Subtlety Rogue

Abilities

Energy and Combo Points

The foundation of the rogue class is based on spending energy to use “generators”; generators will build combo points which are later spent on “Finishers”. There are various abilities that interact with energy and combo points that either generate extra or refund these resources. One of the harder things to master about Subtlety, the rogue class in general, and even other classes is pooling resources. Focusing on Subtlety, there are times when you are about to Vanish or Shadowmeld where you will want to wait, and not use any abilities, so that when you use these “stealth activating” abilities you can use more “stealth activated” abilities.

Passive Abilities

Sinister Calling
This is what makes the spec tick, advancing the progress of Rupture increases the frequency at which you have to cast rupture over Eviscerate, as well as requiring you to maintain the uptimes of rupture and Hemorrhage.

Find Weakness
Activated off of Garrote and Ambush (this is baked into the tooltip of these two abilities if you are trying to find it in your spellbook), maintaining uptime on this is very important; between your stealthed opener, Shadow Dance, Vanish, Prep, and Shadowmeld you can start the fight with a solid minute of debuff uptime.

Sanguinary Vein
Another important ability that incentivizes the maintaining of the Rupture debuff. This also dictates that your opening spell is Garrote

Relentless Strikes
Most of the time you will be spending 5 combo points on your finishers (Rupture, Eviscerate, and Slice and Dice). This allows you to break even on Rupture and Slice and Dice, and gives you a net loss of 10 with Eviscerate.

Honor Among Thieves
In a full 20 man mythic raid, this boils down to giving you a combo point every 2 seconds.

Enhanced Stealth
This is another damage bonus and incentive for using stealth, although this will be passively gained while you aim to keep the uptime of Find Weakness.

Empowered Fan of Knives
Although Sub’s AoE isn’t much compared to Combat, this allows you to quickly build combo points and use your finishers. Simply put, 5 mobs = 5 combo points and if you have Anticipation, when you hit 10 mobs, you will gain 5 combo points and 5 anticipation stacks (which are pretty much combo points).

Empowered Shadow Dance
Extension of your primary cooldown’s duration.

Enhanced Vanish
Another benefit that is simply “more of a good thing”.

Subterfuge
Just emphasizing the importance of this talent, this just piles on to the value train that is Vanish.

Generators

Garrote
Gets the ball rolling, activating both Find Weakness and Sanguinary Vein. You only use this once per fight in the opener but it is very important.

Backstab
Your most spammable ability that interacts with Sinister Calling , you use this to build combo points unless Hemorrhage is about to expire or you are in front of the boss. Generates 1 combo point.

Hemorrhage
A weaker attack than Backstab that puts up a DoT, use this ability to maintain this bleed or if you are in front of the boss. If you are using the Glyph of Hemorrhaging Vein it will activate Sanguinary Vein. Generates 1 combo point.

Ambush
This is the ability you will use when you Vanish, Shadow Dance, or Shadowmeld; it activates Find Weakness, does a lot of damage, and generates 2 combo points.

Premeditation
An ability that generates 2 combo points and is off the global cooldown; you use this ability on your opener and whenever you can during stealth activation during an encounter. It is important to note that this will NOT give you stacks of Anticipation, if you use it while already at 5 combo points you will lose value; use with 3 or less combo points. I would also recommend tracking this cooldown off to the side with a Weak Aura so you can decide whether or not to delay a vanish or shadowmeld.

Shiv
Shiv will only see use if you need to dispel an enrage effect, and if you REALLY need to slow something (which you probably won’t).

Finishers

Rupture
This ability is paramount as your highest damage as well as keeping up Sanguinary Vein. This ability follows the 1/3rd rule for DoT effects; if you re-apply Rupture with 1/3rd of it’s normal duration remaining, it will simply add that on top of the new DoT. A 5 combo point rupture lasts 24 seconds, so if you renew it under 8 seconds, it will add 24 seconds. However, even though the new DoT will begin at 32 seconds max, the 1/3rd rule only applies to the original 24 seconds.

Slice and Dice
Attack Speed and Energy Regen, maintain this at all times; you want to aim to refresh this outside of a Shadow Dance or Find Weakness window,  but aim for 100% uptime.

Eviscerate
This is your generic spender, allowing you to keep the balance of not capping your energy while also not capping out on combo points. Aim to use on a target who has both Find Weakness and Sanguinary Vein for max. damage and value.

Crimson Tempest
Your AoE finisher but, if you are considering using crimson tempest on a fight then, you should probably just be playing combat spec.

Kidney Shot
A stun that can be used at your discretion or the necessity of the fight.

Recuperate
Can be used to convert combo points into self healing; should be used at your discretion or the necessity of the fight.

Deadly Throw
Only available via talent, only use with 5 combo points on a target you are trying to interrupt from range / if the boss is about to die and you aren’t in melee range. Pretty much, only use this ability if you absolutely need to.

Cooldowns

Shadow Dance
Allows the use of stealth abilities, reduces the cost of Ambush, and interacts with both your 2pc and 4pc of the tier. Your 2pc restores 60 energy, and your 4 pc gives you a 5 combo point on your next finisher following shadow dance’s expiration. Your goal with shadow dance is to ambush as much as possible; your finisher priorities won’t change but, like I said before, try to avoid needing to refresh Slice and Dice During this time. Because of the one minute cooldown, this lines up perfectly with Beating Heart of the Mountain and Shadow Reflection.

Shadow Reflection
A very “interesting” ability to wrap your head around; on the simplest level, you can just macro this into Shadow Dance and not lose very much value, although I would recommend binding it to another key just in case you want to place it on a 2nd target. This ability mimics your abilities so you want to use it when you are going to be doing high damage, especially try to time with finishers. This ability works in some strange ways, it will apply separate applications of Rupture from your own, so you can have 2 ruptures on a target; similarly it will apply a separate Garrote but, neither or those are important to focus on despite being fun to think about.

Vanish
This ability is a key component of keeping up Find Weakness, between Glyph of Vanish and Subterfuge the ability will act as a miniature version of Shadow Dance. You’ll want to pool energy before going into a Vanish.

Preparation
You want to use this in the first opening in your rotation following a  Vanish. for instance, if you are waiting for energy to build up then use prep.

Shadowmeld
This is the Night-elf racial and can be used to get a quick Premeditation and Ambush, you will need to stand still and use at 60 energy. This will allow you to increase your uptime on Find Weakness.

Utility

Feint
Absolutely the best defensive in the game, in conjunction with Elusiveness, you can be a key player in completing a boss encounter. Rogues and feint are best known for soaking certain mechanics but, feint can be used to simply reduce damage and help your healers; for instance, I try to feint every single Blast on the blast furnace encounter in blackrock foundry, absorbing the brunt of the damage and reducing residual damage from other sources.

Sprint
A movement speed increase that can be reset with preparation.

Smoke Bomb
Reduces the damage of players standing inside by 10%, this can be extended by Glyph of Smoke Bomb and should be used to reduce high AoE damage.

Blind
Can be used to stop a minion from casting momentarily.

Gouge
Can be used to stop a mob from casting momentarily.

Evasion
Makes you immune to physical / auto-attack abilities, can be used to avoid a one shot from gaining aggro or during a boss enrage.

Cloak of Shadows
Dispels current harmful magic effects and makes you immune to future magical damage; can be used to soak a mechanic or reduce damage.

Tricks of the Trade
Helps a tank gain aggro while helping you avoid pulling aggro

Single Target Rotation

With the use of Subterfuge, Anticipation, Shadow Reflection

Weapons should use Deadly Poison, and Crippling Poison

Priority Explanation

Subtlety is all about maintaining Slice and Dice and Rupture while aiming to have the highest up-time possible on Find Weakness; on a less important note, you want to try and keep Hemorrhage up on the target but, if the target has Find Weakness it is better to Backstab than maintain the DoT. Once Find Weakness falls, your goal is to re-apply it in the best way possible; Shadow Dance is better than Vanish and Vanish is better than Shadowmeld. It’s important to note that Preparation resets the cooldown on Vanish but should only be used if Vanish has more than a minute left on its cooldown. For the first 80 seconds of the fight, you should be able to keep a  solid up-time on Find Weakness; between your first Shadow Dance, 2 Vanish (including prep), Shadowmeld (if you are a Night Elf), and your second Shadow Dance. For AoE I would highly recommend keeping your secondary spec as Combat; if you think you will be AoEing for more than a short period of time, you should probably take that as a sign to swap specs. However, if you are dealing with 4 or more targets you want to keep up Slice and Dice while using Fan of Knives to generate combo points and Crimson Tempest to spend combo points

