Subtlety Rogue PvP Rotation and Playstyle (Shadowlands / 9.2)
PvP requires you to perform various actions in the course of a duel, match, or battleground: interrupting/silencing enemies, damaging them, bursting them down, defending yourself, keeping yourself alive, etc.. It is a game mode that fully utilizes your kit, especially spells that are rarely used in PvE. On this page, we go through all the spells you need to use in PvP as a Subtlety Rogue, how you should use them, and we explain what your playstyle should be.
This page is part of our Subtlety Rogue PvP Guide.
Playstyle for Subtlety Rogues
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.
Before Gates Open
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!
Crowd Control
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.
Offensive Rotation
Generating and Spending Combo Points
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
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.
Sap the enemy healer.
- Use
Shadow Blades.
- Use
Cheap Shot on your kill target.
- This will apply the
Find Weakness and
Prey on the Weak debuffs.
- This will apply the
- Use
Shadow Dance.
- Use
Symbols of Death.
- Use
Shadowstrike
- Use
Sepsis instead if you are Night Fae.
- Use
Echoing Reprimand instead if you are Kyrian.
- Use
- Use
Eviscerate.
- Use
Marked for Death.
- Use
Eviscerate.
- Use
Cheap Shot.
- Use
Shadowstrike.
- 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.
Sap the enemy healer.
- Use
Shadow Blades.
- Use
Cheap Shot on your kill target.
- This will apply the
Find Weakness and
Prey on the Weak debuffs.
- This will apply the
- Use
Shadow Dance.
- Use
Symbols of Death.
- Use
Flagellation
- Use
Shadowstrike.
- Use
Eviscerate.
- Use
Marked for Death.
- Use
Kidney Shot.
- Use
Shadowstrike.
- Use
Shadowstrike.
- 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.
Sap the enemy DPS, or do not Sap if the enemy team is in combat.
- Use
Marked for Death.
- Use
Kidney Shot on the enemy healer.
- Use
Shadow Blades.
- Use
Cheap Shot on your kill target.
- This will apply the
Find Weakness and
Prey on the Weak debuffs.
- This will apply the
- Use
Shadow Dance.
- Use
Symbols of Death.
- Use
Shadowstrike
- Use
Sepsis instead if you are Night Fae.
- Use
Echoing Reprimand instead if you are Kyrian.
- Use
- Use
Eviscerate.
- Use
Shadowstrike.
- Use
Cheap Shot.
- Use
Eviscerate.
- Use
Cheap Shot.
- Use
Shadowstrike.
- 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.
Burst Damage
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.
- Use
Shadow Blades.
- Use
Shadow Dance.
- Use
Symbols of Death.
- Use
Cheap Shot.
- Use
Shadowstrike
- Use
Sepsis instead if you are Night Fae.
- Use
Echoing Reprimand instead if you are Kyrian.
- Use
- Use
Eviscerate.
- Use
Marked for Death.
- Use
Eviscerate.
- Use
Cheap Shot.
- Use
Shadowstrike.
- 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.
- Use
Shadow Blades.
- Use
Kidney Shot on your kill target.
- Use
Shadow Dance.
- Use
Symbols of Death.
- Use
Shadowstrike
- Use
Sepsis instead if you are Night Fae.
- Use
Echoing Reprimand instead if you are Kyrian.
- Use
- Use
Shadowstrike.
- Use
Eviscerate.
- Use
Marked for Death.
- Use
Eviscerate.
- Use
Shadowstrike.
- Use
Cheap Shot.
- Use
Eviscerate.
- Use
Cheap Shot.
- Use
Shadowstrike.
- 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.
Keep in mind that the spell sequences shown in this section are guidelines that
can be changed. 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.
You could also not play with
Marked for Death. In that case you would use a
Shadowstrike instead of Marked for Death Eviscerate, or
Cheap Shot
instead of Marked for Death Kidney Shot, and continue your
rotation with a stun if the target is about to go free, an Eviscerate if you have
enough Combo Points, and another Shadowstrike otherwise. Using the Kyrian Legendary
also changes things a little. If you land on a blue Combo Point and do not have to
restun then you want to use Eviscerate instead of Shadowstrike, as it will be a 7CP
Eviscerate. And last the recently added set bonus
can change the rotation very slightly. If you happen to proc
Shadow Blades
when you were not supposed to have it you will generate more Combo Points than
anticipated. Pay attention to how many you have in order to use Eviscerate if
possible, instead of the expected Shadowstrike.
Sustained damage
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.
- Try to re-Stealth if possible.
- Use
Rupture with 5 Combo Points.
- 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.
- Use
Eviscerate with 5 Combo Points and do not need to refresh
Rupture.
- Use
Backstab to generate Combo Points.
Defensive Techniques
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.
Macros
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.
Changelog
- 24 Feb. 2022: Updated for Patch 9.2.
- 10 Nov. 2021: Already up to date with Patch 9.1.5.
- 04 Jul. 2021: Updated for Patch 9.1.
- 28 Mar. 2021: Rewritten by Shadenox and updated for Patch 9.0.5.
- 18 Mar. 2020: Reviewed for Patch 9.0.5.
- 05 Dec. 2020: Updated Rotations to include Covenant Ability.
- 02 Dec. 2020: Updated Burst Damage rotation.
- 01 Dec. 2020: Updated Opening and Burst rotations.
- 29 Nov. 2020: Removed outdated Traits and Essences.
- 10 Nov. 2020: Updated Opening Rotation.
- 14 Oct. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands pre-patch.
This guide has been written by Shadenox, an experienced Gladiator Rogue player who has achieved over 2850 rating. You can find him on his YouTube channel, where he creates guides and other informational content regarding Arenas.
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