Subtlety Rogue PvP Best Covenants, Soulbinds, Conduits, and Legendary Powers (Shadowlands / 9.1)

For more information about what Covenants bring you, please refer to our page about Covenant abilities for Rogues.

There are four Covenants available: Night Fae, Kyrian, Venthyr, and Necrolord. Each Covenant will provide you with a class ability and a Covenant ability. Luckily for Subtlety Rogue players, with Patch 9.0.5 the underperforming Covenants have been buffed and now all four options are viable up to at least Gladiator. This has not changed with Patch 9.1. Venthyr is the most popular at the moment, and with the Covenant Legendaries now available it has become even better. Kyrian used to be the worst option but is now a decent pick as well thanks to the Covenant Legendaries. Night Fae is good, and Necrolord is last because it does not suit Subtlety all that well.

1. Venthyr is the Covenant that will give you the most burst damage. The class ability, Flagellation, deals large amounts of damage for every Combo Point spent, even more so with the Lashing Scars Conduit. It also gives a bit of Haste, but that is not a great stat for Subtlety. This ability works particularly well with Marked for Death, since your burst rotation will include two Eviscerate back to back, causing Flagellation to deal a lot of damage in a very short period of time. The Covenant ability, Door of Shadows, is decent as it allows you to escape a dangerous situation and may even allow you to re-Stealth, but it can be interrupted, making it unreliable when enemies have their interrupts ready.
2. Night Fae is the Covenant that will give you the most mobility. The class ability, Sepsis, deals moderate damage and allows you one use of a stealth-based ability without being Stealthed. One of the Night Fae Soulbinds will also allow Sepsis to give you a significant Mastery buff, making it a nice addition to your burst. The Covenant ability, Soulshape, is the reason why Night Fae is such a great Covenant for Rogues. It allows you to teleport 15 yards away every 4 seconds for 12 seconds. This is a great tool to escape lethal situations and go for re-Stealths. This gives you more mobility, allowing you to get re-Stealths more. Of course it can also be used to reach a target that has been kiting you. An instant teleport effect that can be repeated a few times while the enemy is using its mobility spells really is a boon to a class such as Rogue, as escaping damage and going back into Stealth is really core to the gameplay.
3. Kyrian is a Covenant that will frequently give you high burst damage if you use its Legendary. The Covenant ability, Echoing Reprimand, deals moderate damage in PvP combat due to being heavily nerfed in PvP, so the major benefit you would get from it is the possibility of landing a 7 Combo Point Eviscerate. This is decent damage, but it is also random due to the fact that you cannot know which of your Combo Points will be anima-charged, and you will have a hard time controlling your Combo Point generation because of the passive Shadow Techniques. However with the Legendary you will anima-charge 4 different Combo Points, so you will for certain be able to land at least two 7 CPs Eviscerates during your burst. The Covenant ability is a spell that will summon a Steward, and the Steward will give you Phial of Serenity. The cooldown on this heal is excessively long, and it does not start until you leave combat. It is not as worthwhile as the healing from the Necrolord ability, or the ability to simply avoid damage by escaping provided by both Venthyr and Night Fae, but it is very good versus Assassination Rogues and Feral Druids — which happen to be very powerful meta specs at the moment.
4. Necrolord is the Covenant that will give you the most survivability. The class ability, Serrated Bone Spike, deals decent damage, is very cheap, and allows you not only to generate Combo Points from a distance, but also to keep dealing damage to an enemy who managed to get away from you. A great spell overall. The Covenant ability, Fleshcraft, is a channeled ability that grants you a large shield and reduces all damage you take by 20% while channeling the shield. This is a very powerful defensive ability, especially with the Ultimate Form passive that comes with one of the Soulbinds, as you will get a crowd control immunity and healing on top of the shield.

Soulbinds are unlocked as you progress your character with a Covenant. Each Covenant features 3 Soulbinds, and every Soulbind has its own set of passive effects. In every Soulbind you will have to choose a path, and that path is important as it determines what passives you get, and what kind of Conduits you can use.

Here are the Soulbind and path you should take if you chose Venthyr.

