Cataclysm Classic Assassination Rogue Talent Builds

Assassination Rogue has a relatively straight forward talent build that focuses on maximizing our damage by utilizing the full array of talents to deal maximum damage by maximizing the potency of our Poisons and dealing large bursts of damage.

This spec goes is focused on maximizing your ability to deal damage, there is some very slight variance depending on what you view as more important, this build opts for two points in Quickening but these points can be moved between Deadly Brew if you find yourself needing to slow enemies or even Deadened Nerves for the flat damage mitigation.

In this section we will go over some of the key talents you will use when you are playing a Assassination Rogue. Be sure to understand your most important talents as they are vital to play the build to its fullest strength.

• Coup de Grace — increases the damage done and reduces the damage done by our Eviscerate and Envenom abilities which will act as our primary spenders of Combo Points.

• Lethality — increases the Critical Strike damage of our Mutilate and Backstab abilities by 30%, both of which will act as our primary energy spender depending on the targets health.

• Quickening — increases healing you receieve by 20% and increases your Movement Speed by 15%, both of which are incredibly valuable in any kind of content but especially in a raid where maximizing your uptime is crucial to dealing damage.

• Ruthlessness — causes your melee finishing moves to have a 60% chance to add another Combo Points to the target, allowing us to use even more finishers.

• Puncturing Wounds — increases the Critical Strike chance of your Backstab ability by 30% and your Mutilate ability by 15% which synergizes incredibly with Lethality that increases the damage of these Critical Strikes.

• Cold Blood — instantly restores 25 energyand increases the Critical Strike chance of your next non-periodic offensive by 100%.

• Seal Fate — causes your Critical Strikes from abilities that generate Combo Points to add another Combo Point. This synergizes incredibly with other talents found throughout the tree like Cold Blood and Puncturing Wounds.

• Overkill — while stealthed and for 20 seconds after leaving Stealth you regenerate an additional 30% energy. The more energy we have the more damage we are able to deal, this also makes our Vanish ability into an even more potent DPS cooldown.

• Murderous Intent — when the target is below 35% your Backstab ability will instantly recover 30 energy, causing this to become our primary energy spending ability against targets below 35%.

• Master Poisoner — increases the targets Spell Damage taken by 8% when afflicted by any of your Poisons and also causes your Envenom to not consume your Deadly Poison stacks.

• Cut to the Chase — causes your Envenom and Eviscerate abilities to refresh your Slice and Dice back to its full 5Combo Points duration allowing us to spend Combo points on other finishing abilities.

• Vendetta — marks the target causing it to take 20% increased Damage for 30 seconds.

• Opportunity — increases the damage done by your Backstab, Garrote and Mutilate abilites by 30% which we will be using all three of these quite frequently this is a massive, entirely passive damage increase.

• Precision — increases your Hit chance with weapons and Poison attacks. Hit Rating is incredibly valuable as Assassination as Poisons are a massive part of our damage and while the 17% Spell Hit cap can be daunting to get to this helps significantly.

Prime glyphs are new to Cataclysm, giving you a third "row" of glyphs you can use on your character. While there are a couple of different options to choose from, there are some very clear front runners for each specialization.

• Glyph of Backstab — causes your Backstab Critical Strikes to return 5 energy. As our primary Combo Point generator against targets below 35% this synergizes incredibly with other talents like Murderous Intent and Puncturing Wounds.
• Glyph of Mutilate — reduces the energy cost of our Mutilate ability by 5. Mutilate Acts as our primary source of Combo Point generation until the enemy is below 35% so the reduced cost throughout the course of a fight adds up quickly.
• Rupture — increases the duration of your Rupture ability by 4 seconds.

Major glyphs typically offer utility-based options and can be highly situational. For Assassination there are a wide variety of Glyphs but we have highlighted what are typically the most useful.

• Glyph of Feint — reduces energy cost of your Feint ability by 20.
• Glyph of Tricks of the Trade — removes energy cost of your Tricks of the Trade ability but reduces the targets damage bonus by 5%. The removed energy cost allows this ability to be used in your rotation without having to worry about pooling energy.
• Glyph of Fan of Knives — increases the radius of your Fan of Knives ability by 50%.

Minor glyphs typically provide very minor benefits. Your choices will typically depend on what quality of life increase is the most meaningful for you.

• Glyph of Poisons — causes your poison application to be 50% faster.
• Glyph of Safe Fall — greatly reduces your fall damage taken.
• Glyph of Blurred Speed — allows you to walk on water with Sprint active.