Rogue Hero Talents — The War Within (11.1.0)

This page is specifically about Hero Talents in The War Within. If you want to learn more about the best regular talents for Subtlety Rogue, check out our Talents page:

Trickster is entirely built around the idea of triggering a new proc called Unseen Blade. This deals significant damage whenever it occurs and initially has a 20-second internal cooldown. However, several talents within the Tree allow for extra procs and reducing the cooldown under specific circumstances. The proc also applies a debuff that increases all damage you deal to the target and even negates their ability to parry your (and your allies!) attacks. Another perk of Trickster is it has natural cleave built into the hero tree through Nimble Flurry which is something that Subtlety has been historically awful at.

TLDR: It's the best burst option, and we love burst damage.

Deathstalker adds a variety of Plague damage, which is counted as both shadow and nature damage, to your toolkit by enhancing several of your abilities and having some minor rotational impact. Its key mechanic is the application of Deathstalker's Mark and the maintenance of the Mark through Darkest Night, which will greatly boost your Energy regeneration and direct damage. You generally want to consume the Darkest Night buff immediately.

TLDR It can be considered the "more sustained damage option".

Currently, Trickster is the recommended Hero Talent Tree for Subtlety in most situations due to the burst nature of the tree synergizing really well with the burst heavy tier set bonus introduced in 11.1.

Deathstalker provides some decent sustained damage in Multi-Target scenarios but relies more on Rupture spreading and letting the damage over time effect do its thing. Overall its a fine option to play Deathstalker in Aoe and M+ scenarios if you want to, but we would still recommend Trickster.

2.

Best Hero Talent Builds for Subtlety Rogue

Trickster Standard Build Deathstalker Standard Build

3.

Best Trickster Build for Subtlety Rogue

The Trickster talents are pretty much set in stone and does not change between Single-Target and M+. Thousand Cuts provides additional Shadow Techniques through the increase attack speed ontop of more Unseen Blade procs than Flickerstrike. Cloud Cover is practically useless while No Scruples is 10% more crit on your main damaging abilities. So Tricky provides you with a 60 minute tricks of the trade, which is very nice as you dont need to cast it inbetween every pack in M+.

The choice node you could swap is Smoke and Mirrors, however most of the time you will not be in danger if you press Feint anyway, so the passive damage reduction from Smoke ends up being more beneficial overall.

3.

Best Deathstalker Build for Subtlety Rogue

The Trickster talents are pretty much set in stone and does not change between Single-Target and M+. While there are a few DPS choice nodes in the Deathstalker Tree, the chosen ones in the Tree below are numerically superior to the alternatives by a fair bit.

There might be some unique situations where Ethereal Cloak or Shroud of Night can make a difference, but unless you can leverage the extended duration for some tangible benefit, the currently selected options are more useful.

For more general information on your rotation and how the hero talents impact it, make sure to check out our rotation guide: