[MoP] Sub Rogue Guide for 5.4.8 (2024)

Alliance:

every-man-for-himself is a PvP racial ability. You can wear two trinkets now for the extra DPS output. Humans will always win in the offensive playstyle.

shadowmeld is a great defensive racial. It completely negates the effects of any harmful ability when used at the same time. Quite difficult to pull this off but it can game-breaking. Enemies also de-target you when this is used. So if you see a mage pop his cooldowns and cast a Frostbolt at you while you're in a nova, Shadowmeld and he will have to re-target you and re-cast.
It's also great offensive since you have Subterfuge, which gives you multiple openers for 3 seconds. Very deadly. Although, Shadowmeld's worst enemie is faerie-fire

Horde:

will of the forsaken is a trinket for charm, fear and sleep effects. It shares a 30 sec ICD with your PvP trinket. So be careful when you use it, cause you might get switched on.

blood-fury gives you a small attack power increase. Blood Fury combined with your trinket is a great way to put out some damage in a short amount of time.

Spec:

Explaining each ability:

Nightstalker: Not worth using, unless you do battlegrounds. Cooldowns + beserking -> Vanish -> Evisc can be deadly. Other than that, never go for it.
Subterfuge: This talent is so good that I don't even have the right words. Garrote -> Cheap Shot is extremely deadly. It's amazing for peels as well. Druid need peels? Vanish -> Cheap Shot the Sham & Warlock. If you need to recover, Vanish = 3 sec of unbreakable stealth + Subterfuge = 6 seconds of stealth.
Shadow Focus: Not worth using. Subterfuge is too strong to give up.

Deadly Throw: Not worth using. It could be viable if it had a 20 sec cd with no energy nor CP cost.
Nerve Strike: This is the talent you'll be using the most. Number one talent if you know your opponent will train your healer or your other teammate. A peeling talent pretty much. Use this talent always against casters like god comp, LSD, LSD2, MLS etc...
Combat Readiness: Use this talent if you know they'll train you, or can make hard swaps. Predicting a RMD'S swap with CR with Feint up, will first of all do no damage, second is that your healer doesn't have to blow any cooldowns.
When to use?
Nerve Strike is used against casters and when people train your partners.
Combat Readiness is used vs melee cleaves. Example of melee comps / cleaves: TSG, KFC, thug cleave, PHDK, Kitty cleave etc...

Cheat Death: Don't use. You can however maybe play with it in RM/X (3s) mirrors. I would still play with Feint, a good Rogue can always prefeint most goes.
Leeching Poison: PvE talent. Don't ever use it.
Elusiveness: 99% of the time you'll have this talent. 30% damage for 5 sec is very good vs anything.

Cloak and Dagger: If you're a duel hero, take this talent. In arenas or battlegrounds, you can't. You will have no mobility whatsoever.
Shadowstep: Actually a very good talent. It's good and more fluent I'd say due to fact that you can step kick and instantly connect on targets, or you can do a hard swap with it. It's also a good defense ability. You can step your healer to eat traps or just step to pull back and get a restealth.
Burst of Speed: Most broken talent in the game. This talent is a solid choice in most cases. Only downside to it is that you will energy starve if you spam it too much. This talent gives you amazing mobility vs anything. The mobility that BoS gives you can be used in so many ways

Prey on the Weak: Flat 10% damage increase for your whole team when you stun someone. Great talent. More damage never goes wrong.
Paralytic Poison: A stun that doesn't DR with anything. A 4 sec controlled root with Shiv is amazing for peels. I prefer Para over PotW.
Dirty Tricks: Useless in most situations. You can use it vs ferals in 2s or RM/X mirrors in 3s. With this talent you can actually peel ferals for your mage. In 3s you can gouge a Rogue and completely counter his Feint ability (-30% dmg reduction).

But I would still go for Paralytic Posion or PotW.

Honestly, it's personal prefrence. If you prefer having more damage, you go PotW. If you prefer controlling the game more, helping your team with peels, go with PP.

Shuriken Toss: Drains your energy. Was only viable in 5.0.5 - 5.2. Good for duels though.
Marked for Death: Only viable talent here. Great for that instant 5CP Evisc, or just a 5CP SnD/Recup on totems/banners.

Anticipation: PvE ability... don't touch it!

Major glyphs:
Hemorrhaging Veins: Great glyph so you'll always have that 20% extra damage
Glyph of Garrote: This is only vs casters. If you fight melee teams, swap it with Glyph of Cheap Shot
Glyph of Blind: Obvious one, to remove dots from the target

Agility over mastery cause agility is increasing your overall damage, while mastery only boosts your finishers like Evisc & Rupture.