This Soulbind gives you the Soothing Shade passive. While this is a proc, and thus unreliable, if it procs on your burst window it will increase your damage output by a lot. You also gain Leisurely Gait, granting you a second charge of Door of Shadows at the cost of a slight cooldown increase. On top of that you gain the passive Wasteland Propriety. This will give you 6% Versatility when using Flagellation, and since you use this spell when you burst, you gain a flat buff to damage on your burst windows. This will be further amplified by the PvP trinket set bonus. It's Always Tea Time will provide a very minor defensive benefit.

Here are the Soulbind and path you should take if you chose Night Fae.

This Soulbind gives you the Grove Invigoration passive. This will allow you to gain 300 Mastery when using Sepsis, greatly increasing the burst damage of your finishing moves such as Eviscerate. You also get Run Without Tiring, which is a bit of healing when kiting away with Soulshape. The last trait, Bonded Hearts will further amplify the Mastery buff given by Grove Invigoration if an ally nearby isn't Night Fae, which helps a lot with the burst damage, on top of providing you and your team with a little bit of healing. Last the trait Survivor's Rally is a very powerful defensive tool to have.

Here are the Soulbinds and paths you should take if you chose Necrolord. There are two good options, depending on the situation.

You should use this Soulbind when facing a team with a lot of consistent damage. This Soulbind gives you the Ooz's Frictionless Coating passive, which will amount to a lot of healing overall. You also gain the passive Ultimate Form that allows Fleshcraft to heal you and provide you with crowd control immunity for a short period of time. This can be useful in many situations if you know the enemy team is about to crowd control you. The issue with this Soulbind is that it forces you to play two or three Potency Conduits, and these are not good as Subtlety Rogue. If you have to play three then either Stiletto Staccato or Planned Execution will be your options, depending on wether you play with Mark of the Master Assassin or not. Also since Ooz's Frictionless Coating was nerfed by 50% in PvP with the most recent patch it is possible to instead opt for Plaguey's Preemptive Strike instead for more burst damage in your opener, and then you'd pick Prepared for All as a third Finesse Conduit.

You should use this Soulbind when facing a team that will try to kill you in a stun, such as a Rogue team or a Feral team, or when you want more damage and do not need the consistent healing provided by Marileth. The first passive of the Soulbind, Lead by Example, is a decent damage increase. The third row allows you to channel Fleshcraft while moving, which helps not being interrupted or controlled while channeling. The passive Sulfuric Emission, is the reason why you want to pick this Soulbind when facing a team that will kill you in a stun. As soon as you go below 20% health, everyone around you is feared for 3.5-second, and this can happen every minute. This will allow you to survive burst damage by fearing the enemy melee DPS. Resilient Stitching will provide a bit of sustained healing versus magic users and the last passive, Pustule Eruption is a bit of damage and healing alongside your Fleshcraft. This Soulbind also has the advantage of offering a good conduit distribution for Subtlety Rogues.

Here are the Soulbind and path you should take if you chose Kyrian.

This Soulbind gives you the Combat Meditation passive. This will allow you to gain Mastery when using Echoing Reprimand, increasing the burst damage of your finishing moves such as Eviscerate. You also get Phial of Patience, greatly increasing the healing of Phial of Serenity, but causing it to be dealt over 10 seconds. This is powerful if you manage to use it just before being stunned. That being said, there will be situations in which an instant 20% heal is better than a bigger heal dealt over time. In that case, you can pick the leftmost path instead. You also get the passive Let Go of the Past, which is a small defensive bonus. The last two passives are amongst the strongest of the Soulbind. Path of the Devoted will reduce all incoming damage by 20% after recovering from a crowd control effect once every 30s. While this may be triggered by crowd control abilties that won't hurt you it could also trigger on very dangerous abilities such as Kidney Shot or Storm Bolt. If you are the target it is likely that you will indeed get value out of it as many crowd control attacks on you will be meant to kill you. The last passive, Newfound Resolve is a powerful damage increase when you manage to get it, although it may not always be very practical to do so while in PvP combat.

