Warlords of Draenor Rogue Changes (Archived)

By Wowhead Last Updated: 2016/07/22 Patch: 6.1.0

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Want to know how to play your class on live? Check out our Rogue DPS (Assassination, Combat, Subtlety) guide.

Last update: October 23(Note: This guide is intended to be an overview of changes between Mists of Pandaria and Warlords of Draenor. Due to its popularity, we have included Patch Note updates for 6.1, but its main purpose is to compare the two expansions.) Highlights

Combo points are now shared across all enemies as opposed to being on a target. They are no longer lost when switching targets.

Tricks of the Trade: Damage component removed as part of the movement to reduce cooldown stacking across classes.

Ambidexterity is removed to remove the amount of damage coming from auto attacks for Combat Rogues. However, damage of active abilities like has been increased to compensate.

Main Gauche was changed to increase the importance of the off-hand weapon for Combat.

Subtlety: now triggers from a Rogue's critical hits from melee Auto Attacks, to help characters feel stronger when soloing. is less strong to better balance scaling and secondary stat values.

AoE improvements: Blade Flurry can now trigger poisons, Seal Fate grants a combo point for AoE that critically strikes the Rogue's primary target.

received some additional nuance for players who want to control when starts. You can use if you want to stall on Bandit's Guile--it won't advance it.

Subterfuge was rebalanced for PvP--its defensive capabilities were reduced, while its offensive properties remain.

Each point of Agility or Strength now grants 1 Attack Power (down from 2). All other sources of Attack Power now grant half as much as before.

Weapon Damage values on all weapons have been reduced by 20%.

Attack Power now increases Weapon Damage at a rate of 1 DPS per 3.5 Attack Power (up from 1 DPS per 14 Attack Power).

Attack Power, Spell Power, or Weapon Damage now affect the entire healing or damage throughput of player spells.

Patch 6.1 Updates

Blizzard

Talents

Burst of Speed now has a 3-second cooldown.
Death from Above's damage has increased by 25%. For Assassination Rogues, the talent now also increases the duration of Envenom.
Leeching Poison has been redesigned. It now grants 10% Leech while active, and no longer applies a poison effect to the target. Its Shiv effect remains unchanged.

Armor Sets

PvP 4-piece set bonus for Combat Rogues has been redesigned. Using Vanish instantly generates 5 combo points and the next Ambush, Dispatch, , or Sinister Strike will be a critical strike.

3D Armor ModelsWarlords of Draenor Transmog Guide

Set Bonuses

Item - Rogue T17 Combat 2P Bonus: Increases the chance for Revealing Strike to generate an extra Combo Point by 20%.

Item - Rogue T17 Combat 4P Bonus: Your finishing moves have a 20% chance to generate 5 combo points and cause your next Eviscerate to consume no Energy.

Item - Rogue T17 Subtlety 2P Bonus: When you activate Shadow Dance, you gain 60 Energy.

Item - Rogue T17 Subtlety 4P Bonus: When Shadow Dance expires, your next finishing move refunds 5 combo points.

Item - Rogue T17 Assassination 2P Bonus: Mutilate and Dispatch critical strikes restore 7 energy.

Item - Rogue T17 Assassination 4P Bonus: Envenom refunds 1 Combo Point.

Item - Rogue WoD PvP 2P Bonus: Successfully interrupting a spell with Kick generates 3 combo points.

: Increases the duration of Killing Spree by 1 sec.

Item - Rogue WoD PvP Subtlety 4P Bonus: Feint also increases your Versatility by 100 for 5 sec.

Item - Rogue WoD PvP Assassination 4P Bonus: When you use Vanish, you gain 5 Combo Points and the critical strike chance of your next Mutilate, Dispatch, Envenom, or Ambush is increased by 100%.

