State of Assassination Rogue Spec [Raid/M+/PvE]

Classes Rogue
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You probably remember my earlier topic on the forum:
https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/lets-talk-about-the-assassination-patch-105/426732

Despite providing substantive feedback from players on how the Assassination spec works, Blizzard still hasn’t made any changes regarding how it’s played and its potential.

At the moment, Assassination is at the bottom of the table in relation to DPS according to WarcraftLogs. This refers to the individual stats: Max Percentiles, 95% Percentiles, All Percentiles. This spec is currently at the very bottom by a wide margin.

It is also worth noting that Assassination was strongest at the very beginning of the patch in ST fights, which is why it was nerfed. In my opinion, this was a completely unfounded decision, as it hardly matters how much a spec does without a tier set and the best gear available. I would also mention the fact that Assassination potentially before the nerf could achieve simulated DPS compared to other classes that do the same DPS at the moment(for example, the beast master hunter - which, by the way, even received a buff in patch 10.0.7!).

As I wrote in the previous topic - I understand that some class has to be at the very bottom and this is fairly normal. However, Assassination has always been a fairly chill spec. In DF, it has been made much more complicated than ever before, while being neutered from being able to achieve similar results to others. I don’t see the point in complicating the spec and making it not only worse to play with, but the results are worse too!

At the moment Assassination is F-tier regarding M+. The AoE is totally below compared to other classes/specs. And I mean both game-play and DPS. Indiscriminate Carnage is a talent that looks like a cheap bandage put on an amputated limb. We can’t even do any damage while chain-pulling, as we have to restealth for the garrote damage buff to actually do any non-subpar DPS. Don’t get me started with RNG Poison Bombs and Fan of Knives that are giving you 1 combo point after striking 4 NPCs.
And this is what the statistic presented by Raider indicates, among other things. io - Assassination is the second from the bottom melee spec played in general. In the keys of 25 or above, the situation is identical.

I also don’t need to mention Exsanguinate. This skill is totally complicated to use it to its full potential, and even as if it were, it’s a much smaller gain compared to what you need to do. There is a whole tirade written on Discord and Twitter about this messed up ability.

I had some hope for a change in patch 10.1, but I see that the developers of the game still hold this spec in deep regard. Just look at the lack of any changes. Tier set bonuses are downright pathetic(as you can read about on WoWHead), 4PC in particular will complicate an already complicated spec. In order to reach its full potential, you will have to do some twisted gymnastics related to the skills used and timing(which in total is not always related to the player, but, for example, to the tank and how it pulls, so again we are back to square one in which we are dependent on others in a significant way compared to other classes).

Such solutions and such complications make it practically impossible to play this spec. It is even a travesty in itself how it has become. There may be a handful of masochists left who still like this spec, but I think I no longer belong to them.

It is incomprehensible to me how an entire spec can be demolished in such a way. No one wants to achieve less by working harder. Fortunately, my Stockholm syndrome has left me. Apparently it’s time for me to find a break from WoW and hope for a change for the better in future patches, because I’m not going to get any more tired of giving something of myself and getting nothing…

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It used to be, when it was good. Didn’t depend on cd’s and have a small but effective kit for ST, always been bad for aoe.

Its worse if you look at other specs that have a similar solution. Ours have a longer cd, and our kit does not have any way of collecting the damage over time from the targets any faster. Other kits do.

Frustrating especially on a week like this with spiteful and grievous both preventing stealth, and rest of community don’t consider spiteful an affix because it has no negative effect towards them.

I don’t think anyone at Blizzard plays assassination, and i don’t think we will get any changes for the rest of the expansion based on what i read from one of the interviews.

“The level of rework that went into Ret Paladin is not something other specs are likely to see over the course of the rest of the expansion. Class changes will still occur alongside live tuning, but not necessarily an overhaul.
Because Retribution is the only DPS option for Paladins, they want to make sure it’s solid.”

Reading between the lines, since rogue has 2 other specs that are performing well they don’t care about people that play assassination or the spec. In their mind people that play a certain spec on a pure dps class can just change. I don’t intend on changing and i think they should try a bit harder.