Conduits are passive buffs that you can use to fill empty slots in your Soulbind Trees. There are three types of Conduits: Potency, Endurance, and Finesse. Here are the best Conduits for each of those different types:

1. If you are Venthyr, Lashing Scars increases the damage of your Flagellation, increasing your burst damage.
2. If you are Night Fae, Septic Shock increases the damage of your Sepsis, increasing your burst damage.
3. Deeper Daggers makes Eviscerate increase your Shadow damage after using it. This will increase your burst damage, as your Eviscerate deals shadow damage when Find Weakness is on the target.

1. Cloaked in Shadows gives you a shield for 4s when you enter Stealth. As a Subtlety Rogue, you will often attempt to re-enter Stealth once you failed to kill an enemy. This Conduit will allow you to re-Stealth with DoTs on you. As long as the shield remains you will not get pulled out of Stealth by DoT damage. Even though this conduit used to give a permanent shield and now only grants 4s of shield it is still good for Subtelty Rogues as the gameplay is very hit and run, and with this you will have 4s to go far, maybe hide behind a pillar and then restealth once more once DoTs on you have faded.
2. Recuperator makes Slice and Dice heal you over time. This is good to help your healer with sustained healing as you will have Slice and Dice up most of the time.

1. Rushed Setup reduces the energy cost of your crowd control spells, such as Cheap Shot, Kidney Shot and Sap. This will greatly help you manage your energy on your kill windows.
2. Quick Decisions reduces the cooldown of Shadowstep and increases its range. This is great for both running down enemies or kiting away from them if you need to.
3. Prepared for All allows you to reduce the cooldown of Evasion by dodging attacks and the cooldown of Cloak of Shadows by successfully interrupting casts. This is powerful because it will allow you to get your defensives back faster than the enemy can anticipate.

Legendaries have many different effects and some can alter how you should use some of your abilities. For more information on Legendaries, check out our general guide on them.

Here are the best Legendaries for a Subtlety Rogues.

1. Invigorating Shadowdust is the one of the best Legendary you can get. This makes it so Vanish reduces the cooldown of your other abilities by 20 seconds. This is powerful, as this means you can use Blind and if the enemy healer trinkets, you can Vanish and they will not have trinket for the next Blind. You can also Kick, use Vanish and Kick again. This gives you much more utility and control over the enemy team. This Legendary power is even more valuable if you run the new Honor Talent Thief's Bargain as this lowers the cooldown on Vanish.
2. Obedience is a very powerful choice if you are Venthyr, which currently happens to be the best Covenant for Subtlety Rogues even without the Legendary. Not only will Flagellation give you a Versatility buff, which is the best stat in PvP, but it will also reduce its cooldown with every Combo Point you spend during the effect, which leads to having the ability more often. The only issue is that if the enemy team uses cooldowns to prevent you from spending many Combo Points then you waste the entire Legendary, so you need to make sure you will be able to press your abilities freely. As Subtlety, having access to powerful cooldown more frequently for your goes is extremely strong as you can guarantee crowd control on the enemy team, and since the Versatility buff is applied during your Flagellation window the end of your burst will hit very hard.
3. Resounding Clarity is a very strong choice if you are Kyrian. With this Legendary your Covenant ability, Echoing Reprimand, will anima-charge 4 of your Combo Points. It will always be your 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th Combo Points. Using a damaging finishing move with any of these anima-charged Combo Points will deal damage as if you had used the spell with 7 Combo Points. That means every 45s you will be able to get up to four 7 Combo Point Eviscerate which is massive burst damage, especially since the enemy team will most likely be in crowd control when you do that. While getting the last two points might be somewhat RNG you will be able to get the first two anima-cahrged Combo Points for certain as you just need to use an Eviscerate with any number of Combo Points between 2 and 4, and then use Marked for Death to get 5 Combo Points and use Eviscerate again. In the end this Legendary means powerful, frequent, and stable burst damage, everything a Subtlety Rogue wishes for.
4. Mark of the Master Assassin is now simply a decent Legendary to have, much less powerful than it was before Patch 9.1. It gives you 100% Critical Strike chance for 2.4 seconds after Stealth breaks, making your burst damage when coming out of Stealth a bit more powerful. However since you will often spend your first GCDs stunning people you will not benefit from the buff that much coming out of Stealth. It will be more impactful when you use Vanish to land two Eviscerates with the Critical Strike chance buff.