Assassination Rogue Dragonflight Leveling Guide From 1 to 70 (Dragonflight 10.1)
On this page, you will find our Level by Level Assassination Rogue leveling guide for Dragonflight Make sure to use the slider to make the guide adapt to your level. For more general leveling information, please refer to our Rogue leveling guide.
Gear Options
When leveling up, you should always choose the piece of loot with the highest item level. The only exception to this rule is if you have a Ring or Necklace with a slightly lower item level, but 2 secondary stats on it instead of 1.
Level by Level Rotation and Talents
Move the slider below to make the guide update to your level!
Assassination Rogue Talents as you level up
Talents are passives or abilities that you can choose from to optimize your character or change how some of your regular abilities work. Many of these are only passive abilities that do not alter the way you play the game or the order in which to use your abilities. Some, however, are big milestones on your way to max level, and you should aim for these talents as soon as possible.
At Level 10, you can allocate your first Talent Point into your Class Talent tree.
At Level 11, you can allocate your first Talent Point into your Assassination Talent tree.
At Level 12, you can allocate a second Talent Point into your Class Talent tree. This process alternates every level, and you will be able to spend 26 Talent Points in your Class tree and 25 Talent Points in your Assassination Talent tree by the time you reach Level 60.
There are certain milestone talents that you should try to reach as quickly as possible. These allow you to better deal with enemies, speeding up your leveling process.
The first such Milestone happens around
level 34, as you can pick up
Vigor in the class tree to increase your energy regeneration, while
simultaneously being able to pick up
Deathmark and
Master Assassin
in your Assassination tree. You will also want to pick up
Crimson Tempest
by pathing through
Thrown Precision, as it is your only AoE damaging
finisher available.
There are only a handful of important
talents on your way there, with Venomous Wounds
being of particular importance in the Assassination tree. You will want to learn
it as soon as possible, as once you gain access to
Garrote and
Rupture
at Levels 15 and 17, it will greatly increase your Energy regeneration and speed
up the flow of your rotation.
Internal Bleeding deals a large amount of
damage whenever you use
Kidney Shot, allowing you to take less damage
while still dealing damage over time to your enemy.
Shadowrunner and
Improved Sprint in the Class tree are going
to speed up your ability to move around, which can be a big time saver
throughout
your journey to max level.
Your next major Milestone will be around
level 54, as you are finally able to
talent into Seal Fate on the Class tree, which allows you to generate
extra Combo Points whenever your generators deal a critical strike. At the same
time you will be able to pick up
Shrouded Suffocation and
Serrated Bone Spike,
both of which will significantly boost your multi-target damage output and speed
up the path through the last few levels.
The most important talents to pick up on
you way there are Shadowstep
and
Improved Sprint in the Class tree, to further increase your mobility
to speed up your journey.
Iron Stomach can help limit the amount of
times you have to sit down to regenerate health, by improving the efficacy of
your
Crimson Vial.
You can fill out the rest of the tree
however you want, as
long as you end up having talented into Doomblade with your 20th Talent
Point.
Once you get past the Level 54 milestone,
you will want to path straight towards
Indiscriminate Carnage in the Spec tree, with the rest of the points
being fairly flexible. At this point, you have selected all the important
leveling
talents in the Spec tree.
We recommend using this Import String for your journey from Level 60 to 70:
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Once you get past Level 60, you will want
to pick up Indiscriminate Carnage immediately at Level 61. The remaining
points are not nearly as impactful, but you should try and pick the talents in
the order we suggested. In the Class Tree, you should grab
Recuperator
for additional healing, and then pick up
Echoing Reprimand and
Resounding Clarity.
The last two points can go into
Lethality for additional damage.
Your leveling rotation and gameplay is
fairly
simple. Open with Garrote, ideally on 3 targets that are close to each
other. Apply
Crimson Tempest and spread
Rupture, either
individually
or by utilizing your new AoE cooldown. Bleed up your targets, and then run
around
as they bleed out. We recommend using
Crippling Poison while you level,
to minimize the amount of damage you take. You do not have to be in
melee
range to deal damage, as you can still hit enemies with
Fan of Knives
while
they are not able to hit you.
Make sure to utilize
Serrated Bone Spike
often, as it allows you to pull in enemies that are further away. Once they are
close enough, you can spread additional bleeds on them. You have many short-cd
abilities that allow you to deal additional damage to individual targets. Make
use of them whenever a mob happens to be a bit late to the party or a high HP
elite stands in your way.
If you play with War Mode on, we recommend
Creeping Venom,
System Shock and
Veil of Midnight as your War Mode talents.
Once you reach the maximum level it is recommended to switch to one of the suggested Talent builds from our Talents section of the guide.
Rotation to Level Up as an Assassination Rogue
Cast Stealth if you want to get to a
quest objective without fighting all enemies or before engaging enemies.
Starting at Level 1, you only have one main
attack
ability: Sinister Strike.
- Cast
Eviscerate once you have 4+ Combo Points to spend them.
- Use
Sinister Strike to build up Combo Points.
- Make sure you always have
Instant Poison applied.
- Make sure you always have
Deadly Poison applied.
- Make sure you always have
Numbing Poison applied.
- Use
Deathmark on bosses or elite enemies.
- Use 4+ Combo Points to keep up
Slice and Dice at all times. You can use this ability while stealthed.
- Cast
Garrote from stealth. If there are multiple enemies, use Garrote on 3 different targets.
- Cast
Ambush once from
Stealth if there is only one target.
- Spend your Combo Points to maintain
Rupture on multiple targets.
- Use
Garrote to maintain the debuff on as many enemies as possible.
- Cast
Eviscerate to spend excess Combo Points.
- Use
Kidney Shot to spend excess Combo Points against enemies you want to stun. Watch out for enemies that are immune to stuns.
- Use
Shiv on bosses and enemies with very high health.
- Use
Envenom to spend excess Combo Points.
- Use
Sinister Strike unless you have 4+ Combo Points.
- Use
Mutilate unless you have 4+ Combo Points.
- Use
Fan of Knives instead of
Mutilate when fighting 4 or more targets.
Assassination Rogue Defensive Abilities while Leveling
Assassination Rogues have a few tools at their disposal that make fighting multiple enemies easier or that allow you to avoid debilitating effects.
Kick allows you to interrupt an enemy that is casting a spell. Use this frequently to avoid the damage you would otherwise be taking if the spell cast finishes.
Crimson Vial lets you heal 20% of your max Health over 4 seconds. Use this whenever you need the healing or between pulls.
Sap lets you control any Humanoid, Beast, Demon, or Dragon for up to 60 seconds. Use this to keep a single enemy from joining the fight before you open on a group of enemies from stealth. This crowd control breaks when the enemy takes damage. Try to avoid hitting it with any of your abilities that hit multiple targets or it will join the fight.
Kidney Shot can be used to stun a single opponent for up to 6 seconds. Use this to interrupt a dangerous cast or simply not take damage from an enemy. Some NPCs might be immune to stuns.
Evasion increases your chance to dodge incoming melee and ranged attacks by 100% for 10 seconds. Use this whenever it is available to you while you are fighting multiple enemies. You can only dodge enemy attacks when facing them.
Vanish removes you from sight. This essentially resets all enemies you are in combat with. If you happen to be close to death and you do not feel that using any other defensive or offensive ability might let you finish off all the enemies you are engaged with, use Vanish to survive.
Blind allows you to control an enemy for up to 60 seconds. This can be used from stealth or outside of it. The crowd-control effect breaks when the target takes damage, so make sure to not hit it with any of your AoE abilities or use Blind when the enemy is afflicted with one of your damage over time effects.
Cloak of Shadows removes and makes you immune to magical effects for 5 seconds. This allows you to potentially remove damage over time effects that could break your
Stealth, allow you to take less damage, or simply avoid certain crowd control or damaging effects.
Assassination Rogue War Mode Talents for Leveling
In this section we will rank the PvP talents best for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content. Below is a ranking of both General PvP Talents and Assassination Rogue-specific PvE talents.
Assassination Rogue PvP Talents for Leveling
System Shock - Casting
Envenom with at least 5 Combo Points on a target afflicted by your
Garrote,
Rupture, and lethal poison deals Nature damage, and reduces their movement speed by 90% for 2 sec. While not incredibly useful, it is extra damage and can help with the enemies that are coded to run away. Make sure to always use Envenom with 5 Combo Points when using this PvP Talent.
Creeping Venom - Your
Envenom applies Creeping Venom, dealing Nature damage over 4 sec. The duration is refreshed when the target moves. This is another passive damage increase, which can also be easily maintained by side stepping, causing the enemies to move with you.
Control is King -
Cheap Shot will grant 15 seconds of
Slice and Dice and
Kidney Shot will restore Energy when used. Both of these allow you to use these abilities instead of
Ambush or
Envenom if need be, while still providing DPS benefits.
Congratulations!
Congratulations on reaching Level 70! Now that you have hit Level 70 we recommend looking at our Easy mode page and Talents section to learn how to play at max level.
Changelog
- 01 May 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
This guide has been written and reviewed by Seliathan, who has been playing Rogue since the first day of Classic. He currently raids in Familiar with Drama, and is one of the foremost Mythic+ Rogue players. You can often find him streaming on Twitch, or follow him on his personal Discord server.
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