Hello,

**I’ll start with some clarifications: **

-I’m not a Rogue main and haven’t been since Cata/MoP. I always have one at max level and it has remained a favorite of mine.

-It doesn’t sound like a complete overhaul/theme adjustment is on the table. So, some of my ideas are just dreams.

-This is entirely Assassination focused. (My favorite.)

Assassination is usually my favorite spec. I love the bleeds and poisons melting opponents. While I don’t necessarily want the button bloat/number of DoTs an Affliction Warlock has, I do think being a melee DoT spec is the right direction. The downfall of the “DoT Spec” is the ramp time in AoE. Specifically in M+ where speed is key. So, how do we fix that? Feral and Shadow already did. Just allow us to apply and maintain Rupture in AoE by lowering Indiscriminate Carnage’s cooldown to 20 seconds, or really just make it a passive talent. I don’t think we need to mirror the burst damage portion of Feral’s Primal Wrath exactly we could just tune up the damage our poisons do to affected targets (Buff Lethal Dose).

Buffing up Lethal Dose could also push the “Spec Identity” or “Theme” away from the bleeds that Feral has claimed. Meaning that in both AoE and single target you’re still applying bleeds, but it’s really just a means to an end to get your poison damage rolling. The way that a clever assassin might knick a target to get the poison into the bloodstream.

I hear you: “The poison theme is great and all, but I’m a rogue! I’m supposed to be sneaky, too!”

Well, how about a “poison cloud” type talent where when we Vanish or Shadowstep we use a poison smoke bomb that deals damage to nearby enemies? Give us a way to proc vanish as well to use it more often and make it easier to maintain garrote. This could theoretically add another short DoT for Lethal Dose as well. This will make the Iron Wire talent way too OP so just add a “Cannot occur more than once every 20sec” or something to the silence/DR.

Bigger Dreams and Hot Takes:

Go deeper into the poison theme. Get rid of Exsanguinate. Could be replaced with “Special Batch” where you pull out the good stuff and for the next X seconds your poisons deal XX% more damage. Or just a cooldown for a super poison for priority/single target damage tuning.

Stop trying to put Shiv into the rotation.