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

In Battleground Blitz, Subtlety Rogues are mobile melee DPS with access to Stealth that are able to perform exceptionally well when attacking/defending bases, crowd-controlling healers in team fights, and attacking/defending flag carriers.

Subtlety Rogues are not shining bright on the damage meters but can otherwise contribute to large scale fights by crowd-controlling healers or dangerous DPS, allowing their team to win the fights. Their extremely bursty damage profile allows them to pick targets that overextend too far from their team and dispatch them in a few seconds, or to kill someone who has no trinket in a Smoke Bomb.

While Subtlety Rogues are good at killing enemy flag carriers they are, in fact, even better at protecting their own flag carrier. With their amazing CC toolkit they can make it a nightmare for the enemy team to connect to the flag carrier. Of course if that is not needed then Subtlety Rogues can go on the offensive and instead CC the players protecting the enemy flag carrier while bursting him down to recover the flag. Also, despite Rogues not being very good flag carriers themselves, thanks to the mobility they 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.

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 edge of the team fight, look for targets of importance to CC or burst down in a stun so that your team may win the team fight and move onto the objective, capturing the enemy flag.

Subtlety 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 almost impossible for the enemy team to connect to your flag carrier. And once in a while you can unleash all your damage on one of the attackers to kill them, then resume your control over the others.

If you are attempting to recover your flag from the enemy flag carrier and are not alone you should always focus on controlling the enemy defenders so that your team can freely kill the carrier. You should also save your burst damage for moments when the carrier is isolated and stunned, either in a Smoke Bomb, or because you landed CC on everyone able to save him.

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, stun them, 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 a Subtlety Rogue you will rarely join your team in the attack of a base, and instead go for secondary bases alone or with another stealthed player. 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, Kidney Shot and Shadowy Duel. If the enemy defender is alone this should be easy, but if there are several it will depend on how they use their trinkets whether or not they have pets, and you will surely have to fight to claimthe base.

Subtlety Rogues are great at defending/attacking bases on this map. Either you will start by capturing and defending one of the bases on your side of the map, then look for opportunities to steal a base from the enemy team, or you will coordinate with your team to leave the capture and defense of your bases to other players, and you will immediately attack enemy bases. That will force the enemy team to make a decision: keep fighing for the middle and risk that you win your 1v1 and capture their base, or send reinforcments from the middle to the base you are attacking, and risk losing the middle to your team. In either case your team should be able to win something from this.

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 push enemy bases even if it means leaving your base undefended. Always be mindful when doing so, lest the enemy team gets your base for free. You can only attack when they think you are still defending, and when they can't just send someone to take your undefended base when you reveal yourself. That means you can only attack like this when the entire enemy team is accounted for (do not leave your base if an enemy Rogue is in stealth and someone else defends the enemy bases), busy in a fight, and enemy Demon Hunters are unable to spot your attack with Spectral Sight (either because they just used it, or because they are in a fight).

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 single target burst damage talents that make you very dangerous dueler, as well as all the usual Rogue trickery to CC enemies and attack/defend bases.

Note that on maps where you might need to defend a base you can remove a point from Veiltouched to pick Shuriken Storm. By using it before being CC'ed near a friendly base it will deal AoE damage that will prevent the capture of the base for 4s. It might make the difference and allow you to come out of CC before the base is captured.

Your default talents will be:

1. Smoke Bomb (mandatory)
2. Shadowy Duel (mandatory)
3. Silhouette

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.

Shadowy Duel is similar to Smoke Bomb. You can use it to isolate an enemy and kill them, isolate a healer so that his team dies, or isolate an enemy so that a member of your team can capture an objective without being hit.

Silhouette is great way to enhance your mobility. This will be particularly useful when your role is to defend a flag carrier. You will CC the enemy attackers, and Shadowstep back to your carrier as he kites. With this Honor Talent you will never run out of mobility while doing that.

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. It is a good option if you won't need Silhouette, such as on Resource Race maps.

Dismantle can be an option 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.