap
**above spell hit cap
You generally will want to match all of your Agility bonuses (
[Adept Lava Coral] in yellow sockets and
[Glinting Shadow Spinel] in blue sockets) and put all
[Delicate Queen's Garnet] into sockets for non-Agility bonuses or gear with no red sockets. To be sure, you may want to calculate the EP value yourself. Using
[Wind Dancer's Legguards] as an example, there is a yellow and blue socket for a 20 Agility bonus. Putting a
[Adept Lava Coral] and
[Glinting Shadow Spinel] in gives a total of 25+25+20=70 Agility, 25 Mastery Rating, and 25 Hit Rating. Below the spell hit cap, the total EP value is calculated as follows.
| Matching Sockets |
| 70(2.75) + 25(1.62) + 25(1.72) = 276.0 EP |
What if we decided to put in two
[Delicate Queen's Garnet] instead? This gives a total of 50+50=100 Agility (no socket bonus).
| Straight Agility |
| 100(2.7) = 275.0 EP |
So in this case, it is slightly better to use two Agility gems which agrees with the earlier statement that we should put all Agility gems in for gear with no red sockets. Using the same piece of gear with blue-quality gems gives 231.8 EP compared to 220.0 EP meaning it would be better to match your socket bonuses.
[Agile Shadowspirit Diamond] is the preferred meta-gem and requires three red gems to be equipped in your gear (this counts your orange and purple gems in addition to your red gems).
*Since
[Enchant Weapon - Landslide] is currently quite expensive; a reasonable alternative is to use double
[Enchant Weapon - Hurricane]. Very close behind is Hurricane on the MH and
[Enchant Weapon - Avalanche] on the OH, further behind are those two enchants in reverse. Double Avalanche is significantly further behind double Hurricane.
[top]Consumables
These are generally the consumables you will use in a raid.
Flask: [Flask of the Winds]
Potion: [Potion of the Tol'vir]
Food: [Skewered Eel] / [Fortune Cookie] / [Seafood Magnifique Feast]
The new feast now give you exactly the same benefit Agility food does (90 Agility) instead of general AP so, you can enjoy someone else’s hard work now.
One note about Potion of Tol’vir (and most current potions) is that they last 25 seconds instead of 15 seconds. You will want to consider if you have a 25 second window to DPS to use the full duration of the buff in addition to stacking it with procs and other various DPS enhancements.
For those that are not familiar, prepotting is using a potion just before you enter combat such that you are able to use two for an encounter. Keep in mind that you want to do this as close to when you enter combat as possible not only to maximize the buff of your first potion but also because potting takes you out of stealth and starts your overkill timer.
[top]Races and Professions
Worgen
The newest race to the alliance also has the strongest racial bonus for Alliance Assassination rogues.
Visciousness gives 1% crit (
216.9 EP) which is overall the weakest stat for Assassination but still is more EP than 3 expertise (
126.1 EP) from Gnomes and the zero direct benefits of other races. Given that rogues are a melee class,
Darkflight (40% speed sprint every 2 minutes that stacks with Quickening but unlike Sprint, does not stack with Nightstalker) provides some utility though; rogues already come with a 70% (100% glyphed) speed boost every 1 minute that does not stack with Darkflight.
Gnome
Gnomes have stepped up to be a decent Alliance race for Assassination rogues.
Shortblade Specialization gives you 3 expertise (
126.1 EP) for using daggers which isn't exactly stellar since expertise has a relatively low value. However, daggers are the only weapon you will ever use as an Assassination rogue so you will always have the benefit of the racial. Gnomes also have
Escape Artist which will remove any snares and/or roots every 90 seconds which can be useful for encounters involving those types of debuffs.
Night Elf
Night Elves have the highest base Agility which at level 85 is of minimal effect.
Shadowmeld will put you into stealth and allow you to use an opener which in the case of Assassination, generally should be Garrote; Shadowmeld will not give you the Overkill buff. Shadowmeld also drops you off the threat table until you break stealth however, between TotT, Vanish, and even Feint, threat is very unlikely to be an issue.
Quickness will of course give you some survivability though most of the time, nothing life threatening should be swinging at you.
Human
Human racials have no direct impact on an Assassination rogue’s DPS.
Every Man for Himself is a 2 minute PvP trinket and it is conceivable that for certain boss encounters it will allow you to dish out more damage or trivialize a boss mechanic.
Dwarf
Dwarven racials, similar to humans have no direct impact on an Assassiantion rogue’s DPS.
Stoneform removes poison, disease, and/or bleeds and reduces all damage taken by 10% every two minutes which won't do more than increase your survivability trivialize some boss mechanics.
Troll
Trolls are the strongest races for Horde Assassination rogues with
Berserking which provides 20% attack speed and energy regen (haste) every 3 minutes which can be used in conjunction with every Vanish. Trolls also have reduced snare/root duration from
Da Voodoo Shuffle which could help if a boss had these mechanics. For bosses classified as beasts, such as Beth'tilac and Chimaeron, Trolls are the clear dominate race for DPS because of
Beast Slaying.
Goblin
Goblins, the new Horde race, have a passive 1% increased attack speed (this is not the same as haste which would include increased energy regen) from
Time is Money. Additionally Goblins have a shared cooldown ability that will either deal some fire damage to a target (
Rocket Barrage) or launch you forward (
Rocket Jump) which can be quite useful as a melee class since some encounters require some movement to avoid boss mechanics or change targets.
Orc
Orcs, a good Horde race for Assassination rogues, have
Blood Fury, a relatively strong DPS cooldown providing 1170 AP (at 85) every 2 minutes which can be used in conjunction with every Vendetta and/or Coldblood. Unfortunately, the other racials that are relatively strong for other classes are completely useless for Assassination rogues.
Blood Elf
Blood Elves have a DPS cooldown as well,
Arcane Torrent, which generates 15 energy every 2 mins. and does an AoE silence (also interrupts non-player targets). Blood Elves’ small increase in survivability with Magic Resistance was changed to
Arcane resistance only and is much less useful.
Forsaken
Forsaken racials do not have a direct impact on DPS and are overall the weakest Horde race for Assassination rogues.
Will of the Forsaken breaks fear, charm, and/or sleep effects every 2 minutes which similar to humans, could allow you to deal some extra damage or trivialize a mechanic for some bosses.
[top]Professions
Blacksmithing
Blacksmithing gains you two additional sockets (
Socket Bracers and
Socket Gloves) which you should put two
[Delicate Queen's Garnet] in for
100 more Agility,
20 more Agility than the rest of the craft professions.
Leatherworking
Leatherworking replaces the 50 Agility to bracers enchant with
Draconic Embossment - Agility which provides 80 more Agility. Leatherworkers can additionally use
Dragonbone Leg Reinforcements on their legs instead of
[Dragonscale Leg Armor] for exactly the same stats for much cheaper materials.
Engineering
Engineers are able to enchant their gloves with
Synapse Springs which provides 480 Agility on use every minute (averaging 80 Agility), this does not overwrite your standard glove enchant. The
[High-Powered Bolt Gun] which fires bolts similar to bombs every 2 minutes at a targeted area also resets your swing timer making it a DPS loss to use in melee range for single target. Engineers can choose a utility enchant for their belt, the two that stand out are
Nitro Boosts which gives you increased movement speed every 3 minutes and
Ground Plasma Shield, which absorbs a respectable amount of damage every 5 minutes. Both have a reasonable chance to fail in a raid now (nitro boosts can blast you into the air or cause
Rocket Fuel Leak and the plasma shield can AoE taunt via
Painful Shock); this should be considered for critical boss mechanics. Engineers are also able to make
[Agile Bio-Optic Killshades] and place two cogwheel gems into them which puts the helm on par itemization-wise with any ilvl 359 helm and obsolete once you can complete higher content.
Alchemy
Alchemists have a passive
Mixology buff which will increase the effect of
[Flask of the Winds] by 80 Agility. Additionally, the buff will double the duration of flasks potentially saving you a good deal of gold. For content where you do not flask, alchemists are able to create a
[Flask of Enhancement] which gives you 80 Agility and has an unlimited number of uses.
Enchanting
Enchanters are able to enchant their rings which are normally not enchanted with
Enchant Ring – Agility which gives a total of 80 Agility.
Inscription
Scribes are able to put
Swiftsteel Inscription on their shoulders which is exactly 80 more Agility than
[Greater Inscription of Shattered Crystal]. This also makes raising your reputation with Therazane to exalted not necessary but ultimately Scribes are on par with most craft professions.
Tailoring
Tailors are able to enchant their cloaks with
Swordguard Embroidery which works similar to a typical trinket in that it procs a 15 second long buff (1000 AP) that has a tested 55 second ICD (26.3% uptime considering its 15% proc chance). Overall, this gives an average of 263 AP. This however does not stack with a typical cloak enchant (65 crit in our case) and comes out closer to 201 AP which is about the value of 73.1 Agility.
Jewelcrafting
Allows you to replace three
[Delicate Queen's Garnet] with three
[Delicate Chimera's Eye] which nets you
51 Agility,
29 less Agility than the rest of the craft professions
(excluding blacksmithing).
Herbalism
Herbalists have
Lifeblood which in addition to a heal over time, will grant you 480 haste rating (increased attack speed and energy regen) which is about 80 haste rating on average. This is clearly the best among the three gathering profession for Assassination rogues but inferior to all of the crafting professions.
Skinning
Skinners gain
Master of Anatomy which gives a passive 80 crit rating, again crit is one of the weakest stats for Assassination rogues making skinning a very weak profession.
