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Assassination Rogue Guide

March 10th, 2011 | Author:

A nice dagger/sword? – Just a few gold off the Auction House.

A back to stick it in? Well, there are plently of mobs and players around.

The right weapon and skills in the right place at the right time? Priceless

  • 1.0 – Introduction
  • 2.0 – Assassination Talents
    • Raiding Mutilate Build
    • Leveling Mutilate Build
  • 3.0 – PvP
  • 4.0 – Numbers, Stats, and Buffs
    • 4.1 Hit and crit
    • 4.2 Gems
    • 4.3 Enchants
  • 5.0 – PvE Gear
  • 6.0 – 1-80 Rogue Leveling Guide

1.0 – The Assassination Rogue

Assassination is a high burst damage. as well as somewhat high sustained DPS build, capable of matching the combat rogue for damage output, just with a little bit more effort due to a more varied selection of attacks. The one downside, if you’re not a dagger fan, is that this build requires daggers.

Also called a Mutilate build this spec builds combo points very quickly and, just out of stealth, will also regenerate Energy very quickly, making it a nice burst spec. Frequently after the opener and one strike you will have 5 combo points availalbe. Mobs go down very quickly and if you target is a player, well, he might just go down very quickly as well.

Patchy Stuff

As of the 3.09 patch Mutilate builds became very nice for raiding, PVP, and leveling. The 3.1 patch doesn’t change this tree significantly, except to allow even faster Energy regen from stealth (Overkill.)

Mutilate takes the importance of poisons to an enhanced level as well as altering the standard rogue rotation away from the staple of sinister strike spam to a more unique combination of finishing strikes and overall style.

3.3 Patch Notes

Nothing to see here, move along. Well Ok, that’s not quite right. Actually, for raiding, ElitistJerks.com says that Mutilate is good enough right now that we might expect a future nerf.

  • Murder is now a straight up damage add.
  • Improved Poisons: Bonus chance to trigger Deadly Poison from this talent increased.

The new Dungeon Finder system might make it easier to find groups.

3.2 patch notes: Here’s the 3.2 patch stuff that’s interesting for Rogues.

  • Agility - All classes will need 15% more agility per point of Dodge.
  • Dodge rating – All classes will need more rating per point of Dodge.
  • For PvPers – The amount of resilience needed to decrease crit damage and chance will increase.
  • Blood Elf Rogues – Arcane Torrent will apply a 3 second interrupt to non-player controlled targets.
  • Axes! – Orcs will be able to use Axes, which is perfect for Orc Rogues.
  • Sword Specialization – will be called Hack and Slash and applies to axes.
  • Mining- provides more Stamina
  • Skinning- provides more crit rating
  • Glyph of Tricks of the Trade: Will increase the duration of the damage bonus effect instead of increasing the damage bonus.

Also see our Rogue class guide for a Rogue overview and our Rogue Leveling Guide for more leveling tips and builds.

This guide is simply intended to provide a general overview of the Assassination/Mutilate Rogue. For a far more in-depth and highly detailed resource on Rogues, including builds, PvP, leveling, raids, etc., grab a copy of the Killer Guides’ Rogue guide.



2.0 – Assassination Raid Talent Build

The Assassination build is also referred to as a Mutilate build since Mutilate becomes the bread and butter strike for this build. Once you aquire Mutilate you will be using daggers, but there are some pretty nice daggers in-game at the moment so it’s good.

It’s a nice leveling (in case youre not yet level capped) and grinding build, you’ll find that mobs go down very quickly. It also works well enough for PvP since it’s damage heavy, but you’re giving up stealth & survival points.

51/18/2 Mutilate raiding build (Patch 3.3 raid build, PvP build is below)

Assassination

  1. 5/5 Malice
  2. 3/3 Ruthlessness
  3. 3/3 Puncturing Wounds
  4. 5/5 Lethality
  5. 3/3 Vile Poisons
  6. 5/5 Improved Poisons
  7. 2/2 Fleet Footed
  8. Cold Blood
  9. 5/5 Seal Fate
  10. 2/2 Murder
  11. Overkill
  12. 3/3 Focused Attacks
  13. 3/3 Fnd Weakness
  14. 3/3 Master Poisoner
  15. Mutilate
  16. 5/5 Cut to the Chase
  17. Hunger for Blood

Combat

  1. 5/5 Dual Weild
  2. 5/5 Precision
  3. 5/5 Close Quarters Cbt
  4. 3/3 Lightning Reflexes

Subtlety

  1. 2/5 Relentless Strikes

This is a general raiding build. Specific conditions and your exact gear may change the talent choices that you make, but that’s getting into Advanced Raiding 201 and is beyond the scope of this guide. The 3.3 patch change to murder now makes that talent useful for all situations, previously it was useless Vs undead.

Consider buying into the Dual Spec ability (from your trainer) and running two builds, one for group A and one for group B. This makes build experimentation a bit easier. Or take one build for raiding and the other for PvP.

  • Cut to the Chase – You should only have to hit Slice and Dice once for the entire fight, since this ability allows your Eviscerate/envenom crits to refresh the SnD duration to full. S and D should be up for 100% of the fight.
  • Hunger for Blood (HfB) – With the HfB glyph this talent adds 18% to all of your damage, which is pretty sweet. Open with Garrote, keep Rupture up at all times, and hit HfB every minute. Your DPS numbers will be much nicer. This assumes someone in your group is proviuding bleed effects. If not, you’ll have to keep your Ruptures up.
  • Mutilate – Your “bread and butter” strike.
  • Envenom – your finishing strike.
  • Murder – as mentioned above it’s great for all fights.
  • Fleet Footed is in the build for the run speed, which is always nice. Feel free to swap it out if something else seems better to you.
  • Poisons: Main Hand: Instant, Off Hand: Deadly

Glyphs – Hunger for Blood, Mutilate, Tricks of the Trade. None of the minor glyphs are particularly useful for raiding, but Safe Fall and Vanish have a certain utility. .

Attack Rotation/Priority

Note: the 3.3 raid build prefers Envenom over Eviscerate

  1. Open with Garrote, if possible.
  2. Slice and Dice
  3. Hunger for Blood
  4. Mutilate
  5. Eviscerate or Envenom (to refresh SnD)
  6. Multilate to 4+ CP
  7. Eviscerate or Envenom (Rupture if you’re providing the bleeds)
  8. Mutlilate to 4+ CP
  9. Eviscerate/Envonom
  10. go to 6
  11. Refresh Hunger for Blood every minute.
  12. Shiv where appropriate
  • Keep Slice and Dice up at all times
  • Keep Rupture (or someone’s bleed effect) up at all times
  • Keep HfB up at all times
  • Keep 5 stacks of Deadly Poison up at all times
  • Shiv adds another dose of Deadly Poison, so if you need to maintain your 5 stacks of DP and your procs aren’t doing it, then Shiv.
  • Use Tricks of the Trade where applicable.
  • Use Vanish whenever possible for Overkill buff.

Tricks of the Trade Macro

  • Use this for your Tof T button. Fill in the name of the party member who will be the focus of your T of T. Fire it off, he gets the benefit, and you don’t have to fuss with target picking or focus changing. This macro will not deselect your current target:

    #showtooltip Tricks of the Trade
    /cast [target=YourPartyMemberHere] Tricks of the Trade

For the newish raider, check out this free “get ready to raid” guide. It’s a pdf so go ahead and save yourself a copy. For the hardcore raider, check out the ElitistJerks’ Mutilate DPS spreadsheet

Also, look into the Rogue Focus Classic addon to keep track of Energy and Combo Points.

2.1 – Assassination Leveling Build 44/17/10 Leveling Assassination Build

Use Sinister Strike as your main attack until you get to Mutilate. This build isn’t weapon specific until you get to Mutilate. After that you will be using daggers.

This build does a lot more damage if your blades are poisoned. So do the poison quest (now optional) and put Instant Poison on both blades while leveling. Update – The poison quest is no longer required to use poisons. Just buy and apply, but it’s interesting and gives you access to a chest that will greatly help your lockpicking skill.

If you’re not on a pvp server and you’re not otherwise PvPing, then feel free to drop Master of Deception for something more interesting. Of course, the same is true for any talent.

Combat talents are in red, subtlety are in blue.

  1. 5/5 Dual wield Specialization
  2. 5/5 Precision (help cancel the duel weild hit penalty)
  3. 3/3 Improved Eviscerate
  4. 5/5 Malice- More crits
  5. 5/5 Relentless Strikes – Keeps your energy up like a good energy drink.
  6. 3/3 Master of Deception – More for PvP, so if you’re ganking or getting ganked then take this. Also if you’re having trouble sneaking up on stuff. Otherwise you can skip it.
  7. 2/2 Opportunity (more damage from your opener)
  8. 3/3 Ruthlessness – faster Combo Point build up.
  9. Vigor – higher Energy cap.
  10. 5/5 Lethality – More damage from Sinister Strike, Mutilate, etc.
  11. 3/3 Puncturing Wounds – Filler for now, unless you Backstab a lot, nice when you get Mutilate
  12. Cold Blood – Put this in a macro with your favorite attack to get more crits.
  13. 2/2 Quick Recovery – Better energy management, nice when you have a healer.
  14. 3/3 Improved Kidney Shot – More damage from all sources, that’s you and your group, while mob is stunned. KS is a nice PvP talent, as well, since it is an interrupt. “Hey! I’d like to stop your spell casting for three seconds while I kill you…”
  15. 2/2 Fleet Footed – faster movement is nice, also nice in PvP.
  16. 5/5 Seal Fate – more combo points.
  17. 2/2 Murder – more damage against most of the stuff that you will ever fight.
  18. Overkill – Faster energy regen while ganking players… er… killing mobs. Also a pre-requisite for Mutilate
  19. 2/2 Deadly Brew – Adds Crippling Poison to your normal poison application. Nice for mobs that run and nice for PvP.
  20. 2/3 Find Weakness – more damage
  21. Mutilate – Now you switch to daggers, if you haven’t already.
  22. 5/5 Close Quarters Combat – More crits with daggers.
  23. 3/3 Master Poisoner – More crits.
  24. 2 points left over. So consider…
    1. 2 in Improved Spice and Dice – faster attack speeds. (used in this build)
    2. 2 in Dirty Tricks, esp. if you Blind and Sap a lot.
    3. 2 in Remoreseless Attacks – Great if you can line them up and kill them off.
    4. Whatever you need 2 points in.

Notes:

  • Cut to the Chase and Hunger for Blood are skipped here as they are both more useful for the long fight that you’ll see in raids.

Attack Rotation:

  1. Open with…
    • Backstab until lev 14
    • Garrote from 14+ (Get Glyph of Garrote) for the bleed effect.
    • Cheap Shot (at lev 26) is nice because it adds 2 combo points, stuns, and you don’t have to attack from behind.
    • Ambush (at level 18) if it fits your style.
  2. Slice and Dice to boost attack speed
  3. Sinister strike (until you get Mutilate) to builds CPs.
  4. Eviscerate (at least until you get Envenom at 62)
  5. If it isn’t dead then go back to #3.

Glyphs:

  • Glyph of Sinister Strike until you get Mutilate, than take that one.
  • Glyph of Garrote - More damage in less time.
  • Glyph of Eviscerate – More Evisc damage.
  • Option #1: If you’re doing plenty of instances, and fighting those elites, then Glyph of Rupture is nice.
  • Option #2: Glyph of Vigor – adds 10 to your Energy cap.
  • Minor Glyphs: Pickpocket for the additional range, Vanish for the escape speed, Safe Fall for when you just have to try that cliff jumping sport.

Macros:

  • Pickpocket Macro – This pickpockets the mobs first, then attacks. If the mob has no pockets it still launches the attack. If you use a different opener then replace Garrote with your opener.

    #showtooltip Garrote
    /cast Pick Pocket
    /cast Garrote

  • Cold Blooded Eviscerate:
     Casts Cold Blood and guarantees an Eviscerate crit.

  • #showtooltip Eviscerate
    /cast Cold Blood
    /cast Eviscerate

  • Gouge, then Bandage
    Gouges your opponent then starts bandaging you. It will work even if you have no opponenet. Change the bandage name to the one you’re using.

    /cast Gouge
    /stopcasting
    /use [target=player] Heavy Netherweave Bandage

3.0 – Assassination PvP Build 41/5/25 Mutilate Arena Build

This is a very popular Assassination/Mutilate Arena Build, but it also works quite well for BGs and leveling. It’s Ok in instances, but gives up too much DPS to a full Mutilate build to be interesting for raids.

Certain choices are always open to argument. Use this build as a starting point and tweak it to suit your style. Depending on what your Arena partner is you might want to switch a few points around. For example, Improved Kidney Shot will improve your, and your partner’s, DPS by 9% while the “poor target” is stunned.

Assassination

  1. 3 in Improved Eviscerate
  2. 5 in Malice
  3. 3 in Puncturing Wounds
  4. 1 in Vigor
  5. 5 in Lethality
  6. 3 in Vile Poisons
  7. 2 in Fleet Footed
  8. Cold Blood
  9. 2 in Quick Recovery
  10. 5 in Seal Fate
  11. 2 in Murder
  12. 2 in Deadly Brew
  13. Overkill
  14. 3 in Deadened Nerves
  15. 2 in Find Weakness
  16. Mutilate

Combat

  1. 5 in Dual Weild Spec

Subtlety

  1. 5 in Relentless Strikes
  2. 3 in Master of Deception
  3. 2 in Opportunity
  4. 2 in Dirty Tricks
  5. 3 in Camouflage
  6. 2 in Elusiveness
  7. 3 in Initiative
  8. 2 in Heightened Senses
  9. Preparation
  10. 2 in Dirty Deeds

This build stacks up combo points very quickly and has a lot of energy regen as you come out of strealth, so it’s a very good burst build.

As metioned above, push points around to fit your particular situation. If you really need a ton of dirty details on assassinating other players then treat yourself to a full-blown PvP guide.

4.0 – Number Crunching

NOTE: The below section is nearly identical for all three specializations of rogue, this is due to the usage of almost entirely the same stats for any rogue no matter the attack rotation and/or talent build.

Haste Rating

82



4.1 – Hit Rating, Crit, etc.

Defacto Priority:

Agility – Hit Rating – Attack Power – Critical Rating

What to shoot for when entering Karazhan & Heroics:

Hit Rating: 90+
Attack Power: 1100+
Critical Rating: 23%

Since dual-wielding imposes a hit penalty consider adding more hit rating when you can.

What to shoot for when heading into 25-Raids:

Hit Rating: 200
Attack Power: 1450
Critical Rating: 25%

4.2 – Gems

Skip the green level gems, the blues are listed below and they’re cheap enough (you do have a few gold to your name, right?) The Epics can get a bit pricey, though.

4.3 Enchantments

Head:

Shoulder:

Cloak:

Chest:

Wrists:

Gloves:

Waist:

Legs:

Boots:

Ring:

Weapons:

  • Berserking – Enchanting or Auction House Scroll
  • Mongoose – Enchanting or Auction House Scroll
  • Accuracy – Enchanting or Auction House Scroll

5.0 – PvE Gear Guide

Note: As this is a PvE gear guide I’ll only list the PvP rewards capable of being obtained via Honor, arena rewards are however viable alternatives to many pieces of gear.

Many pieces of gear will also be equally useful to both assasination, combat and subtlety – the primary differences being in weaponry as oppposed to the armor which possesses stats all rogues will utilize.

A level 80 gear list will appear here at some point.

Head:

Neck:

Shoulders:

Back:

Chest:

Wrist:

Hands:

Belt:

Legs:

Boots:

Rings:

Trinkets:

Main-Hand:

Off-Hand:

Ranged:

1-80 Rogue Leveling Guide

Now that you have your build set up you’re ready for yoiur blast to level 80 so yoiu can get into that juicy end game content. Maybe even into Uldar or the higher ranking arenas. All you have to do first is complete thousands of quests and kill a bazillion mobs or all sorts. Just in case you don’t already have the entire 1-80 leveling path memorized might we suggest a full blown Rogue leveling guide?.

Zygor’s Guide is an in-game guide that shows in your main game window. What it does is show you where to go and what to do for you entire leveling path, whether you’re going from 79 to 80 or 1 to 80. Quests and tasks are automatically updated as you complete them and not only will you never again wonder where you have to go you will not have to look up any of there “what do I need to do here…” stuff, it’s all in the guide. .

You will probably never need to look at your quest log again, much less browse Thottbot. You can get the full details on Zygor’s Guide, and grab your own copy, here or read our review.

Posted in Warcraft

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