In this article, we list your Assassination Rogue (WoW MoP 5.2) core abilities and how they should be used together (rotation). We also explain when to use your various cooldowns. Then, we go deeper and present all the subtleties that playing an Assassination Rogue will face you with.

The other articles of our Assassination Rogue guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

This guide has been reviewed and approved by Dryaan, one of the best Rogues in the world, who raids in Envy.

1. Single Target Rotation↑top

• Combo Point builders (by order of priority)
  1. Use Mutilate, between 100% and 35% of target's health.
  2. Use Dispatch, below 35% of target's health or when Blindside procs.
• Finishing Moves (by order of priority)
  1. Apply and maintain Slice and Dice
     • should only be done once, as Envenom refreshes it (thanks to Cut to the Chase).
  2. Apply and maintain Rupture
     • use whatever amount of Combo Points you have when Rupture is about to expire.
  3. Use Envenom with 5 Combo Points
     • if Slice and Dice needs refreshing, then you can afford to cast Envenom with fewer Combo Points.

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

For more information about Energy pooling, refer to our section about Envenom and Energy pooling.

2. Multiple Target Rotation↑top

When fighting less than 10 targets, you should maintain Rupture on 3 to 4 targets, and Deadly Poison on all of them (through Fan of Knives). When you do not need to refresh Rupture or Deadly Poison, simply keep performing your single-target rotation on one of the enemies. Vanish (thanks to Shadow Focus) and Redirect make maintaining Rupture easier, although they have rather long cooldowns.

When fighting more than 10 targets, you should simply spam Fan of Knives and use Crimson Tempest to spend your Combo Points.

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 should be Leeching Poison. If you chose a different Tier 3 talent, then use Mind-numbing Poison.

Refer to our Poisons section for detailed explanations about poisons.

4. Cooldowns↑top

You have three main DPS cooldowns.

• Vendetta (with Glyph of Vendetta) increases the damage you do on your target by 25% for 30 seconds, on a 2-minute cooldown. You should use this ability whenever it is available, provided that you can attack your target for 30 seconds without interruption. Naturally, it is more beneficial to use Vendetta during times when you deal increased damage to the boss.
• Shadow Blades increases your Combo Point regeneration for 12 seconds, on a 3-minute cooldown. Use this ability whenever you can. When Shadow Blades and Vendetta are both off cooldowns, do not hesitate to combine them. This will rarely happen, as these two abilities have different cooldowns.
• Vanish makes you enter Stealth. Use this ability on cooldown, immediately followed by Mutilate or Ambush (see opening section rotation). Because of Shadow Focus (your Tier 1 talent), Mutilate's cost is reduced by 75% when using it in Stealth. Also, you can use Preparation to reset the cooldown of Vanish.

In addition, you can use Redirect in fights where you have to fight different enemies is a DPS gain. See our Redirect section for more details.

Also, Sprint can give you more uptime on the boss, which translates into a direct DPS increase. So, you can use Sprint as a DPS cooldown in some fights (in addition to its obvious survival role).

Finally, you have a number of survival cooldown, such as Feint, Cloak of Shadows, Preparation, Evasion, etc. Do not hesitate to make regular use of them.

5. Optional Read: Mastering Your Assassination Rogue↑top

The Assassination specialisation is rather easy to play. The information given above will yield good results. However, being aware of the few subtleties that we detail in the rest of this page will enable you to play your Assassination Rogue to its full potential.

In particular, poisons do most of the damage of an Assassination Rogue, therefore it is important to understand the synergy they have with your various abilities.

5.1. Combo Points and Energy

As a rogue, most of your abilities need Energy to be used. Your Energy bar has a capacity of 120 Energy (thanks to Assassin's Resolve, one of your Assassination-only passive abilities) 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 a 20% chance per Combo Point to restore 25 Energy;
• your Rupture and Garrote periodic damage ticks, which have a 75% chance to restore 10 Energy (thanks to Venomous Wounds).

The faster you regenerate Energy, the more casts of Envenom you can fit in your rotation.

Some abilities add one or several Combo Points on your target, up to a maximum of 5 Combo Points (10 with Anticipation). Other abilities, called Finishing Moves, consume up to 5 Combo Points on your target. The more Combo Points a Finishing Move consumes, the more powerful its effect is. Your Combo Point generation is increased by Seal Fate, which causes your critical hits with Mutilate and Dispatch to add an additional Combo Point on your target.

5.2. Poisons

As a Rogue, you have Poison spells that you can use to give your weapon strikes a chance to deal more damage and/or apply a debuff/effect. This chance is fixed, which means that slower weapons will have a smaller chance of applying your Poison effects than faster weapons.

Poisons are either Lethal or Non-Lethal. Lethal Poisons are your damaging Poisons while Non-Lethal Poisons provide crowd control and utility. You can have one Lethal Poison and one Non-Lethal Poison active at the same time.

Deadly Poison and Wound Poison are your Lethal Poisons. Deadly Poison will be your Poison of choice. Wound Poison will only be used when you need the healing reduction that it provides.

Your Non-Lethal Poisons are listed below. Using Shiv will apply on your target a concentrated version (i.e., a more potent effect) of your Non-Lethal Poison.

