wow Subtlety Rogue in the Shadowlands: Spec Highlights and Class Recommendations

[Starym 3,800]

 

Update: the Subtlety pre-patch guide is ready and you can check it out here:
Subtlety Rogue Shadowlands Guide

Subtlety Rogues didn't get a large number of changes in the pre-patch and Shadowlands, but they have been improved from their Battle for Azeroth days! Our own Ashine takes a look at the rather disappointing Covenant choices, some good baseline ability and mechanical changes, talents, as well as legendaries and conduits!

Exciting Changes for Subtlety Rogues in Shadowlands

One of the new features in Shadowlands is Covenants, which sadly do not impact Subtlety game play much, apart from most of them just feeling like Combo Point generators. The good news is that Subtlety is getting a bunch of mechanical changes in the expansion.
 

Mechanical changes

• Find Weakness has been removed as a talent and is now a passive. Now causes Cheap Shot and Shadowstrike to apply the debuff when casted from Stealth. It also has interaction with Backstab and Shuriken Storm -   Shuriken Storm critical strikes apply Find Weakness for 6 seconds and Backstabs have the same function except you have to be behind the target.
• Shadow Dance now has 1 charge baseline, the duration is increased from 5 to 8 seconds and it now increases the damage you do by 15%.
• Eviscerate now deals additional 50% shadow damage if the target has Find Weakness debuff.
• Nightblade has been removed and replaced by Rupture, which is for the most part the same button, except that you do not do increased damage to targets with your Rupture active. This is a very welcome change as target swapping as Subtlety Rogue always felt little bit awkward.
• Symbols of Death now also causes your next Combo Point generator to Critically strike.
   

New Abilities

• Black Powder. Subtlety gets a new AoE Combo Point spender without cooldown and, like Eviscerate, it does additional Shadow damage if targets hit are affected by Find Weakness.
• Poisons. Subtlety now has access to Numbing Poison, Wound Poison, Instant Poison and Crippling Poison.  Numbing Poison and Crippling poison are non-lethal poisons while Wound Poison and Instant poison are lethal. You can have one lethal and one non-lethal active.
• Slice and Dice makes its return. A Combo Point spender maintenance buff, which has interaction with the Shadow Techniques passive as Subtlety will now get more Combo Points due to increased attack speed. Rank 2 of Slice and Dice, which is unlocked at Level 56  also increases Energy regeneration by 10%.
• Shiv. Applies 70% slow to your target for 5 seconds.

New and Changed Talents

• Find Weakness made into baseline passive and replaced by Premeditation which causes your Shadowstrikes cast from stealth grant up to 10 seconds of Slice and Dice and generate 2 additional Combo Points if Slice and Dice is active.
• Dark Shadow now increases your damage dealt while in Shadow Dance to 30%. Substantial nerf as Shadow Dance now increases your damage by 15%.
   

Covenant Abilities

Venthyr Ability -  Flagellation - 25 second CD

Lash the target with Anima 3 times, dealing Shadow damage. They remain tormented for 45 seconds, causing a lash for each Combo Point you spend, dealing Shadow damage.

Once the target has been lashed at least 25 times, reactivating Flagellation cleanses their torment, increasing your Mastery by 10% for 25 seconds.

An extra debuff and buff to keep track of which is nothing too exciting, however it has some synergy in AoE situations as it does scale with Combo Point generation. Can also be manipulated to use whenever you want slightly more burst which is nice.
 

Night Fae Ability - Sepsis - 1.5 min CD

Infect the target's blood, dealing Nature damage over 10 sec. If the target survives its full duration, they suffer additional damage and you Vanish from sight. Cooldown reduced by 60 sec if Sepsis does not last its full duration. 

On its own, the ability is fairly weak, as Vanish is a very minor DPS gain for Subtlety. However, Master Assassin's Mark and Deathly Shadows are new Legendaries in Shadowlands which have synergy with Vanish. This ability is also fairly annoying to use in open world content as Vanishing causes mobs on you to reset.
 

Kyrian Ability - Echoing Reprimand - 45 sec CD

Deal Arcane damage to an enemy, extracting their anima to Animacharge a combo point. Damaging finishing moves that consume the same number of combo points as your Animacharge deal damage as if they consume 7 combo points.