My stats:

Prideful Gladiator's Leather Helm reforge from expertise -> crit

prideful-gladiators-necklace-of-proficiency reforge from expertise -> crit

Prideful Gladiator's Leather Spaulders reforge from expertise -> crit

Prideful Gladiator's Cape of Prowess reforge from hit -> crit

Prideful Gladiator's Leather Tunic don't reforge

Prideful Gladiator's Armwraps of Alacrity reforge from haste -> crit

2x of Prideful Gladiator's Shanker don't reforge

Prideful Gladiator's Leather Gloves reforge from hit -> mastery

Prideful Gladiator's Waistband of Cruelty don't reforge

Prideful Gladiator's Leather Legguards reforge from haste -> mastery

Prideful Gladiator's Boots of Cruelty don't reforge

Prideful Gladiator's Ring of Accuracy reforge from hit -> crit

Prideful Gladiator's Ring of Cruelty reforge from haste -> mastery

Prideful Gladiator's Badge of Conquest

Prideful Gladiator's Insignia of Conquest

(if horde, remove Badge of Conquest & replace it with Prideful Gladiator's Medallion of Cruelty. Reforge crit -> mastery)

Head: Meta = Agile Primal Diamond & red: delicate primordial ruby

Shoulder: [Adept Vermilion Onyx

Chest: 2x Delicate Primordial Ruby

Gloves: Assassin's Imperial Amethyst

Waist: Assassin's Imperial Amethyst & Assassin's Imperial Amethyst (red in red)

Legs: 2x Delicate Primordial Ruby

Feet: Delicate Primordial Ruby

Enchants:

Greater Tiger Claw Inscription

Enchant Chest - Glorious Stats

Enchant Cloak - Superior Critical Strike Tailoring: Swordguard Embroidery (if you have Tailoring)

Enchant Bracer - Greater Agility

Enchant Gloves - Superior Mastery Engineering: Synapse Springs (if you have Eng)

Shadowleather Leg Armor

Enchant Boots - Blurred Speed

main Enchant Weapon - Dancing Steel off-hand Enchant Weapon - Glorious Tyranny

Hemorrhage is your main attack. This is the ability you pretty much spam to get combo points.

Backstab is your main attack to use when a player is suffering from your Kidney or Cheap. You can't be fooling around finding players backs, that's why you only use this while someone is stunned.

Rupture is your best dot effect. Use it in fights where you know he'll survive your opener.

Slice and Dice is where you get your energy from. ALWAYS HAVE IT UP!

Eviscerate is used to pump out damage with your combo points. Can do some serious damage with your trinket.

Kidney Shot is your best friend in any situation. Use it wisely.

undefinedis your strongest offensive ability. Again, use it wisely. Don't just use it to use it, you have to have a reason to pop it. Pump damage or peel? Depends on the situation.

Shadow Blades is extremely deadly combined with Shadow Dance + your trinket. Try to force cooldowns with only Dance at first. If you can get a trinket, it's perfect, cause next Dance, you'll be able to kill him with Blades + Dance.

Openers:

This is PandaWoW, therefore you have some different ways to open than you normally would on retail during 5.4.8.

Opener on melees/casters who can't use defensive cooldowns in stun:

Burst opener is the same, but add Shadow Blades as well.

No cooldowns opener:

Burst opener:

^This is what you use against casters like Mages, Shamans, Paladins and so on. Classes that can use defensive cooldowns while stunned

I wouldn't suggest always using the burst opener, I only use blades + Dance together when I know for sure I can land the kill. If he doesn't die, it'll backfire and you're stuck with no offensive cooldown.

Normally I only dance + trinket/Synapse (if you have engineering).

I've been up all night, so my openers might be wrong, but I'll change them if I see errors tomrrow.

If you run Para talent, use Paralystic Poison + Wound Poison. If you run PotW, use Mind-numbing Poison + Wound Poison

Keep track of your cooldowns all the time. This is important for all classes, but as a Rogue, you rely on hard swaps, so if you don't have Blades or Shadow Dance, it means you can't do any damage.

When you see a Mage Ice Block on low health, Smoke Bomb. That means the Mage can't get heals, the Druid is vulnerable to CC cause he'll most likely panic. Means you can get a dispel from your healer -> restealth -> Sap -> finish the Mage.

Communicate with your partner. Oh my... Can't tell how pissed I get when I play with people who doesn't play with Skype. It's so stupid, it really is. First of all. Chance of you guys overlapping your CC is big, secondly. You don't know when and/or who to swap on. And thirdly, positioning will just be absolutely terrible.

As you can see in my openers, Garrote -> Cheap Shot. This is a great way to stick on a Mage, cause he can't Blink.

Sap off of a 5CP Kidney Shot is also a smart thing. Kidney Shot lasts for 6 seconds and players get out of combat after 6 sec, means you can easily sap off of it. You can even Kidney -> Blind -> Sap trinket this way.

Sapping off of your Kidney is actually mostly a thing in 2s, in 3s it's it's most of the time (90%) Deep -> Sheep healer.

When you fight a Warlock, you can Smoke Bomb the gate. His whole team will not be able to use it.

You can also root a warlock's gate, with Paralytic Poison you have a 4 sec root that can actually be game-breaking.

2v2:

Rogue / Mage (Frost)

Rogue / Hunter (BM/MM/SV)

Rogue / Priest (Holy/Shadow)

Rogue / Druid (Balance)

3v3:

RSD (Rogue / Ele / Rdruid)

RLS (Aff Lock / Resto Sham)

RMD/RMP (Frost Mage / Resto Druid / Holy Priest)

Thug cleave (Hunter / healer (Sham is best)

RPS (Shadow Priest / Resto Sham)

Dancing with the Stars

These are the 6 most viable comps as a Rogue.

RMD -> Dancing with the stars-> Thug -> RSD -> RLS-> RPS

(DwtS = boomy/rogue/healer (played with priest or rsham)