Outlaw Rogue DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1

1. Preface

Vanish does not play an important role in the Outlaw rotation. Feel free to use it on cooldown for an Ambush, or use it to Cheap Shot important adds so your group can benefit from Prey on the Weak (if talented).

A key part of maximizing AoE DPS, will come from lining up Killing Spree / Blade Rush with time periods when they are able to hit the maximum number of targets, and making sure that you have Blade Flurry for those times. Since Blade Flurry does not have 100% uptime anymore, it will need to be managed a lot more carefully, and sometimes you will need to miss out on some AoE/cleave, if it means you get better uptime on it, when there are more enemies. For example, if Killing Spree comes off cooldown, and you have Blade Flurry charge and 3 enemies in front of you, you might want to wait some time (say 30 seconds), if you know that in 30 seconds, you will be able to use it and hit 6 enemies.

2. Single Target Ability Priority List for Outlaw Rogue

1. Cast 4-5 Combo Point Roll the Bones (see dedicated Roll the Bones section for details).
2. Cast Ghostly Strike on cooldown, unless you will over-cap Combo Points from it.
3. Cast Killing Spree / Blade Rush on cooldown, if Adrenaline Rush is active, delay Killing Spree to prevent over-capping on energy.
4. Activate Adrenaline Rush.
5. Cast Marked for Death (if talented) if you have 0-1 Combo Points.
6. Cast Between the Eyes at 5 Combo Points if you have a Ruthless Precision proc, or Ace Up Your Sleeve, or Deadshot.
7. Cast Dispatch at 5 Combo Points.
8. Cast Pistol Shot if you have an Opportunity proc and you have 4 or less Combo Points (and will not Energy cap during the global cooldown).
9. Cast Sinister Strike to generate Combo Points.

3. Multi Target Ability Priority List for Outlaw Rogue

1. Cast Blade Flurry if there are 2+ targets.
2. Cast 4-5 Combo Point Roll the Bones (see dedicated Roll the Bones section for details).
3. Cast Ghostly Strike in sync with Blade Flurry, unless you will over-cap Combo Points from it.
4. Cast Killing Spree / Blade Rush, only if Blade Flurry is currently active.
5. Activate Adrenaline Rush.
6. Cast Marked for Death (if talented) if you have 0-1 Combo Points.
7. Cast Between the Eyes at 5 Combo Points if you have a Ruthless Precision proc, or Ace Up Your Sleeve, or Deadshot.
8. Cast Dispatch at 5 Combo Points.
9. Cast Pistol Shot if you have an Opportunity proc and you have 4 or less Combo Points (and will not Energy cap during the global cooldown).
10. Cast Sinister Strike to generate Combo Points.

The following build should only be used if you have three Snake Eyes on your gear. While it is fairly efficient for AoE damage, it suffers greatly on pure single target.

4. Combined Ability Priority List for Meme Build

1. Cast Blade Flurry if there are 2+ targets.
2. Activate Adrenaline Rush.
3. At 5 Combo Points use Slice and Dice if you consumed all Snake Eyes charges, otherwise use Dispatch.
4. Cast Sinister Strike to generate Combo Points.

5. Important Notes for Outlaw Rogue

5.1. Roll the Bones

Roll the Bones is a finisher that grants one or more random buffs. The duration of the Roll the Bones (and the buffs it gives you) is increased by the amount of Combo Points consumed by Roll the Bones (12 seconds for 1 Combo Point and up to 42 seconds with 6 Combo Points and Deeper Stratagem talented) and is affected by Pandemic (meaning you can safely refresh when Roll the Bones has less than 30% of its duration remaining). There are 6 different buffs you can potentially receive, and it is possible to receive multiple buffs from a single cast, although the chance to receive extra buffs is lessened per extra buff. The buffs are as follows:

• True Bearing causes finishing moves to reduce the remaining cooldown of some of your abilities (including Adrenaline Rush) by 1 second per Combo Point;
• Ruthless Precision increases your Critical Strike chance by 20% and the Critical Strike chance of Between the Eyes by additional 40%;
• Skull and Crossbones boosts Sinister Strike's chance to strike an additional time by 30%;
• Grand Melee increases your attack speed by 55% and your Leech by 25%;
• Broadside causes your Combo Point-generating abilities to generate 1 additional Combo Point and increases their damage by 20%;
• Buried Treasure increases your Energy regeneration by 4 per second.

The chance of receiving multiple buffs is as follows (taken from 1 million Roll the Bones casts in a simulation):

• 1 Roll the Bones buff: 100.0% chance;
• 2 Roll the Bones buffs: 19% chance;
• 5 Roll the Bones buffs: 1% chance.

Roll the Bones has significantly different gameplay implications than Slice and Dice had for Combat, or currently has for Outlaw.

Order of buff value for an extended encounter (raid boss):

1. Ruthless Precision;
2. Grand Melee;
3. Broadside;
4. Skull and Crossbones;
5. Buried Treasure;
6. True Bearing.

The value of each buff fluctuates somewhat depending on the combination with other buffs and whether or not cooldowns are available, but this can be used as a rough reference.

5.1.1. Pro Tip: How to Roll the Bones

The basic rule to satisfy regarding Roll the Bones is to re-cast it and fish for 2+ buffs if:

• you have 1 buff and Loaded Dice available OR
• you have 1 buff and it is not Ruthless Precision or Grand Melee.

In the event that you do not have Loaded Dice available, re-roll Roll the Bones for 2+ buffs or Ruthless Precision or Grand Melee.

5.2. Combo Points and Energy

As a Rogue, most of your abilities need Energy to be used. Your Energy bar has a capacity of 100 Energy (150 with Vigor chosen as your Tier 3 talent) and refills at a rate of 10 Energy per second. Your Energy regeneration is increased by:

• Melee haste (Haste + Haste-enhancing buffs);
• the Combat Potency passive, which causes your off-hand attacks to have a chance to generate 10 Energy;
• your Adrenaline Rush cooldown, which temporarily increases your Energy regeneration by 60%;
• Vigor, if chosen as your Tier 3 talent.

The faster you regenerate Energy, the more finishers you can cast, which (via True Bearing and Restless Blades) will result in higher Adrenaline Rush uptimes.

Letting your Energy reach its maximum is something you want to avoid. You should always try to spend your Energy by (literally) spamming your buttons. Unlike Subtlety and Assassination Rogues, Outlaw Rogues generally do not benefit from Energy pooling. There are many situations when you will generate more Energy than you can spend (Haste trinket procs, Bloodlust / Heroism / Time Warp, etc.) and you should spam your buttons even harder than usual during such times.

Combo Point generation is increased by a variety of factors, such as:

• Tier 1 talents;
• Opportunity procs;
• Sinister Strike striking twice;
• Roll the Bones buffs such as Broadside;
• your Ruthlessness passive ability, which grants your finishers a 20% chance per Combo Point consumed to grant a Combo Point;
• Energy regeneration, allowing you to cast more generators.

You should never waste Combo Points. Never cast a Combo Point-generating ability when you are at maximum Combo Points.

5.3. Adrenaline Rush

Adrenaline Rush increases your Energy regeneration by 60% and your attack speed by 20% for 20 seconds. It should be used on cooldown. Do not hesitate to stack it with Bloodlust, Heroism, or Time Warp as you will still benefit from the increased attack speed, though you will likely Energy cap (this is not a problem). Adrenaline Rush has a 3-minute cooldown, but this can be reduced by the True Bearing buff and Restless Blades.

5.4. True Bearing Cooldown Reduction

True Bearing reduces the cooldowns of the following abilities by 2 seconds per Combo Point consumed by a finisher:

• Adrenaline Rush
• Sprint
• Between the Eyes
• Vanish
• Grappling Hook
• Killing Spree
• Marked for Death
• Blade Rush
• Ghostly Strike

5.5. Blade Flurry

It is worth reiterating that the source of Blade Flurry cleave is you, not the target. Therefore, you can stand with one mob directly in front with another directly behind you, and your Blade Flurry will still cleave both, as the player is the source of the cleave.

5.6. Defensive Utility

All Rogues come ready made with a dizzying phalanx of defensive cooldowns, which make them the best candidate for soaking required mechanics and dealing with heavy incoming damage.

• Feint reduces AoE damage taken by 40% for 5 seconds for only 35 Energy. When talented into Elusiveness it also reduces all other damage by 30%. This is one of the most overpowered abilities in the game and a huge asset on fights with heavy raid damage. Do not forget about this button!
• Cloak of Shadows provides magic immunity for a second, followed by 5 seconds where all spells will miss. This spell is mostly used for clearing debuffs that might otherwise force you out of melee range. Cloak of Shadows is also a fantastic tool for soaking abilities that do not pierce immunities.
• Cheat Death is a talent that allows you to escape lethal damage once every 6 minutes. The damage cannot exceed more than twice your maximum health. Cheat Death is great for soaking mechanics that pierce immunities and damage reductions, as it guarantees your survival. It is also great for encounters with bursty damage that might take you by surprise, as you get a get out of jail free card once every 6 minutes.
• Crimson Vial provides a respectable amount of healing on a very short cooldown. Use this often in boss encounters.
• Riposte is unique to Outlaw Rogue, and provides 100% Parry chance for 10 seconds. Each time you parry an attack you will riposte the attack for a small amount of damage (maximum of 1 per second).

6. Core Concepts for Outlaw Rogue

This specialization involves a lot of fast finger work, particularly during cooldown periods. Learning to focus on what is important and master the core concepts of a specialization is what leads to strong overall performances on the damage charts. Outlaw features 2 major concepts that form the central tenets of optimizing for success:

1. practical usage of Roll the Bones;
2. resource management.

6.1. Practical Usage of Roll the Bones

If you get 2 exceptionally valuable buffs, you should wait until Roll the Bones falls or is about to fall off before refreshing and fishing for new buffs. If they are low value buffs, you can start to fish for new buffs any time in Pandemic range.

6.2. Resource Management

Unlike the other Rogue specialization, Energy management is incredibly easy for Outlaw Rogues as you have a very high rate of regeneration. It can be very easy, however, to overcap Combo Points if you are not careful. Pay close attention to your current Roll the Bones buffs along with your Combo Point tracker. Do not waste Opportunity procs when you are already capped on Combo Points.

7. Extended Outlaw Rotation

The fully inclusive rotation, is a lot more extensive than the one listed above, but gives only marginal gains at best, as such, it is included here (in raw simc format), but it does not need to be memorized.

# Executed every time the actor is available.
# Reroll for 2+ buffs with Loaded Dice up. Otherwise reroll for 2+ or Grand Melee or Ruthless Precision.
actions=variable,name=rtb_reroll,value=rtb_buffs<2&(buff.loaded_dice.up|!buff.grand_melee.up&!buff.ruthless_precision.up)
# Do not reroll if Snake Eyes is at 2+ Ranks and 2+ stacks of the buff (1+ stack with Broadside up)
actions+=/variable,name=rtb_reroll,op=reset,if=azerite.snake_eyes.rank>=2&buff.snake_eyes.stack>=2-buff.broadside.up
actions+=/variable,name=ambush_condition,value=combo_points.deficit>=2+2*(talent.ghostly_strike.enabled&cooldown.ghostly_strike.remains<1)+buff.broadside.up&energy>60&!buff.skull_and_crossbones.up
# With multiple targets, this variable is checked to decide whether some CDs should be synced with Blade Flurry
actions+=/variable,name=blade_flurry_sync,value=spell_targets.blade_flurry<2&raid_event.adds.in>20|buff.blade_flurry.up

actions+=/call_action_list,name=stealth,if=stealthed.all
actions.stealth=ambush

actions+=/call_action_list,name=cds
actions.cds=potion,if=buff.bloodlust.react|target.time_to_die<=60|buff.adrenaline_rush.up
# Falling back to default item usage
actions.cds+=/use_item,name=lustrous_golden_plumage,if=buff.bloodlust.react|target.time_to_die<=20|combo_points.deficit<=2
actions.cds+=/blood_fury
actions.cds+=/berserking
actions.cds+=/fireblood
actions.cds+=/ancestral_call
actions.cds+=/adrenaline_rush,if=!buff.adrenaline_rush.up&energy.time_to_max>1
actions.cds+=/marked_for_death,target_if=min:target.time_to_die,if=target.time_to_die<combo_points.deficit|((raid_event.adds.in>40|buff.true_bearing.remains>15-buff.adrenaline_rush.up*5)&!stealthed.rogue&combo_points.deficit>=cp_max_spend-1)
# Blade Flurry on 2+ enemies. With adds: Use if they stay for 8+ seconds or if your next charge will be ready in time for the next wave.
actions.cds+=/blade_flurry,if=spell_targets>=2&!buff.blade_flurry.up&(!raid_event.adds.exists|raid_event.adds.remains>8|cooldown.blade_flurry.charges=1&raid_event.adds.in>(2-cooldown.blade_flurry.charges_fractional)*25)
actions.cds+=/ghostly_strike,if=variable.blade_flurry_sync&combo_points.deficit>=1+buff.broadside.up
actions.cds+=/killing_spree,if=variable.blade_flurry_sync&(energy.time_to_max>5|energy<15)
actions.cds+=/blade_rush,if=variable.blade_flurry_sync&energy.time_to_max>1
# Using Vanish/Ambush is only a very tiny increase, so in reality, you're absolutely fine to use it as a utility spell.
actions.cds+=/vanish,if=!stealthed.all&variable.ambush_condition
actions.cds+=/shadowmeld,if=!stealthed.all&variable.ambush_condition

# Finish at maximum CP. Substract one for each Broadside and Opportunity when Quick Draw is selected and MfD is not ready after the next second.
actions+=/call_action_list,name=finish,if=combo_points>=cp_max_spend-(buff.broadside.up+buff.opportunity.up)*(talent.quick_draw.enabled&(!talent.marked_for_death.enabled|cooldown.marked_for_death.remains>1))
actions.finish=between_the_eyes,if=azerite.deadshot.rank>=2&buff.roll_the_bones.up
actions.finish+=/slice_and_dice,if=buff.slice_and_dice.remains<target.time_to_die&buff.slice_and_dice.remains<(1+combo_points)*1.8
actions.finish+=/roll_the_bones,if=(buff.roll_the_bones.remains<=3|variable.rtb_reroll)&(target.time_to_die>20|buff.roll_the_bones.remains<target.time_to_die)
# BtE with the Ruthless Precision buff from RtB or with the Ace Up Your Sleeve or Deadshot traits.
actions.finish+=/between_the_eyes,if=buff.ruthless_precision.up|azerite.ace_up_your_sleeve.enabled|azerite.deadshot.enabled
actions.finish+=/dispatch

actions+=/call_action_list,name=build
actions.build=pistol_shot,if=combo_points.deficit>=1+buff.broadside.up+talent.quick_draw.enabled&buff.opportunity.up
actions.build+=/sinister_strike

actions+=/arcane_torrent,if=energy.deficit>=15+energy.regen
actions+=/arcane_pulse
actions+=/lights_judgment

8. Changelog