On this page, we list your Combat Rogue coreabilities and how they should be used together (rotation) in World of WarcraftMoP 5.4. We also explain whento use your various cooldowns. Then, we go deeper and present all the subtletiesthat you will need to know if you want to excel at playing a CombatRogue.

The other pages of our Combat Rogue guide can be accessedfrom the table of contents on the right.

1. Single Target Rotation↑top

• Combo Point builders (by order of priority)
  1. Cast Ambush when you are in Stealth.
  2. Cast Revealing Strike only to keep its debuff up.
  3. Cast Sinister Strike.
• Finishing Moves (by order of priority)
  1. Apply and maintain Slice and Dice (with 5 Combo Points preferably, because of Ruthlessness).
  2. Apply and maintain Rupture with 5 Combo Points.
     • There are cases when you should not maintain Rupture (see our Rupture section).
  3. Use Eviscerate with 5 Combo Points.

Dropping Rupture from the rotation simplifies it, but it sacrificesabout 1 or 2% of your DPS.

For more information about the optimal opening sequence, refer to our dedicated section.

2. Multiple Target Rotation↑top

When fighting less than 8 targets, turn on Blade Flurry if there are 3 enemiesor more and proceed with your single-target rotation on one of the enemies. Do not use Rupture, as it is not transferred by Blade Flurry. Only use Fan of Knivesto apply Deadly Poison when the enemies will live long for the poison toactually tick.

When fighting 8 or more targets, you should abandon your single-targetrotation and spam Fan of Knives instead. When you reach 5 Combo Points on your target,use Crimson Tempest to spend them, if the bleed effect it leaves will tick for its fullduration. Otherwise, use Eviscerate.

If your main target will die in less than 1 minute and you have chosen Marked for Death as your Tier 6 talent, then use it on cooldown.

3. Poisons↑top

Your Lethal Poison should always be Deadly Poison.

Your Non-Lethal Poison depends on the encounter.

• Use Crippling Poison when you need to slow down a target(e.g., on Will of the Emperor,Sha of Fear,Council of Elders,Tortos, etc.). Using Shivon a target afflicted by Crippling Poison slows them by an additional20%.
• Use Mind-numbing Poison against casters (onHorridon for the adds, for example).Using Shiv on a target afflicted by Mind-numbing Poison doubles thecast time of their next spell.
• Use Paralytic Poison when you need to root (with Shiv) orstun enemies (e.g., on Lei Shi,Council of Elders,Ji-Kun, etc.).
• Use Leeching Poison otherwise.

4. Cooldowns↑top

You have three main DPS cooldowns. As one of our readers onceput it, a rule of thumb for cooldown management as Combat Rogue is touse them often and early.

• Adrenaline Rush greatly increases your Energy regeneration for15 seconds. It should be used on cooldown. Do not hesitate tostack it with Bloodlust, Heroism, or Time Warp,as you will still benefit from the increased attack speed (but the increasedEnergy regeneration will, for the most part, be wasted).
• Shadow Blades increases your Combo Point regeneration for 12 seconds,on a 3-minute cooldown. Use this ability whenever you can. Do not hesitateto use a macro tocombine it with Adrenaline Rush (their cooldowns have the same duration),this will enable you to make numerous casts of 5 Combo Point Eviscerates.
• Killing Spree performs a series of attacks against your target(or a nearby enemy, if you have no target). If Blade Flurry is active,Killing Spree will perform its attacks against random enemies.Use this ability on cooldown and make sure that you are lowon Energy before casting it, as you will not be able to spend anyEnergy while Killing Spree is active. In AoE situations, activate Blade Flurrybefore using Killing Spree.

Because of your Restless Blades passive ability, the cooldowns of Adrenaline Rush, Killing Spree, and Shadow Blades isreduced by 2 seconds every time a damaging Finishing Move consumes a Combo Point(i.e., 10-second reduction for each 5 Combo Point Rupture and Eviscerate).As a result, try to always use Killing Spree before Adrenaline Rush+ Shadow Blades.This will cause the cooldown of Killing Spree to be greatly reduced, thanks to the numerousFinishing Moves you will get to use while Adrenaline Rush and Shadow Blades are active.

In addition to those, you have several minor DPS and utility cooldowns.

• Vanish makes you enter Stealth. Use this ability on cooldown, immediately followedby Ambush. Because of Shadow Focus (your Tier 1 talent), Ambush's costis reduced by 75% when using it in Stealth. The cooldown of Vanish can be resetwith Preparation.
• Redirect is a DPS gain in fights where you have to fight different enemies.See our Redirect section for more details.
• Sprint (in addition to its obvious survival role) can give youmore uptime on the boss, which translates into a direct DPS increase.So, you can use Sprint as a DPS cooldown in some fights. Its cooldowncan be reset with Preparation.

Finally, you have a number of survival cooldowns, such as Feint, Cloak of Shadows, Preparation, Evasion, etc., which you can useto keep yourself alive. See our section about survivalcooldowns for more information.

5. Mastering Your Combat Rogue↑top

The guidelines above should enable you to play your Combat Rogue withnear perfection. That said, if you want to excel at playing your character,you need to understand, among other things, how your Combo Points and yourEnergy are generated, and what Bandit's Guile does and how you canbenefit from it.

5.1. Combo Points and Energy

As a Rogue, most of your abilities need Energy to be used. Your Energybar has a capacity of 100 Energy and refills at a rate of 10 Energy per second.Your energy regeneration is increased by:

• your melee haste (Haste Rating + haste-enhancing buffs);
• your Vitality passive ability, which increases Energy regeneration by 20%;
• your Combat Potency passive ability, which grants your off-hand melee attacksand Mastery: Main Gauche attacks a chance to generate 15 Energy;
• your Relentless Strikes passive ability, which grants your Finishing Moves a20% chance per Combo Point to restore 25 Energy;
• your Adrenaline Rush cooldown, which temporarily increases your Energyregeneration by 100%.

The faster you regenerate Energy, the more casts of Eviscerate you can fitbetween your refreshes of Slice and Dice and Rupture.

Note that, whenever you are in Blade Flurry, your Energy regeneration is reducedby 20%.

Letting your Energy reach its maximum is something to avoid. You should always tryto spend your Energy by (literally) spamming your buttons. Unlike for Assassination Rogues, Energypooling is not beneficial for Combat Rogues. There are many situations when you willgenerate more Energy than you can spend (haste trinket procs, Bloodlust, Heroism, Time Warp, Adrenaline Rush, etc.), and you should spam your buttons evenharder than usually during such times.

Some abilities add one or several Combo Points on your target, up to a maximumof 5 Combo Points (10 with Anticipation). Other abilities, called FinishingMoves, consume up to 5 Combo Points on your target. The more Combo Points a FinishingMove consumes, the more powerfulits effect is.

Your Combo Point generation is increased by the debuff that Revealing Strike applies on your targetsThis buff lasts 24 seconds and causes, among other things, Sinister Striketo have a 20% chance to generate an additional Combo Point. You should never everuse Revealing Strike before its debuff drops.

Ruthlessness causes your Finishing Moves cast at 5 Combo Points togenerate a Combo Point. This is an incentive to use Slice and Dicewith 5 Combo Points.

You should never waste Combo Points. Never cast a Combo Point-generating ability when you areat 5 Combo Points (if you are not using Anticipation). With Anticipation, never castSinister Strike if you have 4 or more stacks of Anticipation (3 or more when Shadow Blades is up).

5.2. Bandit's Guile

Bandit's Guile is an important mechanic for Combat Rogues. It causes yourcharacter to cycle through different buffs of increased damage dealt to your current target:

• no buff: 0% increased damage;
• Shallow Insight: +10% increased damage;
• Moderate Insight: +20% increased damage;
• Deep Insight: +30% increased damage.

Attacking your current target 4 times with any combination of Sinister Strike and Revealing Strike will cause the cycle to progressto the next buff. For Shallow Insight and Moderate Insight, you needto make one attack every 15 seconds at least, otherwise the buff will dropand the cycle will restarts from 0% increased damage. Deep Insightcannot be refreshed and at the end of the 15 seconds, the buff drops andthe cycle restarts from 0% increased damage.

Switching to a new target does not reset your cycle of Bandit's Guile.

Bandit's Guile is largely out of your control and the cycle will repeatitself as the encounter progresses. That said, you can try and time your cooldownsso that they are used during one of the buffs, possibly the highest one. Also,thanks to Anticipation, you can save Combo Points and use them forBandit's Guile. We detail this in the next sections.

5.2.1. Delaying Cooldowns for Bandit's Guile

It can be viable to delay Killing Spree slightly so that it benefitsfrom a higher Bandit's Guile buff. We believe that Adrenaline Rush should not be delayed for Bandit's Guile.

Because of Restless Blades, the real cooldown on Killing Spreeand Adrenaline Rush is much lower than what the tooltip indicates.Depending on your Energy regeneration, it should be between 40 secondsand 1 minute for Killing Spree and between 1 minute and 1 minute 30 forAdrenaline Rush.

These abilities will therefore often be available and delaying usingthem can be a DPS loss.

• For Killing Spree, we advise you to delay using it, if you will gain ahigher buff of Bandit's Guile in the next 3 or 4 seconds. Otherwise,use it immediately.
• For Adrenaline Rush, we advise you to use it as soon as it isoff cooldown, in order to benefit from the increased Energy regenerationas often as possible.

5.2.2. Anticipation and Bandit's Guile

Thanks to Anticipation, you can save Combo Points for Deep Insight. To do so, use your finishing moves when youreach 4 or 5 stacks of Anticipation. Once you enter Deep Insight,use the extra stacks of Anticipation to cast Eviscerate moretimes while Deep Insight is active.

5.3. Revealing Strike

Revealing Strike afflicts your target with a 24-second debuffthat you will need to strive to keep up. This debuff is important because,while active, it increases the effectiveness of your offensive FinishingMoves against the target by 35% and it causes your Sinister Striketo have a 20% chance to generate 2 Combo Points.

5.4. Rupture

Rupture should only be refreshed at 5 Combo Points, after it has dropped (asotherwise it is not a DPS gain over Eviscerate) and when you either have a trinketproc or Deep Insight.

In this case, Rupture is better than Eviscerate, but only because it costsless Energy to cast. In periods of high Energy regeneration (i.e., whenEnergy is no longer the limiting factor), so during Bloodlust / Heroism/ Time Warp, Rupture should not be refreshed.

When using the Rogue T15 2P Bonus, Rupture's duration is increased and it becomes much more beneficial. In thiscase, you should simply keep Rupture applied all the time.

You should never use Rupture under Blade Flurry, as it does notreproduce Rupture's damage on the additional targets.

5.5. Opening Sequence

1. Before the pull, use Tricks of the Trade on your Tricks of the Trade target (see next section).
2. 1 second before the pull, use your Virmen's Bite potion and get in Stealth.
3. When the boss is pulled:
   • Shadowstep it if the boss is far away, if you have picked this talent, and if you will not need it in the next 24 seconds;
   • Sprint to reach the boss if it is far away and you cannot use Shadowstep;
   • otherwise, simply run to the boss and continue your opening sequence.
4. Cast Ambush.
5. Cast Slice and Dice.
6. If you are using ICD-based trinkets (e.g., Vicious Talisman of the Shado-Pan Assault), cast Revealing Strike and spam Sinister Strike until they proc.
7. Cast Killing Spree.
8. Cast Adrenaline Rush and Shadow Blades.
9. Start your rotation.

5.6. Tricks of the Trade

Tricks of the Trade was originally designed to be cast on tanks in order to helpthem keep aggro. With the changes that threat generation has undergone in WotLK and Cataclysm,it is now more beneficial to your raid if you use Tricks of the Trade on one of the bestDPS players in order to increase their damage done. Indeed, Tricks of the Tradeprovides a 15% DPS increase on its target for 6 seconds, on a 30-second cooldown.

Tricks of the Trade costs 15 Energy to cast, but is not on the GlobalCooldown. The damage bonus that it grants to your target is so beneficialto your raid that you should never refrain from sacrificing 15 Energy for it. Glyph of Tricks of the Trade should never be used, as it removes thedamage increase. Regarding usage of Tricks of the Trade, you shouldalways cast it on cooldown, unless your target asks for it to beslightly delayed (to line it up with cooldowns, for example).

Since Tricks of the Trade is off the global cooldown, you shouldcast it together with Vanish in order to reduce its Energy cost by 75%every 2 minutes (because of Shadow Focus).You can also cast it on the tank before the pull, as you havea 20-second window to make your first attack and proc its effect (which willincrease the threat generation of the tank). After the pull,you should start using Tricks of the Trade on a DPS player.

Tricks of the Trade does not stack with itself: someone gettingtwo Tricks of the Trade simultaneously from two Rogues will only benefit fromone and the second one will be wasted.

Please refer to our Macros andAddons page for a Tricks of the Trade macro.

5.6.1. Picking your Tricks of the Trade Target

There are a few things to know in order to properly pick your main Tricks of the Trade target.

• Avoid players that rely on their pet's DPS, such as Frost Mages or Beast Mastery Hunters.
• Avoid players that massively rely on DoTs, such as Warlocks or Balance/Feral Druids.
• Avoid players that have damage-increasing buffs, such as Retribution Paladins, Arcane Mages,or Warriors. Tricks of the Trade does not stack with those buffs.
• Prefer players with a relatively constant damage output, such as Rogues.

Our advice is to have a main Tricks of the Trade target that your castswill default to and a secondary target that can sometimes ask you to buffthem before they are about to do a lot of burst damage (e.g., at the beginning of the fight).

5.7. Swapping Target and Redirect

Since Bandit's Guile and Slice and Dice are self-buffs, switching toa new target only requires you to reapply Rupture and Revealing Strike.

Redirect helps with target swapping because it transfers your existingCombo Points to your new target.

Also, when an enemy dies, your unused Combo Points remain on it, which means that you cantransfer them through Redirect. This is very useful for transferringCombo Points from a dead trash mob to the boss prior to the pull.

5.8. Survival Cooldowns

One of the greatest strengths of Rogues is their survivability, which theyowe to a large number of powerful survival cooldowns.

• Feint (with Glyph of Feint) reduces your damage taken from AoEattacks by 50% for 7 seconds. With the Tier 3 talent Elusiveness, damagetaken from AoE attacks is reduced by 65% and damage taken from all other typesof damage attacks is reduced by 30%. Feint has a very low Energy cost andhas no cooldown, which makes it your primary survival tool (as you can use itwhenever you need).
• Cloak of Shadows removes all harmful spell effects on you and makesyou resist all spells for 5 seconds, on a 1-minute cooldown. This 5-secondwindow consists of 2 seconds of immunity against spells (both damageand application of harmful effects) followed by 3 seconds during whichspells will miss you. Some fight mechanics can only be bypassed during thefirst two seconds (e.g., Ionization againstJin'rokh the Breaker in Heroic mode).
• Evasion increases your dodge chance by 100% for 10 seconds, on a2-minute cooldown. It should be used whenever you receive physical damage thatcan be dodged (e.g., Ji-Kun's Quills orSha of Fear's Death Blossom) orwhen you have to tank an add. The cooldown of Evasion can be reset with Preparation.
• Combat Readiness causes you to take 50% less damage from melee attacks.The damage reduction builds up gradually by stacks of 10%, until you have 5 stacks.Each enemy hit grants you a stack. The effect lasts 20 seconds, but it is removedafter 10 seconds without receiving melee attacks.
• Growl (given by Druids through Symbiosis) increases yourarmor by 330%, your stamina by 20% and renders you immune to critical attacks for30 seconds, on a 3-minutes cooldown. In addition, it makes you taunt your target,but this effect rarely works against raid bosses.
• Smoke Bomb reduces damage taken by your raid by 20% on a 8 yard radiusduring 5 seconds (7 seconds with Glyph of Smoke Bomb). It is the only raidcooldown you have. You can use Smoke Bomb to force ranged enemies to come to meleerange or to prevent those inside the smoke to be targeted by mechanics.

6. Changelog↑top

• 21 May 2014: Improved AoE rotations.
• 10 Sep. 2013: Patch 5.4 update.
  • Evasion now lasts 10 seconds (down from 15), its effectiveness is 100% (up from 50%), and its cooldown is 2 minutes (down from 3).
  • Killing Spree now attacks your target only, unless you have Blade Flurry turned on.
  • Ruthlessness is a new passive ability that acts as an incentive to always cast Slice and Dice at 5 Combo Points (and not less).
• 20 May 2013: Patch 5.3 update: changed Revealing Strike's duration (was 18 seconds, is 24 seconds now).
• 20 May 2013: Dryaan's second review of the guide.
  • Numerous improvements to nearly all the sections of the guides (rotations, poisons, Energy, Rupture, etc.)
• 19 Mar. 2013: Removed paragraph that recommended pooling Energy for Revealing Strike.
• 19 Mar. 2013: Added advice for saving up Combo Points with Anticipationfor Deep Insight.
• 19 Mar. 2013: Added a Rupture section to give more information regardingwhen and how to refresh Rupture.
• 11 Mar. 2013: Patch 5.2 update.
  • Updated mention of Preparation being a Tier 4 talent (it is now baseline).
  • Added a mention of Marked for Death in the multiple-target rotation section.
  • Updated description of Vitality, which now increases Energy regeneration by 30% (was 25%).

Builds, Talents, and Glyphs

Buffs, Debuffs, and Useful Abilities