Season of Discovery Combat Rogue DPS Talents and Runes

Your talent build as an Combat rogue is almost completely set in stone as the strength of talents such as Adrenaline Rush and Blade Flurry are incredibly strong but as we level the additional points available can be spent outside of the Combat tree. As we have reached cap level we are able to branch out into other trees specifically the Assassination tree allowing us to reach Relentless Strikes and Ruthlessness. If your group is without a source of Improved Expose Armor or you are assigned to it, you can shift the points found in Opportunity into it to get the full benefit from Sebacious Poison.

Gloves — Mutilate

Pants — Envenom

Chest — Deadly Brew

Waist — Poisoned Knife

Feet — Master of Subtlety

Helm — Honor Among Thieves

Wrist — Carnage

Back — Crimson Tempest

Ring — Dagger Specialization

Ring — Nature Specialization

Mutilate is the default choice due to recent changes reducing its energy cost down to 40. While Saber Slash is still quite strong it is just much worse and does not synergize quite as well with other runs we have chosen to run. Mutilate synergizes incredibly with Envenom and Deadly Brew by taking advantage of their constant applications of poison to allow Mutilate to always benefit from the increased damage against poisoned targets.

Envenom benefits from the quick attack speed associated with using two daggers to use Mutilate as it will deal more damage to targets with higher stacks of Deadly Poison. Between the Eyes is a great tool if you find yourself needing a ranged stun but deals considerably less damage and will not benefit from the other Runes we have chosen the same way Envenom does.

Deadly Brew applies a stack of Deadly Poison anytime your target is inflicted with any kind of poison, allowing us to use Instant Poison while still getting all of the benefits of Deadly Poison. Deadly Brew also synergizes incredibly well with Envenom and Mutilate as they both deal additional damage to poisoned targets.

Poisoned Knife acts as a nearly free source of damage and should be used on cool down. This ability refunds 5 energy per stack of Deadly Poison/ Occult Poison I present on the target making it an incredibly cheap way to deal damage and generate a combo point. Even as Combat where we will have a considerable amount of Energy due to talents like Adrenaline Rush this is still an incredibly efficient way to deal damage.

Master of Subtlety increases your damage by 10% for 6 second when attacking from stealth, this is especially potent as Combat when paired with Adrenaline Rush and Blade Flurry. It also allows you to consider using Vanish as a DPS cooldown, especially for your second usage of Adrenaline Rush.

Honor Among Thieves allows us to generate a considerable amount of additional Combo Points in both parties and raids allowing for a much easier time maintaining our Slice and Dice buff and lets us cast considerably more Envenoms throughout the duration of a fight. This talent also scales incredibly well with gear as the higher your groups chance the more Combo Points you will be generating throughout an encounter.

Carnage increases damage dealt to targets with a bleed effect active on them by 20% and causes your Rupture ability to heal you for 40% of the damage it deals. The damage bonus here is massive and with the addition of Sebacious Poison we can focus on maintaining Slice and Dice and Rupture as we only have two combo point finishers to focus on maintaining as opposed to three.

Crimson Tempest is a great way to deal damage to both single targets and groups of enemies. thanks to our pairing with Carnage it makes this the default choice for dealing AoE damage. If you find yourself with Queensfall then it will also become a part of our single target rotation as it will now be automatically refreshed by its effect.

Dagger Specialization and Nature Specialization greatly increases our chance to hit with Daggers and our Poisons. Dagger Specialization gives us 5 extra weapon skill which is a massive boost towards the 9% melee Hit cap required to hit bosses and allows us to itemize towards other stats. Nature Specialization increases the hit chance of our Poisons by 6% and while we are unlikely to reach the Spell Hit cap of 16% this is still a basically free increase to our DPS.

More engravings are likely to come out as we reach later phases so make sure to checkout our general Runes guide to get a better understanding of what all tools you have available to your Rogue.

Precision increases your chance to hit with melee weapons by 1% per rank, up to 5%. This talent is incredible as Hit rating is often hard to find on gear.

Improved Backstab increases your critical strike of your Backstab ability by 10% per rank, up to 30%. Mutilate benefits from all talents that improve Backstab unless stated otherwise, so maxing this talent increases the Critical Strike chance of your Mutilate by 30%.

Blade Flurry increases your attack speed by 20% and attacks strike additional nearby enemies. One of Rogues greatest limitations is their lack of AoE but this 2 minute cooldown allows you to deal massive cleave damage while it is active, especially when paired with Adrenaline Rush.

Adrenaline Rush Increases the rate your Energy regenerates by 100% for 15 seconds. The greatest limiting factor on damage output on a Rogue is your energy, increasing the rate your energy regenerates allows you to deal massive damage while this buff is active, it also synergizes incredibly well with other Runes/talents we have chosen such as Blade Flurry and Master of Subtlety.

Relentless Strikes causes your finishing moves to have a 20% chance per combo point spent to restore 25 energy. As Combat especially with Adrenaline Rush active you will be casting finishing abilities constantly so this talent will quickly return a ton of energy.