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Assassination Rogue Guide for WoW Forever

Assassination Rogue for WoW Forever: the Mutilate leveling build to 30, a Seal Fate and Venom raid build at 60, plus poisons, rotation and gear.

RogueAssassinationLevelingPvERaidsDungeonsDPS

By stillsixty staffUpdated

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Variants

Overview

Assassination is the poison spec, and in WoW Forever it finally has the tools to play like one. Mutilate hits with both weapons for 2 Combo Points and deals 20% more damage to a Poisoned target. Venom is a finisher that raises your poison damage by 30% and your chance to apply poisons by 10%. Malice now adds critical strike chance to your poisons as well as your attacks, and Coup de Grace makes Eviscerate hit harder for every stack of Deadly Poison on the target.

The loop is simple and fast. Mutilate builds points two at a time, Seal Fate turns every critical Mutilate into an extra point, and your finishers keep Slice and Dice and Venom rolling while the poisons add damage on every hit. At level 30 you already have Mutilate and Cold Blood. At 60 you add Seal Fate, Venom and the Combat talent Puncturing Wounds, which gives Mutilate another 15% critical strike chance.

Strengths

  • Fast Combo Points: two per Mutilate, three when it crits with Seal Fate.
  • Poison damage that scales with Venom, Vile Poisons and Malice, and keeps ticking while you move or get stunned.
  • Burst on demand: Cold Blood guarantees a critical Mutilate or Eviscerate every 3 minutes.
  • Mutilate is a front-facing builder. You deal full damage without getting behind the target, which matters for solo play and PvP.
  • A strong leveling spec from 30, with Remorseless Attacks speeding up every quest mob and Murder adding 4% against Humanoids and Giants.

Weaknesses

  • Nothing comes together before 30. Until Mutilate, you level on Sinister Strike like everyone else.
  • Mutilate requires daggers. Get a pair before you take it at 30, because a sword or mace won't do.
  • Mutilate costs 60 Energy. A missed Mutilate is a painful loss, so Hit matters.
  • Poisons cost reagents and bag space, and you reapply them every 30 minutes.
  • Two buffs to maintain (Slice and Dice and Venom) plus your finisher. Let one drop and your damage falls hard.
  • Little AoE. Blade Flurry lives in the Combat tree, so packs take longer than they do for Combat.

What's new in Forever

New in Forever
  • Mutilate is a tier 5 Assassination talent: 75% weapon damage with each weapon plus a flat bonus, 60 Energy, 2 Combo Points, and 20% more damage against Poisoned targets. Trainers teach new ranks at 40, 50 and 60.
  • Venom is the tier 7 capstone: a finisher that raises your poison damage by 30% and your poison application chance by 10%, for 9 seconds at 1 point up to 21 seconds at 5.
  • Cold Blood moved up to tier 4 and now works on Mutilate. It has a 3-minute cooldown.
  • Malice now also raises the critical strike chance of your poisons. Lethality covers Mutilate, but tops out at +20% crit damage, not Classic's 30%.
  • Remorseless Attacks now includes Mutilate in its list of attacks.
  • Murder is 2% per rank, but only against Humanoids and Giants.
  • Improved Poisons adds up to 10% application chance and a 50% chance for each application to keep its charge.
  • Improved Expose Armor now cuts Expose Armor's cost by 10 Energy and refunds 2 Combo Points when you use it at 5.
  • Coup de Grace is a new passive you train at 30: Eviscerate deals 2% more damage per stack of your Deadly Poison on the target, so +10% at five stacks.
  • Poisons are trained at 20. They hit for less per application than in Classic but carry far more charges.
  • Puncturing Wounds (Combat, tier 2) gives Mutilate +15% critical strike chance.

Talents

The build for questing from 10 to 30. All 21 points go into Assassination: crit and faster kills first, then Cold Blood, then Mutilate with your 21st point at level 30.

Split 21/0/0 · 21 points at level 30 · Open in calculator

Assassination

21 points

Combat

0 points

Subtlety

0 points

Talent order

  1. Levels 10–14: 5/5 Malice. +5% critical strike chance on everything, including the poisons you train at 20.
  2. Levels 15–16: 2/2 Remorseless Attacks. Every kill gives your next Sinister Strike, Backstab, Ambush or Mutilate +40% crit chance for 20 seconds. Quest mobs die fast, so the buff is usually waiting for your next pull.
  3. Levels 17–19: 3/3 Ruthlessness. Each finisher has a 60% chance to leave a Combo Point on the target. Most Eviscerates now start the next cycle at one point.
  4. Levels 20–21: 2/2 Murder. +4% damage against Humanoids and Giants, a large share of quest targets.
  5. Level 22: 1/1 Relentless Strikes. A 20% chance per Combo Point to restore 25 Energy. Every 5-point finisher refunds 25 Energy.
  6. Levels 23–27: 5/5 Lethality. +20% crit damage for Sinister Strike, Gouge, Backstab and later Mutilate.
  7. Level 28: 1/1 Cold Blood. Your next Sinister Strike, Backstab, Ambush, Eviscerate or Mutilate crits. Every 3 minutes you end a fight instantly.
  8. Level 29: 1/5 Vile Poisons. +4% poison damage. It's the point that unlocks tier 5.
  9. Level 30: 1/1 Mutilate. Two weapon strikes, 2 Combo Points, and 20% more damage against a Poisoned target. It replaces Sinister Strike immediately.

Flexible points

  • Leveling in a Beast- or Undead-heavy zone? Murder does nothing there. Put those two points into Improved Slice and Dice for a longer Slice and Dice.
  • Grouping a lot? Swap Remorseless Attacks for 2/3 Improved Gouge. A longer Gouge gives you more time to Kick or bandage in a tough pull.

Races

Best races

Alliance: Night Elf. Elune's Light gives +10% critical strike chance to all attacks for 15 seconds on a 3-minute cooldown. Every extra crit on Mutilate is an extra Combo Point through Seal Fate, so it lines up with Cold Blood for your biggest window. Quickness adds 1% dodge, 2% movement speed, and makes you harder to spot in Stealth. Shadowmeld in combat discourages enemies from attacking you, on a 2-minute cooldown.

Alliance alternative: Gnome. Expansive Mind gives you 5% more maximum Energy, and Eureka! makes your next three damaging abilities cost 10% less Energy and deal 10% more damage (2-minute cooldown). Three Eureka Mutilates are a big opener. Escape Artist breaks every root and snare.

Horde: Orc. Blood Fury raises your Attack Power by 10% for 15 seconds every 2 minutes, and it stacks with Cold Blood. Hardiness shortens stuns on you by 20%, and Shatter Curse clears Curses and Banes and cuts Magic damage taken by 15% for 8 seconds.

Horde PvP: Undead. Will of the Forsaken breaks Charm, Fear and Sleep every 2 minutes. Touch of the Grave gives your attacks a 5% chance to drain health from the target.

All playable races

Rotation

Before 30

Level on Sinister Strike and Eviscerate like any Rogue. Keep Slice and Dice up on anything that takes more than a few seconds to kill. From 20, put Instant Poison on both weapons. At 30, move Deadly Poison onto your off hand the day you take Mutilate. Instant Poison deals its damage and is gone, so it never leaves the target Poisoned. Deadly Poison sits on the target for 12 seconds and gives every Mutilate its 20% bonus.

The Mutilate pull (30)

  1. Open from Stealth. Both weapons are daggers, so Ambush from behind hits hardest. If you can't get behind the target, open with Cheap Shot for 2 Combo Points and a 4-second stun.
  2. Mutilate until you have 2 or more points, then a short Slice and Dice.
  3. Mutilate to 4 or 5 points, then Eviscerate. Relentless Strikes refunds 25 Energy on a 5-point finisher.
  4. On a mob with lots of health, use a 5-point Eviscerate with Cold Blood first. That's your largest hit.
  5. Remorseless Attacks procs after every kill. Open the next mob with Mutilate while the buff lasts.

When it goes wrong

  • A second mob joins: Gouge it, kill the first, then pick it up. Gouge breaks on damage, so don't let poisons tick on it.
  • A caster: Kick the first cast, and keep it in melee range.
  • Losing: Evasion for 15 seconds of +50% dodge, and Vanish if Evasion isn't enough (from 22).

Downtime

Eat between pulls, and use a bandage when your food is on cooldown. Keep a stack of Instant Poison in your bags. Rogues have no mana, so your only downtime is health.

Stat priority

Leveling

  1. Agility
  2. Attack Power
  3. Critical Strike
  4. Stamina
  5. Hit

Agility gives Attack Power, crit chance and dodge in one stat. Critical Strike feeds Remorseless Attacks and Cold Blood, and from 30 every critical Mutilate hits hard with Lethality. Stamina keeps the bad pull alive.

Gear

Weapons

Your weapons are most of your damage. Mutilate deals 75% weapon damage with each hand, so the damage range on both weapons matters. From 30, use two daggers: Mutilate requires daggers, Backstab and Ambush need a dagger in the main hand, and daggers keep every opener open to you.

Before 30, one strong weapon of any type beats two weak daggers. Take the best main hand you can find, and have your two daggers ready by the time you take Mutilate.

Armor

Leather with Agility first, then Stamina and Strength. Quest rewards beat vendor gear at every level. Carry a thrown weapon such as a Heavy Throwing Dagger to pull mobs off their friends.

