General Information
On this page, we list your Subtlety 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 SubtletyRogue.
The other pages of our Subtlety Rogue guide can be accessedfrom the table of contents on the right.
1. Single Target Rotation↑top
- Combo Point builders (by order of priority)
- Use
Ambush when you are in Stealth.
- Use
Hemorrhage to apply and maintain the bleed effect it causes on your target.
- Reapply Hemorrhage after the bleed effect ends.
- Use
Backstab as your default Combo Point builder.
- When you cannot attack your target from behind, then you cannot use
Backstab, so
Hemorrhage becomes your primary Combo Pointbuilder.
- Finishing Moves (by order of priority)
- Apply and maintain
Slice and Dice, with 5 Combo Points preferably:
- always refresh Slice and Dice when there are between 0 and 2 seconds remaining.
- Apply and maintain
Rupture with 5 Combo Points.
- Use
Eviscerate with 5 Combo Points.
For more information about the optimal opening sequence, refer to our dedicated section.
2. Multiple Target Rotation↑top
When fighting 2 or 3 enemies, simply keep doing your single-target rotationon one of them. If you have to often swap target or if you need to burn an add fast,then you can use
Glyph of Hemorrhaging Veins, this will save you the trouble ofhaving to apply
Rupture.
When fighting 4, 5, or 6 enemies, you should sometimes replace
Eviscerate with
Crimson Tempest in your rotation. The idea is tokeep the 12-second bleed effect, from Crimson Tempest, applied on the enemies.Note that
Crimson Tempest causes you to benefit from
Sanguinary Vein,so you no longer need to apply and refresh
Rupture. You can first applyCrimson Tempest with 1 Combo Point to benefit from Sanguinary Vein right away(the Crimson Tempest bleed always lasts 12 seconds, regardless of Combo Points).
When fighting 7 or more enemies,you should abandon your single-targetrotation and spam
Fan of Knives instead. When you reach 5 Combo Points on your target,use them to keep
Slice and Dice up or to cast
Crimson Tempest.
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 four main DPS cooldowns.
Shadow Dance enables you to cast your Stealth-only abilities for 8 seconds.While active, this ability also reduces the Energy cost of
Ambush by 20.This ability only has a 1-minute cooldown, so you should use it whenever it is available.
Shadow Blades increases your Combo Point regeneration for 12 seconds, on a3-minute cooldown. Use this ability whenever you can.
Vanish makes you enter Stealth. Use this ability on cooldown, immediately followedby 1 or 2 casts of
Ambush (depending on whether
Subterfuge is your tier 1 talent).Proper usage of Vanish greatly increases your
Find Weakness uptime (not to mention thatyou can reset its cooldown with
Preparation). If
Ruptureis about to expire, you can apply
Garrote after breaking out of Stealth (thanks to
Subterfuge); this will make you benefit from
Sanguinary Vein for 18 seconds(during which time you do not need to apply or refresh
Rupture).
Premeditation adds two Combo Points on the target, but it can only be usedwhile in Stealth, which means that you will have to use it at the pull, when youuse
Vanish and whenever you use
Shadow Dance.
In addition to those, you have a few minor DPS and utility cooldowns.
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. Optional Read: Mastering Your Subtlety Rogue↑top
The Subtlety specialisation is not very hard to play, and even though the informationgiven above will yield good results, there is much more you need to understandbefore you can play your Subtlety Rogue to its full potential.
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
Relentless Strikes passive ability, which grants your Finishing Moves a20% chance per Combo Point to restore 25 Energy;
- your
Slice and Dice ability, which restores 8 Energy every 2 seconds (thanksto
Energetic Recovery, one of your passive abilities).
The faster you regenerate Energy, the more casts of
Eviscerate you can fitin your rotation.
You should never let your Energy reach its maximum. This a DPS loss, as youare wasting every Energy point generated during this time.
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 Pointson your target. The more Combo Points a Finishing Move consumes, the more powerfulits effect is. Your Combo Point generation is increased by
Honor Among Thieves,a passive ability that grants you 1 Combo Point every time you or an another raid/partymember scores a criticalhit with a spell or an ability (with a limit of 1 Combo Point every 2 seconds).
