Assassination Rogue DPS Spell List and Glossary — The War Within (11.0.5)

In this section, we will list almost all of the abilities you gain access to either passively or actively. We will also list commonly used abbreviations that you might find in other parts of this guide or when looking for additional information elsewhere on the Internet.

Energy is the main resource of Assassination Rogues. Energy is generated passively, the rate of which can be increased by Haste and talents. Venomous Wounds also provides some bonus Energy, as does Venom Rush. Keeping track of your Energy and pooling for windows of increased burst is extremely important to playing Assassination properly.

Combo Points are another primary resource utilized by Assassination Rogues. Some of your abilities generate Combo Points while finishing moves spend them. Spending more Combo Points on a finishing move increases the damage it deals or the duration of the effect it applies. Critical strikes generate additional Combo Points, if talented into the Seal Fate talent. Combo Point management is very important to maintaining your abilities and maximizing burst.

This page lists all the abilities that are available to you on a max-level character. If you have just started your journey by leveling a new Rogue, you can head over to our leveling section to learn more about when you get access to these abilities on your way to max level.

These are abilities that you acquire automatically early on as you level your Assassination Rogue.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Stealth	-	Turns you invisible until canceled or upon attacking.
Mutilate	Mut/Muti	Your main filler and Combo Point generator. It generates two Combo Points by striking with both weapons.
Ambush	-	A Combo Point generator that can only be used from Stealth. Generates 2 Combo Points.
Garrote	Gar	A Combo Point generator that generates 1 Combo Point and applies a Physical damage over time debuff to your target.
Fan of Knives	FoK	Your only AoE Combo Points Generator. Hits all targets in a radius around you, deals damage to them, and has a chance to proc your Poisons. Generates 1 Combo Point.
Poisoned Knife	PK	Ranged Combo Points generator that generates 1 Combo Point. Always applies your currently active Poisons.
Cheap Shot	CS	A Combo Point generator that can only be used from Stealth and against stunnable targets. Generates 1 Combo Point.
Envenom	-	Finishing move that consumes your Combo Points, deals nature damage, and increases your chance to apply poisons for a duration based on the number of Combo Points used.
Rupture	Rup	Finishing move that applies a damage over time effect to your target that deals Physical damage and lasts longer per Combo Point spent.
Slice and Dice	SnD	Finishing move that spends Combo Points and increases your attack speed by 50%. Lasts longer per Combo Point spent.
Kidney Shot	Kidney/KS	Finishing move that consumes your Combo Points and stuns the target for duration based on how many Combo Points were spent, up to a maximum of 6 seconds. 20-second cooldown.
Sap	-	A crowd control ability that incapacitates an enemy for a long duration. You can run past a sapped enemy without getting into combat. If the enemy takes damage, it breaks free.
Sprint	-	2-minute cooldown that increases your movement speed by 70% for 8 seconds. Usable while Stealthed.
Crimson Vial	CV/Vial	Heals you for 20% of your maximum health over 4 seconds. 30-second cooldown.
Kick	-	Interrupts targets spellcasting and prevents any spells from that school for 5 seconds. 15-second cooldown.
Distract	-	Throws a distraction, forcing enemies hit by it to face towards that direction for 10 seconds. Usable while stealthed.
Shroud of Concealment	Shroud	Provides Stealth for you and your party and raid members for 15 seconds. 6-minute cooldown.
Vanish	-	Vanishes you from sight and enters you into Stealth. Breaks all movement impairing effects and usable while in combat. 2-minute cooldown.
Feint	-	A defensive skill that reduces damage taken from area-of-effect skills.

As part of the Talent Tree re-design in Dragonflight, every class and specialization now has a multitude of possible choices to spend up to 31 Class Talent Points and 30 Specialization Talent Points. We will break down most of them into individual sections based on the Rows in which you can unlock them, while providing some commonly used abbreviations and explanations as to their functionality.

If you are simply looking for a quick guide on which talents to play, you can head over to our dedicated Talent page instead!

