In this article, we list your Assassination Rogue (WoW 4.3) core abilities and how they should be used together (rotation). We also explain when to use your various cooldowns. Then, we go deeper and present all the subtleties that playing an Assassination Rogue will face you with. The other articles of our Assassination Rogue guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the left.

1. Basic Single Target Rotation↑top

• Combo Point builders
  • Use Mutilate, between 100% and 35% of target's health.
  • Use Backstab, below 35% of target's health
    • if you generate so much Energy that you cannot spend it, weave in a few Mutilates.
• Finishing Moves (by order of priority)
  • Apply and maintain Slice and Dice
    • should only be done once, as Envenom refreshes it (thanks to Cut to the Chase).
  • Apply and maintain Rupture
    • use whatever amount of Combo Points you have when Rupture is about to expire.
  • Use Envenom (with 3, 4, or 5 Combo Points).

For more information about the optimal opening sequence, refer to our dedicated section.

2. Multiple Target Rotation↑top

When there are 5 or more enemies in a small area, you should abandon your single-target rotation and spam Fan of Knives instead.

3. Poisons↑top

As a rule, always use Instant Poison on your Main-hand weapon and Deadly Poison on your Off-hand weapon.

If you are using Fan of Knives for doing AoE damage, then use Deadly Poison on your Thrown Weapon.

Refer to our Poisons and Weapons section for detailed explanations about poisons and the way they influence your choices of weapons.

4. Cooldowns↑top

You have three DPS cooldowns:

• Cold Blood should always be used before a 5 Combo Point Envenom.
• Vanish should be used on cooldown. It enables you to benefit from a 20-second Overkill. To break out of Stealth, use Garrote.
• Vendetta should be used on cooldown, provided that you can attack your target for 30 seconds without interruption.

As the cooldown on these abilities is high, it is viable to delay using them for periods when the boss takes increased damage.

5. Optional Read: Mastering Your Assassination Rogue↑top

The Assassination specialisation is rather easy to play. The information given above will yield good results. However, being aware of the few subtleties that we detail in the rest of this page will enable you to play your Assassination Rogue to its full potential.

In particular, poisons do most of the damage of an Assassination Rogue, therefore it is important to understand the synergy they have with your various abilities.

5.1. Combo Points and Energy

As a rogue, most of your abilities need Energy to be used. Your Energy bar has a capacity of 120 Energy (thanks to Assassin's Resolve, your Assassination Rogue proficiency) and refills at a rate of 10 Energy per second. Your energy regeneration is increased by:

• your melee haste (Haste Rating + haste-enhancing buffs);
• your normal hits with Backstab, which restore 30 Energy (thanks to Murderous Intent);
• your critical hits with Backstab, which restore 5 Energy (thanks to Glyph of Backstab);
• your Relentless Strikes talent, which grants your Finishing Moves a 20% chance per Combo Point to restore 25 Energy;
• your Cold Blood cooldown, which restores 25 Energy;
• the Overkill effect (after breaking out of Stealth), which increases your Energy regeneration by 30% for 20 seconds;
• your Rupture and Garrote periodic damage ticks, which have a 60% chance to restore 10 Energy (thanks to Venomous Wounds).

The faster you regenerate Energy, the more casts of Envenom you can fit in your rotation.

Some abilities add one or several Combo Points on your target, up to a maximum of 5 Combo Points. Other abilities, called Finishing Moves, consume the Combo Points on your target. The more Combo Points a Finishing Move consumes, the more powerful its effect is. Your Combo Point generation is increased by:

• Ruthlessness (if talented), which grants your Finishing Moves a chance to add a Combo Point on your target;
• Seal Fate, which causes your critical hits with Mutilate and Backstab to add an additional Combo Point on your target.

5.2. Poisons and Weapons

As an Assassnation Rogue, you will only use Deadly Poison and Instant Poison, as you have numerous talents that boost them. Unlike Combat and Subtlety Rogues, you have no use for Wound Poison. In this section, we will explain how these poisons are applied and how they influence your weapons of choice.

5.2.1. Poison Application

While the tooltip for Deadly Poison clearly mentions how often the poison is applied, the tooltip for Instant Poison does not. For this poison, the number of applications per minute is fixed (between 9 and 10).

This number never changes, regardless of your weapon speed, your melee haste, and the various haste buffs from which you are benefiting. For example, if you can perform 30 normal melee attacks in a minute with an Instant Poison imbued weapon, then each of the attacks will have a 33% chance (approximately) to apply the poison. If you can only perform 20 normal melee attacks, then each attack will have a 50% chance (approximately) to apply the poison.

The one thing to remember is that a slow weapon is associated a higher chance to apply Instant Poison than a faster weapon. This is important because the per minute limit only affects poison applications from normal melee attacks. It does not affect poison applications from special melee attacks, which have a chance to apply the poison equal to the chance associated with their corresponding weapon.

For example, the slower your Main-hand Weapon, the higher the chance that Mutilate will apply Instant Poison.

Understanding this is important, as it determines (partly) your choice of poison for your weapons as well as your choice of weapons.

5.2.2. Why Instant Poison and Deadly Poison on Melee Weapons

As an Assassination Rogue, you should always have Instant Poison on your Main-hand Weapon and Deadly Poison on your Off-hand Weapon.

Thanks to Improved Poisons, your Assassination Rogue proficiency, Instant Poison is applied more often and deals more damage than Wound Poison. Furthermore, the buff that Envenom provides increases even more your chances to apply Instant Poison.

Therefore, it is crystal clear that Instant Poison is your best instant-damage poison (it is not so clear for other Rogue specialisations). It must be applied on your slowest weapon, so that the chances to apply it with your special melee attacks are maximised.

Deadly Poison is your most potent poison. Thanks to Improved Poisons, each strike with an imbued weapon has a 50% chance to apply this poison. It deals a sizeable amount of damage by stacking a DoT on your target, up to 5 stacks. Once at 5 stacks, each new application refreshes the DoT and applies, with a 100% chance, Instant Poison.

Deadly Poison must be applied on your fastest weapon, so that you maximise the number of applications of Deadly Poison. The benefits are two-fold:

• the chances that the DoT will drop (no application within 12 seconds) are minimised;
• the chances that you will get additional applications of your other weapon's poison are increased.

5.2.3. Why Deadly Poison on Thrown Weapon

Because of Vile Poisons, you will always want to use Deadly Poison on your Thrown Weapon. This causes your Fan of Knives to behave as follows.

• Between 0 and 4 stacks of Deadly Poison, each strike of Fan of Knives has
  • from Instant Poison on your Main-hand Weapon: a 35-45% chance to apply Instant Poison (depend on your melee haste);
  • from Deadly Poison on your Off-hand Weapon: a 50% chance to apply a new Stack of Deadly Poison;
  • from Deadly Poison on your Thrown Weapon: a 50% chance to apply a new Stack of Deadly Poison.
• At 5 stacks of Deadly Poison, each strike of Fan of Knives has
  • from Instant Poison on your Main-hand Weapon: a 35-45% chance to apply Instant Poison (depend on your melee haste);
  • from Deadly Poison on your Off-hand Weapon: a 50% chance to refresh Deadly Poison and apply Instant Poison;
  • from Deadly Poison on your Thrown Weapon: a 50% chance to refresh Deadly Poison and apply Instant Poison.

Also, when the boss is not in melee range (for example, when you need to move away from Morchok), you can use Throw to maintain your stacks of Deadly Poison.

5.2.4. Weapon Choice

Your choices of weapons are influenced by several constraints. First of all, your poisons dictate that:

• one of your weapons should be as slow as possible, so that your special melee attacks have an increased chance to apply Instant Poison.
• one of your weapons should be as fast as possible, so that you get as much benefit as possible from Deadly Poison;

Your abilities dictate that your Main-hand Weapon should be as slow as possible, in order to increase the damage done by each cast of Backstab and Mutilate, both of which require you to be using Daggers (in addition to your Assassin's Resolve proficiency). Therefore, you should equip:

• a 1.8 Agility Dagger (the slowest type of agility weapons you can equip) as your Main-hand Weapon and imbue it with Instant Poison;
• a 1.4 Agility Dagger (the fastest type of agility weapons available) as your Off-hand Weapon and imbue it with Deadly Poison.

Note that Direbrew's Bloodied Shanker is a very rare 2.0 Agility Dagger. This very particular speed makes this weapon more desirable than many 1.8 Agility Daggers of higher item level.

5.3. Single Target Rotation Subtleties

5.3.1. Envenom, Poisons, and Energy Pooling

Envenom is your hardest hitting ability. Despite what the tooltip says, it does not consume your Deadly Poison, thanks to the Master Poisoner talent.

In addition to hitting very hard, Envenom gives you a temporary buff that increases the chances that Deadly Poison and Instant Poison will be applied. The duration of this buff depends on the number of Combo Points you used Envenom with. It will usually be between 4 and 6 seconds, because you should always use Envenom with 3 to 5 Combo Points. The idea is that Mutilate adds 2 or 3 Combo Points on your target, thanks to Seal Fate, meaning that if you are at 3 Combo Points and cast Mutilate, you run the risk of wasting a Combo Point.

Below 35% of your target's health, you will mostly be using Backstab so you should use Envenom with 4 to 5 Combo Points.

To benefit from the Envenom buff as much as possible, you will want to pool Energy before casting Envenom, when you are above 35% of your target's health. The idea is to be able to cast Mutilate at least twice while the buff is active. The buff is applied on you before Envenom deals its damage, therefore Envenom will always benefit from it.

You should not pool Energy during times of high Energy regeneration. This happens mostly when the target is below 35% health (because of the increased Energy regeneration provided by Backstab) and when you benefit from Bloodlust, Heroism, or Time Warp.

5.3.2. Rupture, Garrote, and Venomous Wounds

The Venomous Wounds talent is the reason why you want to maintain Rupture on your target and why you want to use Garrote to break out of Stealth (at the beginning of the fight or after using Vanish).

The DoTs left by these two abilities do not deal much damage by themselves, but, thanks to Venomous Wounds, each tick has a 60% chance to deal additional Nature damage (shown as Venomous Wounds in your combat logs) and to make you regain 10 Energy.

