Assassination Rogue PvP Talents and Builds (Shadowlands / 9.0.5)

Level	Choices
15	✔ Master Poisoner	✘ Elaborate Planning	✘ Blindside
25	✘ Nightstalker	✔ Subterfuge	✘ Master Assassin
30	✘ Vigor	✘ Deeper Stratagem	✔ Marked for Death
35	✘ Leeching Poison	✘ Cheat Death	✔ Elusiveness
40	✔ Internal Bleeding	✘ Iron Wire	✘ Prey on the Weak
45	✘ Venom Rush	✔ Alacrity	✘ Exsanguinate
50	✔ Poison Bomb	✘ Hidden Blades	✘ Crimson Tempest

While the above table provides a generally accurate overview of the viability of talents, some finer points are discussed in the sections that follow, and we recommend you read those for a deeper understanding.

Master Poisoner is the best choice in this tier. Since you should be playing Wound Poison, you are not picking this talent for the damage increase, but for the increase to non damaging effects. This will increase the magnitude of the healing reduction effect from Wound Poison, as well as the slow from Crippling Poison. This is very powerful in PvP.

Subterfuge is the best choice in this tier. This talent will allow you to crowd control the entire enemy team every time you come out of Stealth. It also increases the damage done by Garrote by 40% in PvP combat, which is nice. Garrote will often deal a great part of your overall damage if you manage to land several empowered Garrotes in a game.

Marked for Death is the best choice in this tier. This can be used in two different ways. You can use Marked for Death and get a full Kidney Shot on your kill target from Stealth, or at any point if you do not have 5 Combo Points ready and your team need them stunned. You can also use it aggressively for Envenom during your burst window.

Elusiveness is the best choice in this tier as long as you are playing with a healer. Rogues do not have a lot of damage mitigation, so this spell is essential to your survival. You want to time this ability right before being hit by a powerful spell such as Chaos Bolt or Divine Toll. Also, you want to try and time it before being stunned. Pre-Feinting a Lightning Lasso, a Kidney Shot, or a Storm Bolt often makes the difference between living and dying.

Internal Bleeding is the best choice in this tier. This adds a bleed to your Kidney Shot that deals a lot of damage, adding a lot of pressure on the enemy during your kill windows. It is worth mentioning that is also works with the passive Venomous Wounds, so you will get even more energy to attack your target during your Kidney Shot windows.

Alacrity is the best choice in this tier. Haste is already one of your strongest secondary stats, this talent gives you additional Haste to help increase your damage output. Alacrity by itself is not an amazing talent by any means, but it remains the best option on this row.

Poison Bomb is the best choice in this tier. Although you cannot control the proc from this talent, you will be using Envenom and Rupture often which means Poison Bomb will end up being an increase to both your burst damage and your sustained damage.

You can choose 3 of the following PvP talents. Each of them has their uses, but some are better for certain strategies than others. The top three choices are the most useful, but can be replaced with other PvP talents, depending on your team's goal.

Smoke Bomb creates a smoke cloud around you. Enemy players who are outside the cloud will not be able to target anyone inside of it. This talent is mandatory for multiple reasons. Firstly, it can help you land a kill by stunning a target when they have no trinket. By using Smoke Bomb right after the stun you will prevent the healer from saving their teammate. Secondly, you can use it defensively to save yourself or an ally from a lethal cast that is about to go off, such as Greater Pyroblast. And lastly, you can use it to prevent incoming crowd control on you or your team if such crowd control would result in you losing a game, such as a Polymorph or Repentance on your healer when they have no trinket and you are low on health. As you can see, this talent is helpful in many different situations, which is why it is so powerful.

System Shock reduces the enemy's movement speed by 90% when you use an Envenom with 5 Combo Points on a target with Garrote, Rupture, and your active lethal Poison, and deals damage. This is a decent addition to your burst damage, and has the benefit of almost rooting your target for a brief moment.

Maneuverability is a very strong PvP talent versus teams with multiple slows. This can be taken so you can maximize your uptime on your target. Most of the time the 3 talents shown above are so powerful that you will not select this talent even when facing a team with a lot of slows.

Mind-Numbing Poison causes your Deadly Poison and Wound Poison to also apply Mind Numbing Poison. This will cause the enemy to take damage every time they cast a spell. This should be taken when your primary target is a caster. You should replace Maneuverability with this PvP talent.

Death from Above is an interesting PvP talent choice. The interesting things about this talent are that it makes you immune to crowd control when you use it, and it is usable from range and will make you land at your target's location. It can be considered in 2v2 against an enemy that is hard to reach, such as a Frost Mage, or against a setup comp that relies on stuns on you to kill you, and will kite you in between stuns, such as Rogue Mage.

More often that not you will run System Shock alongside Maneuverability to fill your last two slots. Mind-Numbing Poison will replace Maneuverability when you do not need the slow removal, and Death from Above will be picked alongside Manoeuverability instead of System Shock on very specific match-ups only.