New Spell EffectsBlade FlurryShadow ReflectionTalentsClick here

Death from Above, 100: Finishing move that consumes combo points on the target to empower your weapons with shadow energy and perform a devastating two-part attack. You whirl around, dealing up to (133.3% of Attack power) damage to all enemies within 8 yds, then leap into the air and Eviscerate your target on the way back down, with such force that it deals an additional 50% damage.

Internal Bleeding, 75: Your Kidney Shot also causes the target to bleed for (124.2% of Attack power) damage per combo point over 12 sec.

Shadow Reflection, 100: Summon a shadow of yourself on the target that will watch you and memorize your offensive ability usage for the next 8 sec. After this time, it will mimic the memorized abilities on its target over the next 8 sec.

Venom Rush, 100: Increases your maximum energy by 15. Increases your energy regeneration rate by 5% for every enemy you have poisoned, up to 3.

Cheat Death: An attack that would otherwise be fatal will instead reduce you to no less than 10%7% of your maximum health, and damage taken will be reduced by 85% for 3 sec. This effect cannot occur more than once per 90 seconds.

Burst of Speed: 30 Energy, up from 15

Deadly Throw: Deadly Throw's Attack power formula has changed.

Leeching Poison: Coats your weapons with a Non-Lethal Poison that lasts for 1 hour. Your melee attacks have a 50% chance to poison the target for 1012 seccausing subsequent melee attacks to heal you for 10%15% of damage dealt.

Shuriken Toss: A ranged attack that deals 24930 (+ 120% of Attack power) Physical damage to an enemy target. If the enemy is farther than 10 yards away, your autoattacks will be replaced with ranged shuriken for up to 10 sec, granting them a 30 yd range. Shurikens are coated in your Lethal Poison. Awards 24930 combo point. Replaces Throw.

Subterfuge: Reduced visibility from your Stealth breaks 3 sec afterimmediately upon dealing or receiving hostile actions, rather than doing so immediately.but you can still use abilities which require Stealth for 3 sec.

Paralytic Poison: Coats your weapons with a Non-Lethal Poison that lasts for 1 hour. Each strike has a 20% chance of poisoning the enemy for 15 sec. Stacks up to 4 times on a single target, and upon a fourth application, the enemy will be stunned for 4 seconds.

GlyphsClick here

: Increases your maximum Energy by 20.

: Reduces the cooldown on Evasion by 30 sec.

: Each time you dodge while Evasion is active, you gain 10 Energy.

: Reduces the cooldown on Vanish by 60 sec, but when Vanish's duration ends, Stealth is no longer automatically activated.

Evasion: and .

Vanish: and .

SpecializationsClick here

: You gain 5% more of the Mastery stat from all sources.

: Increases the cooldown recovery rate by 0% on your Evasion, Sprint, Vanish, Cloak of Shadows, Vendetta, and Shadow Blades abilities. Affected spells are not yet final and reflect 5.4 spells instead of 6.0 changes. Readiness has been removed.

: For each combo point spent, your finishing moves reduce the cooldown on your Adrenaline Rush, Killing Spree, and Sprint by X sec, and have a 20% chance to grant a combo point and restore 25 Energy.

: Increases the cooldown recovery rate by 0% on your Evasion, Sprint, Adrenaline Rush, Cloak of Shadows, Killing Spree, and Shadow Blades abilities. Affected spells are not yet final and reflect 5.4 spells instead of 6.0 changes. Readiness has been removed.

: Increases the cooldown recovery rate by 0% on your Evasion, Sprint, Vanish, Cloak of Shadows, Shadow Dance, and Shadow Blades abilities. Affected spells are not yet final and reflect 5.4 spells instead of 6.0 changes. Readiness has been removed.

: While wielding daggers, your maximum Energy is increased by 20 and your damage is increased by 20%10%.

Blindside: A vicious strike that exploits the vulnerability of foes with less than 35% health remaining, causing 784% weapon damage plus 784330% weapon damage to the target. Requires a dagger in the main hand. Awards 1 combo point. Replaces Sinister Strike. Dispatch now naturally has a chance to be made free and usable on any target when using Mutilate.

Envenom: Envenom's damage formula has changed. Envenom now naturally refreshes Slice and Dice and poison application chance is 30% up from 15%

Fan of Knives: Instantly whirl around, releasing a spray of knives at all targets within 10 yards, dealing 1247 to 186923.1% Physical damage. This attack has a chance of applying your active poisons at their normal rate. Awards 1 combo points if it strikes your current combo target. Also now Assassination and Subtletly.

Mutilate: Instantly attacks with both weapons for 312% weapon damage plus an additional 312 with each weapon210% weapon damage). Awards 2 combo point.

Seal Fate: When you critically strike with a single-target melee attack that generates combo points, you gain an additional combo point.

Relentless Strikes: Now Assassination and Subtlety only.

Venomous Wounds: Each time your Rupture or Garrote deals damage, your poisons on the target have a 75%100% chance to deal 685(+ 33.6% of Attack power) additional Nature damage and you regain 10 Energy. Garrote will not trigger this effect if the enemy is also afflicted by your Rupture. If an enemy dies while afflicted by your Rupture, you regain up to 120 energy, based on remaining duration.

Adrenaline Rush: Increases your Energy regeneration rate by 100% and your melee attack speed by 100% for 15 sec. While Adrenaline Rush is active, the global cooldown on most of your Energy consumers is reduced by 0.20.1 sec

Fatal Flourish: Your successfulYou gain 5% more of the Haste stat from all sources, and your off-hand attacks have a chance to generate 15 Energy. Slower weapons have a higher chance.

: Take advantage of the natural ebb and flow of combat, causing your Sinister Strike and Revealing Strike abilities to gradually increase your damage dealt by up to 30%. This maximum effect will last for 15 sec before fading and beginning the cycle anew.

Killing Spree: Step through the shadows to an enemy within 10 yards, attacking it every 0.5 sec with both weapons 7 times times over 3 sec with both weapons for 100% weapon damage all damage done by 50% for the duration. Cannot hit invisible or stealthed targets. While Blade Flurry is active, each Killing Spree attack will teleport to and damage a different nearby enemy target The Rogue cannot be targeted or disabled while Killing Spree is active.

Mastery: Main Gauche: Your main-hand attacks have a 16% chance to grant you an attack that deals damage equal to 75% of a main-hand attack.trigger an attack with your off-hand that deals 150%140% weapon damage.

: Deals 160% 96%120% weapon damage, increasing the effect of your offensive finishing moves on that target by 35%, and giving your Sinister Strike a 20%25% chance to generate an extra combo point. Lasts 24 sec. Awards 1 combo points.

Ruthlessness: For each combo point spent, your damaging finishing moves reduce the cooldown on your Adrenaline Rush, Killing Spree, and Sprint by 2 sec, and all your finishing moves have a 20% chance to grant a combo point and restore 25 Energy.

Combat Potency: Increases your Energy regeneration rate by 20% and your Attack Power by 30%40%.

Backstab: Backstab the target, causing 459% weapon damage plus 459 to the target. Must be behind160% Physical damage. Must not be in front of the target. Requires a dagger in the main hand. Awards 1 combo point. Additional 13% increase applied via hotfix - not in tooltip

Fan of Knives: Instantly whirl around, releasing a spray of knives at all targets within 10 yards, dealing (35%23.1% of Attack power) Physical damage. This attack has a chance of applying your active poisons at their normal rate. Awards 1 combo points if it strikes your current combo target.

Hemorrhage: An instant strike that deals 160% 40% weapon damage (232% 40% if a dagger is equipped), causing profuse bleeding that deals an additional 50%42% of the direct strike's damage over 24 sec. Awards 1 combo point. Replaces Sinister Strike.

: Critical hits in combat by you or by your party or raid members grant you a combo point, but no more often than once every 2 seconds, and can only occur while you are in combat.

