SUB ROGUE ADVANCED TIPS

SHADOW DANCE + SECRET TECHNIQUE

In this next segment of our course we're going to be meticulously dissecting each of your key offensive cooldowns. We're going to give you a comprehensive breakdown on how they work, we're also going to go behind the rules to using them.

Starting off with the one ability that truly determines how we use every other cooldown that we have, Shadow Dance. Where do we even start with Shadow Dance?

Shadow Dance is basically the core ability of the Subtlety Rogue spec. Your ability to win hinges almost entirely on Shadow Dance.

Now the good news, it's actually pretty dang easy to use. It has a one minute cooldown, it gives you stealth bonuses and modifiers for eight seconds, and if you take the Double Dance talent you're going to get two charges of it.

But with Deepening Shadows you get a cooldown reduction for every combo point you spend, similar to Restless Blades for Outlaw. Our first rule when using Shadow Dance, and it's important to not forget, do not use Dance when everyone is on Stun DR.

Since your kill opportunities depend entirely on this ability, you definitely don't want to waste it. If you try to go for a one shot without setting up with CC first, let's just say, you're going to be very disappointed with the results.

We can see this in action right here. The Rogue uses Shadow Dance while the healer is sapped, allowing them to land cheap shots on the Paladin to begin their go.

Now, you're also going to notice the Rogue used Shadow Blades during Shadow Dance, which brings us to our next rule. Our second rule is to always pair a cooldown with Shadow Dance.

On its own, Shadow Dance is powerful, but it's even more powerful when combined with other cooldowns. As we saw in the previous VOD, the Rogue paired Shadow Dance with Shadow Blades.

Now, you might be wondering why the Rogue didn't just pop every cooldown at once. Well, that's because the Warrior was out of crowd control.

You don't want to put all your eggs in one basket here when someone's able to stop your go. If you're confident you can secure a kill, then using all your cooldowns together does make sense, but you need to assess the situation and play smart.

Our final rule is to always pair Secret Technique with Shadow Dance. Secret Technique is our hardest hitting finisher with a 1 minute cooldown.

The best part? It benefits from the same cooldown reduction as Shadow Dance, so they'll always line up perfectly.

Using them together guarantees maximum burst damage and makes your go far more threatening.

SHADOW BLADES

Welcome back to another installment in our Subtlety Rogue damage course. In this video we're going to be continuing to break down our offensive cooldowns with Shadow Blades, providing you with a comprehensive breakdown on how this ability works and the rules behind using it.

Shadow Blades is often pretty misunderstood by newer Subtlety Rogues. This ability has gone through a lot of changes, but in its current form in The War Within, it makes all your combo point generators instantly give you full combo points.

That means any combo point generator you use will give you a full 7 combo points. This drastically changes your burst rotation as you can use a generator and immediately follow up with a finisher, delivering some of your highest burst damage.

Because of its high burst potential, we generally want to use Shadow Blades only during our Shadow Dance windows. There might be rare situations where Shadow Blades is off cooldown and you use it to finish off a kill, but if that kill doesn't happen, you have essentially wasted one of your combo points.

This is a great way to use Shadow Blades to finish off a kill, but if that kill doesn't happen, you have essentially wasted one of your combo points. of your most important cooldowns. Timing it with Shadow Dance ensures you get the most value from the cooldown.

We can see this in action right here in this VOD. The Rogue has Shadow Blades off cooldown and could use it at any moment, but they intentionally wait until Shadow Dance is back before using Shadow Blades for two key reasons.

First, they know they won't secure a kill if they pop Shadow Blades now. And second, they see that Shadow Dance is coming off cooldown soon, so there's no real benefit to using it early.

They can't wait to use Shadow Dance to finish off a kill, but they maximize their burst potential and set up a much stronger kill opportunity.

SYMBOLS OF DEATH

Welcome back to another video in our Subtlety Rogue damage course. Today we're going to be taking a closer look at Symbols of Death.

We're going to walk you through how it works, when to use it, and the strategies to ensure you are getting the most out of this ability. Symbols of Death is an incredibly powerful cooldown, yet it is surprisingly simple at the same time.

It boosts your damage and restores energy when used on a 30 second cooldown. What's new in Patch 11.2 is the fact that Symbols will now also consume a stack of Deathstalker's Mark with the 4 piece set bonus.

What this means for you is that we are ideally using Symbols with Deathstalker's Mark already on the target, allowing us to get to Darkest Night just a little bit faster. Naturally you're going to want to pair Symbols of Death with your other cooldowns, but it's not as straightforward as the other ones.

