WotLK Classic Assassination Rogue Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities

If you have not already, please read the Spell Summary page. Knowing how each spell and ability works in detail will greatly increase your understanding of the topics discussed on this page.

Your main role as an Assassination Rogue is to simply put out as much damage as you can for the most part, with the main exception being when there is no Warrior in your group, in which case you will be applying the Armor debuff with Expose Armor.

For the most part, the rotation is fairly simply and revolves around the building and spending of Combo Points with Mutilate and Envenom.

Your rotation will vary slightly depending on whether you have a Warrior in your group or not.

If there is a Warrior in your group or another Rogue applying Expose Armor, then you will not need to use it yourself.

In this case, your rotation will simply be jumping between uses of Envenom and Mutilate after your opener.

You should aim to use Envenom when you have 4 or 5 Combo Points and Mutilate when you have 1, 2, or 3 Combo Points.

If you do not have anyone else to apply the Armor debuff, you will need to simply maintain the buff and use your Combo Points on it rather than Envenom if it is going to fall off. Ideally, you should use it and maintain it with 4 or 5 Combo Points, but if the buff is about to drop and you have fewer, you should use it anyway.

Multi-target combat for Assassination is fairly simple — you will, for the most part, just spam Fan of Knives during any mass-AoE phases (6+ targets). Below 6 targets, you will just continue doing your single-target rotation.

The opener for Assassination varies depending on whether you have someone else in your party or raid to apply a bleed effect for your Hunger For Blood.

If someone else is applying bleeds, you will open using:

1. Mutilate
2. Slice and Dice
3. Hunger For Blood
4. Mutilate
   • You may have to use 2 Mutilates, depending on the number of CPs generated
5. Envenom

If you have to apply the bleeds yourself, you will open using:

1. Mutilate
2. Slice and Dice
3. Mutilate if you did not get a combo point from Ruthlessness
4. Rupture
5. Hunger For Blood
6. Mutilate
   • You may have to use 2 Mutilates, depending on the number of CPs generated
7. Envenom

There are not many impactful cooldowns for Assassination beyond Vanish and Cold Blood.

Vanish should be used when you need a boost of Energy from Overkill.

Cold Blood should be used on your Envenom.