Subtlety Guide
Basics
The purpose of this guide is to communicate my thesis and evaluations as well as provide basic knowlage of the class and specialization. I will try to cover the majority of questions and go into detail. If there are still questions left feel freee to contact me.
Introduction:
Subtlety got a lot of changes in 7.2.5 wich opened up a high range of talent choices that impact our cooldown management, playstyle and damage distribution.
The current iteration provides you with regular high burst phases, strong mobility and extremely good soaking capability.
In addition to that Subtlety becomes the best class to bring higher Single target damage in AoE situations. One of the downsides of the spec is the high amount of bugs we have and partly abuse to get stronger damage output.
What we dont provide is strong execute or downtime damage or extreme AoE, but there are other classes that fit this category.
Attributes:
Attributes are the base values for our character's combat ability.
We have primary and secondary Attributes. Our primary attributes are Agility and Stamina and our secondary attributes are Critical Strike Rating, Haste, Mastery and Versatility.
These Stats grow with your character level and are present on equipment we wear and impact our combat behaviour to a certain degree. Most gear pieces offer both primary and 2-3 secondary Attributes and scale with the Item Level of the Gear piece.
Exceptions are Jewelry that offers only Stamina as a main stat.
The idea is to wear gear that offers the most beneficial attributes while still having an overall balanced distribution.
Gear Pieces that don't offer Agility are more dependent on the secondary attributes and it can happen that an item that has a lower item level can offer more of a benefit than a higher item level one. Gear pieces with Agility tend to have a high impact from
the primary attribute and will often provide benefits even if they offer sub optimal secondary attributes.
The amount you get from 1 point into a secondary attribute depends on the attrubut.
Subtlety in general prioritizes the attributes like the folowing:
Agility > Mastery > Versatility > Critical Strike Rating > Haste Rating
With T21 and higher itemlvl we start priorizing Critical Strike Rating and Versatility over Mastery.
Our Legendary and Relic choice has an impact on that.
List of Attributes:
| Name | Discription | Points for 1% | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agility | Increases the magnitude of your attacks and abilities | X | |
| Stamina | Increases the character's health | X | |
| Critical Strike Rating | Increases the chance of your Attacks and abilities to critically hit | 400 | |
| Haste Rating | Increases attack speed and energy regeneration | 375 | |
| Mastery | Increases the damage Done by your Finishing Moves | 400 | |
| Versatility | Increases the damage and healing done and decreases damage taken | 475 |
Race:
Races provide you mainly with the visual appearance but offer some abilities as well that impact your damage output or add additional utility in the form of mobility/silence/etc. The general impact on your output is minimal but the utility makes
some options more appealing than others. The difference is minimal enough which lets us choose to play whatever we like most.
These are the most potent choices out of the 11 available:
Dwarf (Alliance)
Our strongest race choice that provides us additional critical damage with [Might of the Mountain] and additional utility from [Stoneform].
Night Elf (Alliance)
Provides us additional haste or critical strike rating from [Touch of Elune] as well as the ability to use a stealth combo builder every two minutes with [Shadowmeld].
Blood Elf (Horde)
Provides a 1% higher critical strike rating from [Arcane Acuity] as well as give us the ability [Arcane Torrent] that can be used to to generate Energy or provide an additional aoe silence in Mythic Plus.
Pandaren(Neutral)
Provides us twice the stat budget from Food with
[Epicurean].
This is potent becouse we have strong food that offers us Agility.
Orc (Horde)
Provides us a short damage increases with the ability [Blood Fury].
Professions:
Professions allow you to craft gear, consumables, gear upgrades or little gimicks like toys.
They have no impact on the power level of your character however some may offer you additional benefits.
These two are worth taking a look at:
Alchemy
Provides you with the passive ability [Mixiology] that makes your flask last twice as long as usual. Choosing this profession allows you to save quite a lot of money on flasks.
Engineering
Provides you access to additional enchants for your back and waist which offer you, for example, an additional mobility cooldown from [Nitro Boosts] if needed but share the cooldown of combat potions. Also offers you and your raid with a repair bot.
Position, Range and Hitbox:
Every ability from your Spellbook has a certain range bound to it. This number represents the maximum distance you can stand relative to your target while being able to peform the action. Rogue is a close-range damage dealing class and therefore
the majority of our abilities are set to a range of 5 called melee range. The hitbox is an additional property of enemies that can change this value to account for its size allowing us to stand a bit further away.
In addition to that we have Dodge, Parry and Block. Creatures cannot parry attacks but can dodge attacks from behind.
In addition to that we have a combo point generating ability that we use quite frequently that deals additional damage if we are behind the enemy called
[Backstab] (if not talented in
[Gloomblade]).
