Subtlety Rogue DPS Mythic+ Tips — The War Within (Season 1)
In this guide, you will find tips and advice to tackle Mythic+ dungeons with your Subtlety Rogue in World of Warcraft — The War Within (Season 1).
Subtlety Rogue in Mythic+ in The War Within Season 1
The playstyle of Subtlety in Mythic+ revolves around burst windows with damage multipliers, such as Symbols of Death and Shadow Dance, using Shuriken Storm to generate more Combo Points than you normally would in a single-target scenario and spending them on different finishers, depending on the number of targets you are fighting.
If you are unfamiliar with Mythic+ and its associated general mechanics, you can read more about it on our The War Within Mythic+ page below.
To learn more about the Mythic+ Meta, check out our Mythic+ Tier List below.
Best Mythic+ Talents for Subtlety Rogue in The War Within
Subtlety in Mythic+ offers decent sustained AoE damage, as well as strong single-target cooldowns that can be used on bosses or high-priority targets that need to be taken out quickly or have much higher health pools than the surrounding enemies. Subtlety also has the ability to utilize its easy Combo Point generation to slam big health targets every other global thanks to Shuriken Storm generating Combo Points based on targets hit. Unlike Assassination, Subtlety does not rely on critical strikes to generate combo points which provides a steady stream of Combo Point generation. You can play this as either Hero Talent spec, depending on your preference, but Trickster reigns supreme damage-wise in Mythic+.
For a more general overview of Talents for Subtlety Rogue, please visit our dedicated Talents page.
Best Mythic+ Talent Builds for Subtlety Rogue
Best Deathstalker Mythic+ Talents for Subtlety Rogue in The War Within
This is the Deathstalker build for Subtlety, that offers strong single-target and priority target damage, while also boosting the damage of your AoE abilities. It is noticeably worse than Trickster for Subtlety.
Make sure to keep track of your Darkest Night buff so you do not have to cast Shadow Strike on every pack to benefit from your Deathstalker's Mark.
Flexible Talents
There isn't a whole lot of flexibility in your talent choices, but these are the choices you can make:
- You can opt out of any of the talents that are not required to path through in order to pick up Stillshroud for any keys where Shroud is used. Wiping and not being able to return to the boss or trash pack you wiped on is usually a depleted key, but with a reduced cooldown Shroud might be back up again to keep going.
- You can swap Airborne Irritant for Gouge if there is a desparate need for additional stops on a low cooldown, but it's usually not worth it because an aoe stop will almost always be better outside of niche situations.
Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the best build directly into your game!
Best Trickster Mythic+ Talents for Subtlety Rogue in The War Within
This is the Trickster build for Subtlety, that offers strong single-target and priority target damage, while helping with Subtlety's desperately bad low target cleave.
Flexible Talents
There isn't a whole lot of flexibility in your talent choices, but these are the choices you can make:
- You can opt out of any of the talents that are not required to path through in order to pick up Stillshroud for any keys where Shroud is used. Wiping and not being able to return to the boss or trash pack you wiped on is usually a depleted key, but with a reduced cooldown Shroud might be back up again to keep going.
- You can swap Airborne Irritant for Gouge if there is a desparate need for additional stops on a low cooldown, but it's usually not worth it because an aoe stop will almost always be better outside of niche situations.
Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the best build directly into your game!
Mythic+ Utility for Subtlety Rogue in The War Within Season 1
This section talks mostly about the uses of different spells. For in-depth explanations of all Rogue Abilities and Talents, including these, check out our Spells page.
Utility of Subtlety Rogue in The War Within
Interrupts, Stuns and Stops
Kick is your, well, "kick". You will interrupt your targeted enemy, or, when using a Focus-Macro, the target you set up as your focus.
- /stopcasting
- /stopcasting
- /cast [@focus,exists,nodead] [] Kick
This macro will kick your focus target if you have one, and your target if you have no focus target. We recommend keeping both the macro and a regular kick cast on your bars, as you may have multiple targets to interrupt, and the macro always prioritizes the focus target.
To quickly set a focus target in hectic scenarios, we also recommend a Focus Mouseover macro, or setting the "Focus Target" hotkey in the game's keybinding settings.
- /focus [@mouseover]
Make sure that your UI shows your Focus Target's casts clearly, so that you are always able to kick it on cooldown, or in coordination with the rest of your group.
Stunning and "Stops"
Sap and Blind can be useful to hard-crowd control multiple mobs in a single trash pack. You can also use it right before the tank is pulling, as Blackjack applies a damage reduction debuff to the target when Sap breaks.
Vanish can be used to Garrote enemies, silencing them thanks to Iron Wire. This is also a DPS increase, due to Improved Garrote, so clever planning of your CDs will be rewarded with higher DPS. If you are unsure about your usage of Vanish, err on the side of caution and use it for the silence first and foremost, not for DPS.
With Airborne Irritant talented, Blind turns into a powerful AoE disrupt that also drastically reduces tank damage taken.
Gouge (if talented) can be used to disrupt enemies from casting otherwise uninterruptible spells. This requires you to stand in front of the enemy, but can be used in many situations to keep enemies from using some of their most lethal abilities. Many of these abilities go on cooldown once used, so disrupting them with Gouge, Kidney Shot, or Blind will keep these mobs from re-casting these abilities for a while.
Vanish can be also used to Cheap Shot an enemy that can only be stopped, not interrupted, but this is an absolute last resort play.
Other Utility
Shroud of Concealment projects AoE Stealth around you. It is important to note, however, that in the current expansion, there is a much greater number of enemies who can detect through Stealth or Invisibility, whom you will need to be on the lookout for.
Distract helps set up Shroud-skips and keeps patrolling trash packs in place for 10 seconds. Make sure to force enemies to look away from you, to allow you to stealth past them.
Feint, Cloak of Shadows, Evasion, Crimson Vial and Cheat Death form a very powerful set of defensive cooldowns and are one of the biggest reasons for Rogue's strength in Mythic+.
Tricks of the Trade is not exceptionally great normally. However, any kind of support that helps your tank keep aggro on all enemies is encouraged. Sadly it is a choice-node with Blackjack.
Shiv can be used to dispel Enrage effects. Keep in mind that this means you will not be able to use Shiv for DPS.
Numbing Poison and Atrophic Poison are both useful in Mythic+, but with the heavier emphasis on trash mobs, Numbing Poison is likely to win out on Fortified, with Atrophic gaining more value on Tyrannical weeks. Communicate with your tank and healer which ones are preferable.
Affix Tips, Tricks and Management for Subtlety Rogue in The War Within Season 1
This section has Rogue-specific tips for dealing with the various affixes of Mythic+. If you want general guides for each of our Dungeons or Mythic+ in general, check out our dedicated page below.
Season 1 of The War Within only has four significant Affixes that offer any kind of counterplay, called Xal'ataths Bargains, and they rotate every week, with only one of them being active at a time. Many of the other affixes like Fortified or Tyrannical simply add a passive effect to the keystone, with four exceptions that are seasonally themed after Xal'atah:
- Xal'atath's Bargain: Ascendant: Three waves of orbs will spawn that need to be interrupted or disrupted. Blind works great here as an AoE interrupt thanks to Airborne Irritant. It is yet to be seen whether Garrote silences will interrupt these as well.
- Xal'atath's Bargain: Voidbound: A Void Emissary add will spawn that needs to be focus-targeted and interrupted. If you know this is happening, make sure to use your cooldowns on this target, and cleave off of it.
- Xal'atath's Bargain: Oblivion: Orbs will spawn away from your current enemies, and slowly travel towards them. You can soak these with Sprint.
- Xal'atath's Bargain: Devour: All party members will be affected by a healing absorb. You can remove this with Cloak of Shadows or racials like Stone Form. Use Crimson Vial if these are unavailable to you, to help get rid of the debuff faster. Healthpots or Healthstones also work well if your healer is out of resources.
Each of the affixes provides a different set of beneficial effects once it is dealt with, and while they are very powerful, they are not something you play around in a specific way. The most important part is to not let any of them buff the enemy trash or bosses.
Changelog
- 09 Sep. 2024: Updated for The War Within Season 1.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Reviewed for Season 4
- 20 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Reviewed for patch 10.2.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7
- 10 Jul. 2023: Page updated for Patch 10.1.5.
- 11 May 2023: Changed recommended talent to Flagellation over Dark Brew.
- 01 May 2023: Page reviewed and updated for Patch 10.1.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Updated talents and reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Updated talent recommendations.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
More Rogue Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Oxi, a life long Rogue player since early Classic. He is a Moderator in Ravenholdt, the official Rogue Class Discord. He also maintains the Ravenholdt website, and helps ensure that the Tricks of the Trade Rogue podcast runs smoothly.
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