Assassination Rogue DPS Mythic+ Tips — Dragonflight 10.2

Disclaimer: With the vast amount of changes to Rogue and Assassination talents and abilities in Patch 10.2, we expect more findings and optimizations to surface as the Theorycrafting community continues their efforts to find the best possible way to play the spec. As a result, information on this page might receive frequent updates after Patch 10.2 hits live servers.

The playstyle of Assassination in Mythic+ remains the same, and if you have played the spec in previous expansions, you will feel right at home. It revolves around setting up your bleeds on multiple targets, ramping up your Energy regeneration until you become global cooldown-locked, and then continuing to cycle bleeds between targets. A key feature of Assassination AoE is that while it is most optimal in multi-dotting evenly across several targets; you can still channel your damage into a single target as well, at the cost of overall DPS.

If you are unfamiliar with Mythic+ and its associated general mechanics, you can read more about it on our Dragonflight Mythic+ Season 3 page below.

Below are the suggested talents for Mythic+. These talents are recommended for all groups and keys at the current time. Be sure to use the 'Copy Export String' button to import our build below!

This build is not the highest DPS build, as it picks up Acrobatic Strikes instead, for a ~3% DPS loss. You can find alternative builds on our Talents page.

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Some of the talents are flexible and can be exchanged for others, i.e. Stillshroud can be replaced for Iron Stomach, and Leeching Poison and a point in Lethality can be put into Echoing Reprimand and Resounding Clarity for slightly higher DPS.

For the most part, Assassination Rogue's rotation is the same as referred to in the Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities page.

The key priorities for high sustained AoE DPS in Mythic+ is to maintain all relevant buffs and debuffs. Maximizing your stacks of Scent of Blood while spreading your single-target poison damage via Caustic Spatter to the rest of the enemies will be of vital importance to your DPS output. Maintaining Garrote, Rupture and Crimson Tempest on as many targets as possible will allow you to saturate your Energy generation and benefit from Sanguine Blades as much as possible, and Indiscriminate Carnage allows you to quickly set up many bleeds at once on each opener. Finally, Kingsbane and Deathmark will allow you to deal very high single-target and priority-target damage, which will be spread to nearby enemies via Caustic Spatter.

There is a certain balance that needs to be kept for optimizing your damage, as there will be many situations where just doing the best for overall DPS might not save you the most time. Many packs have enemies with differing HP levels, and our kit allows us to ensure that most of our highest damaging abilities hit those targets.

Indiscriminate Carnage is a useful tool to quickly get a lot of bleed effects out. Keep in mind that all your Garrotes cast this way will benefit from Improved Garrote and Shrouded Suffocation if you cast Garrote from stealth.

This is what your regular opener on any mid to large-sized pack should look like:

1. Cast Indiscriminate Carnage in stealth.
2. Use Garrote once.
3. Cast Crimson Tempest with maximum Combo Points.
4. Use Garrote again on a target that doesn't currently have the debuff yet. If the pack is smaller than 6 targets, all of them should have the debuff now. You can also choose to Garrote the priority target for the Pandemic duration, if you plan to use Deathmark on it.
5. Use Rupture.
6. Cast Echoing Reprimand.
7. Cast Mutilate.
8. Use Rupture.

1. Once you have spread your DoTs, use Deathmark, Shiv, Shadow Dance and Kingsbane, on your priority target.
2. Maintain Caustic Spatter by using Mutilate once every 10 seconds.
3. Extend Shiv on your priority target.
4. Refresh Garrote and Rupture while Shadow Dance is active.

This marks the end of your AoE opener.

1. Continue building Combo Points with Fan of Knives.
2. Maintain Crimson Tempest with 5+ Combo Points.
3. Use excess Combo Points to cast Envenom on your priority target and to maintain the buff.
4. Maintain as many Ruptures as you can without dropping Envenom.
5. Use Garrote on cooldown on targets that do not yet have the debuff active.

• Gouge (if talented) can be used to disrupt enemies from casting otherwise uninterruptible spells. This requires you to stand in front of the enemy, but can be used in many situations to keep enemies from using some of their most lethal abilities. Many of these abilities go on cooldown once used, so disrupting them with Gouge, Kidney Shot, or Blind will keep these mobs from re-casting these abilities for a while.
• Sap and Blind can be useful to hard-crowd control multiple mobs in a single trash pack. You can also use it right before the tank is pulling, as Blackjack applies a damage reduction debuff to the target when Sap breaks.
• With Airborne Irritant talented, Blind turns into a powerful AoE disrupt that also drastically reduces tank damage taken.
• Shroud of Concealment projects AoE Stealth around you. It is important to note, however, that in the current expansion, there is a much greater number of enemies who can detect through Stealth or Invisibility, whom you will need to be on the lookout for.
• Distract helps set up Shroud-skips and keeps patrolling trash packs in place for 10 seconds.
• Feint, Cloak of Shadows, Evasion, Crimson Vial and Cheat Death form a very powerful set of defensive cooldowns and are one of the biggest reasons for Rogue's strength in Mythic+.
• Tricks of the Trade is not exceptionally great normally. However, any kind of support that helps your tank keep aggro on all enemies is encouraged.
• Shiv can be used to dispel Enrage effects. Keep in mind that this means you will not be able to use Shiv for single-target damage.
• Numbing Poison and Atrophic Poison are both useful in Mythic+, but with the heavier emphasis on trash mobs, Numbing Poison is likely to win out on Fortified, with Atrophic gaining more value on Tyrannical weeks. Communicate with your tank and healer which ones are preferable.

Currently, you will want to prioritize secondary stats as follows:

1. Mastery;
2. Critical Strike;
3. Haste;
4. Versatility.

There is not much to say about Fortified and Tyrannical. The most important part is to ensure that you have all your single-target cooldowns ready whenever you fight any boss.

• Storming can be avoided by using Cloak of Shadows.
• Entangling can be removed with Vanish, Cloak of Shadows or by simply running away from the center of the area.
• Incorporeal enemies can be CCed by all your crowd control abilities. Use your Gouge, Kidney Shot, and Blind wisely!

• Bolstering and Sanguine are fairly easy to manage as Assassination, as you can prioritize the highest health enemies for your bleeds, Envenom and cooldowns. This makes it easy to keep mob Health even by always targeting the highest health enemy.
• The Bursting debuff can be cleared off with Cloak of Shadows and prevent future applications for its duration. Due to this, it is best to wait until a few enemies have died before using it.
• Using Poisoned Knife can help to kite the adds that fixate you during Spiteful weeks. You can use Evasion when fixated by a Spiteful enemy, or control them with a well-placed Kidney Shot.
• Use Shiv to dispell the Raging affix.

There is no seasonal affix in Dragonflight Season 3. Rejoice!