Assassination Rogue PvP Talents and Builds — The War Within (11.0.5)

There are two ways you can play your Assassination Rogue. You may choose to play a build focused maximum cleave damage, just like in The War Within Season 1, or to play a build with more single-target damage since the cleave is likely to be a bit weaker than in the past due to the loss of Shadow Dance and Acrobatic Strikes extra range.

With this build, the goal is to deal as much damage as possible to every enemy. You will want to have all of your bleeds on every single enemy in the arena as much as possible so that you can win the game through pure damage. With a little bit of CC at the right time when one or several enemies are low on health due to your cleave damage, you will be able to secure victory.

The talents Thrown Precision and Deadly Precision combined with Seal Fate make Fan of Knives your preferred Combo Point builder if you can hit several targets, and allow you to deal a lot of AoE damage while building Combo Points.

The talents Tiny Toxic Blade and Arterial Precision greatly contribute to your cleave pressure, but also to your burst damage. With this build most of your damage will be Bleeds, so you will increase your damage output by 30% when using Shiv and talented into Arterial Precision. If you manage to hit several targets with your Shiv while they are bled up you will immediately notice the increase in damage on all your targets.

The talent Indiscriminate Carnage allows your Rupture and Garrote to hit 3 enemies after your opener or after your Vanish. With this talent you will easily bleed multiple targets, and cleave with your Combo Point builders as well. If all your enemies are taking high sustained damage it will be difficult for the enemy healer to keep up.

The talents Deeper Stratagem and Sanguine Stratagem combined together greatly empower your finishing moves. That makes Rupture and Crimson Tempest much stronger than in the past.

Note that this build features Kingsbane and Master Assassin for a little extra burst damage. You can replace these two talents with Doomblade and Serrated Bone Spikes for a little more cleave damage, but with Master Assassin lasting longer now it is a solid option to be more of a threat whenever you gain Stealth. And the talent tree is built in a way that, if you want Master Assassin, you have to let go of Serrated Bone Spikes, and because Doomblade is not a good talent and is only picked to access Serrated Bone Spikes, you pick Kingsbane instead.

Deathstalker offers multiple great talents to the spec. You need to make sure you use Ambush once in your Subterfuge window when you open to apply Deathstalker's Mark to a target. Past that, the talent Singular Focus will make your main target take extra damage from your cleave on other targets, Corrupt the Blood empowers Rupture which is already one of your strongest abilities, Ethereal Cloak and Shadewalker give you more survivability and mobility respectively, and last but not least Darkest Night allows you to land a very powerful Envenom every now and then. The cleave build lacks ways to burst a target down, and this talent solves the problem. While you pressure the entire enemy team with your cleave damage, this talent also allows you to kill someone in a stun with sudden overwhelming damage.

With this build, the goal is to kill one target with a little bit of cleave damage on their team. You want to bleed at least two enemies for your energy regeneration, and beyond that your efforts will go towards hitting your designated kill target with as many Envenom as possible. Be aware, however, that the current best way to play Assassination is to cleave a lot. It makes builds like this one suboptimal as Assassination is unable to keep up damage-wise with the other meta specializations if it does not cleave.

The talent Dragon-Tempered Blades is important for your single target pressure. It lets you use both Deadly Poison and Wound Poison. Combined with Slice and Dice and the new version of Acrobatic Strikes you will be able to have a high attack speed, which means many poison procs.

The talents Deeper Stratagem and Sanguine Stratagem combined together greatly empower your finishing moves. With Improved Shiv, Rapid Injection and Poison Bomb on top, if you manage to hit your target with several Envenoms during a Shiv window you will deal serious damage

The bottom left of the tree is a better pick than the right one because Arterial Precision will make your kill attempts more powerful. You will always use Shiv when you try to kill your target, and with this talent it will increase all your damage, not only Envenom.

Last but not least, Kingsbane. This is a very powerful single-target ability, especially paired with Dragon-Tempered Blades. The initial hit may not be too powerful, but if you manage to hit your target during the entire effect you will increase the damage of the DoT by a lot, and deal serious damage to your target. To optimize, you want to use Kingsbane a bit before your kill attempt so that the last seconds of the DoT happen during your kill attempt, as this is when the spell will deal the most damage.

