The Season 2 Tier Set for Assassination focuses on increasing nature damage and providing bleeds with a buff. This bonus is similar to our Season 1 Tier Set, where the 4-piece bonus Rogue Assassination Class Set 4pc also increases bleed damage. Because of this, dropping the 4-piece bonus for the 2-piece Rogue Assassination 10.1 Class Set 2pc of the new Season doesn’t provide much of a meaningful change, simply a redistribution from “increased damage” to “additional damage.” The new 4-piece bonus Rogue Assassination 10.1 Class Set 4pc gives some new bonuses in the form of increased nature damage after our main cooldown ends. The 4-piece would also include things like Poison Bomb, Envenom, and the 2-piece bonus granting bleeds additional nature damage. However, the concerns of the tier bonus speak towards the overall design of the spec and what the effects are trying to achieve.
The Elephant(s) in the room
Each tier set comes with some curiosities, and this tier is the same. Looking at the bonuses more closely reveals some interesting decisions.
For the 2-piece, the bonus specifically states Rupture and Crimson Tempest, not “all bleed damage” like the current Season 1 tier set does. Some early numbers generally have the bonuses buffing our AoE damage more than our single target, but it’s weird that Garrote was omitted. Being a core ability in all situations and having effects such as Improved Garrote and Shrouded Suffocation, which have been long-term staple picks for the spec for years brought onto the talent tree, it’s a conscious decision not to have it included in the tier bonus. I understand wanting a shake-up and taking some of the power out of Garrote in exchange for finisher damage. That’s a good change for the better of the spec and something people have been asking for. That being said, it does give off some whiplash seeing a step in the right direction, but as a piece of temporary power. The talent trees were designed with generic bleed damage and a strong push towards Garrote. Improved Garrote, Shrouded Suffocation, Iron Wire are all examples of a base spec wanting to push Garrote to the forefront, especially in dungeon settings, while this tier is at odds with that. Crimson Tempest being on the bonus also brings a concern for having to talent into Crimson Tempest in single target encounters. While this isn’t supported with current theory-crafting, we had the gameplay of Crimson Tempest on single-target encounters in both Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands. It’s a re-occurring rotational change that many rogues do not enjoy and putting it front and center on a tier bonus is essentially a neon sign for people to ask, “is it worth it again?”—that fear and concerns around the 4-piece drive much negativity around the tier bonus. I’m choosing to have a more positive outlook on the effects in this article, but as we get closer to the patch, I share the concerns of many others about what these bonuses say about the spec as a whole.
Moving to the 4-piece, this is the more controversial and disliked of the two bonuses. Attaching a buff after a cooldown is dangerous and requires a lot of finesse. It can quickly go off the rails into unintended situations. Within the first hour of the announced bonuses, it was common to speculate about how Deathmark could be played around to abuse the 4-piece bonus. “When Deathmark expires” means you could, in theory, just use it against the last monster in a dungeon pack, get the bonus, then go into the next group with the tier buff ready for your AoE opener. You could use Exsanguinate to purposely cut Deathmark in half and get the bonus through your full Indiscriminate Carnage. Those ideas come on the heels of the realization that Envenom will now do more damage after your cooldowns than during. I’m not a fan of that kind of gameplay, where optimizing means figuring out how to get the most out of your cooldowns by avoiding them.
Let’s consider some options and how they fit into the 4-piece bonus from the tier set. Sepsis, for example, is a nature damage ability. It doesn’t align with our cooldowns, but ideally, you want to use it alongside Shiv. This typically means using it during Deathmark when we already use Shiv. But during Deathmark, we already have Improved Garrote and don’t need to get the proc from Sepsis. That has put Sepsis in a difficult spot of wanting to be inside and outside the cooldown window. This tier bonus could solve that by making us hold Sepsis until after Deathmark, where we can use the tier, as well as the Improved Garrote from the additional effect on Sepsis. Except Sepsis is a 1:30 cooldown, so holding it until after Deathmark means they would sync up again on the next cast, which would mean we would have to hold it again until after, turning a 1:30 cooldown into a pseudo 2 minute, held until after our cooldowns are over. It would also push more Garrote damage, which, as mentioned before, is not included in these bonuses. It’s a rather curious way to play. But this bonus might bring back Kingsbane with it being nature damage! Kingsbane was moved on the tree in 10.0.5, where it could not come close to competing with the other Talent on its new choice node, Dragon-Tempered Blades. There is one problem, though. Kingsbane gains much of its power from poison applications, which are doubled via Deathmark. Using Kingsbane during the 40% Nature damage buff from the tier set can’t overcome the benefits of casting it during cooldowns. And the 4-piece only lasts 30 seconds, which means the next Kingsbane won’t benefit from it. That leaves us with the question of what the point is. A bonus that inherently de-values your cooldowns by moving power out of them, but doesn’t have any logical interactions with the powerful nature damage abilities we use, is just weird to play with. Yes, it buffs poisons for 30 seconds, and yes, it buffs Envenom during that time. But the way that this is being done leads to confusing situations conceptually as well as rotationally. At best, it’s simply a passive Envenom buff awkwardly placed behind all your burst. At worst, it’s a timing nightmare that would lead to spreading out cooldowns unintuitively.
Putting it all together
It will be okay, even with all the inexplicable non-synergy from the tier bonus. There are concerns about its power level in raids, considering that it, at face value, looks much more potent in AoE than in single-target encounters. I’m not a fan of the design as a concept, nor like how it’s implemented. Still, it ends up being passive enough that, hopefully, it will become a generic buff without causing all the gameplay issues lurking around the corner. I’m unsure how to fix these issues, but I want to see the nature damage bonus from the 4-piece activating on the cast of Deathmark instead of on expiration. This would also lead to Deathmark not feeling so lackluster in AoE situations. It’s a simple yet effective change.
The outrage around this tier, however, transcends past the bonus. Assassination has, for the most part, escaped any foundational changes for almost a decade at this point. The spec reworks from Legion, and the Talent reworks from Dragonflight have failed to address the issue at the core of Assassination regarding how the spec should work in AoE and mythic+ on a broader level. Competing ideas between Improved Garrote, Indiscriminate Carnage, Crimson Tempest, Poison Bomb, and which finishers should be providing damage leads to a confusing tangle that players need to unravel. While I can respect that the 2-set bonus is specifically targeting Crimson Tempest and Rupture, which will alleviate some pressure in AoE, the 4-set bonus stands as a reminder and reflection of the spec as a whole, promoting Poison Bomb and Envenom once again as a competing idea and maintaining the same cycle over many years. AoE is confusing and unrewarding -> temporary solution -> core issue is not addressed.
While it is a bleak outlook and demoralizing introspection of the spec as a whole, I would like to end positively. Change is necessary, but through all of it, I remain hopeful that we’re moving toward a brighter day. The 10.0.5 changes might have moved Kingsbane and given us a weak Arterial Precision in its place, but Dashing Scoundrel did go down to 2 points. It is a slight change in the bigger picture of the spec but a meaningful step towards removing the previously limiting 3-point nodes, and while under-tuned, Arterial Precision was a beloved mechanic from a previous tier set. I firmly believe that progress is being made.
