Assassination Rogue Battleground Blitz Guide — The War Within (11.0.5)

In Battleground Blitz, Assassination Rogues are mobile melee DPS with access to Stealth that are able to perform well both in team fights due to their high AoE damage and CC, and in attacking enemy bases due to Stealth, their good dueling kit and their CC tools allowing either to kill the defenders or simply capture an objective while controlling the defender(s).

Assassination Rogues can deal very high damage in team fights, but are not very durable. Therefore you always want to wait in Stealth a few seconds for the rest of your team to engage (and Sap an enemy if possible) so that you are not the first focus of the enemy team. Once you join the fight spread your bleeds and poisons to everyone to pressure the enemy team, then make sure healers have a hard time healing by controlling them with stuns and silences. Keep an eye out for an enemy wthout a trinket to kill him in a Smoke Bomb.

Assassination Rogues are great at killing enemy flag carriers and are, generally, not very good flag carriers themselves. However, thanks to the mobility Rogues have access to as well as their powerful defensives they are able to sometimes carry flags if the situation requires it. It can be for a quick cap when few to no enemies will be able to intercept, or in an emergency situation to prevent the enemy team from scoring and bring the flag to a more suitable carrier. Once your mobility spells and defensives are on cooldown you will quickly die if the enemy team keeps attacking you while you have the flag so be sure not to carry it aside from these specific situations and instead go for the enemy flag carrier.

At the start of a Capture the Flag map, you should either:

1. Identify who the likely enemy flag carrier is and move to slow/crowd control/kill them to delay their push to your base for as long as possible
2. Join the team fight, cleave down everyone with your high AoE damage and disrupt healers with your CC to make sure the enemy team dies.

Assassination Rogues are great at fulfilling both of these roles.

On both Warsong Gulch and Twin Peaks, if you are defending your own flag carrier, you should encourage them to keep running away from the attackers once they come at him. With your CC and slows you can make it very difficult for the enemy team to connect to your flag carrier and while they try to connect they will slowly but surely die to your DoTs.

If you are attempting to recover your flag from the enemy flag carrier you should always try to CC a few enemies to isolate the enemy flag carrier before engaging. A Sap on the defending healer before engaging the fight can make the difference. Once that is done you want to attack the carrier and not give him any second to breathe until your team gets the flag back. Your damage will be difficult to heal on a flag carrier, and if they attempt to kite you or your team and end up away from their healer they might simply die to your DoTs.

When nobody is available to take the enemy flag, and it is nearby, you should take advantage of your mobility and defensive cooldowns to bring the enemy flag back to your team as soon as you can and, if possible, pass it to a more durable specialisation when it is safe to do so.

Before a Resource Race battleground starts, you should decide with your team which base you should focus on first.

Whenever you are defending a base you have an advantage over most attackers because you are in Stealth. That allows you to CC them with Sap and call for help if you need it, or, if only one enemy is attacking, to have the initiative of the fight, stun them, and kill them. Stealth is the best tool to delay the enemy, and you should abuse it as much as possible. If you are not confident in being able to defeat the attackers use Sap to delay them, tag them with Poisoned Knife from afar when you can no longer Sap them, stun them if necessary, and Vanish to start over once they can be sapped once more. That should give your team enough time to come to your aid provided you called for it.

Smiliarly you have the advantage of Stealth when you attack enemy bases. As an Assassination Rogue you can choose to accompany your team to team fight on a base you want to capture, in which case you will simply play it as a standard team fight until your team is able to kill the enemy force and capture the base. You can also attack bases alone or with another stealthed ally. In that case the enemy defender will not see you come and will not be able to call for help before you reveal yourself. Always try to cap while controlling the defenders with Sap, Blind, Cheap Shot, and Kidney Shot. If the enemy defender is alone this should be easy, but if there are several it will depend on how they use their trinkets, and you will surely have to fight to claim the base.

Assassination Rogues can be good at defending/attacking bases or fighting for the flag at the center of the map. During the game, you can choose whichever your team needs most. Ideally you will join the fight in the middle as it is what the specialization is the best at, but if nobody on your team is going to take and defend a base when the Battleground starts, you should focus on that instead.

When none of your team are attempting to pick up the flag at mid and you are able to, you should pick it up yourself and carry it back to a friendly base.

If none of the teams if winning the fight in the middle, or if your team is losing it consistently then you should look to break off and push enemy bases. You should always be aware of what is happening at friendly bases, though, and be ready to support your team at those when needed in case an enemy has the same idea.

First and foremost, never pick an orb on Temple of Kotmogu unless you literally lose within the next seconds if you don't. Rogues in general are terrible orb carriers, and on top of that carrying an orb prevents you from stealthing to attack enemy orb carriers, or from defending your own orb carriers with CC spells that require Stealth. It is very tempting, and smart, to play the objectives in battlegrounds, but in this specific case this is not your role, and you will hurt your team more than help it by trying to carry orbs.

Once the team fight is won, you should move towards where the enemy team is respawning. Your goal is to be between them and your team so that you can use your CC arsenal to delay the enemy and allow your team to kite with orbs in order to gain more victory points.

If the team fight is lost and the enemy team has control of the orbs the enemy team should behave similarly, with some of them standing in between your team and their orb carriers. The fact that you are in Stealth allows you to circle around unseen, and quickly dispatch the orb carriers so that your team can once again assume control of the orbs and work towards victory.

Below is the recommended build. It features all the high cleave damage talents that make you a threat in team fights, as well as all the usual Rogue trickery to CC enemies and attack/defend bases. Note that with this build you will play Deadly Poison for more damage and rely on either a Honor Talent or your team for a healing reduction effect.

Note that on flag maps if you feel like the enemy carrier will be exceptionally durable (with a tank specialization, for instance) and that your team will not need you very much in team fights, or that people will be spread around all game with no real teamfight happening, then you can remove the point from Indiscriminate Carnage and put it into Kingsbane instead, for extra single target damage. If you want both talents then you need to remove the point from Serrated Bone Spikes to put it into Kingsbane, at the cost of a bit of overall damage should you spend a lot of time in team fights.

Your default talents will be:

1. Smoke Bomb (mandatory)
2. Veil of Midnight
3. Hemotoxin

Smoke Bomb is simply amazing. It can be used to kill an enemy, or to capture an objective by denying the defenders line of sight to prevent the capture.

Veil of Midnight enhances your Cloak of Shadows should you need to carry a flag, or break away from a fight with bleeds on you.

Hemotoxin, combined with Arterial Precision, allows you to reduce the healing received by multiple enemies at once in a team fight, which might allow your team to kill them.

If your team already has an AoE healing reduction effect in team fights (such as the one from Demon Hunters) then you can pick Dismantle to have extra CC.

• /cancelaura Alliance Flag
• /cancelaura Horde Flag
• /cancelaura Netherstorm Flag
• /y FLAG DROPPED

This Macro will drop a flag if you are carrying one on a capture-the-flag map.