Deathstalker offers multiple great talents to the spec. You need to make sure you use Ambush once in your Subterfuge window when you open to apply Deathstalker's Mark to a target. Past that, the talent Singular Focus will make your main target take extra damage from your cleave on other targets, Corrupt the Blood empowers Rupture which is already one of your strongest abilities, Ethereal Cloak and Shadewalker give you more survivability and mobility respectively, and last but not least Darkest Night allows you to land a very powerful Envenom every now and then. This adds to the burst of the single-target build. Combine Kingsbane with an Envenom empowered by Darkest Night with Lingering Darkness active, and Fatal Intent stacked up on your target, and they will be hard-pressed to survive.

You can choose three of the following PvP talents; each has its uses, but some are better for certain strategies than others. The top three choices are the most useful but can be replaced with other PvP talents, depending on your team's goal.

Smoke Bomb creates a smoke cloud around you. Enemy players who are outside the cloud will not be able to target anyone inside it. This talent is mandatory for multiple reasons. Firstly, it can help you land a kill by stunning a target when they have no trinket. By using Smoke Bomb right after a stun, you will prevent the healer from saving their teammate. Secondly, you can use it defensively to save yourself or an ally from a lethal cast about to go off, such as Greater Pyroblast. And lastly, you can use it to prevent incoming crowd control on you or your team if such crowd control would result in you losing a game, such as a Polymorph or Repentance on your healer when they have no trinket, and you are low on health. As you can see, this talent is helpful in many different situations, which is why it is so powerful. In every 3v3 scenario, this talent is a must-have, but in a few 2v2 match-ups, you will not pick it as you will mostly attack the enemy healer.

Dismantle is a strong PvP talent that allows you to disarm an enemy for 6 seconds every 45 seconds. Disarming an enemy can delay their next kill attempt or stop it entirely if they have pulled the trigger. It is a great pick against Warrior, Rogue, and Marksmanship Hunter. It is also helpful against other Hunter specs. However, they can still use many threatening abilities while disarmed, and the same goes for Retribution Paladin and Death Knight. One thing to note is that you can use Dismantle offensively against Death Knight and Warrior, as being disarmed prevents the use of Death Strike and Die by the Sword.

Veil of Midnight has become a decent defensive option in some specific scenarios since it was recently nerfed. It allows Cloak of Shadows to cleanse physical debuffs on top of magic ones. It is very useful against Feral Druid, other Assassination Rogues, or even Arms Warrior.

Control is King is a nice talent that gives you a lot of Energy back when you use Kidney Shot. It can be a nice pick if you don't need other talents, as it allows you to be certain you will always have Energy to spend on your burst windows.

Hemotoxin causes Shiv to reduce the target's healing received by 30% for 9 seconds. This used to be a very powerful talent, but after multiple nerfs, it is barely more powerful than Wound Poison. Therefore, you will only pick it if you do not need other utility talents, such as Dismantle or Maneuverability.

Death from Above is an interesting PvP talent. The interesting things about this talent are that it makes you immune to crowd control when you use it and is usable from range. It will make you land at your target location. It can be considered in 2v2 against an enemy that is hard to reach, such as a Frost Mage, or against a setup comp that relies on stuns on you to kill you and will kite you in between stuns, such as Rogue/ Mage. Unfortunately, there will often be three better options, so you will end up not picking this PvP talent much.

The first PvP talent will almost always be Smoke Bomb. To fill the last two slots, you will need to look at what you are facing. If there is a DPS that can be disarmed, such as a Warrior, Rogue, Death Knight or a Marksmanship Hunter, you will pick Dismantle. If there is a DPS that will apply Physical debuffs to you that you would like to cleanse, such as another Assassination Rogue or a Feral Druid, you will pick Veil of Midnight. In other scenarios, you may pick any other optional talent as long as it fits your needs.