You should never cap Combo Points (i.e., reach 5 stacks of
Anticipation) formore than 1 second after the last proc of
Honor Among Thieves. Similarly, you shouldnever use
Backstab or
Hemorrhage at 4 or 5 stacks of
Anticipation. CappingCombo Points means that you run the risk of wasting Combo Points generated either byHonor Among Thieves or by Backstak and Hemorrhage.
Anticipation can also be used to improve your DPS slightly. By keepinga high amount of Anticipation stacks where there is no damage increase(i.e., periods of time without
Find Weakness uptime, without trinket procs, etc.),you have extra Combo Points to spend whenever you enter a period of increased damagedone. Also, it can help you refresh
Slice and Dice and
Rupture if they aregoing to expire at the same time.
5.2. Honor Among Thieves
The most important aspect of your resource management is to learn how to relyon procs from
Honor Among Thieves. This passive ability grants you a Combo Point everytime a party or raid member critically hits or heals (with a limit of 1 Combo Pointevery 2 seconds). This effect only procs from spells and abilities (but not from white melee attacks) and is only active while you are in combat.
Before Mists of Pandaria, Subtlety Rogues had to take Honor Among Thievesinto account in their resource management (in order to prevent the extra Combo Points generated from going to waste). Thanks to theintroduction of
Anticipation, it has become much harder to wastethese Combo Points and this is why this talent is so valuable forSubtlety Rogues.
5.3. Find Weakness and Master of Subtlety
Find Weakness is the most important thing to keep in mind when playing a Subtlety Rogue.This temporary damage increase is only available after using
Ambush,
Garrote, or
Cheap Shot. These abilities require Stealth to becast so you will have
Find Weakness uptime at the pull, every time youuse
Shadow Dance and every time you use
Vanish (the cooldownof which you can reset with
Preparation).
Master of Subtlety is a passive ability that you get from choosing the Subtletyspecialisation. It grants you 10% increased damage after you break out of Stealthor after dealing damage in Stealth (typically while using
Ambush). Notethat Master of Subtlety will not proc during
Shadow Dance.
As
Find Weakness and
Master of Subtlety are often up at the sametime, we chose to detail them together.
You should always time your
Shadow Dance and
Vanish cooldownsin such a way that you do not have to refresh
Slice and Dice or
Rupture (which does not benefit from
Find Weakness) whilethese cooldowns are active.This way, you will be able to maximise the damageyou will do with melee attacks,
Backstab,
Hemorrhage, and
Eviscerate, while
Find Weakness and
Master of Subtletyare active.
For increased effect, you should also try to have
Find Weaknessand
Master of Subtlety up when raid DPS cooldowns are being used(for example,
Bloodlust,
Heroism, or
Time Warp), whenyou use your Potion of the Tol'vir and on-use trinkets, andwhen the boss takes increased damage.
Finally, one last trick can be used when
Vanish and
Shadow Dance come off cooldown at the same time. Use
Shadow Dancefirst. After Shadow Dance expires, you will still benefit from the
Find Weakness given by the last
Ambush you cast during Shadow Dance.Wait for that Find Weakness to have about 1 second left on its duration.Then, cast
Vanish+
Ambush. This will cause Ambush to benefitfrom the Find Weakness that was about to expire and to apply a new Find Weakness.
5.4. Hemorrhage Weaving
It is a small DPS increase to keep the
Hemorrhage bleed on your target, butyou should wait until it has dropped from the target before refreshing it.It should also be noted that this bleed highly relies on the initial damage ofHemorrhage, so it may be better to delay it for a few seconds if you are about togain
Find Weakness or another damage increase. For similar reasons, you canalso refresh
Hemorrhage early if you benefit from a large increase in yourdamage done.
5.5. Rupture and Sanguinary Vein
Sanguinary Vein is a passive ability that increases the damageof your
Rupture ability by 50% and that causes you to deal 35% increaseddamage to enemies afflicted by
Rupture,
Garrote, or
Crimson Tempest (your AoE Finishing Move).
The most obvious implication of having this passive ability is that
Rupture should always be on the target, so that youalways deal 20% increased damage. If
Garrote or
Crimson Tempestare already on the target, then you do not need to apply
Rupture.
