Subtlety Rogue DPS Easy Mode — Dragonflight 10.0.7

This section is intended for players who are new to the game or class, have no intentions of raiding Mythic difficulty, or simply want a more straightforward way to play their specialization without being overwhelmed by the numerous priorities and active abilities that need to be taken into consideration for optimal play.

Subtlety can be a very involved specialization, requiring knowledge and understanding of the specialization to produce good damage. It can be simplified into some key principles, which we will address here. In this section we will be focusing on a setup that minimizes the amount of buttons without sacrificing too much DPS.

If you are completely new to Subtlety and need more information regarding the spells, make sure to check out our spell summary page first to get a good grasp of what each ability does.

These choices are optimized for ease of use. Although some talents might offer marginally higher gains when played perfectly, these same talents often result in damage losses when utilized by many players. The talents recommended here aim to present the best setup that has very little punishment for unfamiliarity or mistakes.

You can easily import the talent tree below into the game by clicking 'Copy Export String'.

You can easily import the talent tree below into the game by clicking 'Copy Export String'.

If you are looking for the absolute best performing talents for Subtlety, you can find a more in-depth analysis on our full talents page below.

The general single-target stat priority for a Subtlety Rogue is:

1. Critical Strike;
2. Mastery;
3. Versatility;
4. Haste.

The general multi-target stat priority for a Subtlety Rogue is:

1. Critical Strike;
2. Mastery;
3. Versatility;
4. Haste.

To learn more about how stats interact in different scenarios and why in the stats page below.

Note that the current best performing single-target build uses Danse Macabre, which forces you to cast different abilities during Shadow Dance. For us this simply means we want to cast Gloomblade and Secret Technique once per Shadow Dance.

1. Cast Shadow Blades on cooldown.
2. Maintain Slice and Dice. Aim to refresh it before Shadow Dance windows.
3. Maintain Rupture on your primary target and any targets that live over 12 seconds. Aim to refresh it before Shadow Dance windows.
4. Cast Symbols of Death on cooldown.
5. Cast Shadow Dance on cooldown.
6. Cast Thistle Tea if at 3 charges in combination with Shadow Dance and after that use it when you are running out of Energy.
7. Cast Secret Technique with Cold Blood to spend Combo Points when reaching 6 or more and 5 or more during Shadow Dance after you have gained some Danse Macabre stacks.
8. Cast Eviscerate to spend Combo Points when reaching 6 or more and 5 or more during Shadow Dance.
9. Cast Vanish on cooldown to get an extra Shadowstrike.
10. Cast Shadowstrike to generate Combo Points if Shadow Dance is active. Otherwise, use Backstab/ Gloomblade (from behind the target if possible to gain 20% extra damage on it).

As mentioned above, try to combine and sync your offensive cooldowns together to deal maximum damage. In single-target situations, only cast Shadow Dance without Symbols of Death if you are about to cap on charges.

1. Maintain Slice and Dice. Stop casting on 6+ targets.
2. Maintaining Rupture on any target that lives at least 12 seconds is a DPS gain, however this can sometimes be hard to estimate.
3. Cast Symbols of Death on cooldown.
4. Cast Shuriken Tornado/ Thistle Tea on cooldown in combination with Shadow Dance.
5. Cast Secret Technique with Cold Blood to spend Combo Points when reaching 6 or more and 5 or more during Shadow Dance after you have gained some Danse Macabre stacks.
6. Cast Black Powder to spend Combo Points when reaching 6 or more and 5 or more during Shadow Dance instead of Eviscerate if there are 3+ targets.
7. Use Shuriken Storm during Shadow Dance instead of Shadowstrike, if there are 3+ targets.
8. Cast Shuriken Storm to generate Combo Points.

While Shadow Blades still does decent damage on AoE, the value of extra Combo Points gained is diminished. Use Shadow Blades at your own discretion on multi-target or save it for a single-target situation.

Vanish has fairly low value on multi-target and is best used to extend the duration of Find Weakness.

For the opener sequence and to see how the rotation changes with multiple targets, visit the rotation page.