Season of Discovery Assassination Rogue DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities

As an Assassination Rogue in Season of Discovery there have been some major changes made to greatly improve your damage output and also lessen the downtime traditional to Rogue DPS. Assassination operates off of a list of priorities as opposed to a DPS rotation but we have updated this list below to reflect what your rotation should look like now including abilities added in Season of Discovery via the Rune stone Engraving system.

While it is not required Engineering is a great tool to have as a Rogue not only because of the many toys and gizmos associated with it but bombs such as Solid Dynamite can are essentially free damage and while Rogue now has tools to deal AoE damage it is still rather limited. Bombs are typically best used on the pull as soon as your tank has established aggro so you can get multiple uses in an encounter, however if you know a fight will have multiple targets always try to keep the cooldown ready for when there are multiple targets to hit.

Assassination Rogue will use Mutilate primarily to generate combo points so you will need to be using two Daggers. The Speed of your main-hand Dagger is largely irrelevant though slower Daggers typically have higher top-end damage and scale better with Mutilate.

This rotation assumes that you are using the Assassination build highlighted in our talent guide. This rotation is extremely simple and focuses primarily on using Mutilate as much as possible to generate combo points to apply your Slice and Dice buff and Rupture debuff to activate Carnage while still trying to use Envenom as often as possible to spend any excess combo points.

1. Ensure you have Instant Poison applied to both of your weapons before combat, if you are assigned to or your group is lacking a source of it apply Sebacious Poison to your main-hand to apply the Expose Armor effect.
2. Begin Combat in Stealth to maximize Master of Subtlety uptime.
3. If starting in stealth, apply Garrote.
4. If an ability needs to be interrupted, prioritize interrupting it with Kick.
5. When the target has 5 stacks of Deadly Poison/ Occult Poison I cast Poisoned Knife.
6. Cast Mutilate to generate combo points.
7. After the Master of Subtlety buff has faded, cast Vanish to refresh it.
8. Cast Slice and Dice once you have achieved 5 combo points.
9. Apply and maintain Rupture to the target to benefit from the Carnage buff.
10. If you find yourself with extra combo points after maintaining Slice and Dice and Rupture cast Envenom to spend them.

With the addition of the Back Rune slot Rogue has three new abilities to deal consistent AoE damage but we typically recommend Blunderbuss. In a situation where you are fighting 3 or more mobs for an extended period of time consider swapping your belt slot over to Shuriken Toss.

Cold Blood should be used on cool down and ideally is paired with an Envenom.

Blade Flurry should be used on cool down for the attack speed benefit, though it is worth holding onto for a couple of seconds if an add is going to spawn and you are not facing enough enemies to warrant switching over to casting Fan of Knives.

Sprint increases your movement speed by 50% for 15 seconds, this has great uses both in and outside of combat and can be used to both travel the world more effectively or close the gap in some type of combat scenario.

Evasion is an incredibly useful tool that greatly increases your dodge chance and will allow you to avoid massive amounts of incoming physical damage.

Vanish will instantly send you back into stealth clearing any rooting or slowing effects in the process. This is an incredible tool for both resetting your threat but also enabling you to use another stealth only ability such as Ambush. Vanish will also allow you to take advantage of Master of Subtlety so in a situation where you are not concerned with threat consider using this ability to further maximize your damage by refreshing this buff.

Shadowstep teleports you behind your current target and increases your movement speed by 70% for 3 seconds. This is a great way to close the gap when an enemy is running or move to a target quickly to interrupt an ability you otherwise may not have been able to reach in time.

Kick interrupts spell casting and should be utilized as often as possible to lessen incoming damage both when playing solo to maximize your up time or in a group to lessen the burden on your healer.

Gouge is a brief incapacitating ability that stops spell casting and renders the target unable to act for a few seconds, make sure to take advantage of this to either stop incoming damage, interrupt a spell cast or use it to create distance between you and an enemy in an emergency situation.

Redirect will allow you to move your combo points from your previous target to your current target, this only works on unspent combo points and if you generate a combo point on your new target before redirecting then you will be unable to move your previous ones to the new target.

Kidney Shot is a stun that will consume your combo points, its duration depending on how many combo points you spent. This is a great way to interrupt spell casting in a situation where Kick or Gouge is not available or just to crowd control and otherwise dangerous enemy.

Cheap Shot is a stun that can only be used exiting stealth, your target will be stunned for 4 seconds and you will be awarded two combo points to the target.

Combo Points are a resource that Rogues generate by using 'generating' abilities, in the highlighted build above the majority of your combo points will be generated by Mutilate. These points can be spent on various different finishing moves but at this point in time your main focus should be on maintaining as much up time as possible on Slice and Dice and should you find yourself with excess they should be spent on Envenom. Keeping Slice and Dice active is a much greater priority than an extra cast of Envenom so keep this in mind when considering which ability to use next.