The Gameplay revolves around staying behind the target the majority of the time while being within melee range to be able to perform abilities and auto attacks.
Behind the target doesn't necessarily mean visually behind. The game counts angles that are more to the side as behind the target.
Resources:
Our main resource is Energy. The character has a base amount of 100 energy that regenerates at a rate of 10 energy/second. The regeneration of this resource can be higher with procs such as
[Energetic Stabbing] or
[Shadow Techniques] and with points in the secondary attribute haste by the rate of 1/sec with every 10% haste rating.
The Amount can be increased with the
[Vigor]Talent, Items such as
[Stabilized Energy Pendant]or the racial ability from gnome
[Expansive Mind].
Energy can be spent to create combo points that can be spent to use finishing moves or provide soaking/heal utility with abilities like
[Feint].
Abilities:
Talents are the base that defines our gameplay. They come in different categories and with different conditions.
Passive abilities and Cooldowns enhance our gameplay by providing additional resources, damage amplification or cooldown reduction.
Combo builders are the main way to spend our main main resource and create our secondary resource (combo points).
Finishing abilities are used to spend the secondary resource but also require our main resource. The majority of our damage comes from our finishing abilities (typically over 60%).
Utility abilities are used to provide you mobility, healing or damage reduction. There is also additional utility that comes from aoe stealth and stuns.
[Deepening Shadows] - Reduces your Shadow dance CD when using finishing moves. The [Enveloping Shadows]talent increases the duration by an additional amount.
[Energetic Stabbing] - Provides additional energy from a proc. Is useless in situations where we use shuriken storm as a combo point generator.
[Finality] - Buffs the next Finisher by 4% per CP used for the Finisher that generates the buff. Scales up to 6 CP with [Deeper Stratagem].
[Pandemic] -When refreshing your periodic damage effects, duration remaining on the previous effect is added to the new one, up to a maximum of 30% of the base duration.
[Relentless Strikes] - Provides energy return when using finishing moves. Scales up to 6 CP with [Deeper Stratagem].
[Shadow Techniques] - Procs Energy and Combo points every 4th swing (50% chance) or 5th swing (100% chance if the 4th swing doesn't proc). Energy proc is increased by [Shadow's Whisper], while the CP proc depends on [Fortune's Bite].
[Shuriken Combo] - makes our single target damage in AoE situations extremely good.
[Backstab]- our primary combo builder. Has a positional requitement.
[Cheap Shot]- provides utility but is usualy not used at all.
[Gloomblade]- replaces [Backstab]as our primary combo builder without a positional requirement.
[Goremaw's Bite]- provides combo points an energy as well and applys [Feeding Frenzy].Is usualy used when low on resources.
[Shadowstrike]- is our combo builder during [Stealth], [Vanish]or [Shadow Dance]
[Shuriken Storm]- replaces our main combo builder with 2+ targets. 3+ during [Stealth], [Vanish]or [Shadow Dance].
[Shuriken Toss]- is only used in situations where we are not able to reach the boss and need to lower our energy resource.
[Death from Above] - Allowes us to use off global cooldown abilities during the cast, thats the base for the DfA Talent build playstyle.
[Eviscerate] - Is our main damaging ability.
[Kidney Shot] - is rarely used in pve can be used to interrupt targets and applys a damage amp when using [Prey on the Weak].
[Nightblade]- is our maintainance debuff we keep up on the target. Snapshots with [Finality] and [Nightstalker]
[Shadow Blades]- Is our 3 minute cooldown. it provides additional combo point gain and is used pretty much on cooldown.
[Shadow Dance]- is a strong cooldown that let us use stealth combo builder for a short duration. Becomes a stronger cooldown when using the [Dark Shadow]Talent.
[Symbols of Death]- is our regular used cooldown. Provides energy and an damage amplifier and gets impacted by our t20 2p and 4p bonus.
[Vanish]- allowes us to use one(or up to 3 with [Subterfuge])Stealth combo builder and proc [Mantle of the Master Assassin]or [Master of Subtlety].
[Blind]- can be used to take a target out of the combat.
[Cheat Death]- allowes u to survive else deatly blows.
[Cloak of Shadows]- alowes u to avoid magic damage or remove certain debuffs. we can cheese certain mechanics with it or soak boss abilities
[Crimson Vial]- Heals us for a smal amound over time. Is usualy not used due to the energy cost.
[Distract]- can be used to lower the Aggro range of mobs.
[Feint]- is rogues strongest soaking ability in raids.
[Kick]- is used to interrupt critical spells from mobs or bosses.
[Sap]- takes out a target requires stealth and that the target is out of fight.
