Rogue Subtlety Guide 4.1.0

Subtlety is considered the least viable pve spec due to its complex rotation which makes switching targets painful. In addition, if mechanics of an encounter make backstabbing impossible, the dps loss is significant. However, in an ideal fight (all time spent behind the boss and lots of crits) sub will likely be the best spec. Basically the max dps is amazing, but dps from fight-to-fight is inconsistent.

Non-obvious Terms:
SS = Shadowstep
BS = Backstab
ShD = Shadow Dance
SnD = Slice and Dice
EA = Expose Armor
HaT = Honor Among Thieves
MoS = Master of Subtlety
FW = Find Weakness
* = Found at post #3

Contents:
1. Talents/glyphs
2. Rotation
3. Stats
4. Reforging/Gems/Enchants (oh my!) (Also BiS sets)*
5. Credits/updates*
6. Patch changes*

Talents:

The best build for pure dps is:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#fMhcZ0bZcGcsdu0RGo
There are no filler points, though the weakest talent is Initiative, followed by Elusiveness.


Glyphs:


Prime:
Glyph of Slice and Dice – Required
Glyph of Backstab – Required
Glyph of Eviscerate – Good, slightly better than ShD (* full ShD comparison below)
Glyph of Shadow Dance – Use if your using EA, have the 4 pc t11 bonus, or having rotation issues
Glyph of Hemorrhage – Useful for heroics to apply bleed

Major:
Glyph of Tricks of the Trade – Raid DPS increase
Glyph of Feint – Use if they make you AoE

Minor:
Your call



Rotation:

This is the hardest part of playing subtlety, and will make or break you depending on the fight or your skill. These abilities assume you are attacking a boss or otherwise high-HP mob.
Addons that track buff/debuff durations are extremely helpful*



If you have combo-points before the battle, use them on SnD.

Use Premeditation, SS-> Ambush (Assuming a bleed is up or will be shortly, otherwise garrote)

Build combo-points with Backstab, always let HaT proc the 5th to ensure you don’t waste any combo-points while waiting for energy/GCD. Keep up Hemo, and use that if not behind the enemy.

Finisher Priority:

SnD (Massive dps boost, can be refreshed before 5 CP) -> Rupture (Bleed, try to use this during the 10% bonus from MoS, the buff will continue as you refresh it) -> Recup (Refresh with under 3 secs left. Required for rotation but less dps than SnD and keeping a MoS'd rupture is better in the long run. If MoS isn't on rupture and a bleed is up, this takes priority over rupture.*) -> Eviscerate (5 CP only) -> EA (If there is not already an armor debuff, and if it will not hurt the rotation. If you include this, use the glyph and apply it during periods of excess CP.)

Vanish on-cooldown to refresh FW and MoS. Pool energy and use up CP before using for max benefit. (Personal note: This can be used for fast CP, so saving this or prep for this purpose may be best) Always wait for FW to be down before using this, as overlapping a FW buff is a major dps loss, unless it has almost no time left before the refresh. Waiting for SS is also optimal if you don't need it for the mobility. To maximize FW effectiveness you want to fit the most eviscerates as possible into the stage without hurting your rotation, so refresh accordingly.

ShD follows the same rules as vanish. Basically replace backstab with ambush, and only use SS after FW is up.

Use SS for general mobility, just don't be stupid with it. You can dodge tail-swipes, so use evasion to allow SS in your ShD phase.

Burn Phase/Preparation: Generally use this in a burn phase, during Lust/Heroism/fakeversions, follow all the rules laid out in the vanish part unless otherwise mentioned.
Use Vanish->SS->Ambush, then prep (to refresh SS CD, and vanish for later). After about 8 secs, use ShD. Try to time it so your first ambush is with FW up, and use SS with it. Once the ShD FW is about to expire, use vanish->ambush.




Stats

Here are the Elitist Jerks EP values, meaning how many points of Attack Power = 1 ___


Stat EP

Agi 3.6
Yellow Hit 1.4
Haste 1.35
Expertise 1.15
Crit 1.1
Spell Hit 1.05
Mastery 0.9
White Hit 0.8



These are close approximations with BiS gear, and change depending on current stat layout. These are also assuming a perfect fight, so the stats that will give you the best dps will likely be more rotation-oriented.

Specifically, while agi is amazing and still on top, I would place Expertise slightly above crit, since a dodged BS/evis can be detrimental to the rotation (though haste is still quite important). Expertise also gains significant value if you need to face the boss (using hemo), which makes the spec slightly more linear from fight-to-fight.

