Welcome to Skill Capped’s Guide on the Best PvP Talents & Hero Talents for Assassination Rogues in The War Within 11.0

All sections for Assassination Rogue PvP have been divided into corresponding sections for the most optimal hero talents, class talents, spec talents, race, stats, gear, enchants, gems, and macros. This will help you have a good understanding of Assassination Rogues in PvP for The War Within, the strengths and weaknesses associated with this specialization, and help you conquer the arena. This section will guide you on the best Assassination Rogue PvP Talents in The War Within.

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Hero Talents: Deathstalker
Hero Talents: Fatebound
Class Talents
Spec Talents
PvP Talents

The War Within expands our arsenal of talent options, which include our new talent hero talent trees, Deathstalker and Fatebound. Although Fatebound is a bit lackluster in its current state, you can opt for this if you want passive enhancements without much change to your rotation.

Now, let’s delve deeper to best allocate your talent points for both Hero builds.

Hero Talents: Deathstalker

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Our new Deathstalker Hero talent tree supplements our potential spread pressure damage, as we receive talents that greatly enhance our Fan of Knives and Rupture while also amplifying our single target burst windows, making our rotation feel more fluid.

For our hallmark talent we have Deathstalker’s Mark, which puts 3 stacks of this debuff on our preferred target after using Ambush. After using a finisher on the target we put Deathstalker’s Mark on, we consume one stack to deliver some additional on-demand damage and to buff our next Ambush and Mutilate by 50%. This is great for Ambush during our burst windows as Mutilate is quite marginal in its damage.

Moving forward, let’s look at a few talents here that require a bit more understanding to maximize their effects.

Clear the Witnesses makes it important to weave in Fan of Knives after consuming a stack of Deathstalker’s Mark, as your Fan of Knives deals a bit more damage and we generate an additional combo point from it.
Lingering Darkness makes our single target damage more powerful after Deathmark fades, as it buffs our Envenom or Kingsbane damage. Kingsbane is more of an optional talent, but if you do select it this ability will do the most amount of damage while Lingering Darkness is active.
Darkest Night, as our capstone node, is the bread and butter of this entire Hero talent tree. This provides us with 40 Energy once we receive this buff, and empowers our next Envenom, giving it buffs to its damage while guaranteeing it to crit on our target. You’ll be able to obtain this buff after consuming all three stacks of Deathstalker’s Mark off our primary target, which can be used to make unexpected setups way deadlier.

We have one choice node that can be swapped around, which is between Bait and Switch and Ethereal Cloak.

Ethereal Cloak is more of an aggressive pick, allowing you to negate magic damage and Crowd Control for longer while Cloak of Shadows is active.
Bait and Switch is more of a defensive option, as this makes our Evasion now reduce 20% of all magic damage taken, and makes Cloak of Shadows reduce 20% of all physical damage taken while active.

Hero Talents: Fatebound

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Next up, we have Fatebound, and is best selected for longer-drawn out games as you will be constantly ramping up your damage with our hallmark talent, Hand of Fate. This essentially flips a coin after you press one of your finishers. If tails, this does immediate damage to your selected target, and if heads you receive a 10% damage buff for 15 seconds. If you flip the same side consecutively, this will only amplify the effects given.

Although most of these talents are passive enhancements to your rotation, there are a few that require a bit more understanding, mainly to help you receive benefit out of our endcap node, Fateful Ending, which grants us a passive 7% Agility buff until we leave combat.

Edge Case makes your next coin flip account for both heads and tails after using Deathmark, making it guaranteed to receive Fateful Ending if you have landed on the same 6 faces consecutively. Keep in mind that this may not always be the best way to utilize Deathmark, as a well-timed one could help you close out a game.
Double Jeopardy gives you two coins of the same face after coming out of Stealth. You’ll benefit the most out of this during your openers or Vanish. To maximize this effect, you can combine these with Edge Case if you have landed on the same 5 faces consecutively to guarantee your Fateful Ending buff.

Rogue Class Talents

In the Rogue Class talent tree, most of your talent choices will be mandatory when advancing onto each tier. Some of most noteworthy mandatory talents are:

Blackjack to reduce damage and healing on an enemy target by 30% after being affected by Sap or Blind, making it harder for Healers to recover coming out of Crowd Control chains.
Cheat Death to survive during those clutch moments where a bit of extra delay can guarantee your recovery.
Deeper Stratagem, which synergizes phenomenally with Sanguine Stratagem in our spec tree for a total of 7 max combo points, allowing us to further maximize our burst coming out of our finishers.

If you want to make use out of Thick as Thieves as one of our optional PvP talents, you will want to swap out Blackjack with Tricks of the Trade in our choice node.

Assassination Spec Talents

For our spec talents, most of these will be mandatory as you advance onto each tier. Some of the most noteworthy talents are:

Serrated Bone Spikes, which now applies its on-demand damage and bleed effect on the target you pressed Rupture on.
Indiscriminate Carnage, making it efficient to throw out Garrote and Rupture during Stealth or Subterfuge.
Arterial Precision, Improved Shiv, and Tiny Toxic Blade to make our Shiv an offensive burst cooldown instead of solely using it to benefit off of Hemotoxin for a stronger healing reduction effect.

Alternatively, you can select Kingsbane instead of Serrated Bone Spikes if you want more single target burst.

Kingsbane deals some hefty on-demand nature damage to your selected target, and a DoT effect on the nature school that ticks for a substantial amount. This becomes even stronger when our Lingering Darkness buff is up from our Deathstalker Hero tree.

Additionally, you can swap out Sanguine Stratagem for Flying Daggers against classes that are comprised of an arsenal of pets or minions, primarily BM Hunters, Death Knights, Restoration Druids, or Demonology Warlocks. This is because you’re bound to hit 5 or more targets against these classes, providing you with an increased damage buff on Fan of Knives.

Assassination Rogue PvP Talents

In the current meta, your default Assassination PvP talent loadout will typically include Hemotoxin, Veil of Midnight, and Smoke Bomb.

Hemotoxin makes any target affected by Shiv have 30% healing reduction for 8 seconds.
Veil of Midnight is great against melees to remove bleeds like Feral Frenzy or Dragon Roar off yourself. A neat mechanic this PvP talent provides is that you can immune incoming physical projectiles like Storm Bolt if you time it well enough, reacting similar to Shadowmeld.
Smoke Bomb opens up more win conditions by playing off of the enemy’s trinkets.

Finally, you can swap to/from Veil of Midnight or Hemotoxin if the enemy team can dispel poisons, mainly Druids, Evokers, Monks, and Paladins. This is dependent on the matchup, which includes some of these optional talents:

Dismantle, which becomes more mandatory against powerful melee brawler specs, especially against Warriors after they use Warbreaker or Recklessness.
Thick as Thieves if your ally can deliver some nasty burst during your setups. Make sure to swap out Blackjack for Tricks of the Trade to make use of this PvP talent.
Control is King can be a potential pick to make our momentum stronger and our rotation feel a bit more fluid. This should only be selected if you gain no value out of both Veil of Midnight and Hemotoxin.