Subtlety Rogue DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0)

1. Start off in Stealth and have Instant Poison applied.
2. Try to always begin while in Stealth.
3. Cast Shadow Dance when Secret Technique is ready.
4. Cast Shadow Blades during Shadow Dance.
5. Cast Secret Technique during Shadow Dance with 6 or more combo points.
6. Cast Coup de Grace with 6 or more combo points.
7. Cast Eviscerate to spend combo points when you have 6 or more.
8. Cast Shadowstrike whenever you can, otherwise use Backstab to build combo points.

Make sure to always start the fight off with a Shadowstrike to apply Deathstalker's Mark.

You always want to use two of Shadow Dance during your Shadow Blades so do not cast it when Shadow Blades has less than 10 seconds left of its cooldown.

Vanish can be used at any point whenever Shadow Dance is not up. Make sure to follow it up with a Shadowstrike.

1. Try to always begin while in Stealth.
2. Make sure to always be targeting the mob with Deathstalker's Mark active.
3. Cast Shadow Dance when Secret Technique is ready.
4. Cast Shadow Blades during Shadow Dance.
5. Cast Secret Technique during Shadow Dance with 6 or more combo points.
6. Cast Coup de Grace with 6 or more combo points.
7. Cast Black Powder to spend combo points when you have 6 or more.
8. Cast Shuriken Storm to build combo points.

Make sure to always start the fight off with a Shadowstrike to apply Deathstalker's Mark, as this debuff can be annoying to move to try to apply it to the highest priority enemy and be sure to always attack whoever has it.

You want to use two of Shadow Dance during your Shadow Blades so do not cast it right before Shadow Blades comes off cooldown.

This is the opener you should do at the start of the pull:

1. Begin while in Stealth.
2. Cast Shadowstrike
3. Use any on-use stat trinkets, your potion and any racial you may have.
4. cast Shadow Dance
5. Cast Shadow Blades
6. Cast Secret Technique.
7. Repeat Shadowstrike into Eviscerate (or Coup de Grace if its available) until Shadow Dance ends and then immediately cast another Shadow Dance.
8. Repeat Shuriken Storm into Black Powder (or Coup de Grace if its available) until Shadow Dance ends and then immediately cast another Shadow Dance.
9. Repeat Shadowstrike into Eviscerate until Shadow Dance ends and then immediately cast another Shadow Dance.
10. Repeat Shuriken Storm into Black Powder until Shadow Dance ends and then immediately cast another Shadow Dance.
11. Continue on with your rotation.

Whenever Coup de Grace is available use it instead of Eviscerate.

Whenever Coup de Grace is available use it instead of Black Powder.

Whenever Darkest Night is active consume it with Eviscerate instead of casting Black Powder.

The Single-Button Assistant system offers an easy introduction into the spec and its many buttons, but it comes at a cost. Due to the increase of the Global Cooldown you will naturally do lower DPS already. The One-Button rotation is also missing out on some of the finer nuances of the rotation in order to make it more accessible for players who have just started their journey into the game, so even when using the Assisted highlight feature, you will be trailing a little behind those who have already mastered the ins and outs of the spec.

That being said, the DPS difference compared to the most complex and detailed rotational gameplay is not as big as you might think. You can expect to do ~25-30% less DPS than you would do with perfect rotational gameplay, so if you want to get your bearings before moving on to the Beginner DPS Rotation, using the Assisted Highlight or even the Single-Button Assistant is a great starting point if you have just taken your first steps into World of Warcraft.

As a Rogue, most of your abilities need Energy to be used. Your Energy bar has a default capacity of 100 Energy and refills at a rate of 10 Energy per second. With Vigor the cap is instead 200 Energy. Your Energy regeneration is increased by:

• Melee Haste (Haste on items + Haste-enhancing buffs).
• The Relentless Strikes passive, which guarantees your finishers restore 6 Energy per Combo Point.
• Shadow Techniques, which awards 4 Energy every time it procs. It also procs more often during Shadow Dance thanks to Shadowcraft.
• Vigor if selected.

The way Subtlety Rogue currently plays there is no need manage or think about your energy. Outside of Shadow Dance there will not be enough energy to cast a spell every single global, that is completely fine and normal. Conversely when Shadow Dance is up you can spam all of your globals thanks to the extra combo points you generate and spend via the passive from Relentless Strikes.

This is the source of what might seem like "random" extra combo points one might get when just starting to play Subtlety. These are a stacking buff you get on your character which makes your next combo point builder generate additional combo points based on how many stacks of the buff you have. It is worth noting however that the game will never spend these stacks to put you above your maximum combo points, instead the stacks of the buff will be kept. Every time the effect is triggered and you gain a stack you also gain 4 energy.

The buff stacks up from passively auto-attacking as well as from Ancient Arts. However the passive generation from auto-attacks are not as random as the tooltip suggests. While it averages out to 28% like the tooltip says it actually works like this:

1. Your 1st attack has a 0% chance to proc it
2. Your 2nd attack has a 0% chance to proc it
3. Your 3rd attack has a 50% chance to proc it
4. If the 3rd attack did not proc it, the 4th has a 100% chance to proc it.
5. Whenever it procs it starts over from the beginning.

When Shadowcraft says it "triggers 40% more frequently" it instead has a 50% chance to proc on the 2nd attack and a 100% chance on 3rd. Since so much of the combo points generated by the spec comes from Shadow Techniques the Shadowcraft is practically required as it doubles both the combo points per time it triggers and the energy.

Shadow Blades is our most important cooldown. Its available every 90 seconds and while it is active your combo oint generating abilities generate twice as many combo points and every attack deals an additional 20% extra damage as shadow damage.

Because of this every cast of Shadow Blades wants to be accompanied by 2 casts of Shadow Dance, as stacking multiple damage cooldowns at the same time leads to more damage. This is also the perfect time to be using other damage increase effects such as your potion or any racial buffs you may have ( Blood Fury as an example).

Shadow Dance is your "bread and butter" cooldown, and your damage output relies heavily on proper usage. Shadow Dance has 1 charge, or 2 when talented into Shadow Dance, each with a 20 second recharge. Its baseline duration is 6 second,however, the talent Deepening Shadows extends it based on the amount of Haste stat your character has. So any buffs like Bloodlust or Power Infusion will not increase the duration, but an on-use trinket like Light Company Guidon will.

It can also be extended by the The First Dance talent, in a raid encounter this effect will only ever occur at the start of the fight but increasing the duration of Shadow Dance is so powerful that its often worth considering anyway unless the fight is very long. In Mythic+ however this effect can occur very often, and its often wise to wait a few seconds or two with engaging the mobs if this 6 second window is close to being completed.

Generally you want to be casting Shadow Dance whenever Secret Technique is ready, which should be nearly on cooldown as the cooldown of Secret Technique is 25 seconds, but it gets reduced by haste.

Due to Deepening Shadows increasing the length of dance by such a variable amount its recommended to always cast abilities with as little time in between them as possible. This includes having one or multiple macros to make sure the first spell cast inside Shadow Dance is casted immediately and not 0.2 seconds later. You can find these in the Macro Section of our Resources Page: