Outlaw Rogue Guide

📊 Stat Priority

Stat priority: Critical Strike > Haste (to your breakpoint) > Versatility > Mastery. Item level / Agility on the weapon and main pieces beats secondaries in almost every case — slot a higher ilvl unless it tanks your stats badly.

• Critical Strike — top secondary; drives Between the Eyes (which crits hard with Improved BtE) and your overall burst. Value tapers off around ~40% crit.
• Haste — wanted up to a ~20-25% target, which gives a 0.8s GCD during Adrenaline Rush. Past that breakpoint excess Haste loses a lot of value.
• Versatility — strong and even (damage + a little defense) but diminishes quickly; sits below Crit/Haste.
• Mastery — buffs Main Gauche proc damage; lowest-priority secondary for the spec.

🎁 Tier Set, Trinkets & Consumables

Tier set (via Catalyst): 2pc — Blade Rush damage +30% (and +15% more to your primary target). 4pc — Blade Rush cooldown −6s and +5% damage dealt for 8s after it. The set has zero rotational impact — it's a pure damage boost, so it never changes how you play. Prioritise Shoulders, Chest, Legs, Gloves; the Helm is the worst slot to fill but still beats off-set there if you need the bonus.

Top trinkets — Raid: Gaze of the Alnseer, Umbral Plume. M+: Solarflare Prism, Heart of Wind. Trinket value swings with gear — check the live top-50 panel and sim.

Consumables: Flask of the Shattered Sun (Crit) — swap to Flask of the Blood Knights once you're near ~40% crit · Combat potion Potion of Recklessness (line up with Bloodlust + cooldowns) · Health pot Silvermoon Health Potion · Food Hearty Silvermoon Parade feast / Royal Roast personal · Void-Touched Augment Rune (use sparingly — lost on death). Gems: Indecipherable Eversong Diamond + Flawless Deadly Peridot (Crit) / Flawless Quick Garnet (Haste). Weapon enchant: Jan'alai's Precision or Thalassian Phoenix Oil on both weapons; ring enchant Eyes of the Eagle.

🚀 Opener

Pre-pull your buffs out of stealth, then open with Blade Rush + cooldowns and immediately get a Roll the Bones rolling. Pop Blade Flurry first if there is any cleave. Keep It Rolling is held for after you bank a strong roll.

1. Pre-pull: cast Slice and Dice, Roll the Bones, and Adrenaline Rush in the last few seconds before the pull
2. Blade Flurry if there is more than one target
3. Blade Rush as you engage (sync DPS potion + racial here)
4. Between the Eyes if you opened at 6+ combo points
5. Sinister Strike to build combo points
6. Dispatch (or Between the Eyes when up) as your finisher
7. Killing Spree once you have 6+ combo points and it is available
8. From here, follow the single-target or AoE priority below

⚔️ Single-Target Priority

Two rules underpin everything: keep Slice and Dice / Roll the Bones alive, and never sit at capped Energy or capped combo points. Restless Blades turns every spent combo point into cooldown reduction, so finishing on time is what keeps your big buttons rolling.

1. Roll the Bones on cooldown unless you are already in Stage 2 or higher (keep a good roll)
2. Keep It Rolling to lock in a strong roll when you reach Stage 3
3. Adrenaline Rush on cooldown, ideally cast at low combo points
4. Between the Eyes on cooldown at 6+ combo points (your main damage finisher)
5. Killing Spree on cooldown at 6+ combo points
6. Blade Rush on cooldown as a builder/burst
7. Dispatch as the fallback finisher at 6+ combo points when Between the Eyes is down
8. Pistol Shot whenever you have an Opportunity / Audacity proc (free, keeps Energy from capping)
9. Sinister Strike as the core combo-point builder filler

💥 AoE / Cleave Priority

Outlaw's AoE is the same priority as single-target with Blade Flurry layered on top — Blade Flurry copies a large share of your damage to nearby enemies, so you do NOT change your builder/finisher rotation. Just keep Blade Flurry up and favour Between the Eyes (it cleaves through Blade Flurry).

1. Blade Flurry — keep it active any time there are 2+ targets (refresh before it falls off)
2. Roll the Bones on cooldown unless holding a Stage 2+ roll
3. Adrenaline Rush on cooldown
4. Between the Eyes at 6+ CP — its cleave under Blade Flurry makes it the top AoE finisher
5. Killing Spree on cooldown at 6+ CP (strong multi-target burst)
6. Blade Rush on cooldown
7. Dispatch as the finisher when Between the Eyes is down
8. Pistol Shot on every Opportunity proc (with talents it cleaves and dumps Energy)
9. Sinister Strike as the builder — its double-strike procs accelerate combo-point generation on packs

⏱️ Cooldowns

Restless Blades shaves real time off these every time you spend combo points, so they come up far more than their tooltip CDs suggest. The job is to keep spending — never overlap Adrenaline Rush with capped resources.

Adrenaline Rush~3 min (heavily reduced by Restless Blades)

Your core throughput cooldown: boosts Energy regen and attack speed, raises the Energy cap, and is what your Haste target is built around (0.8s GCD during it). Cast on cooldown, ideally at low combo points so you don't waste generation. Restless Blades + Keep It Rolling routinely cut its real cadence well under 3 minutes.

Roll the Boneson demand

Not a burst button but the engine of the spec. Each cast grants a random stage of stacking buffs (Stage 1 double-strike/Opportunity → Stage 2 +CP & +damage → Stage 3 extra Restless Blades CDR → Stage 4 +crit). Reroll on cooldown unless you already hold Stage 2+. Refresh before it expires.

Keep It Rolling~3-4 min

Locks in and extends your current Roll the Bones buffs for a long window. Save it for when you've landed a strong roll (Stage 3+) — it's a damage multiplier you bank, not a button to press blindly.

Between the Eyesshort (CP finisher)

Main damage finisher and a guaranteed-crit ranged shot at 6+ CP. Empowered by Gravedigger (free extra casts) and benefits hugely from crit. Cleaves under Blade Flurry — top priority finisher in AoE too.

Killing Spreeon CD (CP-gated)

Teleporting flurry of strikes; strong single-target and AoE burst. Use at 6+ combo points. With Trickster it builds Coup de Grace / Unseen Blade stacks for an empowered Dispatch.

Blade Rushshort

Gap-closer and steady damage/Energy builder used on cooldown. The tier set's 2pc directly buffs it (see Gear).

💚 Defensive Toolkit

Rogue is one of the most self-sufficient melee in the game: a magic immunity, a heavy physical-avoidance wall, a self-heal, an AoE-damage cut, and a free cheat-death. Mobility doubles as survival — staying out of mechanics is a defensive.

Cloak of Shadows~2 min

Near-total magic immunity for a few seconds and removes most magic debuffs. Your premier 'eat this mechanic / dispel myself' button — use it proactively on telegraphed magic hits.

Evasion~2 min

Large dodge boost vs melee/ranged physical attacks. The go-to wall for big physical tank-busters and melee packs in M+.

Crimson Vial~30s

Cheap, low-CD self-heal over a few seconds. Press it on cooldown whenever you're taking chip damage — your most-used survival button.

Feint~15s

Reduces AoE damage taken (and total damage with talents) for a short window. Pre-press it before known raid-wide / pack AoE pulses.

Cheat Deathpassive (~6 min ICD)

Talented passive that survives an otherwise-lethal hit and briefly heavily reduces damage. Free insurance — don't rely on it, but it bails out spikes.

🧰 Utility & Crowd Control

🗝️ Mythic+ Tips

• Blade Flurry is free, always-on cleave — keep it up on every 2+ pack. It's the single biggest reason Outlaw scores so high in M+; never let it drop in AoE.
• Between the Eyes cleaves under Blade Flurry, so it's your top AoE finisher — don't down-prioritise it just because the pack is big.
• Shroud of Concealment lets the whole group skip trash. Learn the skip routes; it's a huge timer save.
• Blind (AoE with Airborne Irritant), Kidney Shot, and Cheap Shot give you a deep stop/CC toolkit — slot yourself into the kick/stun rotation.
• Spend defensives proactively: Cloak of Shadows eats magic mechanics and self-dispels, Evasion walls physical packs, Feint before AoE pulses, Crimson Vial on cooldown for chip damage.
• Don't cap Energy or combo points while moving between packs — keep Roll the Bones rolling so you arrive at the next pull with buffs and cooldowns ready.

⌨️ Macros & Addons

WeakAuras is not supported in Midnight (12.0) — use Blizzard's built-in Cooldown Manager (importable configs on Wago.io). Addons: ElvUI, DBM/BigWigs, GTFO, Plater (for kick/CC tracking).

#showtooltip Kick
/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead][@focus,exists,harm,nodead][] Kick

#showtooltip Tricks of the Trade
/cast [@focus,help,nodead][@mouseover,help,nodead] Tricks of the Trade

#showtooltip
/cast [stealth] Ambush; Sinister Strike

#showtooltip Crimson Vial
/cast Crimson Vial

🚫 Common Mistakes

• Capping Energy or combo points — Sinister Strike's free procs flood resources fast; sitting capped wastes generation and Restless Blades cooldown reduction.
• Rerolling a good Roll the Bones — never reroll out of Stage 2+; you throw away stacked buffs. Use Keep It Rolling to bank a strong roll instead.
• Letting Blade Flurry fall off on packs — it's your entire AoE value. Refresh it before it expires.
• Holding Between the Eyes / not finishing at 6+ CP — finishers feed Restless Blades CDR, so under-spending starves Adrenaline Rush and Killing Spree.
• Sitting on defensives — Cloak of Shadows, Evasion and Feint are cheap and frequent; use them every time a known hit is coming, not as a last resort.
• Playing Fatebound by default — Trickster is ~10%+ ahead; only drop to Fatebound if its simplicity actually raises your real uptime.