Opener

-10:00 (when pull timer is at 10 seconds) Premeditation + Tricks of the Trade

-1:00 (when pull timer is at 1 second) Draenic Agility Potion

1) Garrote

2) Ambush

3) Slice and Dice

4) Shadow Dance + Shadow Reflection + Beating Heart of the Mountain

5) Ambush

6) Rupture

7) Ambush

8) Ambush

9) Eviscerate

10) Premeditation + Ambush

Priority List

1) Keep Slice and Dice up (you can refresh anytime the buff is below 12 seconds)

2) Keep Rupture on the target (you can re-apply anytime below 8 seconds)

3) Shadow Dance

4) Vanish if Find Weakness is not up (pool at least 60 energy before using)

5) Shadowmeld if Find Weakness is not up (pool at least 60 energy before using)

6) Premeditation

7) Ambush

8) Eviscerate if combo points are 5+ and you won’t cap on energy by using

9) Backstab if Find Weakness is up

10) Keep Hemorrhage DoT applied (you can re-apply anytime below 8 seconds) if Find Weakness is down.

11) Backstab

Talents Cheat Sheet

Level 15: Subterfuge

Level 30: Deadly Throw or Nerve Strike

Level 45: Elusiveness

Level 60: Shadowstep

Level 75: Dirty Tricks

Level 90: Anticipation

Level 100: Shadow Reflection

Talents Advanced

Level 15: Nightstalker, Subterfuge, Shadow Focus

Nightstalker
Since movement in stealth is mostly irrelevant, this is basically just  a 50% damage bonus to your initial hit out of stealth. You won’t see much value from this talent on any sort of encounter.

Subterfuge
Your go to talent for Subtlety: this talent interacts with Vanish and Glyph of Vanish, giving you a large window to use Ambush. Without this talent, you would only be able to get one ambush per stealth.

Shadow Focus
The reduction in cost that this talent provides is replaced by waiting and pooling energy before using Vanish. This talent is more of a quality of life benefit than a damage benefit; being able to hit vanish at any energy level is nice, but you won’t see as much damage out of this talent.

Level 30: Deadly Throw, Nerve Strike, Combat Readiness

Deadly Throw
A ranged finishing move that slows the target and has the potential to interrupt when used at 5 combo points. You won’t be using this ability for damage unless you absolutely have to; it is difficult to imagine a scenario where you won’t be able to Shadowstep, or just simply walk, back to the boss to spend your combo points on an Eviscerate or Rupture. This talent would be interesting if the interrupt was activated regardless of combo points spent. If that were the case, I would definitely love the extra Kick; especially when the extra interrupt has a 30 yard range.

Nerve Strike
This is a solid choice on a fight where you are going to be stunning mobs; usually when an encounter has add spawns, the tank can become overwhelmed if left unchecked, taking this talent adds an extra level of insurance towards tank-death prevention.

Combat Readiness
This is a pvp ability because you need to be getting melee hit in order to begin stacking this and, if you are getting auto attacked in a pve encounter you are either dead or have popped evasion. However, if you were in a battleground being attacked by (say a warrior) you benefit from this talent nicely.

Level 45: Cheat Death, Leeching Poison, Elusiveness

Cheat Death
This talent is the “lazy” choice…you won’t benefit from this as much as Elusiveness as long as you are pressing Feint. That being said, this can be used for damage that can one shot you even through feint; for example: stampers on hans and franz, or trains on thogar, will one shot you regardless of if you are feinting. In scenarios like these, you can elect to reduce the effectiveness of your feints to prevent a potential death. Also, it is important to note that I rotate Cheat Death in a lot more frequently when I am doing CMs

Leeching Poison
This is an excellent choice for leveling and is extremely useful for soloing old raid instances that include the scaling damage feature, unfortunately that is the only type of raid instance you will see this in. The healing from this, including the Shiv bonus, is going to be less valuable than Elusiveness and is reactive rather than pro-active. I really enjoy the idea of shiv providing a bonus effect depending on the non-lethal poison you choose; but, Leeching Poison and Crippling Poison are the only two non-lethal poisons and, with a 10 second cooldown on Shiv, you won’t get the value you want out of this talent. If the CD on shiv was removed, it would be an interesting argument between reactive and proactive; Elusiveness is going to prevent damage and Shiv + Leeching Poison is the reactive side. However, I think Elusiveness would be better regardless.

Elusiveness
If you don’t use it, you will lose it: Feint will take you far and the more places you find to use it during a boss encounter, the less damage you will take. Feint has no cooldown and having an on demand 30% damage reduction is like having a Defensive Stance that also reduces AoE damage by 50%. Playing a rogue is synonymous with “soak” mechanics; and, if you are going to do a job, you should give yourself the best tool for the job.

Level 60: Cloak and Dagger, Shadowstep, Burst of Speed

Cloak and Dagger
I can’t imagine this being used over Shadowstep and I think not working with Shadow Dance is the ole proverbial nail in the coffin as far as this talent is concerned. For arguments sake, let’s say this worked with Shadow Dance; you would have a Killing Spree like movement effect if you were spamming Ambush but, that can be a dangerous situation. The lack of flexibility and impact takes this talent off the table.

Shadowstep
This is the most powerful and my recommendation for this tier; being able to target an ally gives you the flexibility to use this to both close a gap, or dodge a dangerous mechanic. As if a teleport wasn’t enough, you also get a 2 second Sprint attached to the end of this ability; I wouldn’t swap away from this talent unless I was extremely worried about moving quickly and constantly.

Burst of Speed
This is the “quickly and constantly” that I was just talking about. Although it can have 100% uptime, the energy spending can be a burden; also, the instances where you would need a Sprint for an extended period of time are few and far between (hanz and franz is the only fight I take this talent on).

Level 75: Prey on the Weak, Internal Bleeding, Dirty Tricks

Prey on the Weak
This talent is a one-trick pony: you can only really benefit from this if you are stunning a mob that you are also focusing down. Because of this, I would see this being used more in challenge modes than in raids. Outside of PvE, this is almost certainly the talent used for PvP.

Internal Bleeding
I feel like this talent accomplishes the same goal as Prey on the Weak but is probably less damage depending on the situation. If you are stunning a mob that people aren’t focusing, this will be more damage than Prey on the Weak; but, if my goal was to CC a target that wasn’t being focused I would hope that they could be Blinded so I could just use Dirty Tricks.

Dirty Tricks
A talent I actually like a lot; and, although it is quite rare for you to use Gouge or Blind, a reduction of 45 and 15 energy respectively is nothing to look down at. Blind and Gouge are both useful in interrupting / delaying a cast from a non-boss mob. This can come in handy for interrupting things like Repair on the blast furnace encounter and is an all-star talent in challenge modes; being able to stop certain casts in these dungeons can be paramount (solar shower in skyreach, stone bulwark in bloodmaul slagmines, activating a sentry cannon in UBRS, etc.).

Level 90: Shuriken Toss, Marked for Death, Anticipation

Shuriken Toss
I have yet to find a use for this ability in a raid environment. The design of this ability is just completely alien compared to the other two choices in this tier; it is hard to compare a ranged attack to abilities that interact with combo point gaining and spending. I’ve only ever used this to solo elites while leveling and I can’t imagine using it for anything else.

Marked for Death
Besides being a huge quality of life gain for your opener (you can get a 5 point slice and dice running before the pull), the benefit of this is completely dependent on the amount of reset opportunities that you are able to take advantage of during a fight. Operator Thogar is an excellent example of a fight where you can get a lot of value from getting multiple reset. I wouldn’t recommend this talent if you are learning rogue because doing an optimal rotation with multiple resets can be complicated.

Anticipation
Anticipation makes it virtually impossible to waste combo points by going over cap and adds a bit of depth to your rotation by giving you the ability to pool 9 combo points and use 5 point finishers on a target swap. Between Relentless Strikes and Honor Among Thieves, your combo point generation is going to be heightened and taking this talent is going to give you some breathing room as far as getting full value from these abilities is concerned.

Level 100: Venom Rush, Shadow Reflection, Death from Above

Venom Rush
Without blade flurry to spread your poisons, you would have to use Fan of Knives or target swap to get full value out of this talent; that being said, I don’t think you really need the energy regeneration that this talent is going to bring to the table. Your 2pc tier and good uptime on Slice and Dice is going to be more than enough energy.

Shadow Reflection
This talent excels for Subtlety because of the fact that it aligns with Shadow Dance and Beating Heart of the Mountain. While you can get away with macroing this into your Shadow Dance I would recommend putting it on a separate bind to allow yourself the flexibility of placing your reflection on a second target. This is going to be your go to talent for every fight.

Death from Above
This talent just doesn’t do enough damage to justify use; between a 50 energy cost (25 if you count Relentless Strikes) and a long animation, I’ve never been satisfied casting this ability. I think this ability would be interesting if it just replaced Eviscerate (although if that happened it would just be a different ability), like “empowered eviscerate” that just gave eviscerate extra damage and perhaps a 5 combo point bonus effect would really grab my attention.

Glyphs

Major

Glyph of Energy
This is a rogue favorite, every spec can take advantage of the extra room for both opening up, as well as the added insurance against energy capping during lust and similar high-energy situations

Glyph of Vanish
This glyph allows you more access to your stealth abilities; between this and Subterfuge, you will be able to more reliably Ambush for Find Weakness and gain the value of Premeditation.

Glyph of Hemorrhaging Veins
This makes Hemorrhage apply the Sanguinary Vein debuff and is the optimal single target damage glyph. This is going to be your “flex” glyph slot and I would recommend using some of the following glyphs instead (depending on the environment and situation).

Glyph of Feint
Considering my fondness of Elusiveness, this glyph is one of my favorites to use; being able to extend such a powerful defensive is great and by using it on a specific ability, such as Blast on Blast Furnace, you will soak up residual damage as well. Although you could technically “just feint more”, this glyph changes the way your rotation will flow; for instance, on Blackhand phase 1, this glyph allows you to use 2 feints per demolition as opposed to 3 without the glyph.

Minor

These are the only glyphs I could actually see using during a raid encounter. Otherwise I would simply recommend having some fun with Glyph of Disguise and Ai-Li’s Skymirror; also Glyph of Detection is a pretty decent animation to spam while afk in Stormwind.

Glyph of Safe Fall

Glyph of Blurred Speed

Glyph of Poisons

Explanation of other Glyphs

Glyph of Deadly Momentum
It is hard to juggle both Recuperate and Slice and Dice unless you are killing mobs quickly but; this is an excellent glyph for leveling and even if you are just extending a 5 combo point SnD for a minute or two, the bottom line is that this glyph saves you combo points so you can Eviscerate more.

Glyph of Cloak of Shadows
With Elusiveness, you won’t be using this glyph unless there is absolutely no magic damage; and even then you probably won’t choose to use this glyph.

Glyph of Recovery or Glyph of Recuperate
I don’t recuperate often and I can’t imagine wanting to use this unless I was using it in conjunction with Glyph of Deadly Momentum for leveling.

Glyph of Gouge
On a stationary target in PvE, you can simply run in front of the mob if you need to use Gouge. I can see this being used in pvp because of the enemy players movement being a factor but, you won’t see this used in a raid.

Glyph of Ambush
This is a glyph of low value: you aren’t getting value out of it unless you are using Ambush and you only get value if you (for some reason) can’t get closer than 5 yards to the target. I would hope you could just move closer to your target rather than use this glyph.

Glyph of Blind
This is a good glyph for PvP, for instance: if you wanted to CC a healer and go for a kill in arena, but the healer had DoTs on them, Blind would remove them and prevent it from breaking.

