WotLK Classic Subtlety Rogue Spec, Builds, Talents, and Glyphs

Subtlety Rogues have 2 builds available to them, depending on the weapons they have available to them.

If you were looking for a leveling-oriented build, please refer instead to our Rogue leveling guide.

The 20/0/51 Subtlety build is built to be used with a slow main-hand and fast off-hand weapon and aims to pick up extra Poison damage in the Assassination tree.

The alternative build for Subtlety goes into the Combat tree, rather than the Assassination tree, and opts for Close Quarters Combat, taking the talent specifically for the weapon type you should use with this build. You should only use this if you are using daggers and fist weapons for your weapons.

The traditional Subtlety build features a number of talents that are integral to not only their damage output, but their role in the raid as well.

Hemorrhage acts as your main Combo Point builder and gives a unique debuff to the raid, adding additional damage to any Physical attacks made.

Filthy Tricks allows Subtlety Rogues to maintain a nearly 50% uptime on the damage buff from Tricks of the Trade.

Vile Poisons and Improved Poisons both buff your Poison damage. With Poisons already being so powerful in Wrath Classic, these talents make for more of a good thing.

The CQC build is based around the use of the Close Quarters Combat talent and fist weapons or daggers.

This build only outperforms the Assassination variant if your best weapons are fist weapons or daggers. If you find a very strong other type of weapon, the other variant will be better.

For both builds, the glyph choices are fairly straightforward, but the glyph for Tricks of the Trade is very important. Combined with Filthy Tricks, it allows you to maintain a nearly 50% uptime on the damage buff of the spell.

The Minor glyph choices for both builds are fairly lackluster in their effects and are simply quality of life improvements that we would recommend.