Combat Rogue DPS Overview
Spell Changes
- Bandit’s Guile – Now functions as a buff on the rogue as opposed to a debuff on the enemy. This means that our current level of insight will no longer be reset upon striking a new target. The change in functionality also causes spells like Rupture to snapshot the current level of insight instead of scaling dynamically.
- Adrenaline Rush – Now reduces the global cooldown of Sinister Strike, Revealing Strike, Eviscerate, Slice and Dice, and Rupture by .2 seconds while active.
- Killing Spree – Is modified by Blade Flurry, causing it to function as it has while active and only striking our primary target while inactive. The number of attacks made has been increased to 7, and the % damage gain while active has been increased to 50%.
- Blade Flurry – Now cleaves to 4 total targets for 40% of the damage done to our primary target. The Energy Regeneration penalty has also been decreased to 20%.
- Revealing Strike – This is now a debuff that we place on our enemy, lasting 24 seconds, and isn’t consumed upon using a finisher.
- Redirect – We have received a new glyph, Glyph of Redirect, which reduces the cooldown of our Redirect down to 10 seconds.
- Fan of Knives – Now grants a Combo Point when it hits our primary target.
- Combat Potency – Now scales with weapon speed. We still prefer a fast Off-Hand for single-target encounters, while slow weapons become superior in any cleave encounters.
- Ruthlessness – Has been improved upon, granting us a 20% chance per Combo Point to refund 1 Combo Point when a finisher is used.
- Smoke Bomb – Makes all targets within the effect take 20% less damage for its duration.
- Kick – No longer has a cost.
- Feint – No longer requires a target to be activated and has its cooldown removed, making it spammable.
- Poisons – These are now a spell that you cast, granting you the benefit of one offensive and one utility poison at any given time. Instant Poison and Deadly Poison have also been baked into 1 poison with the effect from the latter only stacking 1 time.
New Abilities
- Shadow Blades – A new offensive cooldown that causes all of our autoattacks to ignore enemy armor by converting their weapon swings to Shadow damage. Also causes all Combo Point generating abilities to grant 1 additional Combo Point.
- Crimson Tempest – An added finisher that causes us to slash at all nearby enemies, leaving behind a Bleed effect that deals damage over 12 seconds.
- Shroud of Concealment – Grants all allies within 20 yards the Stealth effect for up to 15 seconds.
- Shadow Walk – Grants increased Stealth effectiveness for 6 seconds.
Tier 1 Talents
- Subterfuge – You remain Stealthed for an additional 3 seconds after initiating combat, granting extra uses of all Stealth-requiring abilities.
- Shadow Focus – Makes all abilities used from Stealth cost 75% less Energy.
Tier 2 Talents
Tier 3 Talents
- Cheat Death – An added talent choice for Combat that causes us to drop to 10% health when we would take fatal damage, as well as decreasing all damage taken by 85% for 3 seconds after.
- Leeching Poison – A new Poison that causes our attacks to debuff the target, causing all subsequent attacks to return 10% of the damage we deal as health back to us.
- Elusiveness – Causes our Feint ability to also reduce ALL damage taken by 30% for its duration. This also stacks with the base effect of Feint, granting us 65% damage reduction from all AoE sources.
Tier 4 Talents
- Cloak and Dagger – Acts as a pseudo-Shadowstep, making our 3 main abilities from Stealth usable up to 40 yards away and teleport directly behind the target.
- Shadowstep – Another talent choice added to the Combat Rogue that can be used up to 25 yards and makes us instantly teleport behind our target and increase our movement speed by 70% for 2 seconds.
- Burst of Speed – Grants us 70% movement speed for 4 seconds and has no cooldown.
Tier 5 Talents
- Prey on the Weak – When we stun, disorient, or incapacitate an enemy by any means, they take 10% increased damage for the duration.
- Paralytic Poison – Another Poison addition that stacks up to 4 times with a 20% chance per hit to proc. When stacked to 4, it will cause the target to be stunned for 4 seconds.
- Dirty Tricks – Causes our Gouge and Blind to have no Energy cost and makes our Poison/Bleed effect no longer break the crowd control.
Tier 6 Talents
- Shuriken Toss – Gives us a ranged Combo Point builder with a 30-yard range and costs 40 Energy. Additionally, when used further than 10 yards from the target, our autoattacks to be replaced with ranged shuriken for up to 10 seconds.
- Marked for Death – Cooldown that instantly generates 5 Combo Points on the target. This ability has a 1-minute cooldown and is reset if the target dies within that time.
- Anticipation – When we are at 5 Combo Points, any additional builders will generate Anticipation charges up to 5. When you use an offensive finishing move, any Anticipation charges are directly converted to Combo Points.
Rotation Changes
There are a few rotational changes, but its core remains effectively the same; apply and maintain both Slice and Dice and Revealing Strike, cycle cooldowns as fast as possible with Restless Blades, and push as much of our damage into deeper levels of insight with both Anticipation and Bandit’s Guile.
The change to Blade Flurry makes it so that we are no longer the cleave powerhouse that we have been, but it still makes Combat the desired Rogue spec when considering any form of cleave. As the target count increases, so does our output up to 5 total targets (our primary plus 4 others). This, combined with the increased cost to Sinister Strike, makes Haste an even more desirable stat to aid us in cycling through our insight levels faster.
Considering Shadow Blades has the same cooldown as Adrenaline Rush and is also affected by Restless Blades, we are safe to macro these two abilities together. The increased Combo Point generation from Shadow Blades also helps bulk up how many finishers we can use, further increasing our offensive abilities’ effective cooldown.
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