[Shadowstep]- has 2 charges and can be used to create higher uptimes in fights, to avoid knockbacks or avoid damaga abilities.
[Shroud of Concealment]- Can be used in Doungens to aboid critical Mob packs.
[Sprint]- another mobility cooldown that provides the ability to get out or into a certain position fast.
[Stealth]- allowes us to move unseen with all benefits to it.
[Tricks of the Trade]- is very usefull to get the tank a higher thread in the beginning of the fight or usefull for certain mythic plus affixes where the tank generates less thread.
Talents:
Talents, together with legendaries, are the main variable that alter our gameplay.
Talent selection depends on the fight type, length, and equipped gear. It is recommended to use a simulation to evaluate your choices.
The popular talent builds can be used as a starting point.
Keep in mind that certain tier bonuses benefit different talent combinations.
| Tier Bonus | Spec | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tier 19 (2p) | MfD |
| 2 | Tier 20(4p) | DfA |
| 3 | Tier 21(4p) | MfD |
The 2 popular talent builds :
Marked for Death:
| Talent 1 | Talent 2 | Talent 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 | Master of Subtlety | Weaponmaster | Gloomblade |
| 30 | Nightstalker | Subterfuge | Shadow Focus |
| 45 | Deeper Stratagem | ||
| 60 | Soothing Darkness | Elusiveness | Cheat Death |
| 75 | Strike from the SHadows | Pray on the Weak | Tangled Shadow |
| 90 | Dark Shadow | Alacrity | Enveloping Shadows |
| 100 | Master of Shadows | Marked for Death | Death from Above |
Death from Above:
| Talent 1 | Talent 2 | Talent 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 | Master of Subtlety | Weaponmaster | Gloomblade |
| 30 | Nightstalker | Subterfuge | Shadow Focus |
| 45 | Deeper Stratagem | ||
| 60 | Soothing Darkness | Elusiveness | Cheat Death |
| 75 | Strike from the SHadows | Pray on the Weak | Tangled Shadow |
| 90 | Dark Shadow | Alacrity | Enveloping Shadows |
| 100 | Master of Shadows | Marked for Death | Death from Above |
Talents in Detail:
[Master of Subtlety]
Provides additional damage during Shadow dance/Vnaish/Stealth. This talent is the best choice in combination with high Shadow dance uptimes.
[Weaponmaster]
Provides additional damage from a random proc. It is about equal or slightly behind depending on talent choices. Multi Target or AoE situations bring this talent ahead (3+ targets).
[Gloomblade]
Is a situational Talent choice. It synergises well with [Insignia of Ravenholdt] and works well on fights where you attack the boss from the front the majority of the time.
[Nightstalker]
Provides additional damage during Shadow dance/Vanish/Stealth. It become a strong choice in AoE situations and is about equal to Shadow Focus in singe target situations.
[Subterfuge]
Provides one additional secound of Shadow dance. The changes made the talent generally less powerful. However it synergizes well with [Shadow Satyr's Walk].
[Shadow Focus]
Provides less energy costs for abilities. This lowers the energy trashhold you can Dance with and reliably fit in multiple abilities.
[Deeper Stratagem]
Is the strongest talent of this row. It provides 5% additional damage on finishing moves, additional damage from the linear CP scaling if you finish at 6 CP, as well as stronger Finality bonuses.
[Anticipation]
Is the best talent if you want to prevent combo point over-capping. It makes it relatively easy to manage Combo Points however it's behind Deeper Strategem due to the additional damage Scaling.
[Vigor]
Provides you with a larger energy pool and slightly stronger energy regeneration. It's advised to use this talent if you are new to the spec.
[Dark Shadow]
Boosts your damage during Shadow Dance. We usually want higher burst damage which makes this option the go-to choice.
[Alacrity]
Provides us with haste but is relatively seen as the weakest talent choice in this row.
[Enveloping Shadows]
Provides increased Shadow Dance CDR and an additional Dance charge. The Shadow Dance uptime is significatnly higher while providing benefits from Soothing Darkness (Possibly link Soothing Darkness here). Is likely a good choice in AoE situations.
[Master of Shadows]
Provides additional energy during dance that allows you to use abilities more frequently. Is likely a good choice in AoE situations.
[Marked for Death]
Is about equal on single target fights to Death from Above. Is potent in fights where you don't want to use Death from Above due to boss design or on fights where you are able to consistantly abuse the reset.
[Death from Above]
Is the go-to talent choice of this talent row. The strength of this talent comes mainly from the cchanges to Shadow Dance that allows us to use it during the DfA animation and get additional dmage to the [Eviscerate] part of Death from Above while not losing ability casts during Shadow dance.