Another, less obvious implication is that you can use
Garrotefor breaking out of Stealth at the pull. This will instantlygrant you a 18-second duration on
Sanguinary Vein (and duringthis time, you do not need to apply or refresh
Rupture).
5.6. Find Weakness and Shadow Blades
As a general rule, avoid using
Shadow Blades when
Find Weaknessis up. The reason for that is that part of
Shadow Blades will be wasted,as your auto-attacks bypass 100% of your enemy's armor during
Find Weakness(so them dealing pure Shadow damage would not be an improvement). As a result,you want to avoid casting Shadow Blades and
Shadow Dance at the sametime.
An exception to this rule is when casting Shadow Blades during FindWeakness would enable you cast Shadow Blades more times duringthe encounter.
When you have the
Rogue T15 4P Bonus,you should always cast
Shadow Blades and
Shadow Dance at the same time.This set bonus reduces the cost of all abilities by 15%and reduces the Global Cooldown of your abilities by 0.3s. The combinationof the set bonus and the additional Combo Points you get from some of yourabilities during
Shadow Blades is so powerful that it more than outweighswasting part of Shadow Blades during Shadow Dance.
5.7. Building Combo Points during Shadow Dance
When using
Shadow Dance,
Ambush takes the place of
Backstab as your Combo Point builder. This is very beneficial asAmbush deals more damage and generates more Combo Points than Backstab.
5.8. Opening Sequence
In this section, we assume that you took
Subterfuge as yourTier 1 talent.
- Before the pull, use
Tricks of the Trade on your Tricks of the Trade target (see next section).
- 1 second before the pull, use your
Virmen's Bite potion and get in Stealth.
- 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.
- Cast
Garrote.
- Cast
Ambush as many times as possible (usually twice).
- It should be possible thanks to Energetic Recovery and
Subterfuge.
- Extra Combo Points will be stored, thanks to
Anticipation.
- Continue with your normal rotation (starting with
Slice and Dice), with the following tweaks:
5.9. Using Redirect
Redirect is a very convenient ability for Rogues, especially forSubtlety Rogues because Combo Point management is very important.
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.
5.10. 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 whenever you need to refresh it on your target. Assassination and CombatRogues can use Tricks of the Trade together with
Vanish (because of
Shadow Focus), but that is not the case for you, as a Subtlety Rogue.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.
5.10.1. 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).
5.11. 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.
5.12. Bosses That Cannot Be Attacked From Behind
Certain bosses cannot be attacked from behind, for exampleUltraxion inDragon Soul. This means that you need to use
Hemorrhage, instead of
Backstab, to build Combo Points.
On such bosses, you will gain
Find Weakness uptime by using
Garrote to break out of Stealth. This ability, unlike
Backstab hasno positioning requirement.
Finally, there is no reason for you to stick with a Dagger in your Main-Handslot, as you cannot use
Backstab. So, if you have a 2.6-speed weaponthat is better than your current Dagger, then equip it.
6. Changelog↑top
- 26 Sep. 2013: Updated Sanguinary Vein description. It now increases damage of someabilities by 35% (up from 25%). Change was made in a recent hotfix.
- 13 Sep. 2013: Improved
Tricks of the Trade section andclarified explanations regarding 2.6-speed weapons for bosses that cannotbe attacked from behind.
- 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).
Shadow Blades now reduces the cost of all abilities by 15% (down from 40%) when you have the Tier 15 4-piece Bonus.
Glyph of Hemorrhaging Veins makes it easier to fight against a few targets when you have to burn them down or when you have to frequently change target.
- 20 May 2013: Patch 5.3 update: nothing to change (
Find Weakness update has no bearing on gameplay).
- 20 May 2013: Dryaan's second review of the guide.
- Numerous improvements to nearly all the sections of the guides (rotations, poisons, Energy, Find Weakness, Sanguinary Vein, etc.)
- 19 Mar. 2013: Added a section on the interaction between
Shadow Blades and
Find Weakness.
- 19 Mar. 2013: Improved opening sequence and removed sub-optimal variations.
- 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 damage increase provided by
Sanguinary Vein (it is now 16%, was 20%).