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Subtlety Rogue DPS Starter Guide - Shadowlands 9.0.2
By Mystler
Last updated
2021/03/13 at 6:44 AM
View Changelog
Table of Contents
Quick Facts
Table of Contents
Guide Navigation
Welcome to our Subtlety Rogue starter guide, which covers everything you need to start playing a new character in Shadowlands. While our other guide pages go into more individual detail, this simple starter guide covers all the basics in one place, whether you're a new Subtlety Rogue, a returning player to Shadowlands, hardcore, or casual alike, it's the best place to get a beginners overview on the class. Included are basic talent builds, simplified rotations, stats, legendary recommendations, and more to get you started as quickly as possible.
Please keep in mind that this page is meant to get players started quickly as an introduction, and does not contain much in the way of detailed explanations, mechanics, competitive options, gearing, simulation comparisons, or nuance. For more in-depth information, including all those optimizations and more, check out the complete Subtlety Rogue Guide pages linked in the navigation on the left-hand side of the page, and if you're leveling up in Shadowlands, you can take a look at our
leveling tips
.
Overview
NEW
NEW Best Covenant
Gear
Talent Builds
NEW Legendaries
NEW Twisting Corridors
NEW Conduits
NEW Kyrian
NEW Necrolord
NEW Night Fae
NEW Venthyr
Pre-Patch
Starter Guide
Rotation, Priority, and Abilities
Advanced Concepts
Stats
Consumables
Macros & Addons
WeakAuras
Common Terms
NEW Castle Nathria Tips
NEW Mythic+
Common Questions
NEW Simulations
About the Author
This guide is written and maintained by Mystler, an active Rogue theorycrafter who is also a developer on
SimulationCraft
,
HeroDamage
, and
HeroRotation
. You can find him on the
Ravenholdt
Discord Server,
Twitter
, and sometimes streaming on
Twitch
.
Best Subtlety Rogue Covenant
If you want to min-max your Covenant pick, here is a summary of how the Covenants look in Raids and Mythic+ content. You can click on each Covenant to go to their corresponding guide page. That said, each Covenant's best options are generally close enough that, similar to races, you should not feel bad for choosing whatever Covenant you prefer.
Best Raid Covenants
Covenants
Rating
Best Soulbind
Kyrian
Good
Pelagos
Necrolord
Good
Emeni (Early Renown)
Heirmir (High Renown)
Night Fae
Good
Niya
Venthyr
Great
Nadjia
Best Mythic+ Covenants
Covenants
Rating
Best Soulbind
Kyrian
Good
Pelagos (Early Renown)
Kleia (High Renown)
Mikanikos (High Renown)
Necrolord
Good
Emeni (Early Renown)
Heirmir (High Renown)
Night Fae
Great
Niya (Early Renown)
Korayn (High Renown)
Venthyr
Good
Theotar (High Renown)
Nadjia (Early or Alternative)
Great: This covenant can show a lead (usually below 2-3%) in the given situation, depending on renown level.
Good: This covenant will do fine in the given situation.
Underwhelming: Numbers are not impressive and can potentially feel a bit disappointing in the given situation.
Keep in mind that this guide focuses primarily on a DPS throughput perspective. Every Covenant has a lot of utility and survivability options and if you have good reason to go for those over min-maxing damage, then please do so. The purpose of this guide is not to tell you what to pick but only give a comment on where some strengths lie. Furthermore, we are mostly looking at the fully unlocked Covenants. In the early game of the expansion, things can fluctuate as you unlock more and more soulbinds, soulbind traits, and conduit slots.
Best Subtlety Rogue Covenant
Kyrian Subtlety Rogue GuideNecrolord Subtlety Rogue Guide
Night Fae Subtlety Rogue GuideVenthyr Subtlety Rogue Guide
Best Subtlety Rogue Legendaries
Here is an overview of the best legendaries to watch out for. For more details, feel free to visit the guide page.
Finality
is the best all-round legendary for all situations.
Akaari's Soul Fragment
is slightly stronger on pure single target.
Mark of the Master Assassin
can be great if you can get many re-stealths, e.g. in dungeons or world content.
Subtlety Rogue Legendaries Guide
Best Subtlety Rogue Talents
This Subtlety Rogue build is a good general setup that will get you started in dungeons and raids without further optimization.
For alternative builds and comments on each talent, check out the guide page for our talents.
