Subtlety Rogue DPS Guide — 12.0.5

Midnight Season 1 has released, and with it came a lot of new content. It brought with it three new Raids, alongside heralding the start of Season 1 for both Mythic+ and PvP. With all the new things available, we've provided some dedicated hubs covering everything available!

While 12.0.5 might not be the largest patch, it does offer a couple new (and returning!) toys for us Subtlety Rogues to play with!

• Cloud Cover in the Trickster tree got a rework. This talent used to turn Distract into a very mediocre damage cooldown, but now it has been changed to automatically proc whenever you use Shadow Blades! This allows us to put significantly more power into our Shadow Blades windows. This talent is extremely strong and works out to be about a 6% increase in throughput for both single-target and aoe scenarios.
• Airborne Irritant once again allows Blind to hit multiple enemies! Just like it did previously in The War Within.
• Deathstalker also gets some love with the new Mark for Death. This is a spell that allows you to move your current Deathstalker's Mark to a new target. This should hopefully alleviate the issue with the mark bugging out and being inaccessible during combat.
• Sanguine Vial is a new talent in the class tree that slightly buffs Crimson Vial after killing a target, this is great for outdoor content as well as delves where rogues historically have had a bit of a rough time compared to some other classes.

In addition to this, a variety of open world content releases worth checking out!

• The Voidforge Unlocks!
  The Voidforge is Midnight's take on Bonus Rolls and Turbo Boost, allowing you to target specific big ticket items through a new bonus roll system. You can also further empower trinkets and weapons, and we have recommendations on our Gear page.
• Void Assaults are Unleashed
  Eversong Woods and Zul'Aman are under siege from the forces of the Void. Thwarting their attacks provide a new way to acquire gear all the way up to Hero level, and you can check out more on our Void Assault hub.
• Disrupt Ritual Sites
  Sharing a similar reward structure to Void Assaults, Ritual Sites are instanced content similar to Delves. You can find out all about them on our Ritual Sites page.

Click for Previous Season 1 Hotfixes

There were no changes to Subtlety Rogue prior to the 12.0.5 Patch for Midnight!

Due to the enormous amount of changes, they have been broken up into sections to make it easier to digest how Subtlety Rogue is different this expansion. Note that in addition to these changes, there were also many changes to overall tuning of spells. Most of these changes are intended to make the specialization more intuitive and less confusing, while maintaining the burst centric Shadow Dance focused gameplay the spec is known for.

• Here are the most impactful changes to the baseline Subtlety Rogue spells.
  
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  • Thematically Subtlety now has more of a focus on shadow clones.
  • Flagellation has been removed.
  • Symbols of Death has been removed.
  • Rupture has been removed.
  • The cooldown reduction per combo point spent on Shadow Dance and Secret Technique has been removed.
  • Shadow Blades now doubles combo points generated rather than always filling them to full.
  • The combo point refund part of Shadowcraft has been partially moved over to the 4th Apex talent.
  • Several new/reworked talents like Deepening Shadows and Swift Slasher make Haste a more desirable stat.
• The Hero Talents have had some minor updates.
  
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  2.4.

  Trickster

  
  

  • Nimble Flurry no longer cleaves Eviscerate or Shadowstrike.
  • Clever Combatant allows Shuriken Storm to proc Unseen Blade.
  • Flawless Form is stronger but now caps out at 5 stacks.

  2.5.

  Deathstalker

  
  

  • Deathstalker's Mark can now only be moved while the Darkest Night buff is active.
  • Darkest Night can now be triggered by Eviscerates at 5 or more combo points instead of at exactly 7.
  • Precise Killer makes Critical Strike a good stat when it previously was not for Deathstalker.
• Additionally there has been a couple of changes to our Utility Spells.
  
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  • Airborne Irritant no longer makes Blind target multiple enemies. As of Patch 12.0.5 this has been reverted, Blind once again targets multiple enemies.
  • Toxic Stiletto makes Shiv longer range and cheaper to use whenever a de-enrage is required.
  • While most other specializations have lost defensive talents or spells Subtlety did not and also gained a new one with Danger Sense.

These changes massively simplify the specialization, allowing for new and returning player to enjoy it without needing to extensively study a guide like this, which was nearly required in the previous iteration. Its still centered around casting Shadow Dance and doing big bursts, but a lot of extra bloated buttons and passives were culled.

As we journey and level throughout Midnight, we will gain access to our new Apex Talents: Ancient Arts, Ancient Arts, and Ancient Arts. At first glance, or if you are new to Subtlety Rogue, the tooltips might look confusing. But in practice, they are very straightforward.

• Ancient Arts makes it so our combo point generators sometimes spawn a clone that deal extra shadow damage
• Ancient Arts adds passive shadow damage and generates additional Shadow Techniques stacks whenever a clone appears
• Ancient Arts adds a buff that triggers if you ever end up with 5 or more Shadow Techniques after casting a combo point generating ability
  • The buff adds a shadowy glow near the middle of the screen, and makes your next finisher do more damage via a clone, as well as refund combo points.

A more in-depth explanation and how the new Apex Talent impacts the rotation can be found on the rotation page: