New Raider's Guide

Start here

Three rules apply in every mode:

1. Stay alive. A dead rogue does zero damage. Any damage you lose stepping out of fire is tiny next to dying.
2. Stay on the boss and keep pressing. Assassination is a melee spec. Every second you are not in range, or standing there with full energy, is lost damage.
3. Keep Garrote and Rupture ticking. They are your damage engine and they feed your poisons. If either falls off, everything else gets weaker.

What to check in your logs

Open your character on Warcraft Logs after a raid night and look at these five things, in this order. They tell you more than the big DPS number does.

Fix these in order. Deaths first, then active time, then Deathmark count, then bleed uptime, then combo point spending. Parse percentile climbs on its own once those are right.

Assassination 101: the five ideas behind every button

Assassination is a resource loop. You spend energy on builders that make combo points, spend combo points on finishers, and press cooldowns to make the whole loop hit harder. Learn these five ideas and every priority list below will make sense.

1. Energy and combo points are your two currencies. Energy refills on its own, about 100 at most. Mutilate costs energy and gives combo points. Finishers like Envenom spend combo points. Full energy means regeneration is wasted, so never sit at the cap.
2. Garrote and Rupture are the engine. These are your two bleeds, your damage-over-time effects. They tick for a long time and they are a big slice of your damage. Keep both on the boss at all times. Refreshing them is a finisher's job for Rupture and a builder's job for Garrote.
3. Envenom is the payoff. Your main finisher. It hits hard, and for a few seconds afterwards your poisons apply more often. Most of your damage comes from pressing it at 5 or more combo points, over and over.
4. Poisons do the quiet work. You put a lethal poison on your weapons before the pull (Deadly Poison, plus Amplifying Poison with the Dragon-Tempered Blades talent) and a non-lethal one (Atrophic Poison for raids). Every hit has a chance to apply them. You never press a poison button in combat.
5. Two cooldowns, one timer. Deathmark (2 minutes) and Kingsbane (1 minute). Press Kingsbane with every Deathmark, and on its own in between. Deathmark makes your poisons and bleeds hit much harder while it lasts.

Easy Mode: five buttons, one order Mode 1

This is the whole rotation. Read the list top to bottom every time the global cooldown ends and press the first thing that is true. It uses the Deathstalker raid build from the setup section. If you took Fatebound instead, the list is the same; only the 7-point Envenom in later modes changes.

1. Deathmark if it is off cooldown. Press it the moment the fight starts and every time it lights up again. Press Kingsbane right after it.
2. Garrote if it is not on the boss. Check the debuff under the boss frame. If it is about to fall off or already gone, press it.
3. Rupture if it is not on the boss and you have 4 or more combo points.
4. Envenom if you have 5 or more combo points. Spending at 5 keeps you from wasting points.
5. Mutilate. When nothing above is true and you have the energy, press this. It is your filler and your main combo point builder.

That is it. Ignore Kingsbane on its own, Vanish, Fan of Knives and Crimson Tempest for now. They are a bonus, not the foundation.

The opener

Be in Stealth behind the boss before the pull timer ends. At zero: Garrote, then Mutilate to 5 combo points, Rupture, Mutilate to 5, Envenom, then Deathmark and Kingsbane, and fall into the list above.

When you have to move

Garrote and Rupture refreshes are instant and can be pressed on the way out if you are still in range. Otherwise just move. Energy keeps building while you run, so you lose less than a caster does. Shadowstep back to the boss if it is up.

Poisons

Before every pull check both weapons have a poison. Put Deadly Poison on one, Amplifying Poison on the other (the Dragon-Tempered Blades talent allows a second lethal poison), and Atrophic Poison as your non-lethal. They last an hour, so you will do this once or twice a night. Shiv was removed in Midnight, so there is no poison button to press in combat.

Intermediate Mode: three bonus buttons and a second target Mode 2

Same skeleton as Easy Mode, with Kingsbane on its own timer, Vanish into Garrote and the 7-point Envenom slotted in. Each one is worth a few percent of your damage, and together they are the gap between a passable rogue and a solid one.

1. Garrote if it is not on the boss. Do not overwrite a Garrote that has the Improved Garrote buff; let it run out, then reapply.
2. Rupture if it is not on the boss, at 4 or more combo points.
3. Deathmark and Kingsbane together every 2 minutes. In between, press Kingsbane on its own when it comes back after 1 minute.
4. Vanish, then Garrote straight after. Vanish's only job here is to make that Garrote an Improved Garrote, which hits harder and silences. Line it up with Deathmark when you can, but Method says it is fine if you cannot.
5. Envenom at 5 or more combo points. If the Darkest Night buff is up, wait until 7 combo points and then Envenom. It hits much harder.
6. Mutilate.

The opener

From Stealth: Garrote, Mutilate to 5 combo points, Rupture, Mutilate to 5, Envenom. Then trinket, racial and potion, Deathmark, Kingsbane, Garrote again to extend Improved Garrote, Mutilate to 5, Envenom. From there, use the list.

Fan of Knives and Crimson Tempest: two or more targets

Any time there are two or more enemies in front of you that live more than 10 seconds, such as a boss plus a big add, the builders change:

• Build combo points with Fan of Knives instead of Mutilate. It hits everything near you.
• Press Crimson Tempest to spread your bleeds. It copies your longest bleeds onto enemies that have none, and it also builds combo points.
• Still spend on Envenom. With the Caustic Spatter talent, Envenom and your poisons splash onto nearby enemies.
• Put Deathmark and Kingsbane on the target that will live the longest, usually the boss.

Planning movement

Before the pull, ask the raid leader or read the boss guide for the two or three moments when everyone has to move. Walk into those moments with both bleeds freshly applied so nothing falls off while you run. Save Shadowstep for getting back in. If the move is long, that is the time for Feint.

Full Send Mode: the complete priority Mode 3

This is the Deathstalker single-target list as the top guides write it, plus the habits that separate a 70th-percentile parse from a 95th. Nothing here is new. It is the Intermediate list with tighter timing.

Single target

1. Keep Garrote up. Refresh it inside the pandemic window (the last 30% of its duration) so no ticks are lost. Never overwrite an Improved Garrote.
2. Keep Rupture up, also refreshed in the pandemic window.
3. Deathmark and Kingsbane on cooldown, together. Kingsbane alone every other minute.
4. Vanish then Garrote, ideally inside Deathmark.
5. Envenom at 5 or more combo points, and keep its buff up as much as you can. At 7 combo points if Darkest Night is active.
6. Mutilate below 5 combo points.

Preparing for Deathmark

Start getting ready about 8 seconds before Deathmark and Kingsbane come back. If either bleed has 18 seconds or less left when you would press Deathmark, refresh it first so the whole Deathmark window runs on full-length bleeds. Build to 6 combo points, Envenom, then press Deathmark and Kingsbane. Do not let energy sit at the cap while you wait; a wasted tick of energy costs more than the preparation gains.

Improved Garrote discipline

A Garrote applied from Stealth or inside the Improved Garrote window is stronger and keeps that strength until it expires. If you refresh it early with a normal Garrote you throw the bonus away. Watch the buff on your own bar, not the debuff on the boss, and let it run out before you press Garrote again.

Lining up the burst window

On-use trinket, potion and racial all go into Deathmark. Every 2 minutes Deathmark and Kingsbane realign, so a 6-minute fight gives you three windows including the opener. Ask the raid leader when Bloodlust is coming and, if it is within 20 seconds of your next Deathmark, hold it. If only one Deathmark is left in the fight and you took Zoldyck Recipe, save it for when the boss is at 35% or below.

AoE (3 or more targets)

1. Vanish if you did not get Stealth before the pack, then Garrote twice to extend Improved Garrote, then Rupture on your main target.
2. Deathmark then Kingsbane on the target that will live the longest, if the pack lives 15 seconds or more.
3. Crimson Tempest until you have 5 combo points or every target has a bleed.
4. Fan of Knives if every target already has a bleed and you are below 5 combo points.
5. Envenom to spend. Caustic Spatter splashes it onto the pack, so keep that debuff refreshed on the target you are hitting.

