Assassination Rogue DPS Mythic+ Tips — The War Within (11.0.5)
In this guide, you will find tips and advice to tackle Mythic+ dungeons with your Assassination Rogue in World of Warcraft — The War Within (11.0.5).
Assassination Rogue in Mythic+ in The War Within Season 1
The playstyle of Assassination in Mythic+ revolves around setting up your bleeds on multiple targets, ramping up your Energy regeneration until you become global cooldown-locked, and then continuing to cycle bleeds between targets. A key feature of Assassination AoE is that while it is most optimal in multi-dotting evenly across several targets; you can still channel your damage into a single target as well, which will cleave onto nearby targets thanks to Caustic Spatter.
If you are unfamiliar with Mythic+ and its associated general mechanics, you can read more about it on our The War Within Mythic+ page below.
To learn more about the Mythic+ Meta, check out our Mythic+ Tier List below.
Best Mythic+ Talents for Assassination Rogue in The War Within
Assassination in Mythic+ offers both high sustained AoE damage as well as strong single-target cooldowns that can be used on bosses or high-priority targets that need to be taken out quickly or have much higher health pools than the surrounding enemies. You can play this as either Hero Talent spec, depending on your preference, with neither really being a significant gain over the other in Mythic+.
For a more general overview of Talents for Assassination Rogue, please visit our dedicated Talents page.
Best Mythic+ Talent Builds for Assassination Rogue
Best Deathstalker Mythic+ Talents for Assassination Rogue in The War Within
This is the Deathstalker build for Assassination, which offers strong single-target and priority target damage while also boosting the damage of your AoE abilities. It is no different in the Class and Specialization Trees to the Fatebound build.
Make sure to keep track of your Darkest Night buff so you do not have to cast Ambush on every pack to benefit from your Deathstalker's Mark.
Flexible Talents
There isn't a whole lot of flexibility in your talent choices, but these are the choices you can make:
- You can opt out of any of the talents that are not required to path through in order to pick up Stillshroud for any keys where Shroud is used. Wiping and not being able to return to the boss or trash pack you wiped on is usually a depleted key, but with a reduced cooldown, Shroud might be back up again to keep going.
- While it is absolutely not recommended in 99,99% of cases, you can opt to play Without a Trace if you really need the second charge of Vanish to avoid dangerous boss abilities. This is really only ever going to be required for absolute World-First Keys and for players who know what they're doing, but it is mentioned here for completeness.
- You can swap Airborne Irritant for Gouge if there is a desperate need for additional stops on a low cooldown. This is another thing that will very likely only be used in higher-level keys.
Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the best build directly into your game!
Best Fatebound Mythic+ Talents for Assassination Rogue in The War Within
This is the Fatebound build for Assassination, which offers strong single-target and priority target damage, while also helping your CP generation.
Try to maintain your coin buffs between packs, although do not pull packs the tank did not yet engage, just because your buffs are about to run out.
Flexible Talents
There isn't a whole lot of flexibility in your talent choices, but these are the choices you can make:
- You can opt out of any of the talents that are not required to path through in order to pick up Stillshroud for any keys where Shroud is used. Wiping and not being able to return to the boss or trash pack you wiped on is usually a depleted key, but with a reduced cooldown, Shroud might be back up again to keep going.
- While it is absolutely not recommended in 99,99% of cases, you can opt to play Without a Trace if you really need the second charge of Vanish to avoid dangerous boss abilities. This is really only ever going to be required for absolute World-First Keys and for players who know what they're doing, but it is mentioned here for completeness.
- You can swap Airborne Irritant for Gouge if there is a desperate need for additional stops on a low cooldown. This is another thing that will very likely only be used in higher-level keys.
Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the best build directly into your game!
Mythic+ Utility for Assassination Rogue in The War Within Season 1
This section talks mostly about the uses of different spells. For in-depth explanations of all Rogue Abilities and Talents, including these, check out our Spells page.
Utility of Assassination Rogue in The War Within
Interrupts, Stuns and Stops
Kick is your, well, "kick". You will interrupt your targeted enemy, or, when using a Focus-Macro, the target you set up as your focus.
- /stopcasting
- /stopcasting
- /cast [@focus,exists,nodead] [] Kick
This macro will kick your focus target if you have one and your target if you have no focus target. We recommend keeping both the macro and a regular kick cast on your bars, as you may have multiple targets to interrupt, and the macro always prioritizes the focus target.
To quickly set a focus target in hectic scenarios, we also recommend a Focus Mouseover macro or setting the "Focus Target" hotkey in the game's keybinding settings.
- /focus [@mouseover]
Make sure that your UI shows your Focus Target's casts clearly so that you are always able to kick it on cooldown or in coordination with the rest of your group.
Stunning and "Stops"
Sap and Blind can be useful to hard-crowd control multiple mobs in a single trash pack. You can also use it right before the tank is pulling, as Blackjack applies a damage reduction debuff to the target when Sap breaks.
