Subtlety Rogue PvP Rotation and Playstyle (Shadowlands / 9.1)

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 pace of the game. You should look to partner with a class that has very strong single-target damage as well as follow-up crowd control for your stuns, such as Mages, Hunters, or Priests.

Discuss with your team to have a gameplan. Subtlety Rogue is a specialization that is exclusively played in setup comps and that means you and your team need to agree on who to control and who to kill before the game begins, and 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. Wound Poison will be removed after each Arena match, so it is easy to forget to reapply it. A 12% healing reduction effect is important in arena, so do not forget it!

Press Stealth and you are good to go!

The ability to control the entire enemy team is what 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). Most of the time your teammates will follow up as long as you Cheap Shot the DPS so that they cannot stop your team. As of Patch 9.1 you also have the option to use Dismantle to stop an enemy melee DPS in between your own setups.

Rogues have two resources to manage. The first, Energy, is quite straightforward. Using a spell costs Energy, and it regenerates over time. The second resource is Combo Points. Some abilities generate Combo Points, and powerful abilities called Finishing Moves consume them. In order to maximize your damage output as well as your Energy regeneration you need to 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 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 extremely important 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 by it. 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 setup 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, knowing how to spend them is even more important. 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 important 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 setup 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 a 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 amount of Combo Points used for it. It also deals additional shadow damage to targets with Find Weakness on them.

The opener refers to your team's opening CC chain and damage done as soon as you get out of 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 get to 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. You will also benefit from Mark of the Master Assassin if you play it, for a significant damage increase.

If you forced a trinket in the opener you are on the right track to win the game. If the enemy healer used their trinket then you will be able to do a 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.
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.
5. Use Symbols of Death.
6. Use Shadowstrike
   • Use Sepsis instead if you are Night Fae.
   • Use Echoing Reprimand instead if you are Kyrian.
7. Use Eviscerate.
8. Use Marked for Death.
9. Use Eviscerate.
10. Use Cheap Shot.
11. Use Shadowstrike.
12. Use Eviscerate.

If you are Venthyr you want to use Flagellation instead of the other Covenant abilities in the opener above. However, as it does not generate Combo Points you will be forced to also use Shadowstrike right after to get to 5 Combo Points. This adds a GCD to the opener described above. Therefore, in order to keep the target in a stun at all times the spell sequence has to be slightly changed. There is one example below, but remember that this will be true for all the other openers and burst rotations shown here.

1. Sap the enemy 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.
5. Use Symbols of Death.
6. Use Flagellation
7. Use Shadowstrike.
8. Use Eviscerate.
9. Use Marked for Death.
10. Use Kidney Shot.
11. Use Shadowstrike.
12. Use Shadowstrike.
13. Use Eviscerate.

Sometimes you will want to get crowd control on the enemy DPS to prevent them from preemptively using a defensive ability when you land crowd control on their healer. And sometimes, the enemy team will enter combat before you can use Sap. For both of these scenarios an alternate opener exists.

1. Sap the enemy DPS, or do not Sap if the enemy team is in combat.
2. Use Marked for Death.
3. Use Kidney Shot on the enemy healer.
4. Use Shadow Blades.
5. Use Cheap Shot on your kill target.
   • This will apply the Find Weakness and Prey on the Weak debuffs.
6. Use Shadow Dance.
7. Use Symbols of Death.
8. Use Shadowstrike
   • Use Sepsis instead if you are Night Fae.
   • Use Echoing Reprimand instead if you are Kyrian.
9. Use Eviscerate.
10. Use Shadowstrike.
11. Use Cheap Shot.
12. Use Eviscerate.
13. Use Cheap Shot.
14. Use Shadowstrike.
15. Use Eviscerate.

If you choose not to use Shadow Blades in the opener you will get fewer Combo Points from Cheap Shot and Shadowstrike, so the opener will look different. In the same way, if the enemy is an Orc or has Relentless, the stuns will be shorted and the opener will again be different. Simply remember that you always have to keep the target in a stun. If a stun is about to expire then stun again, and use Eviscerate when you have 5 Combo Points and a stun is not about to expire. Otherwise, use Shadowstrike.

When you have the enemy healer in crowd control and you are trying to kill an enemy, you use your burst damage. In most cases, you will have used your Kidney Shot on the enemy healer to initiate the crowd control chain, so you will stun your kill target with Cheap Shot.

1. Use Shadow Blades.
2. Use Shadow Dance.
3. Use Symbols of Death.
4. Use Cheap Shot.
5. Use Shadowstrike
   • Use Sepsis instead if you are Night Fae.
   • Use Echoing Reprimand instead if you are Kyrian.
6. Use Eviscerate.
7. Use Marked for Death.
8. Use Eviscerate.
9. Use Cheap Shot.
10. Use Shadowstrike.
11. Use Eviscerate.

Sometimes, however, you will land crowd control on the enemy healer without using Kidney Shot. In that case your burst rotation will include a Kidney Shot on the enemy DPS so you can spend more GCDs on damage and fewer GCDs on stuns.

1. Use Shadow Blades.
2. Use Kidney Shot on your kill target.
3. Use Shadow Dance.
4. Use Symbols of Death.
5. Use Shadowstrike
   • Use Sepsis instead if you are Night Fae.
   • Use Echoing Reprimand instead if you are Kyrian.
6. Use Shadowstrike.
7. Use Eviscerate.
8. Use Marked for Death.
9. Use Eviscerate.
10. Use Shadowstrike.
11. Use Cheap Shot.
12. Use Eviscerate.
13. Use Cheap Shot.
14. Use Shadowstrike.
15. Use Eviscerate.

Once again if you are Venthyr and want to use Flagellation, if you do not have Shadow Blades available or if your target is an Orc or has Relentless you will need to change the spell sequence to keep the target in a stun.

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 passive.
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 when you want to avoid damage and get away from the enemy team. With the Legendary Mark of the Master Assassin it can also be used offensively. 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 30% damage reduction from everything for 6 seconds on a 15-second cooldown. This is a very powerful tool to mitigate incoming damage. A Rogue is very 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 small 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 to 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.