Rogue: How to Spec and Play Assassination

***Now Updated for 3.1***

Assassination is strong single target build Rogue build for PvE DPS. Just like combat, Slice and Dice, and Rupture are important to an Assassination Rogue, but even more so are Poisons, Mulitate and Envenom.  In addition to these key abilities, there are damage increasing self buffs like Cold Blood and Hunger for Blood.  Today, I’ll dissect the Assassination tree and how to play it.  

If you want to follow along, here’s the spec we’ll be discussing:  51/13/7

And now, on with the show:

-  How To: Assassination Spec  -

We’re going to build a 51/13/7 Assassination Spec today.  It requires that you use two daggers, and poisons at all times.  There’s really no utility in this build, as it is designed for 100% pure single target DPS.

Assassination (51 points)

Tier 1

Malice (5/5)  - Increases your Critical Strike chance by 5% (1 per point).   This is a very powerful talent to be in a first tier, and that’s why this isn’t skipped by any Rogue, regardless of Spec.

Tier 2

Ruthlessness (3/3) – Gives your melee finishing moves a 60% chance to add a combat point to your target.  Assassination rogues rely on fast generation of combo points rather than pure energy regen like combat.

Blood Spatter (2/2) – Increases the damage caused by your Garrote and Rupture abilities by 30%.  Part of our rotation is to keep up Rupture as much as possible, so boosting its damage is a must.

Puncturing Wounds (3/3) – Increases the critical strike chance of your backstab ability by 30% and the critical strike chance of your Mutilate ability by 15%.  We’re taking this solely for the Mutilate crit.

Tier 3

Lethality (5/5) – Increases the critical strike damage bonus of all combo moves by 30%.  This won’t improve our white DPS, but 30% on specials is too huge to ignore.

Tier 4

Vile Poisons (3/3) – Increases the damage dealt by your poisons and Envenom ability by 20% and gives your poisons an additional 30% chance to resist dispel effects.  As an Assassination Rogue, we’re always going to have poisons on both weapons (really, all rogues should), and Envenom is our main finishing move, as it will refresh Slice and Dice with a talent we’re taking later.  Buffing the damage of both is a must.

Improved Poisons (5/5) – Increases the chance to apply Instant and Deadly Poison to your targets by 10%.  We’re going to be using both of these poisons at all times.  Poisoned targets take more damage from Mutilate, the poisons themselves, and it’s necessary to use Envenom.

Tier 5

Cold Blood (1/1) – When activated, increases the critical strike chance of your next offensive ability by 100%.  A guaranteed crit.  Take it and use it as often as possible.  I tend to save mine for 5 combo point envenoms, which can crit for 10k+.

Tier 6

 Seal Fate (5/5) – Your critical strikes from abilities that add combo points have a 100% chance to add an additional combo point(20% chance per point).  Between talents, buffs and abilities, Mutilate is going to crit a fair number of times, so we’re taking this for much faster combo point generation.

Murder (2/2) – Increases all damage caused against Humanoid, Giant, Beast, and Dragonkin targets by 4% (2% per point).  Unfortunately this doesn’t increase damage against undead, but we still see these types of mobs a lot in Wrath, so you’ll still get that 4% increase a fair amount of the time.

Tier 7

 Overkill (1/1) – Abilities used while stealthed and for 6 seconds after cost 10 less energy.  As Combat, it makes sense to run around outside of stealth to start rotations, as opening with sinister strike is often the most efficient way to start combat.  However, with this talent, it makes sense to open with an Ambush for 2 combo points.  With the reduced energy costs for 6 seconds, it also makes it easier to start your rotation.

Tier 8

Focused Attacks (3/3) – Your Melee critical strikes have a 100% chance to give you 2 Energy.  You crit with your white hits more often than you think.  This provides a much needed infusion of extra energy.

Find Weakness (3/3) – Offensive ability damage increased by 6%(2% per point).  This ability is a flat 6% increase on all damage abilities you use, so you should definitely take it.

Tier 9

Mutilate (1/1) – Instantly attacks with both weapons for and additional 181 with each weapon.  Damage is increased by 20% against poisoned targets.  Awards 2 combo points.  You can’t be an true Assassination Rogue without taking this talent, as the tree is really built around it now.  True it is expensive at 60 energy, but it does massive damage and awards 2 combo points (3 if it crits). 

Master Poisoner (3/3) – Increases the critical hit chance of all attacks made against any target you have poisoned by 3%, reduces the duration of all poison effects applied to you by 50% and increases the bonus chance to apply Deadly Poison when Envenom is used by 45%.  The raid wide critical buff is nice, but a ret paladin will also provide the same buff.  The poison duration reduction is also nice but we’re taking this for the increased chance to apply deadly poison. Having this talent will pretty much guarantee that you have 5 stacks up almost all the time.  If you do roll with a Ret Paladin and want to take Turn the tables on the other side of this tier, that’s cool too.

Tier 10

Cut to the Chase (5/5) – Your Eviscerate and envenom abilities have a 100% chance to refresh your Slice and Dice to its 5 combo point maximum.  This was one of the best improvements that Assassination got in Wrath.  If you Envenom with 1 combo point, it not only does the Envenom damage, but you’ve just hit a 5 combo point Slice and Dice as well.  The only caveat is that Slice and Dice must already be up first.

Tier 11

Hunger for Blood (1/1) – Enrages you, increasing all damage caused by 15%. Requires a bleed effect to be active on the target.  Lasts 1 minute.  We’ll be using Garrote and Rupture so there’s your bleed effect.  This buff should be kept up at all times.

 Combat (13)

Dual Wield Specialization (5/5) – Increases the damage done by your offhand weapon by 50%.  This is a buff to offhand damage, but we’re taking it mainly to get deeper into the tree; plus, it’s a prereq for Close Quarters Combat.

Precision (5/5) – Increases your chance to hit with weapon and poison attacks by 5%.  The hit penalty for dual wielding is simply too high for any rogue build to skip this talent.

Close Quarters Combat  (3/5) – Increases your chance to get a critical strike with Daggers and Fist Weapons by 3%.  We could have taken all 5 points, but we w0uld have had to take 2 less points in the Subtlety tree and that would have come from opportunity which is too good not to take.

Subtlety (7)

Relentless Strikes (5/5) – Your finishing moves have a 20% per combo point to restore 25 Energy.  Free energy every time you use a 5 point finisher and 80% of the time you use a 4 point finisher.  It’s hard to skip this in any build.

Opportunity (2/2) - Increases the damage dealt with your Backstab, Mutilate, Garrote and Ambush abilities by 20%.  This is a solid increase to our opener, Ambush, and our combo point generator, Mutilate.

-  How to: Play the Assassination Spec  -

The Assassination requires that you prioritize your abilities, so here are some basic rules in order of importance:

1. Poison both of your daggers – Instant on the main hand, and Deadly on the off hand.
2. Get Hunger for Blood and Slice and Dice up as soon as possible and do not let them drop.
3. Keep Rupture up as much as possible.

Rotation Startup:

• Always begin from stealth, and open with an Garrote
• Activate Hunger for Blood
• Activate Slice and Dice
• Mutilate once and then Envenom (remember this gives us a full 5 point refresh on Slice and Dice)

Main Rotation:

Note:  Hunger for Blood should be refreshed any time that it goes under 10 seconds.

• Mutilate twice to get 4 or 5 combo points
• Envenom
• Mutilate twice to get 4 or 5 combo points
• Rupture
• Repeat

Don’t be afraid to use a lower combo point Envenom if it keeps Slice and Dice up. It’s better to do that and start your rotation over, than to have to manually re-apply SnD.  Also, if you’re rotation goes fast enough that you have 4 or 5 combo points after using envenom and rupture is still up for 4+ seconds, by all means use another envenom.

Glyph Choices

Using 3 of these 4 glyphs will help increase your DPS:

 

• Hunger for Blood
• Slice and Dice
• Mutilate
• Rupture

If you can get your rotation fast enough to drop use all but the Slice and Dice glyph, that would be the best combo.

I hope that you have found this guide informative and useful for a basic understanding of how to spec and play Assassination.  If you’re looking for more detailed information on Assassination, you could check out elitistjerks.com, which has very detailed information, or check out bighitbox.com. 

 - Sam

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• Mutilate for PvE, Part I: Assassination