A nice dagger/sword? - Just a few gold
off the Auction House.
A back to stick it in? Well, there are plently of mobs and players
around.
The right weapon and skills in the right place at the right time? Priceless
1.0 - The Assassination Rogue
Assassination is a high burst damage. as well as somewhat high sustained
DPS build, capable of matching the combat
rogue for damage output,
just with a little bit more effort due to a more varied selection of
attacks. The one downside, if you're not a dagger fan, is that this
build requires daggers.
Also called a Mutilate build this spec builds combo points very quickly and,
just out of stealth, will also regenerate Energy very quickly, making it a nice
burst spec. Frequently after the opener and one strike you will have 5 combo points availalbe.
Mobs go down very quickly and if you target is a player, well, he might just go down very
quickly as well.
Patchy Stuff
As of the 3.09 patch Mutilate builds became very nice for raiding, PVP, and leveling.
The 3.1 patch doesn't change this tree significantly, except to allow even faster Energy
regen from stealth (Overkill.)
Mutilate takes the importance of poisons to an enhanced level as well as altering the standard rogue rotation away from the staple of sinister strike spam to a more unique combination of finishing strikes and overall style.
3.3 Patch Notes
Nothing to see here, move along. Well Ok, that's not quite right.
Actually, for raiding, ElitistJerks.com says that Mutilate is
good enough right now that we might expect a future nerf.
- Murder is now a straight up damage add.
- Improved Poisons: Bonus chance to trigger
Deadly Poison from this talent increased.
The new Dungeon Finder system might make it easier to find
groups.
3.2 patch notes: Here's the 3.2 patch stuff that's interesting for Rogues.
- Agility - All classes will need 15% more agility per point
of Dodge.
- Dodge rating - All classes will need more rating per point of Dodge.
- For PvPers - The amount of resilience needed to decrease crit damage
and chance will increase.
- Blood Elf Rogues - Arcane Torrent will apply a 3 second
interrupt to non-player controlled targets.
- Axes! - Orcs will be able to use Axes, which is perfect for Orc Rogues.
- Sword Specialization - will be called Hack and Slash and
applies to axes.
- Mining- provides more Stamina
- Skinning- provides more crit rating
- Glyph of Tricks of the Trade: Will increase
the duration of the damage bonus effect instead of increasing the damage bonus.
Also see our Rogue class
guide for a Rogue overview and our Rogue
Leveling Guide for more leveling tips and builds.
This guide is simply intended to provide
a general overview of the Assassination/Mutilate Rogue. For a far more in-depth
and highly detailed resource on Rogues, including builds, PvP, leveling, raids, etc.,
grab a copy of the Killer
Guides' Rogue guide.

2.0 - Assassination Raid Talent Build
The Assassination build is also referred to as a Mutilate build since Mutilate becomes the bread and butter strike for this build. Once you aquire Mutilate you will be using daggers, but there are some pretty nice daggers in-game at the moment so it's good.
It's a nice leveling (in case youre not yet level capped) and grinding build, you'll find
that mobs go down very quickly. It also works well enough for PvP since it's damage heavy,
but you're giving up stealth & survival points.
51/18/2
Mutilate raiding build (Patch 3.3 raid build, PvP
build is below)
Assassination
- 5/5 Malice
- 3/3 Ruthlessness
- 3/3 Puncturing Wounds
- 5/5 Lethality
- 3/3 Vile Poisons
- 5/5 Improved Poisons
- 2/2 Fleet Footed
- Cold Blood
- 5/5 Seal Fate
- 2/2 Murder
- Overkill
- 3/3 Focused Attacks
- 3/3 Fnd Weakness
- 3/3 Master Poisoner
- Mutilate
- 5/5 Cut to the Chase
- Hunger for Blood
|
Combat
- 5/5 Dual Weild
- 5/5 Precision
- 5/5 Close Quarters Cbt
- 3/3 Lightning Reflexes
|
Subtlety
- 2/5 Relentless Strikes
|
This is a general raiding build. Specific conditions and your exact
gear may change the talent choices that you make, but
that's getting into Advanced
Raiding 201 and is beyond the scope of this guide. The 3.3 patch
change to murder now
makes that talent useful for all situations, previously it was useless
Vs undead.
