Assassination Cleave/mythic+ trash rotation?

[Deleted]

So I've been maining outlaw since release and starting to do higher Mythic+ dungeons (ie. +8s and higher), but been looking to switch to assassination since Outlaw has subpar dps on boss fights. I normally only use Assas. spec in raids, but don't feel comfortable using the spec in mythic+ because somehow I always end up with absurdly low dps on any trash packs.
I usually use FoK, do a couple of ruptures (2-3cp ones), and then start using envenoms (2-3cps finishers, depending on trash size).

I'm normally talented into Elaborate planning & Agonizing poison. (I use deadly poison for trash)
My crit is roughly ~34% and mastery ~115%

So I wanted to ask what's the usual rotation for aoeing trash?
Should you always be using Vendetta + Kingsbane off cd?

Any help/advice is appreciated!

[Deleted]

You should switch to deadly poison on trash pack (you can switch really quickly since 7.1). Using vendetta depends on the next pack ... I have legendary boots and 3 vendetta relics so I use it nearly on every pack but depending on the cd you have on vendetta, you have to manage it in order to destroy bosses. You have a crazy burst on ST boss if:
- you have vendetta UP
- you have vanish UP
- you have more than 3 CP to open with rupture

It really depends on your relics / having the legendary boots / the situation in the dungeon.

As for the rotation, FoK and spread rupture and when you have enough bleeds to have a decent energy sustain, start spending your CPs on envenom and wait for the poison bomb.

Hope this was helpful ...

[zyZ]

take subterfuge + spread garrote on 3 targets for opener

[Nythiz]

One thing I've been looking into for M+ trash as assassination is going for Subterfuge instead of Nightstalker.
Now those +50% dmg ruptures are sweet as living hell, don't get me wrong, but Subterfuge allows you to apply 3 Garottes as an opener.
This allows you to Garotte->Garotte->Garotte->Rupture and you'll pretty much have infinite energy from there on to FoK spam + Envenom. (Or possibly envenom first for a Poison Bomb proc and apply Ruptures with FoK spam.

It's really hard to get a good grip on these kind of things though, as people tend to default to raid talents as sims say they are better. But it's really really hard to sim a mythic+ run accurately.
Some are really hard to judge, such as:

- Tier 15: MP vs EP. I'm sure MP gains a lot from FoK spam with deadly, but EP also gains a lot as your finisher uptime is much much higher. I'm still edging towards EP as I like the multiplier bonus on all damage.

- Tier 30: Nightstalker vs Subterfuge. See above, nightstalker gives that big damage ruptures on boss fights, but I think subterfuge gives you a really strong opener on trash. And the latter is a bit of a weakpoint for Assass, so that might be nice too.

- Tier 45: Deeper Strategem vs Vigor. In a raid taking DS is almost a no brainer, but in mythic+ vigor offers a LOT for trash. It gives you more energy to start with, allowing you to get your rotation and thus energy income going fast; plus some added regen. The advantage of DS is much less on a trash heavy environment.

- Tier 60: Easily Elusiveness if you just make good use of feint.

- Tier 75: This is another one that can go all ways. Depending on how you use the talents. Thuggee is a solid basic choice. But I can see how PotW can be a solid pick for certain dungeons. +10% more damage from all sources on a Kidney Shot is strong. Internal bleeding might be too if it procs Venomous Wounds.

- Tier 90: AP is really strong on boss fights, Exsanguinate is strong overal. Seems we can easily go both ways here as well. Again, super strong AP for ST raid boss fights doesn't mean it holds the same value for mythic+.

- Tier 100: This mostly depends on the scale of the content you do I'd say. I quite like MfD for lower level M+ (1-4 or so) and Venomous wounds for anything above.
Although in those lower level ones it really doesn't matter as much, and you might as well go outlaw for better burst cleave.

As for cooldowns. I myself often tend to save them for the "big fights" as well; but when I really think about it, it's probably best to use them on cooldown (save for maybe 2-3 trashpacks before the boss). I'm pretty sure that using it on cooldown would net in a faster overal run than if you were to save them for big fights only, even if that means you might not get an optimal rotation on the boss (although in due time you learn the timing on Vendetta/KB good enough that you know on which trash you can use it and on which you should hold on to it).

Again I'm no expert on this. I'm up to like M+10 only. But I'm trying to start a discussion here as well, as I see a lot of rogues copy-pasting the raid talents and I don't think it's always the right way to go at M+ as assassination.

[coprax]

Assassination AOE dps is, in my opinion, too much reliant on poison bomb.
If it activates, dps is fantastic but if not, it's pitiful.

[kchurch]

Assassination AOE dps is, in my opinion, too much reliant on poison bomb.
If it activates, dps is fantastic but if not, it's pitiful.

Because of this reason, I have stuck to Outlaw for most Myth+. I'm only up to +10 as well.
I'm still learning assassination in Myth+ but I feel like the aoe trash damage is just better as outlaw.

I switch between outlaw and assassination in kara because I feel like it's better though.

[Deleted]

take subterfuge + spread garrote on 3 targets for opener

That's a terrible idea. You can't switch talents in dungeon. You are better off running with 2 dps players, that have proper cleave.

[Richie311]

That's a terrible idea. You can't switch talents in dungeon. You are better off running with 2 dps players, that have proper cleave.

Uh no, it's the proper way to play assass in Mythic+. The Vanish/Rupture dmg every 2 minutes you lose out on is negligible. Mythic+ isn't about boss damage, it's about trash damage. The more the better.

[Rucati]

That's a terrible idea. You can't switch talents in dungeon. You are better off running with 2 dps players, that have proper cleave.

Not even close.