The ability they will never be able to tune, op when launched originally. Trash after nerf, so it jumps between those two places. They should abandon that ability as well as others.

Set bonuses made by someone without a clue of the fundamental issues of the spec, and an indication that nothing is going to change with the spec going forward.

I don’t like what the spec has turned into, but i saw the things i disliked getting more and more priority. I don’t like the spec, but im not about to quit. I main assassination i will keep on complaining until changes happen. The way i see it at some point i went to bed after having played the spec i love to play, waking up to a spec i hate. I don’t think fixing assassination is hard, i do think it is hard to get developers to understand what they have done wrong and why it is wrong.

Spec is bloated, damage diluted across too many sources. Assassination no longer has the element of Assassin. Now we kill slowly over time with multiple sources, so far from what it was.
The emphasis on damage over time needs to be reeled back, more priority on direct damage.

Garrote do more dmg out of stealth no cooldown.
Indiscriminate carnage 30 sec cd.
Crimson tempest deleted and replaced with an effective aoe finisher.
Shiv only remove enrage no longer amp dmg. Damage restored to the abilities the damage was taken from.
Exsanguinate deleted and replaced.
Deathmark deleted and replaced by Vendetta.
SL abilities removed.
SnD passive.
Anticipation added.
Focused attacks and an overhaul on energy generation required. Have too much on aoe not enough on st.
Unbreakable stride deleted, burst of speed return.

Restructure our talent tree so there are choices, the current one looks like its been made by someone that never played the spec.

That’s true, makes you wonder with statements they have made. Passive things should perform worse then active things. Our spec at the moment is bloated and our activity and busy work in m+ on aoe is insane, and our dmg depends on how pulls happen. Despite pushing as much as you can you will still only do mediocre damage.

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Don’t know they they can’t just buff some skills by a few % each week? Even if the play-style is awkward at least it might do some damage. They’ve done it to many specs in this expansion so far, bringing them from low-mid tier to top tier. Unsure as to why they won’t do it for others. Recent example is buffing demo lock even though it wasn’t even that in that bad of a state. Obviously needs a bit more thought long term, AoE in particular.

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Considering WarcraftLogs data(max, 95%, 90% and 50% percentiles) Assassination is right now officialy the worst spec in the entire raid.

Some people may think that Assa isn’t maybe the best spec, “but it’s really good ST spec!”.
Wrong. It’s not even in the TOP5 in Single Target fights(Terros logs with similar percentiles). It’s not even in TOP15(from all 25 classes) for max percentiles.

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Sub best spec in the game in M+
Combat ranked 8th amongst all specs

WoW player: why is assassination bad ???

Just play sub or combat dude?

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Because we don’t play sub or outlaw dude.

Are you suggesting that it is ok that specs have flawed design, because you can just switch to a different spec.

Then you might as well be ok with spec being poorly designed, because you can just switch to a better class.

And if the game is in a poor design state, you can just switch game.

I think its fair to have a higher expectation of the developers, to do a better job with the design. And so far in S1 they did not do a good job with assassination, s2 does not look to improve in anyway. And the affix change seems to make the experience worse. But it still wont make us change spec.

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It’s not like they’re asking for over-the-top and extremely exaggerated changes? From what i’ve seen, this is a far tamer thread that is thus far asking for a spec to be fixed or to be decent enough to play.

Which is far better than an overhyped complain thread running on fumes and salt.

Either way, mad respect for those still trying to make Assassination work despite its sorry state. Moved on to Sub and then probably to Outlaw in S2 (Soulrip hype!) after giving Assassination a try and… not really getting anywhere respectable with it in terms of what I can give the party.

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Considering Assassination is at the total bottom(last) of DPS in mythic raiding with Balance Druids and Unholy Death Knights not much above, and they are just getting buffs, I guess there are 2 possible scenarios:
-they are preparing something cool, like much better rework of the spec, not just small “+X% damage done increase”,
-they totally forgot about that spec and just don’t care,

Hoping for the former!

I can aswell just play a different game. ¯\(ツ)/¯

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They won’t do anything. They just don’t care about assassination in pve at all. It’s not even like it was good pre DF and season 2 is going to be even worse with their new trash tier sets.