5.3.3. Backstab

When your target is below 35% health, Backstab replaces Mutilate as your Combo Point builder. The reason for this is the Murderous Intent talent, which restores 30 Energy every time you use Backstab on a target below 35% health.

As a result of Murderous Intent, your Energy regeneration is much increased on targets below 35% health and you will find yourself casting Envenom a lot more often than during the rest of the fight.

Note that Mutilate is more damaging than Backstab, even though it costs slightly less Energy to cast. If you find yourself in a situation where the extra Energy regeneration provided by Backstab (through Murderous Intent) is not beneficial, then you should stick to using Mutilate as your main Combo Point builder. This happens when Bloodlust, Heroism, or Time Warp is active.

5.3.4. Applying and refreshing Slice and Dice

Whenever you have to apply Slice and Dice, do not bother doing it with 5 Combo Points. Indeed, thanks to Cut to the Chase, Envenom will always refresh your Slice and Dice to a 5 Combo Point duration. This is true regardless of how many Combo Points you had applied Slice and Dice with in the first place and regardless of how many Combo Points you use on Envenom.

On fights with long periods of movement or downtime on the boss, you can find yourself with only a few seconds remaining on Slice and Dice. In this case, you can simply use Shiv (instead of Mutilate) to add a Combo Point on the target and immediately use Envenom to refresh Slice and Dice to a 5 Combo Point duration.

Using Shiv instead of Mutilate saves you from spending 60 Energy to build 2 Combo Points that will be used for the sole purpose of refreshing Slice and Dice. It is better to save this Energy to prepare a subsequent 5 Combo Point Envenom. Shiv is guaranteed to apply your Off-hand Weapon poison ( Deadly Poison); this partially makes up for its low damage.

5.3.5. Opening Sequence

1. Enter Stealth — if you are pre-potting, it will get you out of Stealth, so pre-pot before entering Stealth.
2. Use Tricks of the Trade on your Tricks of the Trade target (see next section).
3. When the fight begins, you need to break out of stealth (to benefit from Overkill):
   • Use Garrote if you can rapidly position yourself behind the boss.
   • Otherwise, cancel Stealth and use Mutilate (or break out of Stealth with Mutilate).
4. Apply Rupture.
5. Cast Mutilate.
6. Apply Slice and Dice.
7. Cast Mutilate.
8. Cast Envenom to refresh Slice and Dice to a 5 Combo Point duration.
9. Start your rotation.

5.3.6. Bosses That Cannot Be Attacked From Behind

On bosses that cannot be attacked from behind, you cannot Backstab when the boss is under 35% health. Therefore, you need to use Mutilate as your Combo Point builder for the entire duration of the fight.

Also, you cannot use Garrote for breaking out of Stealth. At the start of the fight and whenever you use Vanish, simply cancel Stealth and use Mutilate (or use Mutilate to break out of Stealth).

Finally, you should replace Glyph of Backstab, which becomes useless, with Glyph of Vendetta.

5.4. Tricks of the Trade

Tricks of the Trade was originally designed to be cast on tanks in order to help them keep aggro. With the changes that threat generation has undergone in WOTLK and Cataclysm, it is now more beneficial to your raid if you use Tricks of the Trade on one of the best DPS players in order to increase their damage done.

Note that you can (and most often should) cast Tricks of the Trade on the tank at the pull, before switching to a different target when refreshing it.

Tricks of the Trade costs you a Global Cooldown to cast (but no Energy, thanks to Glyph of Tricks of the Trade). The best time to refresh it is when you are pooling for Energy before casting Envenom.

Please refer to our Macros and Addons page for a Tricks of the Trade macro.

Note that with the Rogue Tier 13 Set 2-piece Bonus, you get a temporary DPS boost whenever you use Tricks of the Trade.

5.5. Using Redirect

Redirect is a very convenient ability for Rogues.

This ability transfers your existing Combo Points to your current target. Note that when you kill an enemy, your unused Combo Points remain on it, which means that they can be transferred through Redirect. Moreover, your Combo Points on a dead enemy are removed when another enemy dies with unused Combo Points.

Redirect is very useful in two situations:

• when you switch target and want to start on your new target with the Combo Points you had on your previous target;
• when you engage a boss and you want to start with as many Combo Points as possible (by transferring the Combo Points of the last trash mob that died).

If you also play the Combat specialisation, you might expect Redirect to transfer your Vendetta from your previous target to your new target, as it does with Bandit's Guile for Combat Rogues. Unfortunately, Redirect does not transfer Vendetta.

5.6. More on Cooldown Usage

Cold Blood should be used with a 5 Combo Point Envenom during periods of increased damage dealt to the boss (for example, when Enchant Weapon - Landslide procs). If you prefer, you can add it to an Envenom macro to turn it into a passive proc.

For Vanish and Vendetta, it is imperative that you use them when you can benefit from them for their entire duration without being interrupted. The 20 second Overkill effect that you get from Vanish (after breaking out of Stealth) and the 36 second buff from Vendetta can (and should) be stacked for increased effect.