Outlaw Rogue DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — Shadowlands 9.2
On this page, you will find out the best talents for each tier for your Outlaw Rogue in World of Warcraft — Shadowlands 9.2. We also have default talent lists for various types of content, such as raiding or Mythic+. If you play with Warmode on, we have your PvP talents covered as well.
If you were looking for TBC Classic content, please refer to our TBC Classic DPS Rogue talents.
Talent Choices for Outlaw Rogue
Level | Choices | ||
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15 |
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25 |
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30 |
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35 |
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40 |
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45 |
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50 |
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Talents can be freely changed when out of combat and in a rested XP area
(such as an inn or a capital city). Moreover, Tome of the Still Mind and
Codex of the Still Mind can be used to temporarily allow players to change
talents anywhere, as long as they are out of combat.
Talent Cheat Sheets for Outlaw Rogue
Optimizing talents on a contextual basis is the highly recommended method of setting up your build, as many talents offer unique strengths in the right situation. We have decided to list a "cheat sheet" of sorts below, however, to help with a quick set-up that should be just fine for most encounters. If you want to fully optimize your ability to play this specialization, we recommend reading the entire talents section here to gain additional insight on when swapping your talents would be beneficial.
Single Target
The build is the standard choice for most encounters, focusing on dealing high and sustained single target damage.
- Level 15:
Ghostly Strike
- Level 25:
Acrobatic Strikes
- Level 30:
Marked for Death or
Deeper Stratagem as Venthyr
- Level 35:
Cheat Death
- Level 40:
Prey on the Weak
- Level 45:
Alacrity or
Dreadblades as Venthyr
- Level 50:
Blade Rush
AoE/Cleave
The build is specifically used in any content that requires prolonged AoE damage like Mythic+ dungeons or encounters with a lot of add spawns throughout the encounter.
- Level 15:
Quick Draw
- Level 25:
Acrobatic Strikes
- Level 30:
Marked for Death
- Level 35:
Cheat Death
- Level 40:
Prey on the Weak
- Level 45:
Alacrity or
Dreadblades as Venthyr
- Level 50:
Blade Rush
Raiding
The two builds suggested above are generalized versions that do not account for individual encounters in the current raid tier. Once the new Raid opens up we have a boss-by-boss breakdown of talent choices as well as tips and tricks only Outlaw can pull off on our dedicated Raid page.
Mythic+
Mythic+ oftentimes requires a very specific talent setup that mixes single-target and AoE to perform well on both bosses and trash. If you want advice that is specific to Mythic+, you can find more information in our Mythic+ section.
How To Use Outlaw Rogue Talents
Once you have selected all your talents you might wonder how some of these change your rotation or when best to use certain cooldowns. Answers to these questions can be found by heading over the our section that is specifically addressing all questions regarding your DPS rotation.
Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents for Outlaw Rogue
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Tier 1 talents focus on improving Combo Point generation.
Weaponmaster causes your
Sinister Strike to have a 10% increased chance to strike an additional time.
Quick Draw causes
Opportunity procs to generate 1 additional Combo Point and deal 50% additional damage when consumed.
Ghostly Strike strikes an enemy, dealing Physical damage and causing the target to take 10% increased damage from your abilities for 10 seconds. Awards 1 Combo Points. Has a 30 second cooldown, which gets reduced by your finishers.
Quick Draw is the best choice for any multi-target situation.
Ghostly Strike is the best choice for pure single-target. As it
increases the damage of all damage you deal, including damage from sources
like enchants and trinkets.
Weaponmaster is simply inferior to Quick Draw and
Ghostly Strike in terms of raw DPS.
Tier 2 (Level 25) Talents for Outlaw Rogue
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Tier 2 talents focus on improving your mobility.
Acrobatic Strikes increases the range on all your melee attacks by 3 yards.
Retractable Hook reduces the cooldown of
Grappling Hook by 30 seconds.
Hit and Run increases your movement speed at all times by 15%.
This tier is largely a matter of personal preference, or is specific to the encounter at hand.
Acrobatic Strikes is a good choice on cleave encounters as it
also extends the length of your
Blade Flurry. It essentially increases the
radius of your Blade Flurry by 3 yards, which more than doubles the size of the area
where enemies can be hit with Blade Flurry. It can also allow you
to stay in range of your enemy and avoid melee-based abilities by outranging them.
Retractable Hook is a decent alternative if the repeated use of the hook
allows for higher uptime on your main targets, or whenever it can be used to avoid
knockback effects.
Hit and Run is only good for kiting or moving between targets.
Tier 3 (Level 30) Talents for Outlaw Rogue
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Vigor increases your maximum Energy by 50 and increases Energy regeneration by 10%.
Deeper Stratagem increases maximum Combo Points to 6, allows finishing moves to consume 6 Combo Points, and increases the damage of finishing moves by 5%.
Marked for Death marks a target and instantly generates 5 Combo Points. The cooldown is reset if the marked target dies.
Vigor is the simplest to use while being slightly worse than either
alternative choice.
Deeper Stratagem leads to a slightly slower rotation (as compared to
Vigor) but your finishers will gain increased effectiveness and
damage. This, combined with
Dreadblades, allows for more damage and
cooldown reduction on
Flagellation for Venthyr Rogues.
Even without cooldown resets Marked for Death is usually the highest damage
option. On AoE you are able to get regular CD resets, which allows for more
maximum Combo Point finishers, leading to higher cooldown Uptime.
Tier 4 (Level 35) Talents for Outlaw Rogue
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Tier 4 talents improve your personal survivability.
Iron Stomach increases the healing received from
Crimson Vial, healing potions, and Healthstones by 30%.
Elusiveness causes
Feint to also grant 30% reduced damage taken from all sources.
Cheat Death causes fatal damage to instead reduce you to 7% of your maximum health and grant 85% reduced damage taken for 3 seconds. Cheat Death cannot save you from damage greater than double your maximum health. It has a 6-minute cooldown.
Elusiveness is technically the best talent in most
situations, but requires you to be extremely proficient with
Feint usage and very aware of incoming damage.
Cheat Death is a good choice for players in a raid environment,
as it is entirely passive and great for soaking raid mechanics when needed.
Generally, Cheat Death is best for learning encounters and
soaking high damage mechanics, whereas Elusiveness is great for
soaking frequently occurring mechanics.
Iron Stomach is by far the best choice for leveling and solo content,
as it improves your self-sustainability noticeably. Iron Stomach does not have
much potential in a raid environment.
Tier 5 (Level 40) Talents for Outlaw Rogue
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Tier 5 talents focus on improving your crowd control utility.
Dirty Tricks removes the Energy cost from
Cheap Shot,
Gouge, and
Sap.
Blinding Powder reduces cooldown and increases range of
Blind.
Prey on the Weak causes targets afflicted by your
Cheap Shot or
Between the Eyes to take 10% increased damage from all sources for 6 seconds.
Prey on the Weak is the strongest option in this tier, as it
allows you to increase everyone's damage by 10% for 6 seconds, on stunnable
enemies. While many enemies are immune, this is still the best of all
available options.
Blinding Powder can be useful, if you need to hard crowd-control
some mobs, as it gives you more range for it, and lowers the cooldown. However,
there are generally better crowd control abilities available from other
classes.
Dirty Tricks has practically no raid usage as most enemies in
raid instances are immune to any of the listed abilities. It is however the
best option for Mythic+, as it allows you to freely use
Gouge to disrupt
enemies.
Tier 6 (Level 45) Talents for Outlaw Rogue
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Tier 6 talents offer finisher modifiers.
Loaded Dice makes activating
Adrenaline Rush cause your next
Roll the Bones to grant at least two buffs.
Alacrity causes finishing moves to have a 20% chance per Combo Point to grant 2% Haste for 20 seconds, stacking 5 times.
Dreadblades is a buff that allows you to genereate maximum Combo Points with a single generator while draining health whenever you use a finishing move.
Alacrity is the best choice in raids and dungeons, provided you
are able to consistently maintain your stacks for most of the encounters.
While Loaded Dice does help reduce the random aspect of
Roll the Bones a bit, it currently lags too far behind
Alacrity to be competitive for damage.
Dreadblades is a decent option due to the amount of burst damage you
can deal during its duration, but still performs worse than
Alacrity.
For Venthyr Rogues this is the best talent, as it works very well with the
Covenant Ability
Flagellation.
Tier 7 (Level 50) Talents for Outlaw Rogue
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Tier 7 talents focus on shifting the playstyle in new directions.
Dancing Steel increases the duration of
Blade Flurry by 3 seconds and its damage by 5%.
Blade Rush charges you towards the target, damaging all of nearby enemies, and generating 25 Energy over 5 seconds. While
Blade Flurry is active, it will increase the damage of the AoE component by 100%.
Killing Spree teleports you to your target and attacks 6 times over 2 seconds. Killing Spree is affected by
Blade Flurry and will hit nearby enemies for 100% of the damage during it.
Killing Spree is the best choice for 3-5 target encounters and can be
quite potent in Mythic+. It does, however, force you to jump around your enemies
during its duration which can put you in dangerous spots or even in front
of a cleaving enemy, so it is best used with care.
Blade Rush is often the best for single-target and always
best for larger-scale AoE as its AoE component does not have a target cap.
Dancing Steel is only helpful for ease of use, as you should already
be able to maintain close to 100% uptime on
Blade Flurry. If you
struggle with your Blade Flurry uptime in Mythic+, this talent is a good
alternative, but should never be required.
PvP Talents (War Mode)
In Shadowlands, there will be the option to go into "War Mode". Enabling War Mode provides the following benefits:
- PvP talents enabled in the outdoor world.
- 10% increase in World Quest rewards at maximum level.
- 10% more experience gained while leveling.
- Earn Conquest Points which can reward gear every week.
With the benefits of enabling War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it is recommended to enable the feature to maximize your leveling and rewards at maximum level. However, you will make yourself available for open world PvP, and the possibility to be "ganked" while leveling or doing World Quests exists.
Outlaw Rogue War Mode Talents
In this section we will rank the PvP talents best for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content. Below is a ranking of both General PvP Talents and Outlaw Rogue-specific PvE talents.
Outlaw Rogue PvP Talents
Take Your Cut causes you and allies within 15 yards to gain 15% Haste for 8 seconds after you use
Roll the Bones. It is fairly good, since it acts as a mini-
Adrenaline Rush and has decent uptime when you are questing in the open world.
Boarding Party makes
Between the Eyes increase the movement speed of all friendly players within 15 yards by 30% for 5 seconds. Movement speed is always nice while world-questing, so this highly recommended.
Enduring Brawler increases the chance for your
Sinister Strike to hit an additional time the longer you remain in combat. While this will be only a small gain in most engagements with enemies in the open world, it is very potent when trying to kill Elites, chain-pulling, or fighting World Bosses.
Changelog
- 22 Feb. 2022: Updated for Patch 9.2.
- 02 Nov. 2021: Updated Dreadblades description for Patch 9.1.5.
- 06 Aug. 2021: Updated Talent recommendations for newest changes to Shards of Domination sets.
- 13 Jul. 2021: Updated War Mode Talent recommendations.
- 28 Jun. 2021: Reviewed and approved for Patch 9.1.
- 09 Mar. 2021: Reviewed for Patch 9.0.5.
- 13 Feb. 2021: Updated single-target and AoE talent recommendations.
- 02 Dec. 2020: Updated talent recommendations for Marked for Death.
- 23 Nov. 2020: Page updated for the Shadowlands release, updated talent recommendations and descriptions.
- 24 Oct. 2020: Updated talent recommendations based on newest simulations and theorycrafting research.
- 12 Oct. 2020: Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
More Rogue Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written and reviewed by Seliathan, who has been playing Rogue since the first day of Classic. He currently raids in Familiar with Drama, and is one of the foremost Mythic+ Rogue players. You can often find him streaming on Twitch, or follow him on his personal Discord server.
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