How To Improve As Outlaw Rogue — Dragonflight 10.2

Since all of Outlaw's damage is tied to resources and cooldowns, it is important to waste as little of them as possible. You should make sure you do not find yourself being Energy capped or casting Combo Point generating abilities when at maximum Combo Points, while trying to use all your cooldown-based abilities as soon as possible. You will often find yourself presented with multiple cd-based abilities available at the same time, and prioritizing them in the correct order is key to maximizing your DPS output.

Another big downfall is the incorrect use of temporary buffs that might affect your rotation. While your Sinister Strike has a chance to grant you Opportunity procs, you might not want to use them immediately. You should always make sure to not over-cap your Combo Points before using it. I.e., if you are talented into Deeper Stratagem and already have 5 Combo Points, you would not use your Opportunity proc, instead casting a finisher before using Pistol Shot to not overcap Combo Points. The same logic applies to all your finishers when you have Broadside active, or talented into Fan the Hammer, as well as Ambush and Audacity procs.

The only requirement for using Adrenaline Rush correctly is to not use it when you are already very close to capping Energy. In these cases, you will want to dump Energy for 2-3 global cooldowns, and then use Adrenaline Rush.

The same concept applies to all your other abilities that have a cooldown. Ghostly Strike, Between the Eyes, Blade Rush, and any other DPS cooldown affected by Restless Blades should all be used on cooldown as much as possible, as you would otherwise waste the benefits of your Restless Blades cooldown reduction.

The only exception to this rule, is Keep It Rolling. While we do not yet know the ideal use case for this ability, you want to maximize the amount of potent Roll the Bones buffs you have before using it, in particular by playing around Count the Odds as much as possible.

With Blade Flurry being on a 30-second cooldown, but only having a duration of 12 seconds, you must not accidentally use this cooldown at the end of an AoE pull. Since its cooldown is reduced by both Restless Blades, as well as True Bearing, it might be better to hold onto it as the remaining enemies are about to die. Otherwise, you run the risk of using it and being unable to generate and spend Combo Points during its duration while you are between pulls. The next group of enemies will then see you with Blade Flurry still on cooldown, and you will spend the first 5-10 seconds recharging it while doing almost no AoE damage.

It is impossible to correctly play and optimize an Outlaw Rogue without using Raidbots to sim your own character, there are simply too many variables involved to intuitively figure out what gear to wear and so on without simming it first. Generally speaking, a simulation should be the first and final say in the gear you end up wearing for any given situation.

On top of this, simming is now very easy, with no need to understand SimulationCraft APLs or installation yourself. All you will need is the in-game SimulationCraft AddOn and the Raidbots website. Below, you can find a video on how to sim your own character using the website.