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Deathstalker's Mark	-	Core ability for Deathstalker. Applies a debuff that deals extra damage whenever you cast a 5+ CP finisher, and consumes one stack. Starts with 3 stacks.
Darkest Night	-	The Deathstalker capstone. This allows you to retain the Deathstalker's Mark effect throughout the entire fight or between packs in dungeons. Once you consumed the last stack or the target died, you can re-apply the Mark with a maximum Combo Point Envenom.
Hand of Fate	-	Core ability for Fatebound. Flips a coin every time you use a 5+ CP finisher, rolling either Heads or Tails. Consecutive coinflips of the same side stack the buffs you will be granted.
Fateful Ending	-	Fatebound capstone. Flipping the coin and getting the same result 7-times in a row grants a noticeable damage buff for the rest of the fight.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Shiv	-	25-second cooldown ability that removes Enrage effects from your target applies a stronger version of your non-lethal Poison and generates 1CP.
Blind	-	A crowd control ability that makes a mob wander around blindly for a long duration. Running close to a blinded enemy will put you in combat. If the enemy takes damage, it breaks free.
Cloak of Shadows	Cloak	Makes you immune to most magic effects and also removes a variety of different debuffs, including poisons, curses, and diseases. Some effects cannot be immuned, resisted, or removed, however, especially if they are key aspects of a boss encounter
Evasion	-	Increases your chance to dodge enemy attacks by 100%. You are still required to face the enemy hitting you to be able to dodge.
Gouge	-	A crowd control ability that incapacitates an enemy for a short duration. If the enemy takes damage, it breaks free. Requires your target to face you.
Shadowstep	Step	A mobility skill that allows you to teleport a target enemy or ally, and granting a very short movement speed increase when cast.
Tricks of the Trade	Tricks/TotT	Allows you to transfer any threat you generate over the next 6 seconds after hitting an enemy to a target of your choosing. It is best used on the tank.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Airborne Irritant	-	Reduces the cooldown of Blind and turns it into an AoE spell.
Master Poisoner	MP	Improves the effects of your non-lethal Poisons.
Elusiveness	-	Changes your Evasion to reduce all damage you take by 20% and also enhances your Feint to reduce all damage you take by 20%. This is a choice node shared with Cheat Death.
Cheat Death	Cheat/CD	A defensive skill that saves you from death as long as the damage taken does not surpass twice your health pool. Any killing blow will instead bring you to 7% hp, and for 3 seconds, you will take 85% reduced damage.
Blackjack	-	Enemies have 30% reduced damage and healing after Blind or Sap expire. Works great together with Airborne Irritant.
Improved Wound Poison	-	Increases the maximum stacks of your Wound Poison by 2, improving the healing reduction effect.
Nimble Fingers	-	Reduces the Energy cost of Feint and Crimson Vial.
Improved Sprint	-	Reduces the cooldown of Sprint.
Shadowrunner	-	Grants extra movement speed while stealthed, i.e., when using Stealth, Vanish.
Improved Shiv	-	Turns Shiv into a DPS cooldown that increases all Nature damage you deal.
Venomous Wounds	VW	You generate additional Energy every time Rupture or Garrote deal damage to a target you poisoned. It is a core feature of our Energy generation
Path of Blood	-	Increases your maximum Energy.
Cut to the Chase	CttC	Refreshes the duration of your Slice and Dice every time you cast Envenom. Allows you to maintain 100% uptime on SnD without having to manually cast it again.
Improved Poisons	-	Increases the application chance of your poisons.
Bloody Mess	-	Increases the damage of Garrote and Rupture.
Thrown Precision	-	Increases the Crit chance for Fan of Knives and critical strikes with the ability always apply your poisons.
Seal Fate	-	Causes your Combo Point generators to have a 100% chance of generating an additional Combo Point on Critical Strike. Abilities like Mutilate or Fan of Knives that hit multiple times can generate multiple additional Combo Points.
Caustic Spatter	-	Using Mutilate on a target allows you to spread all your Poison damage damage onto up to 5 nearby targets at reduced effectiveness. Offers lots of cleave and AoE damage.
Internal Bleeding	IB	Applies a damage-over-time effect to a target you cast Kidney Shot on. If the target is immune to stuns, the DoT will not be applied, either.
