Outlaw Rogue DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — 12.1

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Outlaw Rogue has to balance the choice between higher DPS and ease-of-play when choosing their Hero Talents and talent builds. It is also a spec with no major cooldowns that let you surge ahead on the damage meters, instead providing high sustained DPS with few ups and downs.

Both Hero talent trees support this niche and deepen its strength even further. The spec has been streamlined to the point where both hero trees play almost the exact same class and spec talents, and the rotation is almost exactly the same as well, with only small differences to the CP threshold at which Fatebound casts Dispatch. This means that the difference now solely comes down to numerical tuning, and Trickster has the upper hand as of now.

• Single Target - Trickster is the better choice here, especially on encounters where you occasionally get good value out of your Blade Flurry cleave. For pure single-target encounters, Fatebound is only slightly behind Trickster, but the moment adds spawn into the fight, Trickster gains a bit of a bigger edge. That being said, Fatebound is close enough behind that you can play it for thematic purposes, if you don't mind losing a few percent of DPS (~5%).
• AoE - For AoE and Mythic+, Trickster has a bigger advantage thanks to the additional AoE damage scaling of Nimble Flurry. This lets it pull ahead a bit in large-scale AoE packs or sustained cleave scenarios, which applies to quite a few bosses this raid-tier, as well as all Mythic+ or Delve Content.

With this information in hand, Trickster is the recommended build for virtually all content. As mentioned previously, Fatebound is a viable option if you end up disliking the thematic idea or gameplay flow of Trickster, but rotationally the two specs play almost identical at this point, so there is no longer a major difference in execution difficulty.

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The builds listed above are popular recommendations, covering various different loadouts suited to each style of endgame content. Each Talent Build will have it's own rotation, and can also be manipulated further for specific types of content and to better benefit your group.

Combat Information

Rotations and Mythic+

Want to dive deeper? These guides will teach you how to utilize our Talent Builds in endgame content!

RotationMythic+

The Omnium Folio is a new system introduced in Midnight's Patch 12.0.7, and offers some minor performance-enhancing customization options after a multi-week quest series. Some of these bonuses affect your damage output, while others are more defensive in nature.

We recommend you pick the following bonuses, but as you can freely switch between them at any time, feel free to experiment with other options yourself if you feel you do not get enough mileage out of the recommended options:

• Node 1: Rune of Unleashed Fire
• Node 2: Rune of Self-Mending
• Node 3: Rune of Lingering
• Node 4: Rune of the Versatile Warrior
• Node 5: Rune of Overload

The new main feature for Midnight are Apex Talents, with Outlaw's Gravedigger focusing on additional free-of-charge Between the Eyes casts, as well as more damage bonuses for all your damage from BtE. Up to 4 points can be spent here. Currently, these are arranged in a 1 ➜ 2 ➜ 1 point investment.

1. Gravedigger: Grants each of your Between the Eyes casts a chance to apply an additional stack of its buff.
2. Gravedigger: 2-point talent tax node that essentially just adds more damage whenever you cast Dispatch.
3. Gravedigger: Causes you to slowly build up to a free Between the Eyes cast that does not incur a cooldown or cost any resources.

These Apex talents help smooth out the lows of the rotation by granting a consistent way to get a free BtE every once in a while, while also granting some more bonus damage. While not the most inspired or impactful of Apex Talents, this does help out with the weakness of the spec in some ways.

Outlaw gets to pick between two distinct Hero Talent choices: Fatebound and Trickster.

Fatebound sports a higher consistency in its procs. This alone makes it a very solid choice for a spec that already boasts incredible high sustained DPS, and due to it being a little easier to play, many Outlaw players consider Fatebound as their first choice when starting out.

It does less damage than Trickster though, and is therefore not recommended once you try your hands at harder content, higher-level Mythic+ keys, or cutting-edge progression.

Historically, Trickster needed to outperform Fatebound on raw numbers by a bit to be worth recommending, due to the additional rotational fluidity that Fatebound provides, while Trickster has more buttons to press and more rotational priorities to keep track off.

Trickster does have another upside, which is that it scales very well into AoE thanks to Nimble Flurry. Its capstone also provides additional damage and automatically spends Combo Points by casting Dispatch as if it had consumed 5 additional Combo Points.

This adds a lot of extra cooldown reduction, which can help smooth out the rotation a bit, while adding an extra layer of complexity and skill expression to the rotation, which is rewarded with a much higher DPS performance.

In any major capitol, there will be the option to go into "War Mode." Enabling War Mode provides the following benefits:

• PvP talents enabled in the outdoor world.
• 10% increase in World Quest rewards at maximum level.
• 10% more experience gained while leveling.
• Earn Conquest Points, which can reward gear every week.

With the benefits of enabling War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it is recommended enabling the feature to maximize your leveling and rewards at maximum level. However, you will make yourself available for open-world PvP, and the possibility of being "ganked" while leveling or doing World Quests exists.

In this section, we will rank the PvP talents best for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content. Below is a ranking of both General PvP Talents and Outlaw Rogue-specific PvE talents.

1. Death from Above is the only proper damaging talent here, boosting the damage of Dispatch a little, at the cost of an extended animation. It does look really cool though!
2. Boarding Party makes Between the Eyes increase the movement speed of all friendly players within 10 yards by 30% for 5 seconds. Movement speed is always nice while leveling, so this is highly recommended. Maneuverability can work if you don't ever party up with others, but is only worth if you feel like you're getting to your next target fast enough already.
3. Drink Up Me Hearties adds a bit of extra healing to Crimson Vial.

Seliathan

Guide Author

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This guide has been written and reviewed by Seliathan, who has been playing Rogue for over two decades since the very first day of Vanilla WoW. After decades of raiding within the Top 100 and numerous Rank 1 Mythic+ runs in previous expansions, he has now set his sights on sharing his experience through guides and other content.

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