70-79 70 Assassination Rogue Guide (mostly PvE with some PvP) [BFA Prepatch 8.0.1]

Eonsy · Jul 31, 2018

Assassination: The Most Toxic Specialization

Hello and welcome to my guide. I am Eonsy, of Ante Amanthe, and I have been playing on/off at 70 since late Wrath of the Lich King. I have had 3 different rogues at 70 with this rogue being the latest who started his 70 journey back in Warlords of Draenor. I have played Assassination, Subtlety, Outlaw and old Combat at 70 and I have enjoyed Assassination the most. In my experience this Prepatch, Assassination is the most fun spec to play as a rogue.

There might be some mistakes, or lack of information in this guide, so feel free to let me know if there are any and I will amend them. Feel free to message me regarding any questions you may have and I will do my best to help you out.

I am writing this to try and help people newer to the spec, but some stuff might be valuable to everyone aswell. In this guide I will go over a lot of information mainly for PvE, but I will include some PvP information at the end.
I will be including;

Introduction to Assassination
Energy Pooling
Abilities
Equipment, Enchants and Gems
Talents
Professions
PvP Differences

Introduction to Assassination

Assassination playstyle has similarities to other specs such as Feral Druid, in regards to DoT upkeep and Resource management. Assassination, unlike Subtlety or Outlaw, has kept Poisons, which since the dawn of time people have associated with Rogues.

Energy Pooling

In this topic I will go over Energy Pooling, this is when you don't use your abilities to pool up your energy to utilize buffs and procs.
For example: Sitting on 5 combo points, saving up your energy so you can get a 6 second Envenom debuff, then spam Mutilates on the target, this means you get the most out of the Envenom debuff, which increases poison application success chance by 30%. Because of the increased success chance, it means the instant damage from Deadly Poison will proc more often, increasing your damage.

Abilities

In this topic I will go over some of the core abilites of Assassination.
(The damage and lengths of Envenom, Rupture and Kidney Shot in this part do not include 6 combo points from Deeper Stratagem)

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=79134/venomous-wounds makes us regain 7 energy whenever Garrote or Rupture deal damage to a target afflicted by your poison. This is one of our main ways to regain energy.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=14190/seal-fate gives us an additional combo point whenever we crit with an ability that generates combo points such as Mutilate.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=703/garrote is our main bleed, it does damage over time and silences for 3 seconds when used from stealth. Garrote has no cooldown if used from Stealth, but has a 6 second cooldown otherwise. Garrote is best applied from Stealth due to the tier 2 talent Subterfuge increasing it's damage by 100%.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=1943/rupture is our combo point spending bleed, it does increased damage over time depending on the amount of combo points spent. Rupture lasts between 8 and 24 seconds depending on how many combo points spent. It is ideal to maintain both Garrote and Rupture on the target at all times when possible, it is best to re-apply both when below around 6 seconds left on the debuffs.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=1329/mutilate is our main combo point generating ability. It attacks with both of your daggers doing damage. Mutilate is quite a heavy-costing ability (50 Energy), so pooling energy to spam Mutilate is sometimes unavoidable, but isn't a bad thing.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=32645/envenom is our main combo point spending ability. It does increasing damage depending on the amount of combo points spent. Envenom also applies a debuff to the target which increases your poison application success chance by 30% which lasts between 2 and 6 seconds depending on how many combo points spent.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=79140/vendetta is our main dps cooldown. It marks an enemy for 20 seconds, increasing the damage you do to the target by 30%, and making them visible through concealments such as stealth. It also generates 60 energy over 3 seconds. It has a 2 minute cooldown and should ideally be used with procs and other buffs, also try to use when not full energy because you don't want to waste the energy it generates.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=1856/vanish is our cooldown to activate stealth whilst in combat. It gives us an improved stealth for 3 seconds which can't be broken by damaging abilities or dots, then it stealths us normally. It has a 2 minute cooldown and is primarily used in PvE as a way to improve your Garrote's damage via Subterfuge.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=51723/fan-of-knives is our Area of Effect ability. It throws knives around in a circle around your character damaging enemies and having a chance of applying your poisons.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=5277/evasion is our defensive cooldown. It increases our dodge chance by 100%, which is really good against melee players and melee NPCs. (Evasion can also be good when a boss decides to randomly target you in a raid).

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=1966/feint is another defensive cooldown. It reduces damage from Area of Effect attacks by 40% and lasts for 5 seconds, on a 15 second cooldown. The talent Elusiveness makes Feint also reduce all-other damage taken by 30% for 5 seconds.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=2983/sprint is one of our utility cooldowns. It gives us an increased 70% movement speed for 8 seconds, on a 1 min cooldown. This is one of our most useful cooldowns for kiting and re-positioning.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=36554/shadowstep is another utility cooldown. It lets us teleport to a friendly or enemy target within 25 yards, and it gives us an increased 70% movement speed for 2 seconds after casting, on a 30 second cooldown. This is one of our most useful cooldowns for kiting and re-positioning.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=408/kidney-shot is one of our combo point spending abilities, which stuns the target for between 2 and 6 seconds depending on the combo points spent. This is a really good cc ability for PvP.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=1833/cheap-shot is one of our abilities we use from stealth, it is used mainly in PvP or against harder NPCs, it stuns the target for 4 seconds.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=1766/kick is our interrupt, it interrupts the target's spellcasting and if it interrupts an ability, it silences them from using another spell in that school from being cast (i.e. Arcane Blast / Arcane Barrage) for 5 seconds. It has a 15 second cooldown.

Equipment, Enchants and Gems

Gems

http://www.wowhead.com/item=28363/deadly-ornate-topaz (BiS)
http://www.wowhead.com/item=41398/relentless-earthsiege-diamond (Meta)
http://www.wowhead.com/item=32409/relentless-earthstorm-diamond (Meta)

This gem is the only real choice for PvE because of how good the stats are on this gem compared to others.