Subtlety Rogue Talents Guide
Subtlety Rogue Stat Priority
Subtlety Rogues get Agility through Item Level. It's often best to equip your highest item level piece in all slots, with the exception of rings, which do not contain primary stats. Find out more about how stats work, including sample stat weights and scaling plots in the
Stats Guide
, or get an overview of gear to look for from dungeons and raids in the
Subtlety Rogue Gear Guide
.
Versatility
Critical Strike
Haste
Mastery
Critical Strike
: Chance to deal double damage with your attacks.
Haste
: Increases attack speed, energy regeneration and
Rupture
tick rate.
Mastery
: Increases the damage of your finishers.
Versatility
: Increases all damage done and reduces damage taken.
Subtlety Rogue Stats Guide
Subtlety Rogue Enchants
With enchants for your gear and consumables, you can further enhance your throughput. Here is a quick summary of notable enchants.
Weapons:
Enchant Weapon - Celestial Guidance
and
Enchant Weapon - Sinful Revelation
(make sure to take two different enchants)
Cloak:
Enchant Cloak - Fortified Avoidance
/
Enchant Cloak - Fortified Leech
/
Enchant Cloak - Fortified Speed
/
Enchant Cloak - Soul Vitality
Chest:
Enchant Chest - Eternal Stats
Boots:
Enchant Boots - Eternal Agility
Rings:
Enchant Ring - Tenet of Versatility
Subtlety Rogue Enchants Guide
Best Subtlety Rogue Rotation
This is a typical Subtlety Rogue DPS rotation, using the talents recommended above. More optimized rotations and notes on on cooldown use can be found in the
Subtlety Rogue Rotation Guide
.
Make sure your poisons are up and not going to run out during the fight.
Be in
Stealth
.
Engage the boss with
Shadowstrike
.
Use
Slice and Dice
.
Use
Serrated Bone Spike
(Necrolord),
Sepsis
(Night Fae), or
Flagellation
(Venthyr).
Pop
Shadow Blades
and
Symbols of Death
.
Use
Echoing Reprimand
(Kyrian).
Enter your first
Shadow Dance
window.
Use
Flagellation
(Venthyr) on cooldown.
Use
Serrated Bone Spike
(Necrolord) on targets that do not have the DoT ticking on them and that will live for 21 or more seconds.
Other than that, you can use it outside your burst windows in order to avoid capping on 3 charges (trying to keep 2 ready for incoming new targets), or to fish for the
Lead by Example
buff if you have the Emeni soulbind.
Use
Sepsis
(Night Fae) on cooldown with space for the combo point it generates.
Use
Symbols of Death
on cooldown.
Use
Shadow Blades
on cooldown with
Symbols of Death
if your next ability will be a combo-point generator.
Use
Echoing Reprimand
(Kyrian) on cooldown. It should align pretty well to be used into the crit buff of every third
Symbols of Death
. Against 5 or more enemies, you can drop it entirely.
Use
Shadow Dance
with
Symbols of Death
every 30 seconds. With
Enveloping Shadows
, you will usually get in another use between two Symbols windows that you can use it to avoid capping on charges.
Use
Vanish
on cooldown and if you will follow up with
Shadowstrike
.
Use all finishers at 5 or more Combo Points.
Maintain
Slice and Dice
against up to 5 targets.
Refresh
Rupture
on your main target when it is about to run out.
Against up to 4 targets, you can apply
Rupture
to other targets if they are going to live for most of its duration. However, this is only worth doing outside of
Symbols of Death
/
Shadow Dance
windows and if you want to maximize on priority damage, you should not apply it on targets beside your main one anyway. Against 5 or more, you can drop Rupture entirely.
Use
Black Powder
against 3 or more targets for AoE damage (i.e. you don't want to funnel everything into one priority target).
Use
Eviscerate
.
Use
Shuriken Storm
at 3 or more targets.
Use
Shadowstrike
if available due to
Stealth
or
Shadow Dance
.
Use
Shuriken Storm
at 2 targets.
Use
Backstab
.
Subtlety Rogue Rotation Guide
Back to Top
Our Subtlety Rogue guides are always updated with the latest information from in-game experience, simulations, and logs; make sure to check our changelog to this page, by clicking on
View Changelog
at the top of the page. If you are interested in more in-depth Subtlety Rogue guides for , make sure to browse the
Navigation Bar
below, and our list of
Related Guides
just beneath the
Table of Contents
.
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