Rupture: Rupture's damage formula has changed. Also now Assassination and Subtletly.

: Increases the damage of your Rupture ability by 50%10% and causes you to deal 35%20% additional damage to targets afflicted by your Rupture, Garrote, or Crimson Tempest.

Relentless Strikes: Now Assassination and Subtlety only.

: Increases your total Agility by 30%15% and you gain 5% more of the Multistrike stat from all sources.When you multistrike with Backstab or Ambush, you also twist the blade, causing all of your Bleed effects to advance by 2 sec, triggering an instant tick.

Stealth for Subtlety Rogues now also increases damage while stealthed, and for an additional 6 seconds after breaking stealth.

Ambidexterity: Increases the damage you deal with your off-hand weapon by 75%.

Blindside, Assassination: Performing a successful Mutilate has a 30% chance of leaving you in an advantageous position, enabling a single use of Dispatch with no energy cost, regardless of the enemy target's health.

Cut to the Chase, Assassination: Your Eviscerate refreshes your Slice and Dice duration to its 5 combo point maximum.

Master of Subtlety, Subtlety: Attacks made while stealthed and for 6 seconds after breaking stealth cause an additional 10% damage.

Class AbilitiesClick here

Critical Strikes: Increases your chance to critically strike by 10%.

Ambush: Ambush the target, causing 325% weapon damage plus 623275% weapon damage to the target 470.275% plus (623 * 1.447)361.75% if a dagger is equipped]. Awards 2 combo point. Additional 13% increase applied via hotfix - not in tooltip

Crimson Tempest: Crimson Tempest's damage formula has changed. Now 10 yards instead of 8.

Deadly Poison: Coats your weapons with a Lethal Poison that lasts for 1 hour. Each strike has a 30% chance of poisoning the enemy for (2992) Nature damage over 12 sec. Subsequent poison applications will instantly deal 336 to 4440 (+ 12.87% of Attack power) Nature damage.

Dispatch: Eviscerate's damage formula has changed.

Fleet Footed: Your movement speed is increased by 15%. This does not stack with most other movement speed increasing effects. Fleet Footed now also reduces falling damage taken.

Garrote: Garrote the enemy, silencing them for 3 sec and causing 147 (+ 54% of Attack power) + Attack power * 1 * 0.0780.135) * 6] damage over 18 sec, increased by your attack power. Must be stealthed. Awards 1 combo point.

: Finishing move that restores 5%3% of maximum health every 3 sec. Lasts longer per combo point: 1 point : 6 seconds 2 points: 12 seconds 3 points: 18 seconds 4 points: 24 seconds 5 points: 30 seconds

Shiv: Deals 25%10% weapon damage, applying a concentrated form of your active Non-Lethal poison, and dispelling an Enrage effect from the target. See individual Non-Lethal poisons for their concentrated effects.

Sinister Strike: An instant strike that causes 280 damage in addition to 240% 102%160% of your normal weapon damage/

Slice and Dice: Finishing move that consumes combo points to increase melee attack speed by 40%.

Smoke Bomb: Creates a cloud of thick smoke in an 8 yard radius around the Rogue for 5 sec. Enemies are unable to target into or out of the smoke cloud. Allies take 20% 10% less damage while within the cloud.

: Increases the melee and ranged attack speedhaste and multistrike chance of all party and raid members within 100 yards by 10%5%.

Tricks of the Trade: The threat caused by your next damaging attack and all actions taken for 6 sec afterwards will be transferred to the target party or raid member. and all damage caused by the target is increased by 15% during this time. Transferred threat is not permanent, and will fade after 30 sec.

Wound Poison: Coats your weapons with a Lethal Poison that lasts for 1 hour. Each strike has a 30% chance of poisoning the enemy, which instantly inflicts 447 to 5920 (+21.8% of Attack power) Nature damage and reduces all healing received for 1512 sec.