• Crippling Poison reduces your enemy's movement speed.
• Mind-numbing Poison reduces your enemy's casting speed.
• Leeching Poison (Tier 3 talent) heals you for 10% of the damage dealt.
• Paralytic Poison (Tier 5 talent) stuns your enemy.

Note that Fan of Knives has a chance to apply your poisons on every target that it hits.

5.3. Envenom, Poisons, and Energy Pooling

Envenom is your hardest hitting ability. It also gives you a temporary buff that increases your chance to apply your Poison by 15% for 1 second plus an additional second per Combo Point used.

To benefit from the Envenom buff as much as possible, you will want to pool Energy before casting Envenom. There are two reasons why you want to do that.

1. By delaying your cast of Envenom, you will prevent overriding your previous Envenom buff (if it is still running), thus increasing your total Envenom buff uptime.
2. By pooling Energy, you will ensure that you can cast Mutilate at least twice while the buff is active. This will result in more poison applications.

Note that the Envenom buff is applied on you before Envenom deals its damage, therefore Envenom will always benefit from its own buff.

You should not pool Energy during times of high Energy regeneration. This happens mostly when the target is below 35% health (because Dispatch becomes available and it costs little Energy) and when you benefit from Bloodlust, Heroism, or Time Warp.

5.4. Rupture, Garrote, and Venomous Wounds

The DoTs left by Rupture and Garrote do not deal much damage by themselves, but, thanks to Venomous Wounds, each tick has a 75% chance to deal additional Nature damage (shown as Venomous Wounds in your combat logs) and to make you regain 10 Energy.

Venomous Wounds is the reason why you want to maintain Rupture on your target. Garrote is only realistically usable on the pull, but even then, you will prefer opening with Mutilate and apply a 2-Combo Point Rupture that you will refresh later on. The idea is that Rupture ticks every 2 seconds while Garrote ticks every 3 seconds, making Rupture the better choice when it comes to triggering Venomous Wounds.

5.5. Dispatch and Blindside

When your target is below 35% health, Dispatch becomes available and it replaces Mutilate as your Combo Point builder. Dispatch costs almost twice less Energy than Mutilate, but it does slightly more damage.

When you are using Mutilate, Blindside grants you a 30% chance per hit to trigger an Energy-free Dispatch that you can use even if the target is above 35 health. This proc needs to be watched for.

5.6. Applying and refreshing Slice and Dice

Whenever you have to apply Slice and Dice, do not bother doing it with 5 Combo Points. Indeed, thanks to Cut to the Chase, Envenom will always refresh your Slice and Dice to a 5 Combo Point duration. This is true regardless of how many Combo Points you had applied Slice and Dice with in the first place and regardless of how many Combo Points you use on Envenom.

Using Shiv as a cheap means of refreshing your Slice and Dice is not interesting, as Shiv does not generate Combo Points on your target. Instead, you can use Fan of Knives if you are in range. It has a low Energy cost and does generate a Combo Point. To proceed, cast Fan of Knives immediately followed by Envenom. This will give you a Slice and Dice with a 5-Combo Point duration.

5.7. Opening Sequence

1. Enter Stealth — if you are pre-potting, it will get you out of Stealth, so pre-pot before entering Stealth.
2. Use Tricks of the Trade on your Tricks of the Trade target (see next section).
3. When the fight begins, break out of stealth with Mutilate or Ambush.
4. Cast Rupture.
5. Cast Mutilate.
6. Apply Slice and Dice.
7. Cast Mutilate.
8. Cast Envenom to refresh Slice and Dice to a 5 Combo Point duration.
9. Start your rotation.

Use Dispatch if Blindside procs. Also, it does not really matter whether you get out of Stealth with Ambush or Mutilate, unless you have chosen Cloak and Dagger as your Tier 4 talent. Ambush deals more damage, but Mutilate will give you more Combo Points in average, because you have a chance to get a free Dispatch which grants 1 Combo Point and gives you an additional chance to proc Seal Fate.

5.8. Tricks of the Trade

Tricks of the Trade was originally designed to be cast on tanks in order to help them 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 best DPS players in order to increase their damage done.

Note that you can (and most often should) cast Tricks of the Trade on the tank at the pull, before switching to a different target when refreshing it.

Tricks of the Trade costs you a global cooldown to cast and costs 15 Energy. The damage bonus that it grants to your target is so beneficial, that it is well worth the sacrifice of a global cooldown and 15 Energy.

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

5.9. Using Redirect

Redirect is a very convenient ability for Rogues.

This ability transfers your existing Combo Points to your current target. Note that when you kill an enemy, your unused Combo Points remain on it, which means that they can be transferred through Redirect. Moreover, your Combo Points on a dead enemy are removed when another enemy dies with unused Combo Points.

Redirect is very useful in two situations:

• when you switch target and want to start on your new target with the Combo Points you had on your previous target;
• when you engage a boss and you want to start with as many Combo Points as possible (by transferring the Combo Points of the last trash mob that died).

6. Changelog↑top

• 25 Apr. 2013: Improved section about Envenom and Energy pooling.
• 19 Mar. 2013: Improved the section on the interaction of Venomous Wounds, Rupture, and Garrote.
• 19 Mar. 2013: Improved AoE rotation.
• 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.
  • Added a mention that using Ambush to get out of Stealth is the best option, when Cloak and Dagger is talented.