Due to the character cap in posts, *s redirect here.

Reforging/Gems/Enchants (oh my!)

Reforging:

In general, try to use creative reforging to meet your caps (especially expertise) as closely as possible. After that, reforge to haste, or crit if there are no other options.

Gems/Enchants:
Agility all the way. If there is a 20 agility bonus that can be attained by using a haste/agi gem, do that. For the meta, use Agile Shadowspirit Diamond. For enchants, use EP values, I find it unnecessary to use a run-speed enchant, as SS makes running somewhat rare.

For poisons, I use instant/deadly/deadly, but for fights where DP will fall off often, use Wound in MH.

BiS Gear

Mine (I did it on the shadowcraft spreadsheet but with going for expertise. A thrown wep would be used for AoE encounters.): Link just went to my current gear, BiS link/set in progress

Glyph of ShD vs. Evis (Kyrrion, my friends, my target dummy)
The glyphs are quite close, but both my tests and EJ's voodoo say Eviscerate has a slight edge (~1k dps in the gear I tested it on). However, use ShD if your job is to put up Expose Armor, or if you have the 4 pc t11 bonus. It is also worth mentioning that ShD scales worse with crit, so at lower gear levels they are likely closer. The gear I tested in was about lvl 350. ShD also has the benefit of offering more burst, so if the burn phase of an encounter is extra important (or there are periods of boss-weakness which ShD can be lined up with), ShD would likely be better. If you are prone to having rupture fall off and need direct reapplications, the value of glyph of eviscerate will drop significantly every time you reapply rupture.

Relevant PTR changes/speculation (NOTE: None of this is set in stone, and until numbers are done by others after the patch is released, you should take all of this with a grain of salt)

BiS Gear (with gems, enchants, and some sketchy reforging*)
http://goo.gl/f1JrT

*If you find a better way to reforge, please speak up. It was kind of rushed. And I was going for Expertise Cap on purpose.

Landslide x2 vs Landslide + Hurricane
Here's basically what I found. Landslide + Hurricane is better due to the fact that Hurricane can proc off spells (Recuperate). Landslide should go on the main hand because the spell proc'd Hurricane is independant and the other Hurricane can't compete alone.

Say you get about 8 procs over 5 min from your offhand (about 20% haste with a 50% Slice and Dice and both enchants proc at 1 PPM). Since a spell proc of Hurricane refreshes the melee stack if it exists at the moment, let's assume procs happen on average time. (300/8= every 37.5 seconds for melee procs + every 45 seconds due to an ICD for the spell proc).
# of seconds past for each proc
Melee: 37.5, 75, 112.5, 150, 187.5, 225, 262.5, 300
Spell: 45, 90, 135, 180, 225, 270

So the 1st and 7th melle Hurricane proc is refreshed by the spell, taking away 2 full spell procs. That is an additional 15 seconds on the melee proc though.

So now with the 8 procs and the additional 15 seconds of melee, we've got a 37% uptime (so an average of 166.5 haste for the 5 minutes) of melee Hurricane. Add in the 4 spells which have a 16% uptime (so about average 72 haste) and we've got about 238.5 haste from the offhand enchant. Now if Landslide were on the offhand instead, we'd have a 32% uptime on that (average of 320 attack power).

238.5 * 1.35 = 321.975 is the Hurricane's value in attack power (according to the stat weights) vs 320.

I'd say it really doesn't matter which you choose. Landslide could be more consistent dps overall since it's less RNG, but Hurricane definately has potential to do better (and is pretty cheap too).

Best Way to Open
This is only at the very beginning of any fight.

Open like normal (Shadowstep > Premeditation > Ambush) and go with the standard rotation until Shadowstep comes off CD. When it does come off CD, Vanish into Premed + Ambush but do NOT use Shadowstep with the Ambush! Use it after the Ambush hits and use Preparation after you hit Shadowstep. You now have the 10 second buff to your next Ambush, Shadowstep off cooldown, and Find Weakness on your target. Right before Find Weakness falls off, hit Shadowdance and procede as normal (saving the Shadowstep for the 2nd Ambush). This way an extra Shadowstepped Ambush under Find Weakness.

To simplify:
Vanish > Premed + Ambush > Shadowstep > Preparation > Shadowdance right before Find Weakness expires.


Taken from Haileaus@Azul_nerub