Talents

Tier 1 (Level 15):
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=111240/blindside is my current choice for PvE. The 25% chance at proc is really consistent and Blindside does a lot of damage. I also like having an execute-type ability that does the same damage as Mutilate, but at 60% of the cost, although it only generates 1 combo point, I think this is a good talent.
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=196864/master-poisoner can be good as well as it will buff up the damage of your deadly poison by 30%. If you don't want to use Blindside and would prefer to have more consistent damage from poisons, then Master Poisoner is the talent for you.

Tier 2 (level 30):
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=108208/subterfuge is the best choice here as it allows us to have 100% increased damage on Garrote in our opener and when we vanish. It also allows us to apply Garrote to multiple enemies for increased energy regen from Venomous Wounds and more dps.

Tier 3 (level 45):
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=14983/vigor is in my opinion the best in this tier because having that 50 extra energy is a free Mutilate, not to mention the 10% energy regen is really nice and allows us to not be starved of energy too much.
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=193531/deeper-stratagem is also a viable choice, as it will allow you to get more damage from rupture and envenom.

Tier 4 (level 60):
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=79008/elusiveness is the best in this tier, having a 30% damage reduction on a 15 second cooldown is huge for raiding, some bosses after prepatch do a lot of damage with their abilities, and being able to remove 30% of that damage is ridiculous.
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=31230/cheat-death can also be really good for raiding, depending on the boss fight and if you feel like you could get one-shotted. (Gruul's hurtful-strike and Supremus' hateful strike come to mind).

Professions

Professions don't matter as much as they used to, but as a Rogue our best neck comes from Jewelcrafting, and one of our best head and trinket come from Engineering, so these two are the staple of our professions.

Although you could also go;
Leatherworking for http://www.wowhead.com/spell=124567/primal-leg-reinforcements#comments
Inscription for http://www.wowhead.com/spell=61117/masters-inscription-of-the-axe
Though I would recommend Jewelcrafting and Engineering as they are probably the biggest difference.

PvP Guide

Now onto the PvP part of this guide, which probably won't be as well informative as the rest of the guide, but I will do my best to give you as much information as I can regarding Assassination in PvP.

Introduction

Assassination in PvP is pretty good, you don't have the same amount of burst as a Subtlety rogue, but with your bleeds and poisons you are a monster. Thanks to Subterfuge you are able to spread Garrote onto 4 enemies before it goes on cooldown, or you can do 2 Garrotes and 2 Cheap shots which is also really good, if you put 4 Garrotes on people in bgs or wpvp you will never run out of Energy thanks to Venomous Wounds energy regen.

Gems

To quote Dreams. "Just like other offensive stats, they multiply each other. Meaning for every point of PvP Power you get, the value of agility rises slightly, and vice versa." Because of this, for PvP you will want to use some PvP Power gems in your build instead of going all-out with the http://www.wowhead.com/item=28363/deadly-ornate-topaz gems, you will be looking for around 10% PvP Power which is the same as subtlety. So you will be using around 6~ http://www.wowhead.com/item=32203/stormy-empyrean-sapphire to get the PvP Power you need to reach the sweet spot.

Thanks to Dreams, here is a macro for calculating your PvP Power and PvP Resilience:

Code:

/run print "PvP Power:"
/run print( GetPvpPowerDamage() )
/run print "PvP Resilience:"
/run print(GetCombatRatingBonus(16))

Talents

For Assassination in PvP, the value of http://www.wowhead.com/spell=196864/master-poisoner goes up by a lot, because it also increases the effects of your other poisons; http://www.wowhead.com/spell=3408/crippling-poison and http://www.wowhead.com/spell=8679/wound-poison which are really good in PvP.

Honor Talents

Honor Talents for Assassination are alright, but quite a few of them are mediocre.
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=208683/gladiators-medallion always for first honor talent.
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=197000/maneuverability is probably the most important honor talent we have, as it allows us to supress movement-impairing effects for 4 seconds after we cast sprint.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=206328/neurotoxin is also a pretty nice honor talent, as it is really good against certain classes and healers who spam the same abilities. This ability applies a debuff against the target for 10 seconds which when they use an ability, puts that ability on cooldown for 3 seconds. This is a really obnoxious ability to play against, and rewards smart play and timing.
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=197050/mind-numbing-poison could be good against casters if you have http://www.wowhead.com/spell=196864/master-poisoner though it only applies to Deadly Poison, which means you cant use Wound Poison if you take this talent.
Finally http://www.wowhead.com/spell=212182/smoke-bomb can be useful to get out of sticky situations, or it can be extremely useful to deny a healer the ability to target someone you are bursting down.

Macros

My macros are not that good, I'm a weird player who uses focus arena player 1/2/3 on mousewheel up/down/click and focus macros, I wouldn't recommend this way to play, and because of this I won't be putting too many macros in.

Spam Macro for duels or finding stealthed players.

Code:

#showtooltip Sap
/targetenemy
/cast Sap

Mouseover focus macro for BGs / WPvP

Code:

/focus [@mouseover]

End

Thank you for sticking with me through this, this is my first guide and I hope it was useful to at least somebody here.

-Eonsy

Zoke · Aug 4, 2018

you definitely need to go grab a http://www.wowhead.com/item=127474/vestige-of-haldor
its stronger than satyr. especially on dot specs. also for pvp you might be better off with bloodlust brooch for on demand damge increase rather than relying on banner's 21% uptime.

70-79 70 Assassination Rogue Guide (mostly PvE with some PvP) [BFA Prepatch 8.0.1]

Eonsy

Grandfathered

Zoke

Grandfathered

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