Disarm Trap: Disarm a hostile trap.

Dismantle: Disarm the enemy, preventing the use of any weapons or shield for 8 sec.

Master Poisoner: Increases the spell damage taken by any target you have poisoned by 5%.

Mind-numbing Poison: Coats your weapons with a Non-Lethal Poison that lasts for 1 hour. Each strike has a 50% chance of poisoning the enemy, clouding their mind and slowing their casting speed by 50% (10% on player targets) for 10 sec.

Redirect: Transfers any existing combo points to the current enemy target. Requires active combo points.

Safe Fall: Reduces damage from falling.

Shadow Blades: Draw upon the surrounding shadows to empower your weapons, causing your autoattacks to deal pure Shadow damage and your combo-point-generating abilities to generate an additional combo point when used. Lasts 12 sec.

Shadow Walk: Significantly increases Stealth effectiveness for 6 sec.

Relentless Strikes: Now Assassination and Subtlety only.

Draenor PerksClick here

: Slice and Dice is now always passively active.

: After activating Vendetta, your next Mutilate, Dispatch, Envenom, or Ambush has 100% increased chance to be a critical strike.

: Crimson Tempest also increases the damage targets take from your poisons by 30% for 1 sec plus 1 sec per combo point.

: While Envenom is active, you deal 20% more damage with Mutilate and Dispatch.

: Bandit's Guile grants an additional 20% damage increase while in Deep Insight.

: Replaces your Deadly Poison with Instant Poison.

Coats your weapons with a Lethal Poison that lasts for 1 hour. Each strike has a 30% chance of instantly poisoning the enemy for 26.4% of Attack power Nature damage.

: Blade flurry no longer has a target cap..

: You no longer have a penalty to hitting with your autoattacks due to dual-wielding.

: Reduces the cooldown on Vanish by 30 sec.

: Increases the duration of Shadow Dance by 2 sec.

: Fan of Knives now generates a combo point for each target that it hits.

: You deal an additional 5% damage for 6 sec after Stealth breaks.

Changed Crowd Control

Dismantle has been removed.

Paralytic Poison has been removed and replaced by Internal Bleeding.

Internal Bleeding: Causes successful Kidney Shots to also apply a periodic Bleed effect for 12 seconds, with damage increasing per combo point used.

Quality of Life Changes

Rogue: Ambush no longer requires the Rogue to be behind the target.

Rogue (Subtlety): Backstab can now be used on either side of the target, in addition to behind the target.

Blue Tweetsactive on TwitterBlue Tweet TrackerPatch NotesWarlords of Draenor Beta patch notes

Latest Patch Notes

Ability Pruning

See the Ability Pruning section above for discussion of why we're pruning class abilities. For Rogues, a couple of abilities were changed to be specialization specific where they were redundant, did some thinning on cooldown.

Disarm Trap has been removed.
Fan of Knives is no longer available to Combat Rogues.
Rupture is no longer available to Combat Rogues.
Shadow Blades has been removed.
Shadow Walk has been removed.

Ability Consolidation and Refinement

Rogues received several mergers of passive abilities. There's also additional cooldown thinning with the change to Tricks of the Trade.

