Subtlety Rogue PvP Rotation and Playstyle (Dragonflight / 10.0.7)

Subtlety Rogues have two roles in PvP: control the enemy team with Sap, Blind, Kidney Shot, Cheap Shot and Dismantle, and burst down stunned enemies very quickly. Subtlety Rogues badly lack sustained damage, but they make up for it by controlling the game's pace. You should partner with a class with extreme single-target damage and follow-up crowd control for your stuns, such as Mages, Hunters, or Priests.

Discuss with your team to have a game plan. Subtlety Rogue is a specialization that is exclusively played in setup comps. That means you and your team must agree on who to control and who to kill before the game begins. You need to know who will use their offensive cooldowns first. Wasting an entire go because you did not plan and broke each other's crowd control can make you lose the game.

Apply Wound Poison and Crippling Poison. Press Stealth and you are good to go!

The ability to control the enemy team makes Subtlety Rogues so deadly. To lock down a team, you will aim to push in and initiate crowd control chains on the healer ( Sap if they are not in combat, Blind and Kidney Shot/ Cheap Shot). Most of the time, your teammates will follow up as long as you stun the DPS so they cannot stop your team. You also have the option to use Dismantle to stop an enemy melee DPS in between your setups.

The PvP trinket bonus that reduces CC duration greatly hurts Subtlety Rogues. When bursting down a target, your goal is to keep it locked down with stuns. Because stuns last for a shorter duration, now it means that in Dragonflight, you have one less GCD to deal damage for every one of your stuns, or else the targets get free before you can stun again. The only solution is to hold your GCD when the stun is just below a second to its end and then restun. This makes the optimal rotation underwhelming if you keep the target stunned (which you should).

Rogues have two resources to manage. The first, Energy, is relatively straightforward. Using a spell costs Energy, and it regenerates over time. The second resource is Combo Points. Some abilities generate Combo Points, and powerful skills called Finishing Moves consume them. To maximize your damage output and your Energy regeneration, you must use your Combo Points efficiently. You have several ways to generate Combo Points.

• From Stealth, Subterfuge, or when Shadow Dance is active, there are 2 main ways to generate Combo Points:
  • Cheap Shot stuns the target and generates 1 Combo Point.
  • Shadowstrike can only be used in Stealth as well. It deals damage and generates 2 Combo Points.
  • Note: both of these abilities put the Find Weakness debuff on your target. It is essential to have this debuff on any target you want to use Eviscerate on.
• When not in Stealth, you generate Combo Points with the following:
  • Backstab deals little damage and generates 1 Combo Point. If you hit from behind, it will deal 20% increased damage. Critical Strikes will apply Find Weakness for 6s.
  • Shiv generates 1 Combo Point. If you have Crippling Poison on, it will slow the target by 70% for 4 seconds.
  • Shuriken Storm is an AoE ability and will generate 1 Combo Point for each target hit. Weirdly enough, in PvP, this does not work on pets, only players. You can use this when two players or more are stacked, and you need to generate Combo Points. Be careful not to break crown control, such as Polymorph when using this ability.
  • Shuriken Toss does very little damage but generates 1 Combo Point. This should be used if you are slowed/rooted and cannot reach your target but are about to overcap Energy.
  • Marked for Death instantly generates 5 Combo Points. This can be used for Kidney Shot to set up crowd control or for an additional Eviscerate during a kill attempt. It should never be used to deal damage in between two setups.

Now that you know how to generate Combo Points, learning how to spend them is even more critical. As a Subtlety Rogue, you have a passive called Relentless Strikes that grants you Energy for every Combo Point you spend on a Finishing Move. It makes it essential to use the Finishing Moves with 5 Combo Points. Here are the abilities you will be spending Combo Points on and what situations you will use them in:

• Kidney Shot is your primary stun to set up crowd control on the enemy healer or kill target.
• Rupture is a bleed that lasts longer based on how many Combo Points you use. Only use this ability when you are not bursting a target.
• Slice and Dice increases your attack speed. Slice and Dice should almost have 100% uptime during an arena match. Only manually use it when you are not bursting a target.
• Eviscerate is your primary damaging ability. This will deal more damage based on the Combo Points used for it. It also deals additional shadow damage to targets with Find Weakness on them.
• Secret Technique is a powerful finisher with great damage but has a cooldown. This will deal more damage based on the amount of Combo Points used for it. It will only be used alongside offensive cooldowns to go for a kill.

The opener refers to your team's opening CC chain and damage done as soon as you exit the gates. The main goal in the opener is to force your enemies to use their cooldowns. If the enemy healer or your kill target uses their trinket in the opener, they are in trouble.

The opener is a key part of the game as Rogue. Stealth gives you the advantage as you choose how the fight begins. Because people will not be in combat right after the gates open, you will be able to Sap a target, already providing your team with numerical superiority. If you manage to get stuns on the other enemies, you can create a situation where your kill target is stunned for you and your team to deal damage without any external help.

If you forced a trinket in the opener, you are on the right track to winning the game. If the enemy healer used their trinket, you could go with a Blind on them, followed by a Sap while you kill the enemy DPS. If the enemy DPS uses their trinket, you will be able to do a go on them with a Kidney Shot followed by a Smoke Bomb to prevent the healer from helping and hopefully kill the DPS in that stun.

There are multiple openers as a Subtlety Rogue. Here is a very standard opener with a Sap on the healer.

