Forever Subtlety Rogue Melee DPS Guide

Subtlety Rogues are the masters of stealth, treading in the shadows unseen until they are ready to strike with nimble and brutal efficiency. Stalking their targets, they often dispatch enemies with just a few hits. They use an Energy and Combo Point system. You will use skills that cost Energy, but generate Combo Points, and then use these Combo Points for powerful finishers. In WoW Forever, Combo Points are locked to your target, so you will need to make sure to not waste them when enemies are close to dying, lest you find yourself out of resources and at the mercy of whoever is left standing.

Gameplay wise this manifests in high-cost and hard-hitting abilities that have high Crit Chance and damage. In PvP they are a feared opponent who can take down players within a single stun window. Comparatively, the spec has struggled a bit in PvE in Classic and Vanilla WoW, but with WoW Forever the spec has received some very interesting updates to its talents that position it as one of the most fun and high burst specs in the game even in PvE. It is also an incredibly rewarding spec to play, as players are expected to properly pool Energy, monitoring procs, and ensuring the perfect positional advantage.

As a Rogue, you have no healing. You also have Stealth. This more than makes up for it while leveling, and you can often open from stealth with a Cheap Shot, and kill enemies before they even have a chance to hurt you. This does cost quite a bit of Energy though, and Energy Regeneration is slow in WoW Forever, so don't expect a lightning-fast leveling experience.

Rogue is arguably one of the safest classes to level as well. Between Evasion, Sprint and Vanish, you have many skills that let you get out of risky or dangerous situations. Just make sure to not be in melee when using Vanish, or it might break again immediately. A quick Gouge or Kidney Shot before retreating will almost always guarantee a successful escape.

One of the main concerns when leveling as Subtlety is the positional requirements of Backstab. You can only use this ability when standing behind the enemy, and the moment you engage them, they will turn to face you. Stunning them does allow you to hit them from behind though, and so does a Blind or Gouge, but make sure you have enough Energy left after casting these abilities or you won't be able to get a hit out before the CC runs out.

When pulling enemies, always be aware of your surrounding. When there are multiple enemies, use Sap on one of them, and you can also Blind another temporarily to avoid taking too much damage. If push comes to shove and you see yourself dropping low HP, simply Vanish and try again later. There is no shame in waiting out your defensive cooldowns before trying to handle a quest mob that is surrounding by multiple allies, and you can always party up with someone else, especially a tank, to let you hit them from behind for maximum damage.

If you want to craft your own armor, picking up Skinning and Leatherworking are great professions for any Rogue. Herbalism and Alchemy are another great combination, and you can often gather Herbs without even having to engage enemies standing close to them, thanks to Sap. You can even farm herbs inside dungeons quite reliably, then leave and reset the dungeon to farm them over and over again, as you can often control multiple enemies at once, herb, then Vanish. And, for PvP, Engineering is a great pick, letting you further improve your already stellar control toolkit with grenades and other gadgets.

Make sure to pick up First Aid as well. You can blind or gouge an enemy and bandage yourself in the middle of combat!

As for your races, you can really play whichever race allows Rogue. Humans have always been good for their Perception racial, as well as granting additional crit with swords. This is more of a PvP-focused race though. Night Elf provide a nice Crit bonus with Elune's Light, which further boosts your burst potential.

For Horde players, Orcs are the go-to choice for PvP due to their innate stun resistance, as well as Attack Power boost with Blood Fury. For PvE, Troll is often the best choice. The attack speed bonus from Berserking is quite decent, but more importantly, 5% damage to beasts from Beast Slaying can be massive against bosses that are considered beasts. The self-healing is also very nice while leveling.

For the early levels, you simply pick up the above talents as they provide the best bang for your buck. Having a reduced Stealth cooldown and increased move speed will make stealthing while leveling a lot smoother, and with Improved Ambush you can do some massive damage from stealth, taking down over half the health bar on most enemies.

Ghostly Strike provides some additional damage without having a positional requirement, unlike Backstab, so it is worth picking up.

However, you can also opt to drop a few points in the Subtlety tree by removing Ghostly Strike and Setup, and pick up Remorseless Attacks as well. If you end up fighting many enemies back to back, this gives you close to 100% Crit Chance with Ambush.

That being said, you will dodge a lot, and getting extra Combo Points from Setup, especially during Evasion, is often underrated. Do keep in mind though that when fighting more than one enemy, Setup can grant you a Combo Point on a target you aren't targeting, and you will lose your other Combo Points in the process.

Thankfully, Subtlety is very straightforward to play in the early levels. You will build Combo Points with Backstab, if you can use it, or Sinister Strike, and use Eviscerate to finish. On more durable targets, you would rather use Slice and Dice as your finisher though.

When you want to burst enemies quickly, it can be worth using Cheap Shot as your opener instead of Ambush, as it will allow you to cast two Backstabs right after. This will deal more damage than opening with Ambush and then having to cast Sinister Strikes instead.

Rupture is rarely used at lower levels, and even on targets that live the full duration, you're better off using Slice and Dice instead.

Defensively you will want to make use of your survivability and cc skills as much as possible. Sap enemies, blind them, stun them, gouge them, if you ever find yourself in trouble. Almost all of these cost Energy though, and will lower your DPS output, so oftentimes offense is the best defense. Bursting a target, then retreating with Vanish, healing back up, and finishing the remaining enemies, is a staple of Rogue gameplay.

WoW Forever greatly changed the ecosphere around items and stats, so we are unable to provide specific guidance on this topic at this time. Once the Beta for Forever begins on September 17th and we had an opportunity to play around with the game a little bit, we will be updating this section to provide more information on what items and stats Subtlety Rogue wants to aim for, as well as any items that might be of particular interest to you.

Early on you will not be having much choice in your stats, and generally speaking, higher item level is always king. That being said, try to prioritize Haste and Expertise. While Crit will improve your damage directly, Haste lets you generate more Energy passively (unless this was changed in WoW Forever, at which point we will update this section of course), while Expertise gets rid of these pesky Parries and Dodges.

If you end up learning Alchemy yourself, or have a friend who can provide you with some consumables, try and grab an Elixir of Minor Agility and a few Healing Potions. More importantly, make sure to learn First Aid and bandage yourself. Humanoids will drop plenty of cloth, and even in combat you can simply Gouge or Stun an enemy, and recover a lot of health without the fear of your First Aid being cancelled.

Rogue can also apply Poisons to their weapons. Once this class quest unlocks, make sure to complete it immediately, and always run Instant Poison on both your weapons. In PvP you would want to play Wound Poison instead.

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