In patch 9.0.5, Assassination has quite a refreshing return. While it is hard to say if the spec is going to become insanely good, all of a sudden 9.0.5 definitely brought in quite a few changes for it that could put it on the map in the PVE context. There’s a lot to cover in 9.0.5 for Assassination, there’s been a lot of changes thus an updated Assassination Rogue guide is worth it. Changes are seen in legendaries, viability of the spec, smoothness of the rotation and looks like you might be able to drop the Outlaw Rogue if you guys are tired of RNG.
What’s new with Assassination? 0:53
Slice and Dice rank 2 is gone which means you will no longer have that smooth energy region but it has been replaced by applying more energy regeneration for your passive venomous wounds. This means that your energy regeneration will still feel somewhat smooth minus the clunkiness of maintaining slice and dice because invenable now refreshed slice and dice duration which is the buff the Assassination Rogues had in previous expansions. It works out so well into this one, no more management of slice and dice for the most part minus a few key situations. Overall this means a much smoother play style something similar to Battle for Azeroth assassination for the later time if you playes that spec back then.
Outside of Assassination, the Venthyr covenant got buffed quite a bit in terms of its damage and the play style overall ends up being very synergetic for Assassination where it is looking like a lot of Rogues go Venthyr if they are expecting to play Assassination in the future. The Night Fae covenant isn’t looking too bad either. And the Necrolord covenant is also not super far behind which might actually be one of the stronger covenants in pure AOE mythic plus situations. While Kyrian isn’t the worst covenant, it is one of the lower simmon ones for the spec. However we are talking about Rogues and not quite Mages who have to play Night Fae. Rogues can basically play any covenant you want to without too much drawback from it.
S T A T S 2:24
Stats in Shadowlands are a little bit more complex. In this expansion you kind of have to sim your character in order to get yourself best in slot pieces. However, this would be a rough priority for you to look out for when it comes to gearing a rogue. Agility is your best stat so whatever piece of gear you get from dungeons or raids if it’s a higher item level than what you are currently wearing, there is a good chance that it is going to be an upgrade for you no matter what. Afterwards, critical strike and haste are pretty close to one another with haste being slightly ahead on single target and crit being slightly ahead in pure AOE. Because crit means more common point regeneration for your fan of knives.
Mastery and versatility are not terrible and they are actually pretty equal to each other with mastery being slightly ahead of versatility in AOE. I recommend you use simulationcraft add on to sim your character to find out the best pieces in your bags. However if you are someone who does not want to go through sims left and right, you could use whatever gear has the highest item level in your bags, trinket, weapons- take everything that gives you the most amount of agility.
T A L E N T S 3:48
In pure single target, it looks like some of the better talents are going to be for at least Blindside. However you can go for elaborate planning in mythic plus situations. Next is Subterfuge which ends up being kind of the best of both worlds talent allowing erodes quite a bit of damage and only getting stronger the more enemies are around. At level 30, I prefer Vigor because technically you can’t play deeper strat, you can’t play mark for death and mythic pluses but Vigor ends up being a good all-rounder for every situation. At level 35, it is hard to give up Cheat Death for it ends up being the best safety net a row can have in PVE situations when things go haywire. In level 40, up to you, but there are some potential in mythic pluses for you to actually have choices between iron wire, internal bleeding or prey on the weak. In level 45, Alacrity ends up being kind of the go-to choice for everything. Maybe in the future, in potential builds, the others like exsanguinate could be more like an exciting option. At level 50 it seems like Poison Bomb is a pretty decent one for general use but better for raids where crimson tempest definitely gets quite a lot of its value in pure AOE.
S O U L B I N D S 5:04
I am playing as a Venthyr Rogue so I am going to talk about them mostly from the Venthyr perspective. Also Venthyr does seem like a best sim for Assassination too. The best soulbinds for you depending on on your covenant are going to be to simply sim yourself. You will have to use the raidbots website and find what fits you best. Whatever covenant you end up playing and you shoot simmon in order to figure out your best souldbinds for a single target as well as your best soulbinds for AOE. Let’s talk about what we can choose with our soulbinds, the conduits. Lashing scars if you are Venthyr is extremely strong right now. And if you play in Venthyr, you should always have lashing scars as one of your potencies at all times. Well-placed steel is a great overall potency conduit that works great in single target or in AOE since Assassination has such a high snergyy with pure single target. With your vendetta, there’s always an opportunity for you to shift the enemy and do a bunch of damage to them whether it is a single target or AOE.
Lethal poison ends up being a really good second potency kind of width for a single target and also really exceptionally good if you are going to be doing a few target cleave. However poisoned katar definitely takes over if you’re going for the big AOE situations.
If you are playing Venthyr, the best soulbind is nadjia. It is the best choice because of how you constructed her. You have haste buff which is a great start with nadjia. You have extra single target damage with dualist and you could put the other potency conduit for AOE in case you want to switch to something like mythic pluses.
