Assassination Rogue DPS Spell Summary — Shadowlands 9.1

If you are new to Assassination, it is recommended you read this before proceeding! In this section we will discuss what abilities you have, what they are used for within the specialization, and how they interact with important cooldowns. If you have played this spec before or have already achieved a level of comfort playing this spec in a practical environment, it is recommended you skip this section and move on to the rest of the guide.

Energy is the main resource of Assassination Rogues. Energy is generated passively, the rate of which can be increased by Haste and talents. Venomous Wounds also provides some bonus Energy. Keeping track of your Energy and pooling for windows of increased burst is extremely important to playing Assassination properly.

Combo Points are another primary resource utilized by Assassination Rogues. Some of your abilities generate Combo Points, while finishing moves spend them. Spending more Combo Points on a finishing move increases the damage it deals or the duration of the effect it applies. Critical strikes generate additional Combo Points, due to the Seal Fate passive. Combo Point management is very important to maintaining your abilities and maximizing burst.

This page lists all the abilities that are available to you on a max level character. If you have just started your journey by leveling a new Rogue, you can head over to our leveling section to learn more about when you get access to these abilities on your way to max level.

These abilities are available no matter what talents you choose, and form the bread and butter of this specialization.

Mutilate costs 50 Energy and deals moderate damage, generating 2 Combo Points. This is your main Combo Point generator and requires Daggers to be used.

Ambush can only be used from Stealth and deals strong damage, generating 2 Combo Points.

Rupture is a finishing move that applies a bleed to the target that deals damage over time, lasting longer per combo point. Rupture returns Energy via Venomous Wounds. This is a very important finisher and should be maintained at all times on primary and secondary targets.

Envenom is a finishing move that deals Nature damage and increases your poison application chance by 30%. The damage and duration of Envenom are increased per Combo Point. This is your primary combo point dump when Rupture does not need a refresh.

Fan of Knives deals AoE damage and can apply poisons. This generates one Combo Point. It is usually better to focus on single target, but this can be useful for applying poisons to a stacked group of targets quickly.

Garrote is a bleed effect that lasts 18 seconds and generates 1 Combo Point. It also silences the target for 3 seconds when used from Stealth.

Slice and Dice is a finishing move that increases your attack speed by 50%. This increases the damage of your melee attacks as well as giving you more poison procs on your main-target.

For more information on how to use these abilities together in your rotation, please read our rotation page.

Seal Fate generates an extra Combo Point per critical strike.

Cut to the Chase extends the duration of your Slice and Dice by 3 seconds for every Combo Point spent on Envenom.

Venomous Wounds generates 8 Energy when your abilities deal bleed damage to a target.

Stealth lets you move around the battlefield unseen. You will start every fight from Stealth, as your Tier 2 talent provides a damage benefit to using your abilities while Stealth is active.

Alacrity increases your Haste after using a finishing move. This stacks up multiple times and provides a decent amount of Haste, allowing for a more fluid rotation because of the way Haste improves our energy regeneration passively as well as through faster ticking bleeds and Venomous Wounds.

Vendetta is your main DPS cooldown, which marks an enemy for 20 seconds. During this time, you deal 30% increased damage to the target and are granted true sight of the target. Vendetta is a strong cooldown, but you should be careful using it on targets that are short lived, as it is a debuff on the target rather than a personal buff.

Vanish breaks movement-impairing effects and instantly shifts you into Stealth.

Exsanguinate is a DPS cooldown that you can talent. Using it speeds up the rate at which your bleeding effects deal damage, increasing your DPS until they expire. This will also generate energy faster thanks to Venomous Wounds.

Shiv is a 25-second cooldown that increases the Nature damage your target takes by 20% for 9 seconds. This damage bonus can be increased further with a specific conduit. Playing around this cooldown is of huge importance and you will always try to get three casts of Envenom inside this 9-second burst window.

For more information on Talent choices and which ones to pick you can head over to the Talents and Builds section of this Guide.

• Feint reduces AoE damage taken by 40% for 6 seconds, for only 35 Energy. When talented into Elusiveness, it also reduces all other damage by 30%. Feint is fantastic for dealing with predictable raid damage, even if it has a 15-second cooldown now.
• Cloak of Shadows provides magic immunity for 1 second, followed by 4 seconds where all spells will miss you. Cloak of Shadows has a variety of uses, both pre-emptive and reactive, such as solo soaking mechanics or clearing debuffs that would force you out of melee range.
• Evasion increases your Dodge chance by 100% for 10 seconds. This can be useful if you have to tank some adds or the boss for a few seconds.