In most Mythic+ you spend about 80% of the time clearing trash. It's the overwhelming majority of the dungeon. If you care at all about time you should be doing what you can to kill trash faster. Losing like 20k DPS on a boss is worth it to gain 10k DPS on all the trash. And subterfuge is *way* more 10k on trash.

[Deleted]

Uh no, it's the proper way to play assass in Mythic+. The Vanish/Rupture dmg every 2 minutes you lose out on is negligible. Mythic+ isn't about boss damage, it's about trash damage. The more the better.

Fair enough. I had tyranical in mind, which I wouldn't give up any dps on the boss for it.

[skindown]

Assassination AOE dps is, in my opinion, too much reliant on poison bomb.
If it activates, dps is fantastic but if not, it's pitiful.

You clearly need to do higher keys, we may not have AoE burst, we do suck on low ones, but mid/high ones we're one of the best ( if not the greatest ) melee spec to bring into a Mythic+

Fair enough. I had tyranical in mind, which I wouldn't give up any dps on the boss for it.

Even with Tyrannical, the amount you gain is too small compared to how easier and how faster you setup your trash rotation by Garroting 3 mobs before engaging FoK/Rupture cleave

[Demeia]

Just to be clear--those who use this DO switch to deadly poison (at least for trash) correct?

[Wow]

Assassination AOE dps is, in my opinion, too much reliant on poison bomb.
If it activates, dps is fantastic but if not, it's pitiful.

It really depends on what lvl keys you are doing. In lower m+ I agree in higher however assassin aoe is fine without poison bomb and some of the best with it.

[Grizvok]

Just to be clear--those who use this DO switch to deadly poison (at least for trash) correct?

Yes. If you play AP in dungeons you should switch to DP.

[Demeia]

Yes. If you play AP in dungeons you should switch to DP.

Would you rather just play a bleed build and avoid AP?

[Deleted]

Would you rather just play a bleed build and avoid AP?

Depends on your stats. You may even find AP being worse for you. Just got to sim it.


On topic anyone got the legendary cloak and can tell what a difference it makes?

[Grizvok]

Would you rather just play a bleed build and avoid AP?

Yeah that's what I do. I think Exsanguinate is better for the high M+ when you generally need to focus down high priority targets very quickly. I think EP/Exsanguinate burst is unparalleled when it comes to sin rogue builds. I have a few crit/vers pieces I throw on instead of crit/mastery but it doesn't make a huge difference.

[Demeia]

Depends on your stats. You may even find AP being worse for you. Just got to sim it.


On topic anyone got the legendary cloak and can tell what a difference it makes?

I do but my guild doesn't go into 5s never mind the 8+ where sin would shine. It's...odd using FoK in your rotation but it's supposed to sim to a few percent of my dps if I use it with a 30 stack. Did very well in a mythic +2 when i forgot to switch to outlaw but that just tells you how weak our Mythic+ skills are.

On an amusing note, I can safely say a bleed build would probably be subpar for me on paper since master poisoner sims stronger for me than Elaborate Planning in the Agonizing Poison build. That stupid neck has a LOT of mastery on it. Robot agrees with that but I haven't run it through simcraft yet.

Edit: If I ever get a chance I'll try what you suggest Griv as that sounds like it would be better in practice.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the replies guys, been a great help.

So I did a quick Mythic NL run as a practice run on the spec, taking subterfuge over nightstalker, EP, but sticking with AP.

So as an opener on a trash pack: Garrote-> Garrote-> Garrote -> Rupture on prio mob.
and then: FoK -> Envenom -> FoK -> Envenom etc. etc.

When garrotes & rupture time out, which is likely for high mythic+s, should I be reapplying ruptures to the pack again? And if its a huge pack of trash, apply rupture to just a few of them?

I felt as tho AP was really wasted since I wasn't using it on trash, and for bosses, you can't always be tunnel visioning on bosses and ignore the adds. Depending on the dungeon, bosses normally have extra adds (ie. every NL boss had adds), and these adds normally can't be left alone on high Mythic+, so perhaps exang would've been the better talent choice as it'd be good for trash as well.

[Nythiz]

When garrotes & rupture time out, which is likely for high mythic+s, should I be reapplying ruptures to the pack again? And if its a huge pack of trash, apply rupture to just a few of them?

Ye you'll have to. Your energy income is largely dependent on those ruptures. It's nice if you have a weakaura or tracker to track all your bleeds (or if you have good ones you can rely on unit frames). Reapplying when mobs are nearly dead is not needed I guess, but your energy income takes a massive hit without bleeds.
So I usually just ballpark and reapply bleeds based on how long they remain alive. If they die within the next 5 seconds I don't reapply bleeds; if they live between 5-15 sec a single FoK->Rupture is plenty.

I felt as tho AP was really wasted since I wasn't using it on trash, and for bosses, you can't always be tunnel visioning on bosses and ignore the adds. Depending on the dungeon, bosses normally have extra adds (ie. every NL boss had adds), and these adds normally can't be left alone on high Mythic+, so perhaps exang would've been the better talent choice as it'd be good for trash as well.

Of course AP is wasted largely in M+. I'm kinda amazed so many people still defend it as the optimal choice when you don't even make use of the talent 90% of the entire dungeon. Largely due to sheepishly following sims optimized for raids.

This is the downside of sims, as people take them as some kind of divine scripture instead of using their gray mass. I think depending on the speed of your run both of the alternatives to AP are much better. I mean I'm not a fan of Alacrity in general, but you can probably keep that rolling if the trash packs are following eachother up fast. Otherwise I'd take Exsanguinate as there are a lot of priority targets in trash, and on boss fights it's not THAT much worse than AP. Of course that also changes stat priority, but with the amount of FoK you spam, mastery isn't as bad as it is on a raid based bleed build.