In this section of the guide, we will go over each stat that an Assassination Rogue requires and explain how they function along with any possible stat caps that you will have to consider. Assassination Rogues have a similar stat priority to other Agility-based DPS specs, with one specific stat showing “Mastery” over the others.
Stat Priority
- Agility
- Hit Rating
- Mastery
- Haste Rating
- Critical Strike Chance
- Expertise Rating
Agility is a primary stat, being the most important stat for an Assassination Rogue, as it increases Attack Power!
Hit Rating is the most important secondary stat after your primary stat, Agility, as you will require it to land hits on your target. You will need 8% Hit Chance for Melee Attacks and 17% for your Poisons. Assassination Rogues must reach their Hard Cap of 17% Hit Chance, as any lost poison application directly dampens their damage output significantly. You will gain a 4% free Hit Chance from the Precision talent. Each 120.25 Hit Rating grants a 1% Hit Chance.
Mastery is the most potent secondary stat after Hit Rating as it directly increases the damage output of your poisons, including the damage of Envenom! You will want to stack as much Mastery as possible since the majority of an Assassination Rogue’s damage output is Poison Damage.
Haste Rating is the most potent secondary stat after Mastery as it not only increases the speed at which you attack but also increases your Energy Regeneration!
Critical Strike Chance is a somewhat mediocre stat for Assassination Rogues. It increases the chance to deal critical strikes with your Normal Attacks, Abilities, and Poison Damage, however, it is considerably weaker than both Haste Rating and Mastery. The stat is especially weak when looking at your poisons, with Instant Poison being able to land critical strikes while Deadly Poison is not, making it quite underwhelming
Finally, Expertise Rating allows you to prevent your target from dodging or parrying your attacks. You will need 26 Expertise to reach the Soft Cap upon which your target can’t dodge your attacks. and 56 Expertise to reach the Hard Cap upon which your attacks won’t be parried. You will only want to reach the Soft Cap. Each 30.0272 Expertise Rating will grant 1 Expertise.
While it may seem surprising that Expertise Rating ranks so low for Assassination Rogue, the reality is that stats such as Haste Rating and Mastery simply outperform it from every point of view. This is due to our main damage output source being the Poison Damage which is still applied due to our fast attack rate, even in the case of consecutive dodged attacks. Additionally, any time one of your main abilities such as Envenom, Mutilate, or Backstab is dodged, the entire energy cost is refreshed. Lastly, with proper positioning, any attacks made from behind won’t be dodged, meaning that you should heavily prioritize the rest of the stats.
Reforging
Reforging is introduced in Cataclysm as an additional way to adjust your equipment’s secondary stats. Through reforging, you can acquire a plethora of different stats in exchange for a portion of your current gear’s secondary stats. However, you may not replace any of the main stats on a piece of equipment such as Agility or Stamina.
The main stats that Assassination Rogues will reforge any non-beneficial stats into are Hit Rating and Mastery. Once Assassination Rogues reach their Hit Rating caps, the main stat that they will prioritize is Mastery due to the vast potency increase to their Poison Damage, followed by Haste Rating for Energy Regeneration.
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