Vanish can be used to Garrote enemies, silencing them thanks to Iron Wire. This is also a DPS increase due to Improved Garrote, so clever planning of your CDs will be rewarded with higher DPS. If you are unsure about your usage of Vanish, err on the side of caution and use it for the silence first and foremost, not for DPS.
With Airborne Irritant talented, Blind turns into a powerful AoE disrupt that also drastically reduces tank damage taken.
Gouge (if talented) can be used to disrupt enemies from casting otherwise uninterruptible spells. This requires you to stand in front of the enemy but can be used in many situations to keep enemies from using some of their most lethal abilities. Many of these abilities go on cooldown once used, so disrupting them with Gouge, Kidney Shot, or Blind will keep these mobs from re-casting these abilities for a while.
Vanish can also be used to Cheap Shot an enemy that can only be stopped, not interrupted, but this is an absolute last resort play.
Other Utility
Shroud of Concealment projects AoE Stealth around you. It is important to note, however, that in the current expansion, there is a much greater number of enemies who can detect through Stealth or Invisibility, whom you will need to be on the lookout for.
Distract helps set up Shroud-skips and keeps patrolling trash packs in place for 10 seconds. Make sure to force enemies to look away from you to allow you to stealth past them.
Feint, Cloak of Shadows, Evasion, Crimson Vial and Cheat Death form a very powerful set of defensive cooldowns and are one of the biggest reasons for Rogue's strength in Mythic+.
Tricks of the Trade is not exceptionally great normally. However, any kind of support that helps your tank keep aggro on all enemies is encouraged. Sadly it is a choice-node with Blackjack.
Shiv can be used to dispel Enrage effects. Keep in mind that this means you will not be able to use Shiv for DPS.
Numbing Poison and Atrophic Poison are both useful in Mythic+, but with the heavier emphasis on trash mobs, Numbing Poison is likely to win out on Fortified, with Atrophic gaining more value on Tyrannical weeks. Communicate with your tank and healer which ones are preferable.
Affix Tips, Tricks and Management for Assassination Rogue in The War Within Season 1
This section has Rogue-specific tips for dealing with the various affixes of Mythic+. If you want general guides for each of our Dungeons or Mythic+ in general, check out our dedicated page below.
Season 1 of The War Within only has four significant Affixes that offer any kind of counterplay, called Xal'ataths Bargains, and they rotate every week, with only one of them being active at a time. Many of the other affixes, like Fortified or Tyrannical simply add a passive effect to the keystone, with four exceptions that are seasonally themed after Xal'atah:
- Xal'atath's Bargain: Ascendant: Three waves of orbs will spawn that need to be interrupted or disrupted. Blind works great here as an AoE interrupt thanks to Airborne Irritant.
- Xal'atath's Bargain: Voidbound: A Void Emissary add will spawn that needs to be focus-targeted and interrupted. If you know this is happening, make sure to hold some resources to switch to it.
- Xal'atath's Bargain: Oblivion: Orbs will spawn away from your current enemies, and slowly travel towards them. You can soak these with Sprint.
- Xal'atath's Bargain: Devour: All party members will be affected by a healing absorb. You can remove this with Cloak of Shadows or racials like Stone Form. Use Crimson Vial if these are unavailable to you, to help get rid of the debuff faster. Healthpots or Healthstones also work well if your healer is out of resources.
Each of the affixes provides a different set of beneficial effects once it is dealt with, and while they are very powerful, they are not something you play around in a specific way. The most important part is to not let any of them buff the enemy trash or bosses.
Changelog
- 21 Oct. 2024: Updated Talent builds for Patch 11.0.5.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Updated for the start of Season 1 of The War Within.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Page has been reviewed and updated for Dragonflight Season 4.
- 21 Mar. 2024: Page has been reviewed for Patch 10.2.6, no changes were necessary.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Page has been reviewed and updated for Patch 10.2.5.
- 08 Nov. 2023: Added disclaimer about talent build not being highest DPS option.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Page updated for the Patch 10.2 Rogue rework.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Page was reviewed for Patch 10.1.7 and no changes were necessary.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Page was reviewed for Patch 10.1.5 and no changes were necessary as Assassination received no changes for the Patch.
- 06 Jun. 2023: Updated for Exsanguinate bug.
- 01 May 2023: Updated tips and tricks for Patch 10.1 Affix changes.
- 26 Mar. 2023: Replaced Flying Daggers with Improved Poisons.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 05 Mar. 2023: Updated Stat prio and Raging Affix description.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Updated for Dragonflight Patch 10.0.5 changes.
- 04 Jan. 2023: Updated talents and sample opener.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
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This guide has been written and reviewed by Seliathan, who has been playing Rogue since the first day of Classic. He currently raids in Familiar with Drama, and is one of the foremost Mythic+ Rogue players. You can often find him streaming on Twitch, or follow him on his personal Discord server.
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