Introduction
Hey, my name is Stealthi. I raid and play rogue in the guild Colour on Stormreaver EU. We are a 3 day guild that tries to make the most out of our 3 days of raiding to hover around world rank 50.
I've been in the top end of public logged Subtlety rogues for the last few years, and I strive to continuously improve my gameplay while finding new and better ways to play the spec.
One of my favorite things to do is to help out other people become better at Subtlety. Which is why you will most likely be able to find me chatting a lot in the Subtlety channel in the rogue class discord Ravenholdt.
If you have any questions about this guide or want me to elaborate on some parts, do not be afraid to DM me on discord or ping me in the Subtlety channel.
I hope you will find this guide helpful and something to lean into when learning the spec or taking that next step in your understanding of how to play Subtlety.
About the specialization
Subtlety is a spec that offers a lot of flexibility in how you deal damage. It can tackle almost any kind of damage scenario (mostly due to Invigorating Shadowdust.) It however does appear to become a little bit more complex to play going in The War Within, which might be a turn off for some players, since we need to track a good bit more things now.
Overall I think subtlety is in an interesting spot going into The War Within.
Disclaimer: Anything gameplay wise and item wise for gearing is very much subject to change since this all just based on Beta findings and Blizzard are pumping out tuning changes 24/7 at the moment.
Strengths
- Varied damage profile.
- Cooldown flexibility.
- Mobility through Sprint, Shadowstep, and Vanish + Shadowstrike teleports.
- Durable with Feint, Cloak of Shadows, and Cheat Death.
- Many control options in M+ and on raid bosses with adds.
Weaknesses
- Mediocre two and three target cleave.
- Loses a moderate amount of DPS during frequent downtime periods due to cooldown reduction (CDR) mechanics and gaining resources from auto-attacks.
What has changed
Going into The War Within, the most notable changes to the spec is some talents that have either been removed or moved around, most notably the removal of Nightstalker (8% dmg during stealth) which changes some gameplay for us which is always nice and Subterfuge got moved down into its spot to become a two pointer for 3-6 sec duration.
We also saw Without a Trace getting moved into the General Rogue tree instead of being Subtlety only, which makes the infamous Shadowdust build a lot more expensive to pick up but still remains very strong.
We also have Cut to the Chase becoming baseline for all three specs, which basically means we only press Slice and Dice once per fight now and due to Cut to the Chase becoming baseline they reworked Premeditation removing the Slice and Dice part of it so it now only grants full combo points on your next builder from stealth.
The long awaited removal of Shadow Dance from the General Rogue tree has also happened making it so Shadow Dance is now only available for Subtlety and the 2nd charge is now found in our Spec tree.
And probably the most discussed talent change of the class Acrobatic Strikes got reworked into an auto attack damage / movement speed talent, which not a lot of people are happy with.
Lastly, of course going into The War Within we also have these new “Hero talents” which for Subtlety is Deathstalker and Trickster, they are a bit much to go over in this short section of what has changed so i'll explain them more in their own section down below.