The spec and class tree are a mess. It’s not just a numbers/ tuning problem. There are literally 0 choices in both trees. Tbh sub suffers from the same problems, dance macabre and secret technique are boring af. Only difference is that sub is overtuned right now. Else the majority wouldn’t even touch anything else than outlaw.

I’m done with rogue for now

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Assassination is kinda like an old ship, that just gets stuff bolted on where ever there’s room, with little regards to how well things really work together. However, the issues aren’t just with the Spec, as it all starts in the Class Design.

There’s really just way too much throughput Talents in the Class Tree, which forces your hand with the choices. It’s not that some things are fine, but others are better. It’s that some things are just objectively bad. Take Find Weakness, for example:

Assassination and Subtlety deal a majority of their damage as Nature and Shadow Damage, which already bypass Armor. Find Weakness are just wasted points, to get to Shadow Dance, would you choose it. Dance would actually be the most interesting End Talent out of all, as it’s not just pure damage it provides, it also gives you reliable Utility on a relatively short CD. If it was just a matter of having to spend 2 points on FW to get Dance, one might possibly be able to make a compelling argument for it. However, the pathing from Point 9 on is pretty much fixed. Much like the Ghostbusters, you can’t cross the streams, and are forced to move on your chosen path from there on. Effectively, if you want Shadow Dance, you are locked into that path from Point 9 onwards.

I could go on for longer, about how boring, unimaginative and archaic Thistle Tea is, how the amount of Throughput Talents will effectively remove the choice from the few Utility Talents there are, how Slice and Dice is handicapping gameplay potential simply by existing and so on, and that wouldn’t even touch on the Spec Tree for Assassination. However, I think my example of Find Weakness is enough to illustrate just how little care and thought went into creating the Rogue Talent Trees.

Just because it technically works, doesn’t mean it’s anywhere near up to par, when it comes to reasonable expectations of design quality. Once again, they did the bare minimum to keep the Class and its Specs functional, and left it at that. There was no attempt to improve it, evolve it, or make it more fun. Only question Blizz seemingly asked, when designing Rogues for Dragonflight was, “Does it get the job done?” It does, much in the same way you can hit Screws into wood with a Hammer. It would just be better to have a screwdriver for the job.

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As a new Assassination rogue ( I re-rolled rogue for DF ) I can say that ssin is by far my favourite rogue spec, unfortunately, it is a very single targeted oriented spec and the AoE/Cleave, while in the talent tree, makes you lose most of your ST damage and gives you mediocre AoE/Cleave. It’s also VERY clunky to AoE as an ssin rogue.

Now, some people say " oh but your are doing fine in ST, so you can’t have AoE/Cleave as well". It’s not true, our ST was fine at the beginning of DF, but the nerfs brought us down to middle of the table, Sub is even doing more ST damage than us in some fights, and even Outlaw with some good RnG is doing better ST. There are specs that deal more damage than us in ST and they do HAVE cleave/AoE, so I cannot understand the point of our cleave/AoE being so weak and clunky even.

I do appreciate what OP is doing, I really do, but it’s EU forums, Blizzard NEVER pays attention to our forums, and I wouldn’t count on a rework for the ssin spec anytime soon, at least not for 10.1. The numbers of players playing this spec are VERY low on Warcraft Logs, so we are definitely NOT a priority for Blizzard. As for me I will keep on playing assassination as long as I can in Mythic raiding, even if our spec is considered the WORST spec in terms of overall damage in mythic, and unless something BIG happens, it will stay like this for 10.1, as the numbers on the PTR show so far.

And I didn’t even mention how GOD AWFUL this spec is in M+, because that will only change with a rework to the spec.

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How is there a 3520 rio Assa rogue if it is so bad as you claim? Assa is certainly better than frost dk and survival hunter and is roughly in the same boat with fury warriors. You are just one of those players who does 45k overall dps in a +20 dungeon and blames in on spec being bad.

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That’s like saying “How can people get hungry, if restaurants exist?” The game can not, and should not be balanced around a few outliers, a few statistical anomalies.