1. Sap the enemy healer, or the enemy DPS if you open on the healer.
2. Use Shadow Blades.
3. Use Cheap Shot on your kill target.
   • This will apply the Find Weakness and Prey on the Weak debuffs.
4. Use Shadow Dance. With the talent The First Dance you now have 4 Combo Points.
5. Use Symbols of Death.
6. Use Eviscerate.
7. Use Shadowstrike. Use Echoing Reprimand instead if it is available.
8. Wait until your Cheap Shot is about to end, then use Cheap Shot.
9. Wait until your Cheap Shot is about to end, then use Cheap Shot.
10. Use Secret Technique with Cold Blood if it is available, else use Eviscerate.

As you can see, if you want to keep your target stunned on a Cheap Shot kill attempt, you do not have a lot of GCDs to deal damage now that everyone has a 15% CC reduction item equipped. If you open like this, you heavily rely on your team to deal enough damage to kill the target. Therefore, you want to attack your target inside a Kidney Shot instead of a Cheap Shot stunlock. To accomplish this, you can do as follows:

1. Sap your kill target.
2. Use Shadow Blades.
3. Use Cheap Shot on the enemy that you want to CC.
4. Use Shadowstrike on the enemy that you want to CC while they are in Cheap Shot. That brings you to 6 Combo Points.
5. Have your team CC the target inside the Cheap Shot with a Polymorph, a Freezing Trap, a Psychic Scream, or use your Blind if your team is unable to assist.
6. Use Kidney Shot on your kill target, who should still be in a Sap.
7. Use Shadow Dance. With the talent The First Dance you now have 4 Combo Points.
8. Use Symbols of Death.
9. Use Shadowstrike to apply Find Weakness and get to 6 Combo Points.
10. Use Eviscerate.
11. Use Echoing Reprimand.
12. Use Cold Blood and then use Secret Technique if it is available, else use Eviscerate.
13. Wait until your Kidney Shot is about to end, then use Cheap Shot.
14. Wait until your Cheap Shot is about to end, then use Cheap Shot.
15. Use Eviscerate.

If you do not immediately need to run away once your stuns expire, you can keep attacking the target with Shadowstrike to build Combo Points and Eviscerate to spend them.

When you have the enemy healer in crowd control and are trying to kill an enemy, you use your burst damage. It is important to try to have your Kidney Shot ready for the kill target if you plan on doing a lot of damage yourself. If you use Cheap Shot on the kill target; you will have very few GCDs to deal damage while maintaining the unlock. The target will likely survive unless your team brings a lot of damage.

1. Use Kidney Shot on your kill target.
2. Use Shadow Dance. With the talent The First Dance you now have 4 Combo Points.
3. Use Shadow Blades.
4. Use Symbols of Death.
5. Use Shadowstrike to apply Find Weakness and get to 6 Combo Points.
6. Use Eviscerate.
7. Use Echoing Reprimand.
8. Use Cold Blood and then use Secret Technique if it is available, else use Eviscerate.
9. Wait until your Kidney Shot is about to end, then use Cheap Shot.
10. Wait until your Cheap Shot is about to end, then use Cheap Shot.
11. Use Eviscerate.

If you do not immediately need to run away once your stuns expire, you can keep attacking the target with Shadowstrike to build Combo Points and Eviscerate to spend them.

You may be required to burst down a target without every cooldown available. You can still follow the same rotation. The only thing that changes is that if you do not have Echoing Reprimand available, then you need to use Shadowstrike instead. Consequently, your next attack will only be a finishing move if you land on a blue Combo Point or procure a second Shadowstrike to get to 6 Combo Points. Otherwise, you will replace the finishing move with another Shadowstrike. Usually, when you go for a burst phase without any offensive cooldown, your team should have their damage cooldowns to help, so you don't have to worry about not doing a lot of damage yourself and can instead focus on keeping the enemy team in CC.

Sustained damage is damage you do when your burst cooldowns are not available and when your enemies cannot be crowd controlled because of diminishing returns. Because Subtlety Rogues have weak sustained damage, they spend their sustained damage windows trying to re-Stealth if possible to prepare the next setup, or, if they cannot, they apply their bleed to the enemy, their maintenance buff to themselves and gather Combo Points for the next setup.

1. Try to re-Stealth if possible.
2. Use Rupture with 5 Combo Points.
3. Use Slice and Dice with 5 Combo Points. Having this buff up when you initiate your next setup will allow you to gain more Combo Points with the Premeditation talent.
4. Use Eviscerate with 5 Combo Points and do not need to refresh Rupture.
5. Use Backstab to generate Combo Points.

Vanish is one of your main defensive cooldowns. Use Vanish to avoid damage and get away from the enemy team. It can also be used to land crowd control with Sapand Cheap Shot.

Cloak of Shadows is a strong defensive cooldown when playing against casters. Use this when in trouble against caster teams and run to safety. You can also use it to mitigate incoming magic crowd control abilities, such as Mortal Coil or Hammer of Justice.

Evasion is a strong defensive cooldown when playing against melees and Hunters. Use this when the enemy team is using offensive cooldowns on you. You can also use it to dodge incoming physical crowd control abilities such as Kidney Shot or Mighty Bash.

Feint (with the Elusiveness talent) is the trickiest but most useful defensive ability a Rogue has. It grants you a flat 20% damage reduction from everything for 6 seconds on a 15-second cooldown. This is a potent tool to mitigate incoming damage. A Rogue is weak against stuns, so preemptively using Feint when a stun is coming your way greatly increases your chance of surviving heavy damage from the enemy team. Of course, it can be used when the enemy team is using cooldowns on you, even if there is no stun.

Crimson Vial is a minor healing over time effect. It can be used the same way as Feint, either when you are about to get stunned or when the enemy is using cooldowns on you, and your healer needs extra help.

It is advised to use Macros to use abilities on enemies or allies without having to target them. For this reason, we have a page dedicated to them.