Assassination Rogue Shadowlands Leveling Guide From 1 to 60

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.

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Talents are passives or abilities that you can choose from to optimize your character or change how some of your regular abilities work.

Your first talent row unlocks at Level 15.

Your talent set up should be as follows.

• Level 15: Blindside or Master Poisoner if you fight a lot of enemies at once.
• Level 25: Subterfuge
• Level 30: Marked for Death
• Level 35: Leeching Poison
• Level 40: Internal Bleeding
• Level 45: Alacrity
• Level 50: Poison Bomb

Cast Stealth if you want to get to a quest objective without fighting all enemies or prior to engaging enemies.

Starting at Level 1, you only have one main attack ability: Sinister Strike.

1. Cast Eviscerate once you have 4+ Combo Points to spend them.
2. Use Sinister Strike to build up Combo Points.

1. Make sure you always have Instant Poison applied.
2. Make sure you always have Deadly Poison applied.
3. Use Vendetta on bosses or elite enemies.
4. Use Marked for Death from Stealth on the mob you intend to kill first. Once you kill this target, keep using Marked for Death and use your Combo Points to quickly finish off the remaining enemies.
5. Use 4+ Combo Points to keep up Slice and Dice at all times. You can use this ability while stealthed.
6. Cast Garrote from stealth. If there are multiple enemies, use Garrote on 3 different targets.
7. Cast Ambush once from Stealth if there is only one target.
8. Cast Ambush once from Stealth if there is only one target. Cast Ambush whenever Blindside gives you a free cast.
9. Spend your Combo Points to maintain Rupture on multiple targets.
10. Use Garrote to maintain the debuff on as many enemies as possible.
11. Cast Eviscerate to spend excess Combo Points.
12. Use Kidney Shot to spend excess Combo Points. Watch out for enemies that are immune to stuns.
13. Use Shiv on bosses and enemies with very high health.
14. Use Envenom to spend excess Combo Points.
15. Use Sinister Strike unless you have 4+ Combo Points.
16. Use Mutilate unless you have 4+ Combo Points.
17. Use Fan of Knives instead of Mutilate when fighting 4 or more targets.

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 to 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. Thiswat essentially resets all enemies you are in combat with. If you happen to be close to dying 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 using 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.

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.

1. Flying Daggers - Fan of Knives radius is increased to 15 yards and deals 50% more damage when it strikes 3 or more targets. This is your best PvP Talent whenever you fight 3+ enemies at once.
2. 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.
3. 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.

Congratulations on reaching Level 60! Now that you have hit Level 60 we recommend looking at our Easy mode page and Talents section to learn how to play at max level.