Mining
Miners have 120 stamina from
Toughness which provides no DPS gain other than additional survivability.
[top]Basic Combat Mechanics
- Partial resists no longer occur against bosses.
- Glancing blows happen when white attacking equal or higher level NPCs and deal 25% reduced damage. For bosses this has a 24% chance to happen for all of your white attacks.
- When attacking a NPC target from behind you cannot be parried but can still be dodged.
- All melee classes suffer a 4.8% crit suppression vs bosses when using melee attacks.
- All spell attacks have a 2.1% crit suppression vs bosses.
You will want to macro /startattack to the melee abilities you use most which will ensure you are autoattacking your target even if you do not have the energy to perform an ability that would normally start your autoattack. A couple of examples.
| #showtooltip |
| /startattack |
| /cast Mutilate |
| #showtooltip |
| /startattack |
| /cast Backstab |
Almost all rogues find it easier to use a TotT macro instead of targeting someone to use it such that you can keep attacking your target.
| #showtooltip |
| /cast [@focus] Tricks of the Trade |
This lets you hit your focus target with TotT.
| #showtooltip |
| /cast [@targettarget] Tricks of the Trade |
This lets you hit your target's target with TotT (hopefully a tank, though bosses often target other players for their abilities).
| #showtooltip |
| /cast [@<player's name>] Tricks of the Trade |
This will let you hit a specific player with TotT.
| #showtooltip |
| /cast [@mouseover,help,nodead][@target,help,nodead][@focus,help,nodead][@targettarget,help,nodead]Tricks of the Trade |
This macro will let you TotT your mouseover, your target (if friendly) if you do not have a mouseover, your focus if you do not have either, and your target's target if you do not have any of the former.
FoK requires a throwing weapon to be equipped however rogues are still able to use other ranged weapons and may have a ranged weapon that is better for single target DPS than their throwing weapon. In this case, it may be convenient to make a macro to swap weapons depending on if you need to AoE or deal single-target DPS. Just as a warning, these macros invoke a GCD and can cause you to cap out and they reset your swing timer (delayed/lost auto attacks). FYI, you can Shift + Right Click on items in your bag to automatically enter the name of your weapon when making these macros.
| #showtooltip Fan of Knives |
| /startattack |
| /equip <name of your throwing weapon> |
| /cast Fan of Knives |
| #showtooltip Mutilate |
| /startattack |
| /equip <name of your better ranged weapon> |
| /cast Mutilate |
ShadowCraft
This is a webapp designed by several rogues (notably Aldriana and Adrine) that can download your gear from the Armory and make suggestions about gearing, gemming, and reforging. The tool will also allow you to see the effect of changing talents, buffs/debuffs, rotation priorities, etc. It is recommended you use an updated browser, preferably Chrome or Safari 5. Further discussion can be found
here.
Cataclysm 4.3.x Raid Mechanics
This is a discussion on T13 encounters focused on the numerous places in boss encounters where your non-DPS abilities such as Feint, CoS, Dismantle, racials, engineering tinkers, etc. excel along with some suggestions about how you should approach various boss mechanics.
Cataclysm 4.2.x Raid Mechanics
This is a discussion maintained by Fnar that also discusses how to use your non-DPS abilities but for T12 bosses.
Cataclysm 4.0.3 Raid Mechanics
This discussion maintained by Zulkeir, is similar to the ones above except it is for T11 bosses.
[top]Thread Change Log
[12/01/2010] Thread Created
[12/15/2010] Swordguard Embroidery updated
[12/16/2010] T11 and relevant heroics trinket EP values added
[12/27/2010] T11 heroic BiS List
[12/30/2010] Alternative weapon enchants
[01/05/2011] Opening with Garrote
[01/12/2011] Elusiveness is worse, stop talking about it
[01/24/2011] Yurifel's graph and Rupture methodology
[01/27/2011] Maximizing Envenom uptime
[02/08/2011] Patch 4.0.6 (a few links will be broken or link to the wrong items until wowhead updates)
[03/24/2011] Added rotation data and updated the Shadowcraft Link
[04/26/2011] Patch 4.1.0
[05/04/2011] Update to BiS list with new Al'akir gear
[05/18/2011] Update to BiS list with a ranged weapon instead of a lower ilvl thrown
[05/19/2011] More detail about hit rating
[06/28/2011] Patch 4.2.0 (I'll update the BiS and Trinkets once the armory updates and syncs with Shadowcraft)
[07/02/2011] Trinket and Haste EP value updates
[10/24/2011] Updated Shadowmeld and corrected belt BiS (sorry)
[11/07/2011] Corrected
Berserking and Time is Money to include energy regen
[11/29/2011] Patch 4.3.0 (sorry, a lot of broken links until wowhead updates)
[12/01/2011] Corrected minor errors and updated trinket EP values
12/01/10, 6:37 PM
Similar Threads
