In this article, we list your Subtlety 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 a Subtlety Rogue will face you with.

The other articles of our Subtlety 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 Ambush when you are in Stealth.
  2. Use Hemorrhage to apply and maintain the bleed effect it causes on your target.
  3. Use Backstab as your default Combo Point builder.
  4. When you cannot attack your target from behind, then you cannot use Backstab, so Hemorrhage becomes your primary Combo Point builder.
• Finishing Moves (by order of priority)
  1. 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.
  2. Apply and maintain Rupture with 5 Combo Points.
  3. 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 there are 4, 5, or 6 enemies around you, you should sometimes replace Eviscerate with Crimson Tempest in your rotation. The idea is to keep the 12-second bleed effect, from Crimson Tempest, applied on the enemies.

When there are 7 or more enemies around you, you should abandon your single-target rotation and spam Fan of Knives instead. When you reach 5 Combo Points on your target, use Crimson Tempest to spend them.

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 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 a 3-minute cooldown. Use this ability whenever you can.
• Vanish makes you enter Stealth. Use this ability on cooldown, immediately followed by 1 or 2 casts of Ambush (depending on whether Subterfuge is your tier 1 talent). Also, you can use Preparation to reset the cooldown of Vanish.
• Premeditation adds two Combo Points on the target, but it can only be used while in Stealth, which means that you will have to use it at the pull, when you use Vanish and whenever you use Shadow Dance.

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 Subtlety Rogue↑top

The Subtlety specialisation is not very hard to play, and even though the information given above will yield good results, there is much more you need to understand before 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 Energy bar 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 a 20% chance per Combo Point to restore 25 Energy;
• your Slice and Dice ability, which restores 8 Energy every 2 seconds (thanks to Energetic Recovery, one of your passive abilities).

The faster you regenerate Energy, the more casts of Eviscerate 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 Honor Among Thieves, a passive ability that grants you 1 Combo Point every time you or an ally scores a critical hit (with a limit of 1 Combo Point every 2 seconds).

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.

5.2.1. Honor Among Thieves

The most important aspect of your resource management is to learn how to rely on procs from Honor Among Thieves. This passive ability grants you a Combo Point every time a party or raid member critically hits or heals (with a limit of 1 Combo Point every 2 seconds). This effect is only active while you are in combat. Use these guidelines to properly take Honor Among Thieves into account in your resource management:

• If you have 3 Combo Points and are very low on Energy, you should wait for Honor Among Thieves to grant you the remaining two Combo Points. This way, you will have Energy to spend on a Finishing Move.
• Similarly, whenever you reach 4 Combo Points, you should save your Energy and wait for Honor Among Thieves to give you the last Combo Point.
• If you have 4 Combo Points and your Energy bar is almost full, then you should quickly build up another Combo Point with Backstab (or Hemorrhage if you cannot attack from behind) and immediately use a Finishing Move. The idea is that risking to waste a Combo Point from Honor Among Thieves is not as bad as wasting Energy.

5.3. Find Weakness and Master of Subtlety

Find Weakness is an important mechanics when playing a Subtlety Rogue. This temporary damage increase is only available after using Ambush, Garrote, or Cheap Shot. These abilities require Stealth to be cast so you will have Find Weakness uptime at the pull, every time you use Shadow Dance and every time you use Vanish (the cooldown of which you can reset with Preparation).

Master of Subtlety is a passive ability that you get from choosing the Subtlety specialisation. It grants you 10% increased damage after you break out of Stealth or after dealing damage in Stealth (typically while using Ambush). Note that Master of Subtlety will not proc during Shadow Dance.

As Find Weakness and Master of Subtlety are often up at the same time, we chose to detail them together.

You should always time your Shadow Dance and Vanish cooldowns in such a way that you do not have to refresh Slice and Dice or Rupture (which does not benefit from Find Weakness) while these cooldowns are active. This way, you will be able to maximise the damage you will do with melee attacks, Backstab, Hemorrhage, and Eviscerate, while Find Weakness and Master of Subtlety are active.

For increased effect, you should also try to have Find Weakness and Master of Subtlety up when raid DPS cooldowns are being used (for example, Bloodlust, Heroism, or Time Warp), when you use your Potion of the Tol'vir and on-use trinkets, and when the boss takes increased damage.

5.4. Rupture and Sanguinary Vein

Sanguinary Vein is a passive ability that increases the damage of your Rupture ability by 50% and that causes you to deal 16% increased damage 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 you always deal 20% increased damage.

Another, less obvious implication is that you can use Garrote for breaking out of Stealth at the opening. This will instantly grant you a 18-second duration on Sanguinary Vein.

5.5. Find Weakness and Shadow Blades

As a general rule, avoid using Shadow Blades when Find Weakness is up. The reason for that is that the auto-attacks done during Shadow Blades already bypass the enemy's armor, so part of the damage bonus from Find Weakness is wasted during Shadow Blades.

An exception to this rule is when casting Shadow Blades during Find Weakness would enable you cast Shadow Blades more times during the encounter.

5.6. 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 as Ambush deals more damage and generates more Combo Points than Backstab.

5.7. Using Redirect

Redirect is a very convenient ability for Rogues, especially for Subtlety Rogues because Combo Point management is very important.

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).

5.8. Opening Sequence

In this section, we assume that you took Subterfuge as your Tier 1 talent.

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. open with Premeditation+ Slice and Dice (you get increased Energy generation from Energetic Recovery);
4. cast Shadowstep (if Cloak and Dagger is not talented) and Garrote (for Sanguinary Vein);
5. cast Ambush as many times as possible (usually twice)
   • should be possible thanks to Energetic Recovery and Subterfuge;
   • extra Combo Points will be stored, thanks to Anticipation;
6. continue with your normal rotation, with the following tweaks:
   • do not refresh Rupture until Garrote fades;
   • use Shadow Dance right before Find Weakness runs out (so the first Ambush during Shadow Dance benefit from Find Weakness).
   • use Vanish right before Find Weakness runs out again.

5.9. 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.

5.10. Bosses That Cannot Be Attacked From Behind

Certain bosses cannot be attacked from behind, for example Ultraxion in Dragon 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 has no positioning requirement.

Finally, you can boost your DPS by equipping a 2.6-speed weapon in your Main-hand slot. Since you are unable to use Backstab, there is no reason to stick with a Main-hand dagger.

6. Changelog↑top

• 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%).