Timing it properly can make a huge difference in your burst, so knowing when to use it is just as important. When using Symbols of Death, your main goal is to pair at least one charge with Shadow Dance.

But if you think you can force more defensives, don't be afraid to use both charges. With its short 30 second cooldown, you're always going to have at least one charge ready for your next go, even if you use both.

As you might have guessed, it's smart to spend some energy first to fully benefit from Symbols of Death's energy restoration. Popping Symbols at full energy wastes part of its value.

In this clip we see the Rogue use a few abilities to burn off energy before activating all their cooldowns. Shadow Dance, Shadow Blades, and Symbols of Death.

You're going to notice the Rogue uses a second charge of Symbols of Death. Here the Rogue is confident they can force even more defensives by committing both charges.

SUB VANISH TIPS

The last offensive cooldown we're going to explore in detail for this course is Vanish, along with the various talents and interactions that it has. Vanish isn't as important offensively for Subtlety Rogue as it is for Outlaw or Assassination.

Now this is mainly because Shadow Dance already provides all the same benefits as Vanish and even more. However, Vanish still has its uses in certain situations and we need to talk about those.

The most common use of Vanish is to stop a GO on yourself or a teammate. In this clip we can see the Rogue is taking heavy damage, so they use Vanish defensively.

Vanish grants premeditation which gives the Rogue full combo points on their next combo point generator. They quickly use this to land a full kidney shot into Shadow Dance.

This clever use of Vanish allowed the Rogue to turn a defensive move into an offensive GO, shifting the momentum in the matchup. Which leads us into our Subtlety Rogue Meanwhile, the Rogue uses Vanish to stop Vanish's Kills. second use, which is to set up a go.

Because of the premeditation talent, Vanish will give us full combo points on our next generator. This works exactly the same as Shadow Blades, and the only difference is that it's for a single ability.

As we saw in the previous clip, the Rogue use this to get a full kidney shot, allowing them to start their go instantly. Not all Subtlety Rogue builds take the two charges of Vanish like other Rogue specs, given its more limited usefulness.

If you're only running one charge of Vanish, it's best to use defensively, and whenever possible, you should try to turn that defensive play into an offensive go.

WATCH THEIR COOLDOWNS

You get ready to Shadow Dance, and then out of nowhere, the Paladin used Bubble. What the heck happened?

You thought they had no cooldowns. But you didn't realize that the Paladin's Bubble was coming off cooldown right before your go.

Watching your enemy's defensive cooldowns is so important, and you should be checking what they have every single time you do a go. As a Subtlety Rogue, it's crucial to always keep track of who has defensives and who can peel your go.

Blindly committing to a go is a recipe for disaster as it allows the enemy team to rotate through their cooldowns and their defensives. Now think about it.

Would you rather attack a target with every defensive ability available, or the one who has nothing left to stop you? The choice is pretty clear.

So let's break down this clip here. Can you spot the defensives that are still up?

The Paladin still has Blessing of Protection and Blessing of Sanctuary. The Warrior has Enraged Regeneration, and the Evoker has a Trinket but no other cooldowns.

So who should we target next? Well, if you guessed the Paladin, you're right.

And here's why. First, using Blessing of Protection forces the Paladin into a pretty tough spot, since both the Priest and the Mage can both purge this cooldown it really isn't that effective.

Second, this forces the Evoker to Trinket, which sets up for a perfect opportunity for the Priest to land a fear. The Paladin is then left with no choice but to use Blessing of Sanctuary on the fear.

By choosing the correct kill target, the Rogue effectively forced every remaining cooldown from both the Paladin and the Evoker. If the Rogue had gone for the Warrior, Enraged Regeneration could have been used in the stun and they would have not needed a save from the Evoker or the Paladin.

And if the Rogue had targeted the Evoker, they could have simply just Trinketed to escape without needing any assistance.

YOU’RE NOT A DPS

You. Are.

Not. A DPS.

Now, you might be a little bit confused by hearing that. And you might be thinking, but there's no rogue tank or rogue healer though, right?

Well, you'd be right. But here's the thing.

If you're chasing the top of the DPS meters, you're going to be a little bit disappointed. As a subtlety rogue, you're going to find yourself at the bottom of the meters in nearly every single game.

And you really have to be okay with that. If you're focused on being the highest overall DPS, then subtlety really isn't the spec for you.

Subtlety wins through perfectly timed goes and well executed CC. Now, you might be wondering after hearing that, especially if DPS isn't your focus, what should you be doing in between your goes?

Well, it really depends on the situation. If your team is behind, your job is going to be to peel.

If you don't have a defensive vanish available, you should be actively looking for opportunities. If you're a low tier, you should be looking for opportunities to re-stealth.