Improved Garrote	-	Allows you to cast multiple enhanced Garrote debuffs back to back when cast from Stealth.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Crimson Tempest	CT	A damaging finisher that applies a short-duration damage-over-time bleed to all targets hit, dealing more damage, the more targets are hit by it (up to 5).
Deathmark	DM	Assassination's new 2-minute DPS cooldown. It duplicates any bleeds that are active when cast or that are reapplied during its duration, allowing you to benefit from any other passives or effects that synergize with additional bleeds. Duplicated Bleeds and Poisons inherit all original modifiers.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Superior Mixture	-	Improves the effectiveness of Crippling Poison.
Fleet Footed	-	Increases your unmounted movement speed.
Iron Stomach	-	Improves the effectiveness of Health Potions, Health Stones, and Crimson Vial.
Unbreakable Stride	-	Reduces the duration of movement slowing effects.
Featherfoot	-	Improves the bonus movement speed provided and duration of Sprint.
Rushed Setup	-	Reduces the Energy cost of your crowd-control abilities.
Deadened Nerves	-	Causes you to take reduced Physical damage.
Graceful Guile	-	Grants Feint an additional charge.
Stillshroud	-	Reduces the cooldown of Shroud of Concealment.
Deadly Precision	-	Increases the Critical Strike chance of all abilities that generate at least 1 Combo Point, including DoT effects caused by them.
Virulent Poisons	-	Increases the damage of your weapon poisons. Only Poisons that appear as a 60-minute duration buff are affected.
Recuperator	-	While Slice and Dice is active, you will heal for 1% of your max HP every 2 seconds.
> Improved Ambush	-	Causes your Ambush to generate 1 additional Combo Point.
> Tight Spender	-	Reduces the Energy cost of your finishing moves.
Lightweight Shiv	-	Allows your Shiv to have an additional charge.
Sanguine Stratagem	-	Increases your maximum Combo Points by 1 and causes your finishers to deal increased damage.
Sanguine Blades	-	Allows your Garrote, Rupture and Crimson Tempest to deal more damage at the cost of Energy, while above 50% Energy..
Master Assassin	MA	Increases your chance to critically strike by 30% while stealthed and for 3 seconds after breaking it. This crit-chance buff only applies while it is active.
Flying Daggers	-	Increases the range and damage of your Fan of Knives and further increases damage if it hits 5 or more targets.
Venom Rush	-	Refunds Energy after successfully casting Mutilate or Ambush.
Vicious Venoms	-	Causes your Mutilate and Ambush to cause additional Nature damage, that is based on the original hit. This damage then scales further with all Nature damage increases.
Fatal Concoction	-	Increases the damage of your weapon poisons. Only Poisons that appear as a 60-minute duration buff are affected.
Lethal Dose	-	Increases the damage your bleed and poison effects deal for each effect that is active on each respective target.
Intent to Kill	-	Reduces the cooldown of Shadowstep when used on targets afflicted by Garrote.
Iron Wire	-	Causes your Garrote to silence your target and reduce their damage dealt. Enemies immune to silence are also immune to the damage reduction.
Systemic Failure	-	Enemies afflicted by Garrote take more damage from Mutilate and Ambush.
Twist the Knife	TtK	Increases the duration of the poison application chance increase buff of your Envenom by 2 seconds.
Doomblade	-	Causes your Mutilate to deal additional damage in the form of a new bleed effect. This counts towards Lethal Dose and multiple casts of Mutilate will increase the damage of the DoT, so no damage is lost.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Supercharger	-	Using Shiv causes your next damaging finishing move to function as if they spent additional Combo Points.
Thistle Tea	-	A cooldown that immediately grants you 100 Energy and also increases your Mastery for 6 seconds. It has multiple charges.
Cold Blood	CB	Increases the critical strike chance of your next ability cast by 100%.
Serrated Bone Spike	SBS	A passive ranged Combo Point generator that has up to 3 charges and applies a damage-over-time effect on your target that remains until your target dies. It generates additional Combo Points for each target already afflicted by its DoT effect, and casts automatically when using Rupture.
Kingsbane	KB	Deals Nature damage over time over a long duration that increases in damage for each weapon poison proc during its duration.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Leeching Poison	-	Grants Leech. Leech allows you to heal for all your damage and healing, in this case, for 10% of it.
