World of Warcraft: Forever Subtlety Rogue Guide

With the Beta Cap sitting at 30, we got a first glimpse at Subtlety Rogue already. However, most of the changes Blizzard made to the spec compared to era-versions of the game like Classic WoW or Season of Discovery, were not playable as a result of the level cap. Still, even without any hands-on experience, we can already tell that Subtlety will keep some of its incredible PvP burst. You can still build for Cold Blood and Hemorrhage as low-cost builders that let you spam a few strikes and guarantee a Critical Strike Eviscerate, before the stun of Cheap Shot expires.

In PvE it is a bit harder to judge how well Subtlety will do. With a heavy emphasis on Bleed damage, but Garrote still being a stealth-only ability, there is really only Rupture as a main bleed source. While this works decently fine, and leads to a nice maintenance-focused rotation where you need to maintain Slice and Dice as well as Rupture, the damage might not quite be there.

The reason the damage might be lacking is a distinct lack of damage-increasing talents. Going deep Subtlety means you will be giving up either the sustained autoattack damage boosts from the mid-tier Combat talents, or the Combo Point and Energy refreshes from Assassination. Unfortunately the talents you can pick up in the deeper tiers of the Subtlety tree simply aren't strong enough.

Quietus is a perfect example: spending 5 points for a 10% damage increase to a handful of builders, that is conditional on enemies being below 35% HP, is just too many ifs-and-whens. No one wants to spend 5 Talent Points for what amounts to less than 1% more overall damage. And, considering the prerequisite has no real DPS gain either, it ends up costing you 7 Talent Points, not just 5.

Simultaneously the spec also suffers a bit from an identity crisis. There are a handful of Backstab and Ambush-enhancing talents, but they stand in opposition to Hemorrhage as a builder that is cheap and cost-effective, while also not forcing a weapon or positional requirement. If the goal is to only cast Hemorrhage once to maintain its debuff, similar to how Subtlety Rogue played in the Cataclysm Expansion, then it is simply missing something to tie everything together.

A rework for Subtlety that solves many of the aforementioned issues is expected at this point, although we do not currently know when the spec will receive some much-needed attention. Having some additional Energy-Cost reduction or even removing the Energy Cost from the free Ambush casts provided by Cutthroat would help a lot, and further solidify the spec as more fast-paced and reactive.

Thousand Cuts is also a bit of an oddball. Fundamentally it is simply 1.5 additional Energy per second. That is quite significant, but it currently has an inner cooldown to avoid players from being able to multi-dot for even more gain on AoE. With a 2-second tickrate on Rupture that is of course by design, but we think that removing this inner cooldown would give some much needed reason to multi-dot on AoE.

Last but not least, the lack of Garrote outside of Stealth is odd as well. The class has two bleed abilities, so why turn a spec into a Bleed-based archetype but then keep the limitation on one of the two spells that deal Bleed damage? Hopefully we can see some more changes here as well!

Rogue uses two main resources that interact with one another. All abilities cost Energy. Some of those abilities, commonly called 'Builders' not only deal damage, but also generate Combo Points. These are locked to your target, and while you can auto-attack any other target without your CP disappearing, you can only have Combo Points active on one enemy, so don't use a builder against a fresh target unless the previous one died.

You also have abilities called 'Finishers', which consume Combo Points. Some of these apply buffs or debuffs, and others deal damage either directly, or over time. Managing and using your Combo Points wisely for the right finisher in the right situation is the key to success as a Rogue!

As one of two classes who can Stealth, understanding how it works is critical to being the best Rogue you can be.

Stealth naturally lowers the detection range of enemies, but it doesn't set it to zero. The detection range is always dependent on the difference in levels, so i.e. if you are Level 10 and the enemy is Level 12, they will have a higher detection range than a Level 10 enemy. You have several talents that adjust this level difference, especially as a Subtlety Rogue.

When the Level difference is even, or to your advantage, you can usually get into melee range without enemies detecting you. Enemies also have a shorter Stealth detection range when you are behind them. Use this knowledge to your advantage to get a Backstab or Ambush opener, or to CC a target with Sap.

When you get close to their detection radius, enemies don't typically attack you immediately either. Instead, they will turn towards you, and after another second or so, start attacking you. This gives you a short amount of time to Sap them or open on them. This behavior only happens once every ~5 seconds or so, so if you end up noticing an enemy turning towards you, you can step back and approach from a different angle, or slip past their side without having to worry about them doing another such "check", as long as you don' get even closer to them.

There are also enemies with an Eye above their heads. These enemies have Stealth detection, and they will detect you from a great range than if you were not stealthed at all, so keep this in mind when you stumble upon one. Sometimes you might be able to simply walk past an enemy with a regular unstealthed detection range, but if you were in Stealth, they would start attacking you.

Poisons are weapon enhancements that are unique to Rogues, and you can learn them starting at Level 20. You will have to do a short quest to unlock the ability to craft and utilize them, and once completed, you'll be able to buy reagents from a Poison Vendor that is usually found close to your class trainers, and open the poison crafting interface.

Poisons have both a 1-hr duration, and a set number of charges. You may also randomly lose the buff when changing instances, so you will always want to keep some excess Poisons in your inventory to be able to re-apply them when needed. Keep in mind that poisons are applied directly to the weapon, so if you plan on using a weapon swap macro, you can apply more than 2 Poisons at once!

Rogue is one of the classes that can greatly benefit from a few macros that quickly let you switch your weapons. Some of your weapons have positional requirements, and you will want to use Backstab with a dagger, while Sinister Strike benefits most from a slow Main Hand, so swapping weapons can be quite useful.

Keep in mind that swapping weapons incurs both a GCD, and resets your swing timer. If you want to use 2 separate macros that tie the weapon swap to their respective abilities, you can use the ones below instead. Note that you will have to use these macros twice, once to weapon swap, and then again to actually hit the enemy with the ability once the GCD has passed. You can weapon swap immediately after an ability has been cast though, even if you're currently in your GCD; it will simply refresh.