! Assassination Rogue Guide

Rogues are a high dps melee class that, like all melee dps, must attack from behind for optimal dps. The assassination spec is all about daggers. Assassination's signature ability is Mutilate, and it requires you to have two daggers equipped. Optimally, you will have a slow (1.8) main hand dagger, and fast (1.4) off-hand.

!!! Poisons:
Main-hand: Instant poison
Off-hand: Deadly poison
Thrown weapon: Deadly poison

Learn it, love it, live it.
We want Deadly poison stacks to reach the maximum (5) as quickly as possible; therefore, the deadly is applied to the quickest weapon. Due to [url:Improved Poisons|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=14117], we have a 45% chance with each off-hand strike of applying deadly poison. Once maximum has been reached, each application of the poison not only refreshes the timer on the stacks, but also procs the instant poison on our main hand.
For the same reason, we want to have deadly poison on thrown weapon. We have more energy to burn, and a greater facility to apply poisons than other rogues. This makes Assassination the optimum spec for AoE situations where there are more clustered targets than the combat spec can effetively cleave.


!! How to dps:
Assassination rogues have finisher priorities rather than a static rotation, but therare are a few key concepts:
# Don't let [url:Slice and Dice|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=5171] drop at any point. Use [url:Envenom|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=79134] to maintain Slice and Dice following the initial application.
# Maintain [url:Rupture|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=1943]. This facilitates energy regeneration via the [url:Venomous Wounds|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=79134] talent.
# Finishers should be used at 4+ combo points for optimum efficacy.

A fight can be divided into 3 phases:
! Opening
** Open from stealth wherever possible. This is allows us to maximize the use of [url:Overkill|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=58426]
** It is better to open with [url:Garrote|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=703]. The damage from Garrote is trivial, however, the [url:Venomous Wounds|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=79134] talent once again assists us to generate additional energy at the start of a fight, assuring a more stable "rotation" more quickly.
** Get Slice and Dice up as soon as possible. Combo point count for Slice and Dice may vary. Generate enough prior to your Slice and Dice to ensure that you will be able to use a 4+ CP Envenom to maintain.
** Get Rupture going.
** Maintain.
! 100% - 35%
** Mutilate to 4+ combo points
** Finisher priority: [url:Slice and Dice|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=5171] > [url:Rupture|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=1943] > [url:Envenom|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=79134]
! Burn phase (35% - WIN!!)
** Use Backstab as combo point generator
*** Positional requirement
** 5+ Combo point finishers. Priority is the same as the previous phase.


!! Cooldowns
[url:Vendetta|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=79140]
* Coming soon!
[url:Vanish|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=1856]
* Coming soon!
[url:Cold Blood|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=14177]
* Coming soon!
!! Stat Priorities:

* Agility - Your single largest dps increasing stat.
* Hit - Very large dps increase to the cap. After this stat is capped out for poisons it significantly loses it's value.
* Mastery - Increases the damage done by your poisons by 20%. Each point of Mastery increases damage by an additional 2.5%.
* Haste - Increases the speed of your weapons. We love this stat, faster attacks = more poison procs.
* Expertise - After you are hit cap this is your next priority to cap out. The expertise cap is 26 for being behind a target. When this stat is at the cap you'll gain no additional benefit (assuming you are standing behind).
* Crit - [url:Crit Cap Calculator|http://wow.filltheglass.org/crit_cap.php] [url:Crit Cap Faqs|http://www.mmo-champion.com/class-rogue/critical-strike-cap-faq/]

Agility > spell hit cap (17%) > mastery > haste > expertise cap (26) >= crit > white hit

!!! Hit Caps:
|| || Yellow || Poison || White ||
| 3/3 Precision | 241 (2%) | 1127 (11%) | 2523 (21%)
| 2/3 Precision | 481 (4%) | 1332 (13%) | 2763 (23%)

!!! Expertise Caps:
|| || Expertise rating ||
| Gnomes | 691 (23) |
| Everyone else | 781 (26) |
!! Glyphs
These are my recommendations you can choose what works for you.

*Prime*
These are your only real 4 choices for pve mutilate.
* Glyph of Mutilate - A must, reduces the energy cost of mutilate by 5.
* Glyph of Rupture - Increases the duration of Rupture by 4 sec.
* Glyph of Backstab - Your Backstab critical strikes grant you 5 energy. (combined with the talent gives 35 energy on crits)
* Glyph of Vendetta - Increases the duration of your Vendetta ability by 20%.
*Major*
* Glyph of Fan of Knives - Increases the radius of your Fan of Knives ability by 50%.
* Glyph of Feint - Reduces the energy cost of Feint by 20.
* Glyph of Cloak of Shadows - While Cloak of Shadows is active, you take 40% less physical damage.
*Minor*
* Glyph of Blurred Speed - Enables you to walk on water when sprint is active
* Glyph of Safefall - Increases the distance you can fall without taking damage.
* Glyph of Poisons - You apply poisons to your weapons 50% faster.
!! Talent Build
[url:31-2-8|www.wowhead.com/talent#fcIfzsMdoGo0bZbhc] - The standard mutilate spec for 4.2. There is little choice in moving talent points around here, however, a good reference is at the EJ Forums linked below.
!! Gems, Enchants, Consumables
* Gems
** Meta - Agile Shadowspirit Diamond (+54 Agility and 3% increases crit. damage)
** Red - Bold Inferno Ruby (40 Agility)
** Yellow - Adept Ember Topaz (20 Agility/20 Mastery)
** Blue - Glinting Demonseye (20 Agility/20 Hit rating)
* Enchants
** Weapon - Landslide. At this point in the expansion, it is just about as cheap as Hurricane, the substantially inferior alternative.
** Head - Arcanum of the Ramakhen (60 Agility/35 Haste rating)
** Shoulders - Greater Inscription of the Shattered Crystal (50 Agility/25 Mastery)
** Back - Greater Critical Strike
** Chest - Peerless Stats
** Gloves - Greater Mastery
** Wrists - Agility (assuming you're not a Leatherworker)
** Legs - Dragonscale Leg Armor
** Feet - Major Agility
* Consumables
** Flask of Winds
** Feast/ Skewered Eel
** Potion of the Tol'vir

!! Trinkets
A note on trinkets because there can be a debate in which is best. Reproduced from the EJ Forums we have the following list. The values are in Equivalence Points (EP) are relative to each other. For more information on how these were derived, see the work of the fine mathy folks at the EJ Forums.
T11 and Heroics Trinkets
|| Name || EP
| [url:Matrix Restabilizer | http://www.wowhead.com/item=69150] | 1902.59
| [url:Hungerer | http://www.wowhead.com/item=69112] | 1715.18
| [url:Matrix Restabilizer | http://www.wowhead.com/item=68994] | 1685.97
| [url:Hungerer |http://www.wowhead.com/item=68927] | 1519.64

| [url:Prestor's Talisman of Machination |http://www.wowhead.com/item=65026] | 1509.11
| [url:Essence of the Cyclone |http://www.wowhead.com/item=65140] | 1464.53
| [url:Fluid Death |http://www.wowhead.com/item=58181] | 1409.28
| [url:Ancient Petrified Seed |http://www.wowhead.com/item=69001] | 1397.23
| [url:Ricket's Magnetic Fireball | http://www.wowhead.com/item=70144] | 1259.41
| [url:Prestor's Talisman of Machination |http://www.wowhead.com/item=59441] | 1262.15
| [url:Tia's Grace |http://www.wowhead.com/item=56394] | 1249.03
| [url:Key to the Endless Chamber |http://www.wowhead.com/item=56328] | 1206.90
| [url:Unheeded Warning |http://www.wowhead.com/item=59520] | 1189.50
| [url:Darkmoon Card: Hurricane |http://www.wowhead.com/item=62051] | 1180.97
| [url:Essence of the Cyclone |http://www.wowhead.com/item=62051] | 1159.72
| [url:Left Eye of Rajh |http://www.wowhead.com/item=56427] | 1158.19
| [url:Quicksilver Alchemist Stone |http://www.wowhead.com/item=68776] | 1125.70
| [url:Unsolvable Riddle |http://www.wowhead.com/item=62468] | 1098.31


!! Addons
[url:RoguePowerBars|http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/rpb-20.aspx] Gives you movable bars in the middle of your screen that keeps track of your buffs and debuffs. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have this addon.
[url:UIM:ComboPoints|http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/cbp.aspx] If you don't like to look up at the bosses raid frame for combo points this will give your a movable bar.
[url:TrickOrTreat|http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/trickortreat.aspx] Whispers the target of your tricks. Tells them how much extra damage they received and if their threat is getting high.

!! Macros
Tricks of the Trade, you won't have to change targets
/tar Player
!!!! or
/cast [target="targetname"] Tricks of the Trade

!! Links
[url:Elitist Jerks|http://elitistjerks.com/f78/t110134-assassination_guide_cata_11_07_2011_a] A good site that does a lot of Theorycrafting, the forums are full of info.
[url:Shadowcraft|http://shadowcraft.mmo-mumble.com/] A good site by coded by Antiarc based on Aldriana's EP system. This will help you maximize your gear choices, reforging, and gemming. Does not always agree with askmrrobot. Personally, I consider this site superior.
[url:Mr. Robot|http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/gear] A site to assist in maximization of gear choices, reforging, and gemming.
[url:wowhead|http://http://www.wowhead.com/] Good site if your looking for info on items, specs, quests, or bosses.
[url:Ensidia|http://http://manaflask.com/guild/Ensidia/] Also a really good place to search info on your class. Ensidia is a top ranked guild.



Written by Rijl, data borrowed from Elitist Jerks. Credit goes to the original authors.

! Assassination Rogue Guide

Rogues are a high dps melee class that, like all melee dps, must attack from behind for optimal dps. The assassination spec is all about daggers. Assassination's signature ability is Mutilate, and it requires you to have two daggers equipped. Optimally, you will have a slow (1.8) main hand dagger, and fast (1.4) off-hand.

!!! Poisons:
Main-hand: Instant poison
Off-hand: Deadly poison
Thrown weapon: Deadly poison

Learn it, love it, live it.
We want Deadly poison stacks to reach the maximum (5) as quickly as possible; therefore, the deadly is applied to the quickest weapon. Due to [url:Improved Poisons|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=14117], we have a 45% chance with each off-hand strike of applying deadly poison. Once maximum has been reached, each application of the poison not only refreshes the timer on the stacks, but also procs the instant poison on our main hand.
For the same reason, we want to have deadly poison on thrown weapon. We have more energy to burn, and a greater facility to apply poisons than other rogues. This makes Assassination the optimum spec for AoE situations where there are more clustered targets than the combat spec can effetively cleave.


!! How to dps:
Assassination rogues have finisher priorities rather than a static rotation, but therare are a few key concepts:
# Don't let [url:Slice and Dice|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=5171] drop at any point. Use [url:Envenom|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=79134] to maintain Slice and Dice following the initial application.
# Maintain [url:Rupture|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=1943]. This facilitates energy regeneration via the [url:Venomous Wounds|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=79134] talent.
# Finishers should be used at 4+ combo points for optimum efficacy.

A fight can be divided into 3 phases:
! Opening
** Open from stealth wherever possible. This is allows us to maximize the use of [url:Overkill|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=58426]
** It is better to open with [url:Garrote|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=703]. The damage from Garrote is trivial, however, the [url:Venomous Wounds|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=79134] talent once again assists us to generate additional energy at the start of a fight, assuring a more stable "rotation" more quickly.
** Get Slice and Dice up as soon as possible. Combo point count for Slice and Dice may vary. Generate enough prior to your Slice and Dice to ensure that you will be able to use a 4+ CP Envenom to maintain.
** Get Rupture going.
** Maintain.
! 100% - 35%
** Mutilate to 4+ combo points
** Finisher priority: [url:Slice and Dice|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=5171] > [url:Rupture|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=1943] > [url:Envenom|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=79134]
! Burn phase (35% - WIN!!)
** Use Backstab as combo point generator
*** Positional requirement
** 5+ Combo point finishers. Priority is the same as the previous phase.


!! Cooldowns
[url:Vendetta|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=79140]
* Coming soon!
[url:Vanish|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=1856]
* Coming soon!
[url:Cold Blood|http://www.wowhead.com/spell=14177]
* Coming soon!
!! Stat Priorities:

* Agility - Your single largest dps increasing stat.
* Hit - Very large dps increase to the cap. After this stat is capped out for poisons it significantly loses it's value.
* Mastery - Increases the damage done by your poisons by 20%. Each point of Mastery increases damage by an additional 2.5%.
* Haste - Increases the speed of your weapons. We love this stat, faster attacks = more poison procs.
* Expertise - After you are hit cap this is your next priority to cap out. The expertise cap is 26 for being behind a target. When this stat is at the cap you'll gain no additional benefit (assuming you are standing behind).
* Crit - [url:Crit Cap Calculator|http://wow.filltheglass.org/crit_cap.php] [url:Crit Cap Faqs|http://www.mmo-champion.com/class-rogue/critical-strike-cap-faq/]

Agility > spell hit cap (17%) > mastery > haste > expertise cap (26) >= crit > white hit

!!! Hit Caps:
|| || Yellow || Poison || White ||
| 3/3 Precision | 241 (2%) | 1127 (11%) | 2523 (21%)
| 2/3 Precision | 481 (4%) | 1332 (13%) | 2763 (23%)

!!! Expertise Caps:
|| || Expertise rating ||
| Gnomes | 691 (23) |
| Everyone else | 781 (26) |
!! Glyphs
These are my recommendations you can choose what works for you.

*Prime*
These are your only real 4 choices for pve mutilate.
* Glyph of Mutilate - A must, reduces the energy cost of mutilate by 5.
* Glyph of Rupture - Increases the duration of Rupture by 4 sec.
* Glyph of Backstab - Your Backstab critical strikes grant you 5 energy. (combined with the talent gives 35 energy on crits)
* Glyph of Vendetta - Increases the duration of your Vendetta ability by 20%.
*Major*
* Glyph of Fan of Knives - Increases the radius of your Fan of Knives ability by 50%.
* Glyph of Feint - Reduces the energy cost of Feint by 20.
* Glyph of Cloak of Shadows - While Cloak of Shadows is active, you take 40% less physical damage.
*Minor*
* Glyph of Blurred Speed - Enables you to walk on water when sprint is active
* Glyph of Safefall - Increases the distance you can fall without taking damage.
* Glyph of Poisons - You apply poisons to your weapons 50% faster.
!! Talent Build
[url:31-2-8|www.wowhead.com/talent#fcIfzsMdoGo0bZbhc] - The standard mutilate spec for 4.2. There is little choice in moving talent points around here, however, a good reference is at the EJ Forums linked below.
!! Gems, Enchants, Consumables
* Gems
** Meta - Agile Shadowspirit Diamond (+54 Agility and 3% increases crit. damage)
** Red - Bold Inferno Ruby (40 Agility)
** Yellow - Adept Ember Topaz (20 Agility/20 Mastery)
** Blue - Glinting Demonseye (20 Agility/20 Hit rating)
* Enchants
** Weapon - Landslide. At this point in the expansion, it is just about as cheap as Hurricane, the substantially inferior alternative.
** Head - Arcanum of the Ramakhen (60 Agility/35 Haste rating)
** Shoulders - Greater Inscription of the Shattered Crystal (50 Agility/25 Mastery)
** Back - Greater Critical Strike
** Chest - Peerless Stats
** Gloves - Greater Mastery
** Wrists - Agility (assuming you're not a Leatherworker)
** Legs - Dragonscale Leg Armor
** Feet - Major Agility
* Consumables
** Flask of Winds
** Feast/ Skewered Eel
** Potion of the Tol'vir

!! Trinkets
A note on trinkets because there can be a debate in which is best. Reproduced from the EJ Forums we have the following list. The values are in Equivalence Points (EP) are relative to each other. For more information on how these were derived, see the work of the fine mathy folks at the EJ Forums.
T11 and Heroics Trinkets
|| Name || EP
| [url:Matrix Restabilizer | http://www.wowhead.com/item=69150] | 1902.59
| [url:Hungerer | http://www.wowhead.com/item=69112] | 1715.18
| [url:Matrix Restabilizer | http://www.wowhead.com/item=68994] | 1685.97
| [url:Hungerer |http://www.wowhead.com/item=68927] | 1574.84.64
| [url:Arrow of Time | http://www.wowhead.com/?item=72897] | 1562.72
| [url:Prestor's Talisman of Machination |http://www.wowhead.com/item=65026] | 1509.11
| [url:Essence of the Cyclone |http://www.wowhead.com/item=65140] | 1464.53
| [url:Fluid Death |http://www.wowhead.com/item=58181] | 1409.28
| [url:Ancient Petrified Seed |http://www.wowhead.com/item=69001] | 1397.23
| [url:Ricket's Magnetic Fireball | http://www.wowhead.com/item=70144] | 1259.41
| [url:Prestor's Talisman of Machination |http://www.wowhead.com/item=59441] | 1262.15
| [url:Tia's Grace |http://www.wowhead.com/item=56394] | 1249.03
| [url:Key to the Endless Chamber |http://www.wowhead.com/item=56328] | 1206.90
| [url:Unheeded Warning |http://www.wowhead.com/item=59520] | 1189.50
| [url:Darkmoon Card: Hurricane |http://www.wowhead.com/item=62051] | 1180.97
| [url:Essence of the Cyclone |http://www.wowhead.com/item=62051] | 1159.72
| [url:Left Eye of Rajh |http://www.wowhead.com/item=56427] | 1158.19
| [url:Quicksilver Alchemist Stone |http://www.wowhead.com/item=68776] | 1125.70
| [url:Unsolvable Riddle |http://www.wowhead.com/item=62468] | 1098.31


!! Addons
[url:RoguePowerBars|http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/rpb-20.aspx] Gives you movable bars in the middle of your screen that keeps track of your buffs and debuffs. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have this addon.
[url:UIM:ComboPoints|http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/cbp.aspx] If you don't like to look up at the bosses raid frame for combo points this will give your a movable bar.
[url:TrickOrTreat|http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/trickortreat.aspx] Whispers the target of your tricks. Tells them how much extra damage they received and if their threat is getting high.

!! Macros
Tricks of the Trade, you won't have to change targets
/tar Player
!!!! or
/cast [target="targetname"] Tricks of the Trade

!! Links
[url:Elitist Jerks|http://elitistjerks.com/f78/t110134-assassination_guide_cata_11_07_2011_a] A good site that does a lot of Theorycrafting, the forums are full of info.
[url:Shadowcraft|http://shadowcraft.mmo-mumble.com/] A good site by coded by Antiarc based on Aldriana's EP system. This will help you maximize your gear choices, reforging, and gemming. Does not always agree with askmrrobot. Personally, I consider this site superior.
[url:Mr. Robot|http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/gear] A site to assist in maximization of gear choices, reforging, and gemming.
[url:wowhead|http://http://www.wowhead.com/] Good site if your looking for info on items, specs, quests, or bosses.
[url:Ensidia|http://http://manaflask.com/guild/Ensidia/] Also a really good place to search info on your class. Ensidia is a top ranked guild.



Written by Rijl, data borrowed from Elitist Jerks. Credit goes to the original authors.