Lethality	-	Increases the critical strike chance and critical strike damage bonus of combo-point generating abilities.
Acrobatic Strikes	-	Increases the range of all your attacks by 3 yards, including the radius of AoE spells.
Alacrity	-	Grants your finishing moves a chance per Combo Point spent to increase your Haste.
Soothing Darkness	-	Provides a Healing over time effect when using Vanish.
Vigor	-	Increases your maximum Energy and Energy regeneration.
Resounding Clarity	RC	Causes your Echoing Reprimand to Animacharge 3 additional Combo Points. This is a choice node shared with Reverberation.
Reverberation	-	Increases the damage of Echoing Reprimand by 75%. This is a choice node shared with Resounding Clarity.
Deeper Stratagem	DS/Deeper	Increases your maximum Combo Points by 1 and causes your finishers to deal increased damage.
Subterfuge	Subt/Subter	Allows you to cast abilities that require Stealth for up to 3 seconds after breaking it. Any bonus effects that apply to abilities cast from Stealth synergize with this.
Blindside	-	Enables your Mutilate and Ambush casts to grant you a free cast of another Ambush. This can proc from itself, and you might end up casting multiple Ambush back to back for no energy cost.
Tiny Toxic Blade	-	Increases the damage of Shiv, and it no longer costs Energy.
Dashing Scoundrel	Dashing	Allows you to generate additional Energy whenever your weapon poisons deal a critical hit while also increasing your chance to crit. This also applies to Envenom, even if the tooltip does not state such.
Shrouded Suffocation	SS/Shrouded	Increases the damage of ALL Garrotes cast, not just stealth ones, and increases the Combo Points generated by Garrote when cast from Stealth.
Zoldyck Recipe	Zoldyck	Increases the damage of all Nature damage and Bleed effects against targets below 35% HP.
Poison Bomb	PB	Every Envenom cast has a chance to proc a ground effect that deals damage over time to all enemies standing in it for a short period of time. The proc-chance increases for each Combo Point spent on the initial Envenom cast.
Scent of Blood	Scent/SoB	Increases your Agility for every active Rupture, boosting the damage all of your abilities deal. In an AoE environment, this quickly stacks up to the cap of 8 targets, significantly boosting all your damage.
Arterial Precision	KB	Your Shiv now also hits 4 additional nearby targets, and all 5 targets take increased damage from all your bleeds as well.
Dragon-Tempered Blades	DTB	Allows you to apply a second Lethal and non-Lethal poison while reducing their application chance.
Indiscriminate Carnage	IC	A passive ability that allows you to apply your next cast Rupture and Garrote to up to 2 additional targets for 10 seconds. These additional debuffs inherit any modifiers of the original cast, allowing for a quick ramp on AoE and some massive damage while these enhanced bleed effects are active.
Sudden Demise	-	Increases all bleed damage. Also instantly kills any target below 35% health, that would take more than 150% of its remaining health in damage if your bleeds were to run their full duration.

You can only have one Lethal and one Non-Lethal Poison active at a time. These are the only abilities affected by talents that improve "Weapon Poison" damage or efficacy. Dragon-Tempered Blades allows you to apply a second of each type.

Ability	Type	Description/Effect
Instant Poison	Lethal	Deals Nature damage whenever it procs. You always have access to it.
Wound Poison	Lethal	Deals a small amount of damage and reduces the efficacy of healing and absorb effects on your target, depending on how many stacks you have applied. You always have access to it.
Deadly Poison	Lethal	Deals Nature damage-over-time. Its duration is refreshed every time it procs, and it also deals additional instant Nature damage whenever it procs.
Amplifying Poison	Lethal	Deals instant Nature damage whenever it procs, and increases the damage of your next Envenom cast on the target. This effect stacks every time the poison procs.
Crippling Poison	Non-Lethal	Applies a slowing effect to the targets it is applied to. Bosses are immune to it. You always have access to it.
Numbing Poison	Non-Lethal	Reduces the target's attack and cast speed. You can talent into it in the Class tree. Does not stack with similar effects from other classes.
Atrophic Poison	Non-Lethal	Reduces the damage the target deals, not just to you, but also all of your allies, as long as your target is the source of the damage dealt. You can talent into it in the Class tree.