now increases damage by 15% (down from 20%).
Blindside's effects have been merged into baseline Mutilate.
Burst of Speed now costs 30 Energy (up from 15 Energy).
Crimson Tempest's periodic damage now has rolling periodic behavior, meaning that remaining damage from the previous application is added into the newly-applied periodic-damage effect.
Cut to the Chase's effects have been merged into baseline Envenom.
Deadly Throw no longer has a minimum range.
's effects have been merged into baseline Slice and Dice for Subtlety Rogues.
Envenom now increases poison chance by 30% (up from 15%).
Find Weakness' effects have been merged into baseline Ambush, Garrote, and Cheap Shot for Subtlety Rogues.
Garrote now ticks every 2 seconds (up from every 3 seconds). Damage has been adjusted to compensate.
Killing Spree no longer increases all damage done for the duration. Its damage has been increased to compensate.
Master of Subtlety's effects have been merged into baseline Stealth for Subtlety Rogues.
Relentless Strikes' effects have been merged into Ruthlessness for Combat Rogues. It remains a separate passive for Assassination and Subtlety Rogues.
Restless Blades' effects have been merged into Ruthlessness.
Safe Fall's effects have been merged into baseline Fleet Footed.
Tricks of the Trade now has no energy cost and no longer increases damage caused by the target by 15%.
Venomous Wounds's effects have been merged into baseline Rupture for Assassination Rogues. It no longer triggers from Garrote and now always triggers when Rupture deals damage (up from a 75% chance).

Combo Points

The biggest change for Rogues is a fundamental change to how Combo Points work. They're now shared across all enemies; you can swap targets and you won't lose your Combo Points.

Combo Points for Rogues are now shared across all targets and they are no longer lost when switching targets.
Redirect has been removed.

Combat Changes

is an interesting mechanic that is important to Combat gameplay, but wasn't working out quite as well as we think that it could. In particular, there's basically no way to adjust when you're going to be in , other than stopping your rotation (and thus wasting energy, combo points, temporary effects, cooldown time, etc.). So, we're making an adjustment to and . The intention here is that you can use in place of Sinister Strike when you want to delay (such as to line it up with a specific upcoming fight mechanic), and have little lost damage besides the overall uptime. We don't expect this nuanced rotation adjustment to be used by all Combat Rogues, but having a little more control over the pace of your rotation will be useful to some.

Also worth noting here is the removal of Ambidexterity. This was done to reduce the amount of damage coming from auto attacks for Combat Rogues. We've increased the damage of their active abilities to compensate and make them more rewarding.

Finally, we changed Main Gauche to accentuate the importance of the off-hand weapon for Combat.

now grants Sinister Strike a 25% chance to generate an extra Combo Point (up from 20%) but no longer advances .
Ambidexterity has been removed.
Main Gauche now deals off-hand weapon damage. Its damage has been increased to compensate.

Area-of-Effect Attacks (Assassination, Combat)

Among some other changes to improve Rogue AoE damage, we made a couple of baseline changes, and added a few Draenor Perks that impacts their AoE.

Blade Flurry can now trigger poisons, and now deals 30% damage (down from 40%).
Seal Fate now also grants a combo point for area attacks that critically strike the Rogue's primary target.

Subtlety Changes

is an extremely powerful ability, but has the downside that it adds significant disparity between character power while soloing and while in a group. We made this change to bring up the soloing Subtlety Rogue, without having a significant impact on their performance while in a group. The passive ability also received significant change to better balance scaling rates, the value of secondary stats, improve Multistrike for them, and add rotational depth.

Backstab can now be used on either side of the target, in addition to behind the target. (See also:Facing Requirements)
Hemorrhage’s periodic damage is now based on attack power (instead of the initial strike's damage), and ticks every 2 seconds. Damage has been adjusted to compensate.
can now also be triggered by critical hits from the Rogue's melee Auto Attacks.
now increases Agility by 15% (down from 30%), and the amount of Multistrike bonus received from all sources by 5% (in order to act as Subtlety's Secondary Stat Attunement). And finally, when the rogue Multistrikes with Backstab or Ambush, they also twist the blade, causing all Bleed effects to advance by 2 seconds, triggering an instant tick.

Subterfuge

Subterfuge has proved too powerful, and frustrating to play against in PvP, so we decided to reduce its defensive capabilities, while preserving its offensive power. We changed the Subterfuge period to allow the use of stealth abilities without actually stealthing you, similar to .

Subterfuge now allows you to use abilities that require stealth for 3 seconds after leaving Stealth, instead of actually staying stealthed for 3 seconds.

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