The issues with Assassination aren’t just about tuning numbers, there are some fundamental Design Flaws at play here, and it’s not likely we will see those be addressed, not with how Blizzard keeps losing employees, due to corporate practices.

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True, I got to 3100 as Assa with eyes closed.

It’s people’s skill issue.

It needs a tad bit more ST damage in the DTB/IC build, maybe Blindside or bit of Zoldyk, but that’s it.

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Ok tough guy. But who actually cares, if the vast majority is sitting at 1.6-2.2k rio?
It’s not just a tuning issue. The class and spec needs a bigger rework like ret paladin.

I really like the core gameplay of assa rogue, but it feels quite awful to play in its current state. Definitely not rewarding enough. There is a reason why we’re the second least popular spec in PvE. And the future doesn’t look too bright with the new 2/4 Tier Set.

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The biggest issue the rogue has is that it works; So it has been historically touched very little because it has rarely faced situations that couldn’t be solved by tunning.

So many specs have kept moving forward and getting improvements or even reworks here and there, that have made them more dynamic and streamlined, but the rogue has remained almost the same. Wich i can totally understand… i have fun playing it, it certainly works, it just feels old, like a vintage car that still works well, you can enjoy a ride with it, but you won’t get to enjoy a lot of technology and fancy little things that make your life easier.

In my opinion this expansion is the closest to broken the class has ever been, not in terms of performance, but mechanically. With the new talents system they added, well… almost everything the class ever had, and that has proved to be mess, specially with assassination. It just feels outdated in many design aspects.

Slice and dice has to be the most outdated mechanic tied to a button in the game,
having abilities that enable ambush out of stealth with no proper implementation,
leeching poison bugging out half of the time because apparently adding 6% leech to the character when it has the talent is too much.
Poisons as buffs with a 1.5 cast time, that has to be multiplied by 2-4 and that requires the player to be still.
Energy being the big elephant in the room as a resource.
…

It’s a lot of small details that don’t necessarily dictate how a spec plays, but end up giving it a very outdated feeling when compared to similar specs that simply work better for much less hassle. Assassination or any other rogue spec could be the top peformer this tier and i will still think the same: the class is outdated, it works, it can even be fun, but it feels old and a rework to some mechanics around the core gameplay of each spec would be welcome.

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Here’s my summary as I remember it, please let me know where I’m wrong.

  1. Sin rogue performs top tier in single target (bad aoe) but gets nerfed into oblivion week 1 as it was deemed too strong
  2. Other specs that were performing as good or slightly under sin rogue don’t get nerfed, or minimal nerfs to where they’re still good picks
  3. Specs that were underperforming got buffed over the duration of season 1 at various points, some of which became meta specs over the course of the season
  4. Sin rogue moves to bottom tier, consistently underperforms with no buffs apart from a meaningless talent tree adjustment

Fast forward to season 2:

  1. Specs absolutely blasting at the start of s2 (mostly casters) don’t receive any nerfs
  2. Sin rogue performing bottom tier in all content in s2, but no buffs

Am I missing something?

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Assa always gets the wrong kind of buffs /nerfs, they’re too busy playing around flat numbers and then you have powerful abilities like exsanguinate and kings bane which is either just bad or so good it becomes bad by being nerfed, but even then ends up being used to a lack of talent choice. Also indiscriminate carnage is a great talent but its really cringe since you have 1minute of down time where spreading your dots is impossible.

Reminds me back to how rogue in nathria was just bad and had 0 world first participation, then assa had a huge flat buff. It fixed it for i believe that season and that season alone.

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My main has been Assa basically forever (went to level 60 when that was the original cap). I thought I’d try switching to Sub, but alas, not really working for me. At this point, there’s no new content, don’t want to rinse-lather-repeat world quests or do mythic+, zaralek caverns took all of a week or two to completely finish. If Assa had some love, maybe I’d try some pug raids, but essentially Assa is ignored in DF. So I guess I’ll maybe see you guys in a year or so if WoW is still around. At this point, I rather doubt it - when I log in, there’s almost never anyone on my server, and the prices on the auction house have hit rock bottom. No action, no interest, so IMO WoW is dead.

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