Poisons from 20 to 30

  • 20: Poisons and Instant Poison on both weapons. 60 charges each, 13 to 17 Nature damage per application. Crippling Poison is for PvP and runners.
  • 24: Mind-numbing Poison for caster-heavy quests. It slows casts by 40%.
  • 28: Instant Poison II: 20 to 26 damage and 85 charges.
  • 30: Deadly Poison on your off hand. It stacks up to five times and lasts 12 seconds, so the target stays Poisoned and every Mutilate gets its 20% bonus. Instant Poison doesn't do that: its damage is instant and leaves nothing on the target. Keep it on your main hand for extra damage. With five Deadly Poison stacks, Coup de Grace adds 10% to every Eviscerate.

Professions

Leatherworking and Skinning is the Rogue pair. Skinning pays for the leveling and feeds your Leatherworking, and Leatherworking makes your leather armor from 1 to 60, including the Devilsaur set with its 2% Hit.

Alchemy is the best second profession at 60 if you raid every week. You make your own Elixirs of the Mongoose, Free Action Potions and Flasks of the Titans. In Forever, Major Healing Potions come from First Aid, so train it on the side.

For gold, level with Skinning and Mining or Skinning and Herbalism. Your own Lockpicking opens lockboxes, and Pick Pocket lifts coins and items from every Humanoid you pass in Stealth.

Group play and dungeons

Your job is single-target damage, interrupts and crowd control, in that order.

  • Kick every cast that matters. Kick locks the whole school for 5 seconds.
  • Sap first, then pull. From Stealth, Sap incapacitates a Humanoid that isn't in combat for up to 45 seconds at max rank, and it doesn't break Stealth.
  • Blind a runner or a second caster. Blind disorients for 10 seconds from 10 yards. Carry Blinding Powder reagents.
  • Kill the marked target. Poisons and Mutilate focus one target. Leave cleave work to Combat Rogues and casters.
  • Feint before you pull threat. Seal Fate crits and Cold Blood Eviscerates spike your threat. Feint lowers it on a 10-second cooldown.
  • Utility: open locked chests and doors with Pick Lock, and Disarm Trap traps in the way.

PvP

Assassination is a strong PvP spec, because Mutilate needs no positioning and Cold Blood turns a stun into a kill.

  • Open with Cheap Shot for 2 points, Mutilate once or twice, then Kidney Shot at 4 or 5 points. Cold Blood and a 5-point Eviscerate end many fights inside that stun.
  • Put Crippling Poison II on your off hand against anyone who runs. It slows by 70% for 12 seconds.
  • Put Wound Poison on your main hand against healers. Wound Poison IV stacks up to 5 times and reduces healing by 165 per stack.
  • Mind-numbing Poison III slows a caster's casts by 60% for 14 seconds.
  • For a dedicated PvP build, see the Subtlety guide.

Tips

Poison before you Mutilate

Mutilate deals 20% more damage to a Poisoned target, and only a poison that stays on the target counts. Instant Poison's damage is instant and leaves nothing behind. Deadly, Crippling and Mind-numbing Poison all leave a debuff, so an Ambush opener that lands a Deadly Poison stack makes your first Mutilate count.

Don't let Venom drop

Venom adds 30% to your poison damage and 10% to your application chance. A single dropped Venom costs more than a skipped Eviscerate. Refresh it at 4 points if you have to.

Cold Blood goes on Eviscerate at 60. A 5-point crit Eviscerate is your largest hit. On the way to 60, a Cold Blood Mutilate is a good opener for a mob you want dead fast.

Train at every even level. From level 4, every even level brings a new ability or rank: Mutilate at 40, 50 and 60, Eviscerate every eight levels from 8, Instant Poison every eight levels from 20, and Deadly Poison at 30, 38, 46, 54 and 60.

Check your poison charges before a boss. Improved Poisons saves half your charges, but a poison that runs out mid-fight is lost damage and lost Mutilate bonus.

Use Remorseless Attacks on trash. After a kill, the next Mutilate gets +40% crit, so move straight to the next mob while the buff lasts.

Macros

Opens with Ambush from Stealth and uses Mutilate out of it, on one key.

Ambush or Mutilate
#showtooltip
/cast [stealth] Ambush; Mutilate

Cold Blood and Eviscerate on one key, so you never waste the buff on a Mutilate.

Cold Blood Eviscerate
#showtooltip Eviscerate
/cast Cold Blood
/cast Eviscerate

Kick your focus target, or your current target if you have no focus.

Focus Kick
#showtooltip Kick
/cast [@focus,harm,nodead][] Kick

Sap your mouseover target without changing your target.

Mouseover Sap
#showtooltip Sap
/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead][] Sap

Stops your auto attack and vanishes, so you don't pull yourself back out of Stealth.

Clean Vanish
#showtooltip Vanish
/stopattack
/cast Vanish

Changelog

  • Guide published with Level 30 and Level 60 Raid builds.

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