Playstyle & Rotation
General Rotation
- Cast Blade Flurry if there are 2 or more targets in range, and is not already active. If already active, recast at 4 or less combo points when there are 4 or more targets within range.
- Cast Roll The Bones on cooldown if at stage 1 or less.
- Cast Keep It Rolling if you have a stage 2 or higher Roll The Bones active.
- Cast Preparation whenever Between The Eyes, Adrenaline Rush, and Blade Rush are on cooldown.
- Cast Adrenaline Rush on cooldown at 2 or fewer combo points.
- Cast Blade Rush on cooldown.
- Cast Between The Eyes at 6 or more combo points.
- Cast Dispatch at 5 or more combo points.
- Cast Pistol Shot if Opportunity has 6 stacks or Opportunity has 3 stacks, and you are at 1-3 combo points.
- Cast Sinister Strike at 5 or less combo points.
Openers
Due to the fact Outlaw Rogue is a flat line spec without a major cooldown like most specs, the opener is focused on using every cooldown quickly, followed by returning to the default rotation fairly quickly.
Outlaw Rogue Opener:
- Cast Adrenaline Rush.
- Cast Roll The Bones.
- Cast Keep It Rolling.
- Cast Dispatch.
- Cast Blade Rush.
- Build with Sinister Strike, and Pistol Shot until 5 or more combo points.
- Cast Between The Eyes.
- Cast Preparation.
- Continue with normal rotation.
General Playstyle
Outlaw's playstyle is to remember to Always Be Casting (ABC).
The spec has one of the highest APMs in the game, so you always want to plan with your globals to make as few mistakes as possible. With the main passive of the spec, Restless Blades, there is a huge payoff for perfect play as all of your cooldowns get refunded faster, which keeps the loop going.
Cooldowns
Unlike a majority of specs in WoW, Outlaw Rogue doesn't really have a "major cooldown" in the traditional sense, instead trading that off for a mediocre cooldown that has an above average uptime.
Adrenaline Rush is the specs main cooldown. It increases energy regen and attack speed, and also lowers the GCD from 1 second to 0.8 with enough Haste. This cooldown in a vacuum is very weak, but it ends up having a 40% uptime in most encounters.
Roll The Bones on cast provides you a random stage each time it's cast. Higher stages grant you all the bonuses of the previous stages:
- Stage 1 is an increased Opportunity chance.
- Stage 2 is Sinister Strike generates an additional combo point.
- Stage 3 increases Restless Blades' effectiveness.
- Stage 4 is increased Critical Strike chance.
Keep It Rolling is a 6 minute cooldown on paper, but ends up being only around 1 minute due to Restless Blades. It extends the current rank of your Roll The Bones for an additional 30 seconds. The best use for it for Prepatch will be when you have a rank 2 or higher buff active.
Preparation resets the cooldown of the offensive abilities impacted by Restless Blades. Those being Blade Rush, Killing Spree, Adrenaline Rush, and Between The Eyes. You ideally want to use Preparation right after all those buttons are on cooldown, but because Preparation ISN’T on Restless Blades, as long as you don’t lose a cast throughout an encounter, it can be worth saving it for specific damage phases of an encounter.
Defensives
Rogue's defensive toolkit is one of the best in the game, thanks to Feint and Cloak Of Shadows.
Feint gives you a 40% damage reduction to AoE damage on a 15 second cooldown with 2 charges when talented, and Cloak Of Shadows gives you full immunity to magic damage on a 2-minute cooldown.
The other 2 defensive cooldowns Rogue has are Evasion and Crimson Vial. Evasion has a few niche uses for attacks that are frontal cleaves, and Crimson Vial is just a generic heal that costs a small amount of energy.