L E G E N D A R I E S 6:43
There’s quite a lot of buffs through legendaries with Assassination. I predict there is going to be a shift in the meta and the meta is going to evolve for the spec. It is mostly speculation in terms of what will be best in slot. I’ve done my own sims on my Rogue that’s fairly decently started and I’ve come up with some of the better single target as well as AOE, mythic plus, legendaries that you should consider running in the future. I would say the best overall single target legendary is doomblade. This one just seems to synergize really well into the playstyle of Assassination since we get to cast in venoms a lot more often with the changes in 9.0.1. This ends up doing quite well in single target and even quite good in cleaves. Really taking advantage of the strong single target damage Assassination seems to put out. If you are going to be doing mythic pluses, I’ve done some sims and for me it shows that zoldyck legendary as well as mark of the master assassin assuming the best. Zoldyck is really good for pure AOE situations especially when you are going to play crimson tempest. As you are rotting enemies down they’ll take quite a bit of damage from the bleeds. Zoldyck ends up doing pretty well in single targets so it ends up doing pretty good for mythic pluses where boss damage as well as add damage is a concern. Mark of the master assassin seems to have the same versatility as it sims really well for the spec of Assassination. And assassins play super well into crit with a 100% crit that’s a lot of common points you will be generating.
From my sims it looks like the vanish from the vendetta combo from mark of the master assassin is quite deadly but also offers you that flexibility of being able to utilize that crit in order to spread common points very easily on enemies as well. Mark of the master assassin might actually be the go-to in the future sims as it ends up being probably the best of both worlds in terms of the balance between the potential single target damage you can do as well as AOE. Of course do some sims for your character and figure out which legend you craft. Doomblade, zoldyck and mark of the master assassin would be some of the first ones I would focus on at the very beginning.
For the rotation, I think we should first start with the burst opener since Assassination is going to have those burst beefy openers. And from openers we can figure out what the playstyle is going to be like afterwards. From stealth, you want to go with a garrote to mutilate, slice and dice, into mutilate and rupture- you get your bleep set up and your sliciness which are the buffs and debuffs you want to maintain. From there you want to spam mutilates or use your covenant abilities to generate common points until you have four to five common points. This is where you would use flagellation if you are Venthyr. Drop a vendetta on the enemy into shiv, into a big venom then mutilate spam until you have almost full column points and then back to your venom. From there you can go for a vanish into a regrowth subterfuge. The road should have fallen off by then and from there we go into our rotation.
In single target you will be utilizing mutilates or ambushes if you get them from blindside procs and then trying to build common points to about four or five. The whole time you want to maintain rupture, garrote as well as in venoms and then venoms will help maintain slice and dice so you should not worry about it too much. And during your vendetta windows you’ll want to make sure to maximize as many in venoms. So prior to vendetta, you should make sure all your bleeds are running. Every time you have a shiv, you kind of want to use as many venoms during that window as you can. So pulling some common points to make sure you have shiv into and venom, mutilate spam and into venom, as many in venoms as you can fit in there the better. That is going to be the basic style of single target and the priority you will want to watch out for for Assassination Rogues.
In AOE it is a little different because you will have multiple targets to deal with. In the opener what I would like to usually do is go for a triple garrote if you can. From there I usually follow up with a crimson tempest to get my bleeds up and running. Fan of knives to build common points and this is the ability you will be using instead of mutilates and then start putting ruptures on enemies. You also want to find a window where you want to put up slice and dice as well unless you are hitting 5 or 8 targets, that’s the only time slice and dice kind of falls off. You also want to make sure to use vendetta, it is a big cooldown and while it does not really help you with AOE damage to to do damage to everybody, the energy regen as well as the damage you put up to that singular enemy is usually the biggest target in a dungeon group will actually be significant. You want to make sure to shiv that singular target and if you have a lot of damage going you’ll actually want to switch to mutilate spams into venoms while you have a big burst while your dots are rotting all the other enemies down. However for the most part, you will be pressing fan of knives in order to build common points. Maintain rupture on at least three targets and make sure to use that in venom in order to maintain your slice and dice from time to time. If you do have a bunch of bleeds and enemies and you have vendetta rolling, shiv the biggest target in the group and actually proceed to mutilate spam into venoms unless you hit 5 or 8 targets where fan of knives will actually generate you probably more common points.
For your consumables, I have a whole list of different consumables you will want to run for your Rogue. This is a list of all the things that is recommended in a variety of different guides. One of the best secondary stats is going to be haste so you will definitely need to put that on your rings. Agility on your boots because it is a really good stat. I generally run sinful revelation and celestial on my weapons. However if you are someone who does only mythic pluses you could run at least one lightless force as it does end up doing quite a bit of AOE damage.
I also would go for agility food but if you can’t find any agility food or if it is too expensive, go with haze food on the auction house.
Finally for your weapons, I go for at least one sharpening stone for one of your daggers. And for the other dagger I would go with weapon oils. If you are going to be using any consumables inside of mythic pluses or raids, weapon oil as well as sharpening stone is a decent balanced combination that works for both single target as well as AOE situations