Currently the strongest covenant ability for Subtlety Rogues. One of your Combo Points will become marked as Animacharged and the goal is to cast a finisher with that amount of Combo Points and, if possible, stack as many damage multipliers to get the most out of the 7 Combo Point finisher. This is one of the more interesting Rogue Covenant abilities, however you only do it once every 45 seconds which means it does not have too big of an impact on the rotation.

Necrolord Ability - Serrated Bone Spike - 30 sec recharge, 3 charges

Apply a bone spike in the target, dealing Bleed damage every 3 sec until they die. Deals damage and generates 1 Combo Point per active bone spike. Refunds 1 charge when target dies or is healed to full.

On single target this ability is fairly boring as you can basically just apply it and then forget about it. In cleave and AoE situations it becomes quite a bit more fun as your goal will be to apply it to as many targets as you can. Sadly this ability has absolutely no interactions with the Rogue toolkit apart from generating Combo Points.
 

Legendary Effects

There are more legendary effects available in Shadowlands, but below we have listed some of the better ones:

• The Rotten - for 3 seconds after activating Symbols of Death, your next Shadowstrike and Backstab generate 4 additional Combo Points and deal 30% increased damage. One of the few legendaries that impacts how we play, and currently it is the best legendary for Single-Target, however does not scale well into AoE situations.
• Master Assassin's Mark is back from Legion, giving us 100% Critical strike for 4 seconds after leaving Stealth. Whilst it is not something you will notice in the gameplay, it can be satisfying to have massive burst damage.
• Deathly Shadows causes your Vanish to grant you 5 Combo Points and increase damage dealt by 15% for 12 seconds. Not much to say about this one, much like the Master Assassin's Mark it just increases our burst with minimal impact on gameplay.
• Finality causes your Combo Point finishers to empower your next finisher by 25%. 
• Akaari's Soul Fragment causes your Shadowstrikes and Cheap Shots to cast an extra Shadowstrike at the target with 25% effectiveness. This does not generate extra Combo Points.
   

Conduits in Shadowlands

There are many conduits coming in Shadowlands, but below we will list a couple of interesting ones:

• Deeper Daggers causes Shadow Vault and Eviscerate to increase your Shadow damage dealt by 30% for 5 seconds.
• Stiletto Staccato now makes yourShadow Techniques also reduce the cooldown of Shadow Blades by 1 second everytime it procs.
   

Conclusion

After being left in the shadows for almost the whole of Battle for Azeroth, the small changes made to Subtlety definitely make the spec feel better. For the most part, the spec still feels very similar to how it plays out in BfA and the longer Shadow Dance and the option to actually do AoE damage with Black Powder feel great, especially since AoE has been something Subtlety has historically been very weak at. The only real disappointment is the Covenant abilities and lack of interaction with the class.

 

Other Spec Highlights:

• Frost Death Knight
• Unholy Death Knight
• Vengeance Demon Hunter
• Balance Druid
• Restoration Druid
• Beast Mastery Hunter
• Marksmanship Hunter
• Arcane Mage
• Frost Mage
• Assassination Rogue
• Outlaw Rogue
• Elemental Shaman
• Enhancement Shaman
• Holy Paladin
• Shadow Priest
• Affliction Warlock
• Arms Warrior
• Protection Warrior

[Bobbis 208]

My dude, grab some sleep and re read that first para... it's little things (a d hahahahaha but seriously a d for improved and out to our) but usually you're on top of those things.

On a plus, yay sub is good ish again ?

The whole covenant thing is a repeating dialogue it seems, they have no interaction with most specs it seems and just seems like a wasted opp...

[Starym 3,800]

6 hours ago, Bobbis said:

My dude, grab some sleep and re read that first para... it's little things (a d hahahahaha but seriously a d for improved and out to our) but usually you're on top of those things.

On a plus, yay sub is good ish again ?

The whole covenant thing is a repeating dialogue it seems, they have no interaction with most specs it seems and just seems like a wasted opp...

Rofl, damn you are quite right. Yea I've been slightly sleep deprived lately (daaamn yooouuu pre-patch!!1)

Thanks for the heads up!