Two targets is still the Fan of Knives plus Crimson Tempest game from Intermediate. Keep both bleeds on both targets if they live long enough.

Fight-specific habits

Before a progression night, open the boss guide and write down three things: when adds spawn (plan Crimson Tempest and where Deathmark goes), when the raid has to move (refresh bleeds just before), and when Bloodlust is called (hold or drift Deathmark). Those three notes are worth more than any sim.

Talents, consumables and setup

Import one of these talent strings and the guide above matches your bars. Open the talent window, click Import, paste, and save as a loadout. Both are from Method's talents page, updated 18 Oct 2026 for patch 12.1.5.

Method also lists a "Pure Single Target" string for bosses with no adds at all. Start with the Raid build; it keeps Crimson Tempest and Caustic Spatter so the two-target advice above works. Take Cheat Death rather than Elusiveness until you are comfortable; both Method and Maxroll recommend it for newer players.

Stat priority

Critical Strike first, then Haste, then Mastery, Versatility a long way last. That is Method's order for all content. Once you are comfortable, run a Raidbots Top Gear sim with your own gear. Until then, take the higher item level piece.

Consumables checklist

Bring these to every raid. Half of them are provided by the raid, but a new raider should carry their own.

• Flask: Flask of the Blood Knights
• Food: any primary-stat feast (Harandar Celebration or Silvermoon Parade when the raid drops one)
• Combat potion: Liquid Luster or Potion of Recklessness, one per pull
• Health potion: Concentrated Silvermoon Health Potion
• Weapon oil: Thalassian Phoenix Oil on both weapons
• Augment rune: Void-Touched Augment Rune
• Poisons: Deadly Poison, Amplifying Poison and Atrophic Poison applied before the pull
• Enchants: Mark of the Worldsoul (chest), Forest Hunter's Armor Kit (legs), Eyes of the Eagle (rings), Rite of the Hash'ey (weapons), Empowered Hex of Leeching (helm), Silvermoon's Mending (shoulders), Shaladrassil's Roots (boots)

Addons that matter

BigWigs for boss timers and Method Raid Tools for raid notes. Method's own guide runs addon-free in Midnight and tracks bleeds with the built-in Cooldown Manager, so nothing else is required to start. A bleed-timer WeakAura helps later.

Macros

Put these on your bars. The first interrupts whatever you have set as focus, or your target if you have no focus. The second presses your trinket together with Deathmark (use /use 14 for the bottom trinket slot; it does not work with channelled trinkets such as Puzzle Box).

#showtooltip
/cast [@focus,exists][] Kick

/use Deathmark
/use 13

Your utility kit

Damage is only half the job. Raid leaders remember the rogue who interrupts, uses Feint on every raid-wide hit, and Shrouds the group past trash, not the one who parses 5% higher. Rogues bring no battle resurrection, no Bloodlust, no raid buff and no dispel, so your utility is interrupts, stuns and staying alive. Cooldowns below are the base values. Talents shorten some of them, so trust your tooltip over this table.

Two habits to build now:

1. Set a focus target. Before the pull, target the add you are assigned to interrupt and press your focus keybind. The Kick macro then works without ever leaving the boss.
2. Feint before every raid-wide hit. Watch BigWigs for the next big ability and press Feint a second before it lands. Healers notice the rogue who takes 40% less from every mechanic.

Reading your logs and what to practice next

After each raid night, open your character on Warcraft Logs and spend five minutes on one boss. Pick the longest single-target fight. Check the five items from the logs section, then do the one drill below that matches your mode.

Three things to compare against a top log of the same boss (Warcraft Logs, Rankings tab, filter to Assassination):

1. Count their Envenoms and yours. If theirs is 50% higher on a fight of the same length, you are wasting energy or combo points.
2. Count their Deathmark casts and yours. The gap is almost always one missed cast at the start or end.
3. Look at their Deaths and yours. If they have zero and you do not, that is the whole gap.

The Venomous Abyss is the current Midnight Season 2 raid, with eight bosses from Nek'zali the Soulcoiler through Ula'tek. Read the Icy Veins page for each boss before the night you first see it, and write down the three notes from Full Send Mode: when adds come, when you move, when Lust is called.