Consider buying into the Dual Spec ability (from your trainer)
and running two builds, one for group A and one for group B. This makes
build experimentation a bit easier. Or take one build for raiding
and the other for PvP.
- Cut to the Chase - You should only have to hit Slice
and Dice once
for the entire fight, since this ability allows your Eviscerate/envenom
crits to refresh the SnD duration to full. S and D should be up
for 100% of the fight.
- Hunger for Blood (HfB) - With the HfB glyph this talent
adds 18% to all of your damage, which is pretty sweet. Open with Garrote,
keep Rupture up at all times, and hit HfB every minute. Your
DPS numbers will be much nicer. This assumes someone in your group
is proviuding bleed effects. If not, you'll have to keep your Ruptures up.
- Mutilate - Your "bread and butter" strike.
- Envenom - your finishing strike.
- Murder - as mentioned above it's great for all fights.
- Fleet Footed is in the build for the run speed, which
is always nice. Feel free to swap it out if something else seems
better to you.
- Poisons: Main Hand: Instant, Off Hand: Deadly
Glyphs - Hunger for Blood, Mutilate, Tricks
of the Trade. None of the minor glyphs are particularly useful for
raiding, but
Safe Fall and Vanish have a certain utility. .
Attack Rotation/Priority
Note: the 3.3 raid build prefers Envenom over
Eviscerate
- Open with Garrote, if possible.
- Slice and Dice
- Hunger for Blood
- Mutilate
- Eviscerate or Envenom (to refresh SnD)
- Multilate to 4+ CP
- Eviscerate or Envenom (Rupture if you're providing the bleeds)
- Mutlilate to 4+ CP
- Eviscerate/Envonom
- go to 6
- Refresh Hunger for Blood every minute.
- Shiv where appropriate
- Keep Slice and Dice up at all times
- Keep Rupture (or someone's bleed effect) up at all times
- Keep HfB up at all times
- Keep 5 stacks of Deadly Poison up at all times
- Shiv adds another dose of Deadly Poison, so if you need to maintain your 5 stacks of DP and your procs aren't doing it, then Shiv.
- Use Tricks of the Trade where applicable.
- Use Vanish whenever possible for Overkill buff.
Tricks of the Trade Macro
- Use this for your Tof T button. Fill in the name of the party member who will be the focus of your T of T. Fire it off, he gets the benefit, and you don't have to fuss with target picking or focus changing. This macro will not deselect your current target:
#showtooltip Tricks of the Trade
/cast [target=YourPartyMemberHere] Tricks of the Trade
For the newish raider, check out this free "get
ready to raid" guide. It's a pdf so go ahead and save yourself a copy. For the hardcore
raider, check out the ElitistJerks' Mutilate
DPS spreadsheet
Also, look into the Rogue Focus Classic addon to keep track of Energy and Combo Points.
2.1 - Assassination Leveling
Build
Use Sinister Strike as your main attack until you get to Mutilate.
This build isn't weapon specific until you get to Mutilate.
After that you will be using daggers.
This build does a lot more damage if your blades are poisoned. So
do the poison
quest (now optional) and put Instant Poison on both
blades while leveling. Update - The poison quest is no longer required
to use poisons. Just buy and apply, but it's interesting and gives
you access to a chest that will greatly help your lockpicking skill.
If you're not on a pvp server and you're not otherwise PvPing, then feel
free to drop Master of Deception for something more interesting. Of course, the
same is true for any talent.
Combat talents are in red, subtlety are in blue.
- 5/5 Dual wield Specialization
- 5/5 Precision (help cancel the duel weild hit penalty)
- 3/3 Improved Eviscerate
- 5/5 Malice- More crits
- 5/5 Relentless Strikes - Keeps your energy up like a good energy drink.
- 3/3 Master of Deception - More for PvP, so if you're ganking or getting ganked then take this. Also if you're having trouble sneaking up on stuff. Otherwise you can skip it.
- 2/2 Opportunity (more damage from your opener)
- 3/3 Ruthlessness - faster Combo Point build up.
- Vigor - higher Energy cap.
- 5/5 Lethality - More damage from Sinister Strike, Mutilate, etc.
- 3/3 Puncturing Wounds - Filler for now, unless you Backstab a lot, nice when you get Mutilate
- Cold Blood - Put this in a macro with your favorite attack to get more crits.
- 2/2 Quick Recovery - Better energy management, nice when you have a healer.
- 3/3 Improved Kidney Shot - More damage from all sources, that's you and your group, while mob is stunned. KS is a nice PvP talent, as well, since it is an interrupt. "Hey! I'd like to stop your spell casting for three seconds while I kill you..."
- 2/2 Fleet Footed - faster movement is nice, also nice in PvP.
- 5/5 Seal Fate - more combo points.
- 2/2 Murder - more damage against most of the stuff that you will ever fight.
- Overkill - Faster energy regen while ganking players... er... killing mobs. Also a pre-requisite for Mutilate
- 2/2 Deadly Brew - Adds Crippling Poison to your normal poison application. Nice for mobs that run and nice for PvP.
- 2/3 Find Weakness - more damage
- Mutilate - Now you switch to daggers, if you haven't already.
- 5/5 Close Quarters Combat - More crits with daggers.
- 3/3 Master Poisoner - More crits.
- 2 points left over. So consider...
- 2 in Improved Spice and Dice - faster attack speeds. (used in this build)
- 2 in Dirty Tricks, esp. if you Blind and Sap a lot.
- 2 in Remoreseless Attacks - Great if you can line them up and kill them off.
- Whatever you need 2 points in.
Notes:
- Cut to the Chase and Hunger for Blood are skipped here as they are both more useful for the long fight that you'll see in raids.
Attack Rotation:
- Open with...
- Backstab until lev 14
- Garrote from 14+ (Get Glyph of Garrote) for the bleed effect.
- Cheap Shot (at lev 26) is nice because it adds 2 combo points, stuns, and you don't have to attack from behind.
- Ambush (at level 18) if it fits your style.
- Slice and Dice to boost attack speed
- Sinister strike (until you get Mutilate) to builds CPs.
- Eviscerate (at least until you get Envenom at 62)
- If it isn't dead then go back to #3.
Glyphs:
- Glyph of Sinister Strike until you get Mutilate, than take that one.
- Glyph of Garrote - More damage in less time.
- Glyph of Eviscerate - More Evisc damage.
- Option #1: If you're doing plenty of instances, and fighting those elites, then Glyph of Rupture is nice.
- Option #2: Glyph of Vigor - adds 10 to your Energy cap.
- Minor Glyphs: Pickpocket for the additional range, Vanish for the escape speed, Safe Fall for when you just have to try that cliff jumping sport.
Macros:
 3.0 - Assassination PvP Build
41/5/25 Mutilate Arena Build
This is a very popular Assassination/Mutilate Arena Build, but it also works
quite well for BGs and leveling. It's Ok in instances, but gives up too much DPS to a full
Mutilate build to be interesting for raids.
Certain choices are always open to argument. Use this build as a starting point and tweak
it to suit your style. Depending on what your Arena partner is you might want to switch
a few points around. For example, Improved Kidney Shot will improve your, and
your partner's, DPS by 9% while the "poor target" is stunned.
Assassination
- 3 in Improved Eviscerate
- 5 in Malice
- 3 in Puncturing Wounds
- 1 in Vigor
- 5 in Lethality
- 3 in Vile Poisons
- 2 in Fleet Footed
- Cold Blood
- 2 in Quick Recovery
- 5 in Seal Fate
- 2 in Murder
- 2 in Deadly Brew
- Overkill
- 3 in Deadened Nerves
- 2 in Find Weakness
- Mutilate
|
Combat
- 5 in Dual Weild Spec
|
Subtlety
- 5 in Relentless Strikes
- 3 in Master of Deception
- 2 in Opportunity
- 2 in Dirty Tricks
- 3 in Camouflage
- 2 in Elusiveness
- 3 in Initiative
- 2 in Heightened Senses
- Preparation
- 2 in Dirty Deeds
|
This build stacks up combo points very quickly and has a lot of energy regen as you
come out of strealth, so it's a very good burst build.
As metioned above, push points around to fit your particular situation. If you really
need a ton of dirty details on assassinating other players then treat yourself to a full-blown
PvP guide.
4.0 - Number Crunching
NOTE: The below section is nearly identical for all three specializations of rogue, this is due to the usage of almost entirely the same stats for any rogue no matter the attack rotation and/or talent build.
|
Level 60 |
level 70 |
level 80 |
Cap |
Agility to achieve +1% crit |
29 |
40 |
83.33 |
none |
Hit
(for +1% chance to hit) |
10 |
15.77 |
32.77 |
787 @ 80 |
Crit |
14 |
22 |
45.91 |
none |
Expertise |
10 |
15.77 |
32.79 |
214* |
Attack Power |
14 AP adds +1 DPS (Damage per Second) |
none |
Haste Rating |
10 |
15.7 |
32.79 |
?? |
Armor Penetration Rating (to ignore 1% or opponent armor) |
4.7 |
7.4 |
15.39 |
?? |
Resilience (-1% chance to be crit and -1% dot damage, -2.2% crit damage) |
25 |
39.4 |
|
1230 |
4.1 - Hit Rating, Crit, etc.
Defacto Priority:
Agility - Hit Rating - Attack Power - Critical Rating
What to shoot for when entering Karazhan & Heroics:
Hit Rating: 90+
Attack Power: 1100+
Critical Rating: 23%
Since dual-wielding imposes a hit penalty consider adding more hit
rating when you can.
What to shoot for when heading into 25-Raids:
Hit Rating: 200
Attack Power: 1450
Critical Rating: 25%
4.2 - Gems
Skip the green level gems, the blues are listed below and they're cheap enough (you do have
a few gold to your name, right?) The Epics can get a bit pricey, though.
4.3 Enchantments
Head:
Shoulder:
Cloak:
Chest:
Wrists:
Gloves:
Waist:
Legs:
Boots:
Ring:
Weapons:
- Berserking -
Enchanting or Auction House Scroll
- Mongoose -
Enchanting or Auction House Scroll
- Accuracy -
Enchanting or Auction House Scroll

5.0 - PvE Gear Guide
Note: As this
is a PvE gear guide I'll only list the PvP rewards capable of being
obtained via Honor, arena rewards are however viable alternatives to
many pieces of gear.
Many pieces of gear will also be equally useful to both assasination, combat and subtlety - the primary differences being in weaponry as oppposed to the armor which possesses stats all rogues will utilize.
A level 80 gear list will appear here at some point.
Head:
Neck:
Shoulders:
Back:
Chest:
Wrist:
Hands:
Belt:
Legs:
Boots:
Rings:
Trinkets:
Main-Hand:
Off-Hand:
Ranged:
1-80 Rogue Leveling Guide
Now that you have your build set up you're ready for yoiur blast to level 80 so yoiu can
get into that juicy end game content. Maybe even into Uldar or the higher ranking
arenas. All you have to do first is complete thousands of quests and kill a bazillion
mobs or all sorts. Just in case you don't already have the entire 1-80 leveling path memorized
might we suggest a full blown Rogue leveling
guide?.
Zygor's
Guide is an in-game guide that shows in your main game window. What it does is show
you where to go and what to do for you entire leveling path, whether you're going from
79 to 80 or 1 to 80. Quests and tasks are automatically updated as you complete them
and not only will you never again wonder where you have to go you will not have to look
up any of there "what do I need to do here..." stuff, it's all in the guide. .
You will probably never need to look at your quest log again, much
less browse Thottbot. You can get the full details on Zygor's Guide, and grab your own
copy, here or read
our review.
|