Subtlety Rogue PvP Talents and Builds (Dragonflight 10.2)
Choosing the right PvP and PvE talents is a prerequisite to proper performance in PvP. This guide goes through the various talent choices available to you as a Subtlety Rogue and gives you the best combinations you can take.
This page is part of our Subtlety Rogue PvP Guide.
Regular Talents for Subtlety Rogues
There is one viable talent build as Subtlety. It features all the talents that empower finishing moves in order to have powerful burst damage during Shadow Dance.
The Rotten Build
Build Highlights
"Finisher" Build
Build Highlights
This build emphasizes the damage of your finishing moves - Eviscerate,
Secret Technique and also
Rupture. Multiple talents are picked to
specifically make those spells more powerful. The goal is to have decent sustained
damage with Rupture and swiftly dispatch your targets every kill attempt with huge
hits from Secret Technique and Eviscerate.
Rupture is empowered by
Replicating Shadows, increasing its damage
by 20% on top of allowing it to hit two targets.
Dark Brew makes the damage become
Shadow and increase it by another 10%.
Veiltouched increases it by another 5%, as
Shadow damage is magic damage.
Finality allows every second Rupture to be buffed
by another 15% (Finality is halved in PvP combat).
Deeper Daggers further empowers
Rupture by 8% during your kill attempts, as it now deals Shadow damage. Add to that the
modifiers that empower finishing moves, such as
Deeper Stratagem and
Secret Stratagem,
as well as the modifiers that increase damage on your goes, such as the talent
Dark Shadow
and the spell
Symbols of Death, and you have a very powerful Rupture.
Eviscerate is empowered by
Shadowed Finishers, increasing its damage
by 30% as Shadow. Because Shadow damage is magic, this part ignores armor.
Dark Brew
increases that part of the damage by 10%.
Veiltouched increases it by another 5%.
Finality allows every second Eviscerate to be buffed by another 15% (Finality is
halved in PvP combat). And finally,
Deeper Daggers further empowers the Shadow damage
part by 8%. Add to that the modifiers that empower finishing moves, such as
Deeper Stratagem
and
Secret Stratagem, as well as the modifiers that increase damage on your goes, such
as the talents
Dark Shadow and
Danse Macabre and the spell
Symbols of Death
and you have a very powerful Eviscerate.
Last but not least Secret Technique is empowered the same way as
Eviscerate,
Shadowed Finishers and
Finality aside. While the initial hit from
Secret Technique deals Physical damage the two following hits from your shadow clones deal
Shadow damage. This is why every modifier mentioned above works with Secret Technique. As
such, it is essential to use Eviscerate shortly before Secret Technique in order to activate
Deeper Daggers for a substantial damage increase. Secret Technique should always be
used alongside
Cold Blood for maximum damage.
PvP Talents for Subtlety Rogues
You can choose three of the following PvP talents; each has uses, but some are better for certain strategies than others. The top three choices are the most useful but can be replaced with other PvP talents depending on your team's goal.
Mandatory PvP Talents
Smoke Bomb creates a smoke cloud around you. Enemy players who are
outside the cloud will not be able to target anyone inside it. This talent
is mandatory for multiple reasons. Firstly, it can help you land a kill by
stunning a target when they have no trinket. By using Smoke Bomb right after
the stun, you will prevent the healer from saving their teammate. Secondly, you
can use it defensively to save yourself or an ally from a lethal cast
about to go off, such as
Greater Pyroblast. And lastly, you can use it
to prevent incoming crowd control on you or your team if such crowd control
would result in you losing a game, such as a
Polymorph or
Repentance on your healer when they have no trinket, and you are low on
health. As you can see, this talent is helpful in many different situations,
which is why it is so powerful. Note that, as Subtlety, the cooldown is only
2 minutes.
Shadowy Duel places you and the enemy you cast this on in a duel.
You can only interact with each other and no one else for 5 seconds.
This talent is mighty. You can use it on an enemy at low health to
prevent the enemy healer from saving them while you finish them off. If you
do not have the damage to do so, you can use it on the enemy healer to
give time to your teammates to finish off your kill target. You can also use it
on an enemy killing one of your teammates. Since they will be locked in
the Duel with you, they can no longer attack your allies. You can also use it on
an enemy casting a significant spell on one of your allies. Since you
will phase them in the Duel with you, they will never throw the spell. One thing
worth knowing is that inside a Shadowy Duel, everyone has Truesight, which
means that both you and your enemy will see through Stealth or other
invisibility spells. The consequence is that if you try to Duel an enemy to
save an ally and then Vanish to be safe, the enemy will still be able
to see you and kill you. In the same way, if you Duel a Rogue and he uses
Vanish, you will be able to see him, Sap him, or kill him.
Situational PvP Talents
Thief's Bargain is a PvP talent with a lot of potential. Having
Vanish
more often means you can survive more or set up more for your team. Alongside the talent
Without a Trace that gives you a second Vanish; you have it very, very often !
Dismantle is a strong PvP talent that allows you to disarm an enemy for 6s
every 45s. It is a great pick against Warriors, Hunters, and Rogues. Disarming
an enemy can delay their next kill attempt or stop it entirely if they have pulled
the trigger.
Veil of Midnight is a powerful defensive option. It allows Cloak of Shadows
to cleanse physical debuffs on top of magic ones and makes it grant you 100% dodge
chance for 5s. It is very useful against Feral Druid or other Assassination
Rogues.
Thick as Thieves is a strong PvP talent when playing a setup comp
with an ally with very high burst. With this, you can further amplify their
burst damage by 15% for 6s, which can be the reason why the target dies. The
downside of this talent is that you have to spend a point in
Tricks of the Trade,
something you don't necessarily want to do.
Changelog
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Dragonflight Patch 10.2.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Updated for Dragonflight Patch 10.1.7.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Updated for Dragonflight Patch 10.1.5.
- 30 Apr. 2023: Updated for Dragonflight Patch 10.1.
- 21 Mar. 2023: Updated for Dragonflight Patch 10.0.7.
- 25 Jan. 2023: Updated for Dragonflight Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 22 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
- 28 Jul. 2022: Reviewed for Shadowlands Season 4.
- 31 May 2022: Reviewed for Patch 9.2.5.
- 23 Feb. 2022: Updated for Patch 9.2.
- 10 Nov. 2021: Updated Tier 2 Talent.
- 06 Oct. 2021: Updated Tier 3 Talent.
- 21 Jul. 2021: Updated Tier 3 Talent.
- 04 Jul. 2021: Updated for Patch 9.1.
- 28 Mar. 2021: Rewritten by Shadenox and updated for Patch 9.0.5.
- 18 Mar. 2021: No Updates Made for Patch 9.0.5
- 05 Dec. 2020: Updated Talent Table.
- Updated Tier 6 Regular Talent.
- 27 Oct. 2020: Updated Talent Table.
- Updated Tier 2 Regular Talent.
- 14 Oct. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands pre-patch.
Other PvP Guides
This guide has been written by Shadenox, an experienced Gladiator player who has achieved over 3,000 rating on Rogue. You can find him on his YouTube channel, where he creates guides and other informational content regarding Arenas.
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