World of Warcraft®

Overview:

Subtlety is arguably the most difficult rogue spec. Because we haven't done enough modeling, we don't know where it is in relation to other specs in terms of DPS, though generally all specs are competitive. Critical to the spec is its finisher-heavy rotation (made possibly by HaT) and many CDs which make the spec difficult to master and very rewarding. This guide is designed to tell you everything you need to know about playing subtlety so you can show that hunter who just stole your trinket who's boss.

Terms:

SS = Shadowstep
BS = Backstab
ShD = Shadow Dance
SnD = Slice and Dice
HaT = Honor Among Thieves
MoS = Master of Subtlety
FW = Find Weakness
SV = Sanguinary Veins
FoK = Fan of Knives
CT = Crimson Tempest

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Talents:

Talents:

I am not giving descriptions of the talents. I suggest you go to http://mop.wowhead.com/mists-of-pandaria-talent-calculator#ryAa for them.

T1:

Nightstalker: Alright, but worse than Subterfuge.

Subterfuge: This is required for sub, since it not only gives us some extra openers but also prolongs FW and MoS. Make sure you use Ambush at the very end for max FW uptime.

Shadow Focus: It's...nice... but worse than Subterfuge.

General: Take Subterfuge, I'm sorry but you have no choice if you wanna do good DPS.

T2:

Deadly Throw: By merit of being ranged I see this being useless on almost all fights, and only taken on ones where we are forced to be at range. I'd say situational at best, but of course will depend on the fight.

Nerve Strike: Useless unless there's a high-damaging stunable add, which is quite possible although like Deadly Throw it will depend on the fight.

Combat Readiness: Only really good if you end up having to tank for a while and Evasion isn't up. I could see taking this as an "oh no" ability but since the damage reduction is low it will almost always be useless.

General: Pretty much all these talents are situational at best, and usually useless for PvE, meaning pick whatever you like. I personally like this since it means I can pick whatever I want and keep it for things like PvP and soloing.

T3:

Cheat Death: This means you can stand in that AoE that will one-shot you, as long as it doesn't proc multiple times. It also means if your tank dies you can tank longer so that those lackluster healers can get your sloppy tank up and you can keep dpsing. That said, you are still making your healers hate you and it won't help against things that hit over time.

Leeching Poison: Not very useful since in PvE you tend to take damage in bursts. That said it will yield the highest overall survivability so it could see use on some fights with lots of unavoidable raid damage.

Elusiveness: This is amazing. With feint up we get 65% reduction of AoE damage and 30% reduction of all damage. With no CD. Yeah it costs energy, so only use it when needed, but this is great.

General: All talents have value but generally speaking Elusiveness is the go-to option for PvE.

T4:

Cloak and Dagger: Ehh, it's useful, and it helps ensure your burst, but it also requires CDs to use. Generally if you are far away or in front of from a target you will not be properly set up to blow CDs. Not having it be its own CD also means it may not be ready when you need it.

Shadowstep: Huge mobility increase. Not only will we be able to get to our targets faster, but we will also be able to get away from them faster by SSing a group member. Both of these translate to up time on some fights. Take it.

Burst of Speed: Shadowstep is better unless there is a snare that breaking will increase dps by a LOT, or a TON of running. Could be useful if there's perpetual swaps too but honestly I don't think it will be all that useful on many fights.

General: Shadowstep wins handily in almost every situation.

T5:

Prey on the Weak: Great if there is any stunnable mob that needs to die fast and will be undergoing single target damage. That's about it, so it will be very situational.

Paralytic Poison: Randomly stopping an enemy in its tracks when everyone expects it to be moving and if it was moving before it probably should still be is a very bad idea. Basically, this will likely be actively bad in PvE. Maybe, maybe for AoEing lots of mobs that need to be slowed but with another class already slowing...no then they still won't get hit by AoE so it won't be very useful.

Dirty Tricks: Good if you need to gouge an add, which will probably never happen.

General: None of these will be useful on the vast majority of the fights, which means we get to choose for whatever non-PvE aspect of the game we want.

T6:

Shuriken Toss: I like it in theory but doubt the damage will make it worth it on the vast majority of fights since we'd need to be out of range for a very long time and hell we have Cloak! Two even!

Marked for Death: Pretty nifty on fights with lots of adds, but unless you are going to be getting that CD reset very often, it isn't worth it.

Anticipation: Oh Anticipation.... This not only allows us to not have to wait for out 5th CP to be a proc, but also lets us save some CP to use for when we get a FW or MoS buff. This is the largest single target dps increase for Sub.

General: Anticipation is the default talent and used on most fights, although if there are lots of swaps then MfD might be worth it. It's hard to imagine a fight where ST is best unless your raid group needs some extra help taking down ranged adds, but really that's a terrible use for a Subtlety rogue.

Glyphs:

Glyph of Vanish is causing the vanish buff to proc Subterfuge when it fades. Use it. All other glyphs are situational.

The Shadow Dance action bar
Gone are the days when it used to be its own separate bar. Now it uses the stealth action bar. This means you will want to make sure you have all of your oh-no abilities in that bar. Also don't forget things like kick.

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Weapons:
Due to the importance of BS and Ambush, a dagger in the main hand is required for subtlety. Daggers are also best in the offhand due to their faster speed, since that leads to more Deadly Poison procs. Since 5.0 OH weapon speed is less important than it was in previous expansions, and it may be that replacing a dagger with a higher item-level slow weapon could be an upgrade, but that will depend on the individual situation.

Stats:

I've removed the EP table because stat weights will likely change in the near future with patches and I cannot keep this accurate. That said, to get the best stat weights available, go here:

Shadowcraft.mmo-mumble.com

Put in your character name/realm and use their weights. It is not perfect, however it is by far the best tool for finding out rogue weights.

Ok fine, here's some things that won't change:

Agility is twice as good as every secondary stat with the exception of yellow hit.
Get yellow hit capped!
The other stats are all pretty close to eachother, and you really should be using Shadowcraft to get the appropriate weights. ShC does undervalue Expertise, but even so Expertise is by no means required. So basically, be yellow hit capped, and other than that !@#$% yourself out for agility.

Reforging:

In general, use the stat priority to reforge, keeping in mind your caps. If you are under the yellow hit cap, do whatever you can to reach it as closely as possible. Otherwise, anything without haste should have the weakest stat reforged to haste. For items with haste, generally reforge the second stat to expertise/hit/mastery.

By far the best way to go about reforging is to have a program do it for you. Use Shadowcraft for this. One limitation with ShC is that you can't have it do your own weights. Other programs and addons might be able to do that, but just remember that ShC's stat weights are going to be more reliable than ones gained by other models/sims, so if you want to make your own, still use ShC as a base.

Shadowcraft:
http://shadowcraft.mmo-mumble.com/

Gems/Enchants:

Agility all the way. If there is a 20 agility bonus that can be attained by using a haste/agi gem, do that. For the meta, use Agile Shadowspirit Diamond. For weps, use Dancing Steel. Shadowcraft can and should do this for you.

Poisons:

Deadly Poison for every fight! It now applies to both of your weps and is a combination between old DP and old IP (only better), so there is no reason not to use it!

For non-lethal poisons, it is really your call, though you should never use Paralytic Poison in group PvE.

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Rotation:

This is the hardest part of playing subtlety, and will make or break you depending on the fight and your skill. This assumes you are attacking a boss or otherwise high-HP mob.
Addons that track buff/debuff durations are extremely helpful (I personally use sexycooldown)
This section will be broken up into three parts: Basic Rotation, Cooldowns, and Opening

Basic Rotation:

Finishers:

Slice and Dice: Increases attack speed by a ton and gives you energy. This is a massive DPS increase and should be up 100% of the time. It is currently unknown whether or not it should be refreshed at 5 CP or with any amount.

Rupture: Deals damage and increases your damage dealt by 20%. You want this up at all times! Because of how DoTs calculate their effect in MoP and because it is no longer refreshed by Eviscerate, (recalculating every tick rather than from the instant that the ability was used) it is not important to get this up during MoS or Tricks. Yay!

Eviscerate: Deals damage and makes you do a pretty twirl!

Finisher priority:
Rupture~=SnD>Evis
I don't know what's better - Rupture or SnD. However, if both are fading you should just stack up Anticipation charges and refresh Rupture then SnD. If you do SnD first, then you won't get the CP from Anticipation.

A Few More Notes about Finishers:

When you reapply Rupture and SnD (and any over-time effect like Hemo) the duration until the next tick is added to the new duration of the ability, giving you that next tick and causing no loss if you refresh right before the last tick.

Building CP:

Use Backstab (/Hemo/Ambush) to build CP. If you don't have Anticipation, let HaT fill in the 5th CP so you don’t waste any procs. The exception to this is if you are about to energy cap, at which point it is (generally, unless you are wasting a very small amount of energy) better to waste CP than waste energy. But really you should have Anticipation!

Hemo: It is optimal to use Hemorrhage and apply the bleed every 24 secs. Note that the next tick will be preserved, so refreshing Hemo with under 3 secs left is acceptable. Also keep in mind that Hemo damage will be increased when used during FW (also during potion and TotT), so refreshing a bit early or waiting a bit may be better depending on how much uptime you'd lose. Also use Hemo when you can't get behind the target and you are at risk of energy capping. ***Hemo-weaving is tricky to optimize fully, so for a full write-up see The Final Percent: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4139869493?page=1#8

During ShD, Ambush takes precedence over Hemo and BS.

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More Rotation:

Opening

If possible, get combo points before the battle. Sadly you must be in combat to get CP from HaT, but if this is manageable without pulling anything bad then pester your healers for crits before the battle. You can also use redirect to save CP from a previous fight. This assumes you have Subterfuge. If you don't, just Ambush.

Even with Garrote applying SV Ambush is a better option.

This assumes you only have the energy to fit one ability between your Ambushes.

With CP before the pull: SnD>Prep/Ambush>(wait for a 5th CP)>Rupture>Ambush (just as Subterfuge is fading so as to get max FW uptime).

Without CP before pull: Prep/Ambush>(wait for a 5th CP)>SnD>Ambush (just as Subterfuge is fading so as to get max FW uptime).

SnD is chosen over Rupture in the opener because the energy boost is important for getting the last Ambush in. If that isn't an issue, you could try using Rupture instead. I don't know which is better.

Anyway after all of your abilities are up, go into your normal rotation using CDs when called for (see below).

Cooldowns:

Vanish: Use roughly on-cooldown to refresh FW and MoS. Always wait for FW to be down before using this, as overwriting FW is a major dps loss. The exception is if it has almost no time left before the refresh. It is best to wait for Premeditation to be ready, any time spent waiting is generally irrelevant. To maximize FW effectiveness you want to fit the most eviscerates as possible into the stage without hurting your rotation, so check SnD and Rupture durations accordingly before vanishing.

Shadow Dance: Same rules for when to use as Ambush. Replace backstab/Hemo with ambush. I usually save Prem for after my first finisher to minimize wasted CP. Wait to use your last ambush until just before ShD expires to maximize FW.

Shadow Blades: Do not overlap with FW as the armor-ignoring effect gets diminished to the point where the extra finishers do not make up for it. This is also best used with low CP, as the number of CP-generators used over the duration should be maximized.

Preparation: Unless you can fit more than one into a fight, this should generally be saved for a burn phase, lining up with Lust/Heroism/fakeversions. Basically you use this to get an extra vanish, so follow the vanish rules. Also note that it refreshes the CD on CoS, so utilize that if it means you will get significantly more uptime.

AoE and Cleave:

2-3 Mobs
It will generally not be worth it to use FoK with under four targets, making this more of a cleave scenario. Use your normal rotation but replacing Eviscerate and Rupture with CT. Unless you will be cleaving for a long time, do not use any CDs while cleaving, since they only really increase damage on your primary target. That said CDs are still a DPS increase, so if using one will grant more total uses than not, then go ahead and pop it. Your primary target should be the one who will die last, since there is a lower chance that it will die before you get 5 CP, and you will also get more damage from your single target DoTs.

4+ Mobs
For these you want a full AoE rotation. Make sure your target is in range of FoK as if it is not hit by the ability then FoK will not generate CP. Use CT as early as possible to activate SV, either using a CP from the previous target, or using one FoK to get it. After SV is up then spam FoK until 5 CP, then unleash CT. Again your target should ideally be the mob that dies last, though that doesn't mean you shouldn't be auto-attacking it.

Note: It is not yet known whether or not you should keep up SnD (mostly for energy regen), but likely there is some sort of mob and time (on mobs) threshold for that.

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Higher Optimization:

This is an amalgamation of various little things that are all useful, though not necessary to play sub at 95% effectiveness. Basically, these should help you squeeze the last bit of DPS out of your rogue. This does not include set bonus, for that see the next section.

Anticipation Optimization:

Anticipation can be used to move finishers from low-damage phases to high-damage phases by keeping high Anticipation stacks when there are no damage increases (buffs/debuffs, most notably FW) and low stacks during increased damage phases.

Before we go into the technique, let's set some things straight:
We will take Anticipation to mean we have a total of 10 CP. We are going to call any buff or debuff that increases your damage significantly "buff". This could be FW, boss mechanics, procs, etc. There are therefore "buffed" and "not buffed" phases of each fight. It is up to you to decide for which buffs you want to apply this strategy to.

Not buffed phases:
Keep Anticipation stacks high, using finishers when you have 9-10 CP. If you are going up to 10 CP make sure that nothing is going to proc a wasted one, because really if you have Anticipation then wasting a CP is just stupid. This ensures you will always have a finisher for a buffed phase.

Buffed phases:
Use finishers at 5 CP, but don't worry about anything proccing a 6th cause hey, you have Anticipation!

Notes:
Don't worry too much about keeping high CP during non-buffed phases. If you need to refresh SnD and Rupture at the same time, it is better to use both and have 0 CP than to clip one or have significant downtime.

Rotational Intricacies:

Waiting to Hemo:

I have not done the math, however if you are using a soft hemo build then it may be worth it to not refresh hemo as soon as possible if a CD that gives FW is ready, since the damage gained from FW (and potentially MoS) will increase the damage done by more than the few ticks lost by waiting. This also applies to refreshing the debuff early if FW is about to fade.

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Specific Optimization:

Set Bonuses, Raid Mechanics, and other Obscurities

In progress.

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Theories and Technicalities:

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Patch Notes

Patch 5.2

• SV increases damage by 20%, up from 16%.

• Preparation is now baseline.

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First.

/flex

Edit: Thanks Hail!

:D

I'm probably going to give Sub a try soon and will want all the information I can get. Thank you for putting this together.

NP. And Bol, my stickied post should be enough to get you started :)

03/09/2012 01:57 PMPosted by Haileaus

NP. And Bol, my stickied post should be enough to get you started :)

Excellent! I wasn't sure how much was/is going to change. I'll start studying. =]

It probably won't change much at all, although the guide is old and some parts have not been looked at for a while, so we will see. Generally speaking anything important is already there though. It just isn't as pretty as I'd like.