Glyph of Cheap Shot
In a raid environment, a Kidney Shot is usually enough in terms of stunning a target; not to mention you more than likely rely on the other players in the raid to stun the mob with an ability like Hammer of Justice or Leg Sweep. That being said, this is valuable with Shadow Dance and can be justified in PvP.

Glyph of Elusiveness, Glyph of Evasion, or Glyph of Energy Flows
These are another decent option for leveling but, outside of using them to solo an elite mob or increase overall mitigation while leveling, you won’t be using these glyphs in a raid environment. Between Preparation and the uncommon use of evasion (I use this when I get aggro on a mob but most threat issues are solved quickly or can be improved with better use of Tricks of the Trade), you won’t need these glyphs to make evasion relevant.

Glyph of Garrote
This is going to be used primarily for pvp in order to extend a cc train on a healer. Although this interacts well with Shadow Reflection and Shadow Dance (your reflection will silence them with its garrote and you can interrupt mobs with garrote in your dance), I would consider this overkill in PVE.

Glyph of Kick
In a pve scenario, interrupt rotations in particular, you are most likely going to have a partner (or partners) whose presence are going to render this glyph obsolete.

Glyph of Shiv
Interesting with non-lethal poison bonuses and enrage dispel, but nothing that would justify using it over another glyph. As I mentioned in the talent portion of this guide, I would like to see Shiv have no cooldown; between the lack of Shiv usage in general and other players in your raid being able to dispel enrage effects as well, this won’t be used.

Glyph of Sprint
I never have had the urge to move faster, so much as more often (Burst of Speed); I can’t see this being needed with Shadowstep.

Glyph of Stealth
This glyph brings no benefit in combat and I have no idea when this rune is intended to be used. It could probably pass as a minor glyph.

Stats

Agility > Multistrike > Mastery > Critical Strike > Haste > Versatility

Sinister Calling makes multistrike shoot to the top of your (secondary stat) priority list; that being said, agility upgrades will be your main priority. Because of this, you are going to want to use the gear with the highest item level that includes: 4 pc tier, beating heart of the mountain, a dagger main hand, and then an offhand (dagger>2.6 weapon). Here is a brief description of what each stat does:

Agility is a primary stat that provides 1 Attack Power (AP) per point. A many of our abilities use a percentage of attack power to the damage they deal.

Mastery: Executioner Increases the damage of your finishing moves, and the effectiveness of your Slice and Dice.

Critical Strike increases the chance to critically hit with abilities.

Haste increases attack speed and energy regeneration rate.

Versatility increases all damage and healing done, and decreases all damage taken.

Multistrike causes abilities to have a chance to hit a second and a third time, each dealing 30% of the initial damage.

Enchants

Lethal poison: Deadly Poison for PvE and Wound Poison for PvP
Non-lethal poison: Crippling Poison (or Leeching Poison if you are using it)

Rings: Enchant Ring- Gift of Multistrike
Cloak: Enchant Cloak – Gift of Multistrike
Neck: Enchant Neck- Gift of Multistrike
Weapon: Mark of the Frostwolf Main hand; Mark of the Bleeding Hollow offhand. I really don’t like how mark of the frostwolf works and because of that I like to change the enchant on my offhand. (you can use double mark of the frostwolf but the potential of having it on 1 weapon is the same as having it on both weapons, however the uptime of 2 stacks will be higher with both weapons enchanted)
Gems: Greater Multistrike Taladite

Consumables

Food: Salty Squid Roll
Potion: Draenic Agility Potion
Flask: Greater Draenic Agility Flask

Gear

AddOns

I won’t be much help if you are looking for some complex macros or “one size, fits all” UI; I think that your UI should be something that you are comfortable with, that being said here are some addons I would suggest:

WeakAuras

Big Wigs

Angry Assignments

Skada

Grid (raid frame)

Shadowed Unit Frames

Dominos (bar addon)

Macros

The only thing I can say is that I put “/startattack” in all of my ability macros, I have tricks of the trade macros for each tank in the raid, trinket macroed into Shadow Dance, and a macro that is:

#showtooltip Premeditation
/cast Premeditation
/cast Ambush

I use this for when I Shadowmeld.