As a subtlety rogue, re-stealthing is going to be key. It allows you to stack full combo points on your next generator thanks to premeditation and allows you to apply Deathstalker's Mark with a Shadow Strike.

By using cheap shots, disarms, and preventing the enemy from landing a kill, you're buying time to get to your next go. After every single go, you should be asking yourself, how can I live until the next go?

If you watch here, the rogue isn't doing damage. He's just trying to survive until the next go.

Another option is to prime your targets so you don't waste globals during that go. This means making sure your kill target has a rupture applied, full stacks of wound poison, and trying to spend as many combo points as possible.

Doing so ensures you get cooldown reduction for Secret Technique and Shadow Dance. Now, one key thing to remember here is that you definitely don't want to waste kidney shot if you don't have Shadow Dance available.

START SWAPPING

As a melee, you already know that uptime is absolutely everything. But do you ever catch yourself chasing a target for just a little bit too long?

So let's break down exactly what you need to do to maximize your uptime. Instead of stubbornly tunneling one single target, you should swap your GO to their teammates who have been trading cooldowns all game to keep them alive.

By applying pressure to multiple targets, you can force even more cooldowns, which make it impossible to continually rotate through cooldowns on your GOs. You really don't even have to wait for your teammates to use cooldowns.

As soon as you force a cooldown from someone, you can immediately swap to another target and push for even more. If you manage to force two trinkets in a single GO, it leaves their third teammate as the only option to save the second GO.

In this case, by the third GO, no one will have a trinket left, putting you in a prime position to secure the win. The moral of this story is pretty simple.

If you tunnel into a single target, you will have to wait for your teammates to use cooldowns. If you tunnel into a single target, you are making it way too easy for the enemy to rotate their cooldowns.

By not swapping between targets, you are essentially relying on them to make mistakes and overlap cooldowns, which is far from reliable.

DON’T WASTE YOUR ENERGY

You pop Shadow Dance, ready to unleash your burst. Then you hear those dreaded words, I have no energy.

Suddenly you're stuck. You're unable to push any damage, desperately staring at your energy bar, hoping it refills before the stun ends.

You never want to initiate a go without energy. A common mistake many, many new Subtlety Rogues make, especially those transitioning from Assassination or from Outlaw, is trying to push too many Globals and just wasting energy between goes.

As a Subtlety Rogue, you rely heavily on your go to secure a win, so energy pooling is really going to be crucial. This means you should never initiate a go without having a full or nearly full energy bar.

So let's take a look at this clip. You can see that the Rogue isn't running around wasting Globals or spending unnecessary energy.

They're entering their go with full energy. Now you don't need to have full energy for every single go, but you should definitely aim for at least 140 to 160 energy.

This gives you enough room to generate energy with symbols of death, while still having enough to execute your burst rotation without running out of energy.

ELUSIVENESS VS CHEAT DEATH AS SUB

You might be scratching your head wondering why anyone would ever not take Cheat Death. But if you start looking around, you're going to notice many rogues opting for elusiveness.

So what the heck is going on here? The answer really isn't as clear cut as you might think.

So let's break down when it's better to choose elusiveness over Cheat Death. Cheat Death might seem like a no-brainer on paper.

You get to cheat death and avoid dying when you should have. It's pretty simple.

Now, in most cases, it works just as you'd expect. However, it's really not quite as good as it seems.

Cheat Death can fail into certain classes. If you watch top rogue streamers, you're going to often see them proc Cheat Death and die in the exact same second.

The reason for this is that Cheat Death doesn't stop incoming damage. It just has a small delay before it activates, which can sometimes be enough for you to die before it kicks in or you just die shortly after it procs.

Now what this means is that Cheat Death isn't particularly effective against classes that deal a lot of small hits all at once, like certain DOTS classes or Demo Warlocks. This is where elusiveness becomes a solid option here.

When you activate Feint, it reduces all damage taken by 20%, which provides you with an additional wall you can use throughout the game. Elusiveness also has the added benefit of giving a 20% damage reduction to Evasion.

When you combine this with Feint, you can survive almost any situation. If you're really struggling to survive, consider taking the preemptive maneuver.

You can also use the ability to evade the enemy's attack. The ability to evade the enemy's attack is a great way to increase your maneuver talent, along with elusiveness.

This combination makes Feint reduce your damage taken by an additional 40% while stunned, while also lowering its energy cost by 30%. With this combo, you can consistently use Feint, which makes you extremely difficult to kill during stun setups.

Preemptive maneuver is a bit more advanced, but worth mastering because of how lifesaving it is against bursty compositions. Your goal is to try and pre-feint every single stun.

Now to do this, you have to know two things. Whether the enemy team has a stun available, and whether you are off stun DR.

If both of these things are true, and you are the kill target, you should proactively press Feint, which, at the very least, will deter the enemy team from committing their stun. And if you do manage to pre-feint their go, you'll have massive damage reduction.

EVASION DEFENSIVE TIPS AS SUB

Hello everyone and welcome to a new course on Sub-Rogue Defensive Plays. In this course we're going to be discussing in detail all of the important defensive spells for you to use in situations where you need to survive or peel for your teammates.

So today's topic we're going to be going over Evasion being an essential defensive tool that you have to know how to use. So let's get right into it.

Evasion is a powerful defensive on a 2 minute cooldown, increasing your dodge chance by 100% for 10 seconds. Now as such, this defensive cooldown is typically used to trade with enemy offensive cooldowns.

This is going to make a much more lackluster, denying the enemy from a lot of pressure. A good example is when facing Feral Druids, using it against their Incarnation cooldown.

It shares the exact same cooldown with your Evasion and it's a powerful offensive. So reducing its pressure with Evasion is an excellent trade for yourself.

One big downside with Evasion is that if you're stunned during it, then your dodge effect will no longer work. Basically making it useless.

So if you can help it, try to avoid being stunned on it or possibly save your trinket for the stuns to make sure your Evasion works well. Also some spells work through Evasion so you're going to want to be careful of them when facing certain classes.

For example, Cheap Shot can land during your Evasion which makes it useless and allows the enemy team to keep pressuring you. If this happens, you may need to use more defensive cooldowns in order to survive.

Note that if you play with the Deathstalker Hero talents, you get access to Bait and Sworn. Note that if you play with the Deathstalker Hero talents, you get access to Bait and Sworn.

Note that if you play with the Deathstalker Hero talents, you get access to Bait and Sworn. Note that if you play with the Deathstalker Hero talents, you get access to Bait and Sworn.

Note that if you play with the Deathstalker Hero talents, you get access to Bait and Sworn. Note that if you play with the Deathstalker Hero talents, you get access to Bait and Sworn.

Note that if you play with the Deathstalker Hero talents, you get access to Bait and Sworn. Note that if you play with the Deathstalker Hero talents, you get access to Bait and Sworn.

Note that if you play with the Deathstalker Hero talents, you get access to Bait and Sworn. Note that if you play with the Deathstalker Hero talents, you get access to Bait and Sworn.

Note that if you play with the Deathstalker Hero talents, you get access to Bait and Sworn. but only in situations where you don't need it for melee. So this would typically be against double wizard comps, using your evasion as a damage reduction in these situations, benefiting from 20% reduced spell damage.

CLOAK OF SHADOWS DEFENSIVE TIPS AS SUB

Welcome back to another video on Rogue Defensive Plays. Today we're going to be going over Cloak of Shadows, being a key defensive cooldown for any Rogue spec.

We're also going to discuss this defensive in detail on how to best use this for defensive situations. Cloak of Shadows gives Rogue an immunity to all spell effects, as well as removing current magic debuffs on themselves.

It's incredibly powerful against casters, as it can immune all of their damage, denying all of their pressure. You should ideally trade Cloak of Shadows for offensive cooldowns, keeping yourself aggro and denying the enemy from any spell pressure.

You could also use it as a lifesaver cooldown if you ever drop too low on HP and need to survive caster pressure. This is the backup way to use it, where you're better safe than sorry in these certain circumstances.

You could potentially use Cloak to remove CC from yourself if you know that it could be deadly. If you know big spell damage is coming and you're in CC, then using Cloak to stay aggro and keep yourself safe is going to be useful.

If you know that you're in CC, then using Cloak to stay aggro and keep yourself safe is going to be useful if the trade-off is good. So make sure you know the matchup that you're in, expecting to trade Cloak of Shadows well against heavy magic offensive cooldowns.

Again, if you play as Deathstalker, you're going to have access to bait and switch, which means your Cloak could be useful against physical damage if you don't have evasion.

Having that extra damage reduction could be needed if there's no other spell damage in the game, reducing physical pressure by a bit, which could help you survive.

VANISH DEFENSIVE TIPS AS SUB

Welcome back everyone to another video on Rogue Defensive Plays. Today's topic is going to be on Vanish, being an important cooldown that you have to know to use in defensive situations.

So without further ado, let's get into it. Many players believe that Cloak of Shadows or Evasion is your best defensive cooldown, but in fact, it's actually Vanish.

This cooldown allows you to go back into stealth while in combat, preventing enemy players from being able to hit you for at least 3 seconds. Now it doesn't sound powerful, I get that, but think of it as having a divine shield for 3 seconds.

Makes it an excellent lifesaver cooldown in any situation. Rogues can be vulnerable without other defensive cooldowns ready, and if you're a main kill target, you may need Vanish defensively in order to live.

In matchups where this is the case, using your Medallion Trinket in combination with Vanish may be... warranted. This is going to be your safety net to always being able to get out of trouble when you're low on health.

You want to use Vanish defensively whenever you're on the brink of death and you need to keep yourself alive. This is common when you have no Cloak of Shadows or Evasion ready, and you need that extra defensive to survive when low on HP.

Sometimes you may even need to use it during Evasion or Cloak of Shadows if the enemy pressure is overwhelming. This can absolutely be common against Melee plus caster matchups or when the enemy team has a ton of pressure.

So don't be afraid to use it. It's good to Vanish even with your other defensives up if it's necessary for you to stay alive.

FEINT DEFENSIVE TIPS AS SUB

Welcome back everyone to another skill-capped guide on Rogue Defensive Plays. In this course, we're going to be discussing all the important spells to keep you and your teammates alive.

For today's video, we're going to be going over Feint and how to use this spell properly to survive well in any game. The reason why Feint is so powerful is that there's multiple talents that bolster its effect, being Elusiveness, Graceful Guile, and Preemptive Maneuver.

Combined together, you have a 15 second cooldown Feint with two charges that'll reduce all damage taken by 20% while it's active. With Preemptive Maneuver, this gets buffed by an additional 40% if you have Feint up while you're under a stun effect.

Now as you can imagine, this is absurdly powerful as you're basically unkillable if you can get Feint off before your stun. That means the best use of your Feint is just before a stun lands, reducing all incoming damage by a ton saving you the need to use any other defensive cooldowns.

Even if you don't do it directly on the stun, it can delay a stun go on yourself, buying you time to either kite away or for your healer to keep you alive if need be. They could also be more prepared to use defensive cooldowns knowing you won't have Fade ready for the next go.

Even during Feint, without being stunned, you still take 20% less damage, making you much more durable to constant pressure. Now due to its low cooldown and two charges, you'll want to abuse this as often as possible to reduce pressure on yourself.

However, you still want to try and time your Feint properly to do it preemptively on stuns when you expect them. Doing this well is going to keep you in the fight for much longer, making it very difficult for enemy players to take you down.

It's the essence of survival for rogues at the moment, so keep practicing to use it well and become nearly unkillable for your team, making it much more likely for you to win a game.

GOUGE DEFENSIVE TIPS AS SUB

Welcome back to another video guide in this course on Rogue Defensive Plays. Today's topic is going to be based on Gouge and how using this peeling tool can be vital in certain defensive situations.

We're going to go in-depth on the best way to use this to help your team live. Now, even though Gouge is usually used offensively, there can definitely be times where it's vital to use for defensive measures.

It incapacitates the enemy target for 4 seconds, preventing them from using any spells during this time. Now, one reason for this is that Rogue Mage is usually a popular composition, and Gouge shares diminishing returns with Polymorph.

Usually, sheeps are used commonly on DPS targets, meaning that defensive Gouge is rarely used when playing with mages. However, in times of need, or when you're playing with other DPS partners, you can look to use Gouge as a way to peel pressure from the enemy team.

This can be good during offensive cooldowns or whenever your team needs extra peeling in order to live. Just make sure you don't always...

Just do this, as it is commonly used on healers to set up CC on them. So don't overuse it defensively, but know that the option is definitely there for whenever you need extra peeling.

BLIND DEFENSIVE TIPS AS SUB

Hello everyone and welcome to another video guide on Rogue Defensive Plays. Today we're going to be going over Blind, discussing how to use this for defensive measures when needed.

We're going to go over it in detail, when exactly to use it defensively, and how it can help your team stay alive. Blind is usually another ability that's used for offensive measures, typically on healers so you can chain it with other CC, gaining huge pressure on DPS players.

It disorients a target for 6 seconds, denying them from being able to use any spells at their disposal. It's also undispellable, making it easy to apply as long as people aren't on the same diminishing returns as fear spells.

Using Blind defensively can happen during times of desperation, when you or your partners don't have a great answer to deal with powerful offensive CDs. You can use Blind on them in these situations, preventing them from getting off their big pressure.

Sometimes they may have the Medallion Trinket to get rid of this, but doing so opens them up to your stun windows or other forms of CC, which you could absolutely use. Control them with.