Assassination Rogue DPS Guide — The War Within (11.2)

Path 11.2, the Ghosts of K'aresh, brings with it a variety of changes and bug fixes to the core Rogue class kit, as well as a few Assassination specific changes. In their entirety, these changes largely aim at boosting the overall DPS performance of the class to stay competitive with other classes, while also attempting to boost Fatebound into a playable state. This Hero Talent choice was underperforming since the launch of the expansion, but Fatebound enjoyers can finally rejoice. At least a little bit.

The major shift for Fatebound comes alongside the new Tier Set bonuses, which turns Assassination into a 90-second cooldown class instead of the 2-minute CD class we typically are. This is always a good thing, as it opens up flexibility on certain encounters where the 2-minute DPS-profile is less than optimal. Deathstalker on the other hand simply gets better at what it already did well once you acquire the new Tier set, which is nice, but sadly nothing to get excited about.

Unfortunately, despite all these changes, fixes, and improvements, one issue remains: Fatebound is significantly worse than Deathstalker the moment we are not fighting a single target for prolonged periods of time. Once we get into any kind of AoE or Cleave situation, Deathstalker quickly pulls ahead, while Fatebound ends up being the superior choice in pure single-target.

We have listed a non-exhaustive list of the 11.2 changes below. Make sure to check out our Rotation and Talent sections for deeper insight into the new builds and rotational priorities.

• Cold Blood cooldown now begins immediately upon use, and has a 15-second max duration. This change aims to allow for better syncing of cooldowns, as Cold Blood used to only start its cooldown once it was consumed before. This mostly helps Fatebound, as Deathstalker does not play the talent.
• The Single-Button Assistant and Assisted Highlight now recommend more appropriate weapon poisons based on your talents and adjust their recommendations towards Wound Poison in PvP content.
• Fatebound: Fatebound Coin: Tails and Lucky Coin damage increased by 17%.
• Fatebound: Fixed an issue that caused the damage bonus from Fatebound Coin Heads flips to be lower than intended.
• Fatebound: Fixed an issue where talents that modified your chance for a flip to match the previous flip weren't always working as intended. This fix should be an overall damage increase.

Assassination received a variety of damage buffs, including a sizable Aura-buff (meaning all damage except melee-attacks, procs, and trinkets), as well as buffs to abilities like Envenom, Garrote, Rupture, Ambush, and Mutilate. It also received a nerf to Crimson Tempest. Collectively these changes boost our single-target damage, while retaining our already high AoE damage, but it shifts some of our damage in AoE back into Caustic Spatter and multi-dotting, instead of relying too much on CT.

If you haven't played the game in a while and are curious about what major changes the spec received since the expansion's release, make sure to check the other tab for more information. Don't worry, it won't take long.

The big class tuning changes on March 25th gave Assassination a small set of highly impactful changes. The overall gain of these buffs sits at around 4-6% on single-target, while the changes to AoE are minimal at best.

Our AoE damage was already among the highest in the game, so the below changes simply serve to boost our middling single-target DPS, and bring it in line with most of the other classes in the game. There are a handful of rotational changes that result from these buffs, which end up lowering some of the rotational complexity on single-target!

We received large buffs to Ambush and Mutilate, as well as a small aura buff (meaning all damage except melee-attacks, procs, and trinkets), and some of the trinket tuning also benefits us slightly. The end result is a change in talents, as we drop Master Assassin and Improved Garrote to pick up Vicious Venoms on single-target instead, with the option to play Tiny Toxic Blade instead of Arterial Precision for pure single-target. We also no longer use Fan of Knives as part of our single-target rotation.

For the updated rotational priorities and talents, make sure to check out the dedicated sections of our Assassination Rogue guide!