Assassination Rogue Guide for The War Within (2024)

Last updated on Jun 18, 2024 at 21:10by Seliathan73 comments

Welcome to our War Within expansion guide for Assassination Rogue.Prior to the expansion's launch, this page will detail everything you need toknow about Assassination Rogue in the upcoming The War Withinexpansion, including class and spec changes, Hero Talent Trees, and some verylight predictions on the state of the spec.

This page is a constantly evolving work in progress, as there willlikely be regular changes to parts of the spec's kit, talents and abilitiesthroughout the TWW Beta process. This is not meant to be a launch guidefor Assassination Rogue. The purpose of this page is to serve as aresource for you to keep up to date with how the spec is evolving on Beta andwhat you can expect from its playstyle and feel on launch.

Assassination Rogue has received a number of changes to it's talenttrees, which includes the shuffling of some talents, as well as changes toa handful of talents and abilities throughout. The most impactful ones in theclass tree are:

• Acrobatic Strikes no longer grants increased melee attack range. Itwas reworked to now grant additional auto-attack damage, and movement speed.
• Cut to the Chase is now baseline for all Rogue specs.
• Subterfuge now lasts 6 seconds, and is a 2-point talent rightbefore the right-most capstone in the class tree.
• Shadow Dance was moved into the Subtlety spec tree, and replacedwith a new capstone that grants an additional charge of Vanish instead.
• Nightstalker was removed.

There have also been many changes in the spec tree. The most notable onesinclude:

• Sanguine Stratagem was introduced to the Assassination spec tree,allowing for a maximum of 7 Combo Points in combination with Deeper Stratagem
• Serrated Bone Spike is now a passive ability that will be castwhenever you use Rupture. This casts 3 SBS if you cast 3 Ruptures with Indiscriminate Carnage, immediately filling up your Combo Points.
• Kingsbane has had its cap reduced from 99 stacks to 50 stacks. Wewill now reach the maximum damage per tick much faster. This reduces itsimportance in our damage profile, removes our reliance on Power Infusionfor optimal DPS, and allows for a better DPS distribution across all otherabilities and damage sources.
• Improved Garrote now lasts 6 seconds, instead of 3.
• Sepsis and Venom Rush were removed.

Overall, these changes move the spec in the right direction, removing anyneed for snapshotting due to the removal of Nightstalker, removing ourreliance on Power Infusion, and making our damage profile less about the15 second burst windows, instead focusing more on the sustained damage niche again.

The War Within has major implications for all specs thanks to the HeroTalent Tree system, new tier sets, and the natural reduction in secondarystats when entering a new expansion.

Assassination Rogue gets to choose between the Deathstalkerand Fatebound Hero Talent Trees. In the sections below, we will takea small dive into the design and benefits of these Hero Talent Trees forthe spec, and offer some thoughts on their potential performance and gameplayimplications.

The Deathstalker Hero Tree is centered on the Deathstalker's Markability, and the capstone that further boosts its value. The remaining talentsare largely damage increases to individual abilities, with little to nointeraction with the Deathstalkers Mark itself. The entire Hero Talent tree isvery random, with each ability getting one talent to barely buff its damage.This feels like a major lack of direction and theme, with most of the powersimply being locked behind the capstone.

Gameplay-wise, it is difficult to tell how these new talents will affectour rotational priorities. The fact of the matter is that the spec was addedvery late into the TWW Alpha cycle, and is a very buggy and nonfunctional mess.We will have to wait for Blizzard to address the bugs to get a betterunderstanding of what the direction is supposed to be for its gameplay before wecan draw any conclusions and work with simulations to figure out the best wayto play with this new set of passives.

What we can tell so far, is that Deathstalker will be awkward to play inMythic+, as the Deathstalker's Mark is locked onto a single target. Sincemoving it to a different target requires a stealth-cast Ambush, swappingit will largely rely on monitoring Darkest Night procs instead. Thisdirectly clashes with our desire to spend Combo Points on Rupture and Crimson Tempest instead.

Power-wise, taking the current functionality, spell data and tooltipdescriptions by its word, Deathstalker is a very large DPS increase, more thananticipated. This is unlikely to remain, especially once the Hero Talents arefully functional, but the design goal seems to be to offer a strong single-targetDPS increase through the Deathstalker Hero Talents.

The biggest concern is how much of the overall damage gain of the entire setof talents is just locked behind the capstone, Darkest Night. Manyof the talents throughout this Hero Talent tree are very low impact, with onlyminor DPS benefits, while most of its power is tied to Darkest Night. Whetherthis is intentional or not remains to be seen.

As for utility, Deathstalker offers a very useful cooldown reduction to Shadowstep, as well as additional defensive benefits through either Ethereal Cloak or Bait and Switch, which further supplements ouralready strong survivability.

The Fatebound Hero Tree Talents are largely centered around the idea offlipping coins through Hand of Fate, offering either a percentage-baseddamage increase or a cosmic damage proc. Everytime you spend 5+ Combo Pointson a finishing move, you either add a stack to the already existing buff, or haveit swap over to the opposite one instead. Monitoring and managing the buffs willbe key to optimizing the benefits of the Fatebound Hero Talents.

Gameplay-wise, Fatebound is very much a passive kit that offers only very fewskill expression opportunities. This is not a bad thing at all, as it allowsfor a very predictable damage increase to the Assassination damage profile.While the entire concept is very much centered on RNG, many talents offer additionalcontrol over the outcome of these Hand of Fate rolls, which will help you buildhigher stacks on either of the buffs throughout the fight. Due to how many finisherswe end up casting during a 5+ minute encounter, the RNG will even out fairlyreliably, so there is no need to worry about this Hero Talent tree adding a lotof DPS variance.

Power-wise, Fatebound needs some major adjustmetns to be competitive withDeathstalker right now, which is an easy task once class tuning goes into fullmotion in the TWW Beta. There are a few bugs that still need ironing out as well,but Fatebound looks to be in a very comfortable position right now with many ofthe talents offering small DPS increases or making the rotation slightly morefluid, like Deal Fate. While it is not the most interesting, flashy orexciting Hero Talent theme, it is a solid choice for anyone who wants to focuson learning the ins and outs of their chosen spec first without the choice ofHero Talents overcomplicating things.

Defensively, Fatebound adds further bonuses to the already strong toolkit wehave. Death's Arrival will allow us to cast Shadowstep a secondtime within quick succession, which could be used to stick to the boss just alittle longer before having to run away from it for a mechanic, as you could juststep to a friendly player who is already in a save position, and then immediatelyjump back to the boss a second or two later. It also offers some minor defensivebenefits, with Chosen's Revelry giving you some additional Leech, while Tempted Fate has a chance to make you take less damage. Neither of thesechoices are incredible, but with how strong our mobility and survivabilityalready are, they don't have to be.

Below are the Tier Set Bonuses for Assassination Rogue in The WarWithin.

• Rogue Assassination Season 1 2pc — When your bleeds deal damage,they have a chance to grant you Vile Tincture for 8 seconds, increasing yourpoison damage by 1% per stack (up to 10 stacks).
• Rogue Assassination Season 1 4pc — While you have 5 or more stacksof Vile Tincture, Garrote, Rupture, and Crimson Tempest deal 10% additionaldamage.

Both set bonuses are completely passive and are not expected to have anygameplay impact. The proc-rate is incredibly low at the moment, leading thisbonus to offer less than a single percent of extra DPS. This will hopefullybe fixed prior to the expansion's release.