Double Legendary Assassination Rogue Combinations

Consideration of Weaker Covenants
It should be noted that both Necrolord and Kyrian are substantially behind in raids, and neither has a specialty in which to thrive. I believe it is critical to identify their flaws and discuss why they are not advised.

Necrolord has a distinct niche in that it provides great cleave, but it’s unclear if it’s enough to warrant broad adoption. Prototype Pantheon may see some Necrolord use, but given its place in the raid as one of the initial bosses, I doubt it will see significant use or acceptance outside of that battle. Deathspike’s lack of single target (the main advantage is two extra castings of Serrated Bone Spike throughout the duration of a single target battle) and intermittent issues hold back the whole covenant.

When one of the extra spikes hits a victim that is already impacted by Serrated Bone Spike, one of the most well-known issues with Deathspike happens. This causes the target to no longer refund a Serrated Bone Spike charge, which is extremely inconvenient in any content containing adds that you are attempting to snipe for resets, since your refunded charges are highly unreliable. Given that this is a necessary legendary to play for the covenant, I find it difficult to believe that this hasn’t been corrected yet. The legendary’s lack of single target damage is acceptable given its powerful cleave and aoe specialty, but please make it function in that environment. Because of the problems that accompany Deathspike, Necrolord is nearly unplayable on their own.

Kyrian, while capable of the other two specialities, has never seen action in Assassination, and with cause. Whereas the other covenants give something with spec synergy (Fae and Venthyr both giving burst cooldowns via Sepsis and Flagellation, and Necrolord having a strong cleave/aoe profile via Serrated Bone Spike), Kyrian falls short. The 45-second cooldown of Echoing Reprimand does not do enough damage to be useful in single target, and the animacharged combo points that follow don’t give any intrinsic bonuses as Subtlety and Outlaw do (in the form of the cooldown reduction passives they have connected to their combo point usage). At the end of the day, 7 combo point finishers do not have enough damage to let Kyrian shine. What you’re left with is a covenant with a poor single target, no burst, no aoe, and Resounding Clarity, a frustrating minigame that may be difficult to perform properly.

Rogue assassination expert Sepulcher of the First Ones Night Fae has two legendaries: Toxic Onslaught and Duskwalker’s Patch Night Fae are on the increase thanks to the set bonuses, particularly the two-piece: Grudge Match. This advantage directly improves Sepsis, which serves as a significant boost when we sync Sepsis and Shiv together. Due to the addition of spawning, there are various encounters that potentially benefit from Korayn’s First Strike soulbind ability. The fourth item, Grudge Match, unlocks our second legendary, Duskwalker’s Patch, effectively doubling the number of Vendetta casts we receive throughout a battle by cutting the cooldown by a full minute. For good reason, you’ll start to see this Duskwalker’s Patch and Grudge Match synergy as a general pattern. Duskwalker’s Patch turns out to be by far our greatest legendary in 9.2. Other legendaries have their own niches and places, which will be described later.

Night Fae has one advantage over Venthyr that may not be obvious at first. During PTR testing, it became clear that there will be a great deal of mobility during combat. Some skills, like as Detonation during the Lihuvim battle, knock you back a long way, while the intermission on Lihuvim appeared uncomfortable and difficult for Venthyr, as did the uptime requirement linked with Flagellation. Night Fae has an easier time of it because Sepsis is a “set and forget” cooldown. Press the button on your target, then Shiv, and it will do the rest for you with little effort. This “more forgiving” cooldown may turn out to be a compelling reason to choose Night Fae over Venthyr, but as the fights get more familiar, this issue may fade.

Duskwalker’s Patch & Venthyr: Obedience
Venthyr, like Night Fae, benefits greatly from Duskwalker’s Patch. In combination with the covenant legendary Obedience, Flagellation, and Vendetta all have a 1 minute cooldown. This continuous one-minute burst window might be useful in fights with significant additions or simply with timings that favour this playstyle. Of course, the combination of Duskwalker’s Patch and Grudge Match is a formidable one. You may also wish to play Venthyr for the first few weeks of the raid before switching to Night Fae after you get your tier set and second legendary.

Legendaries with Honorable Mentions for All Covenants:

• Dashing Scoundrel
• Doomblade
• Zoldyck Insignia
  
  In terms of use, Dashing Scoundrel and Doomblade are extremely similar. They both increase Envenom damage while also offering a Deadly Poison bonus or a bleed in the form of Mutilated Flesh. These are both passive choices that have little to no drawback and have no effect on your rotation. When the 4 piece bonus: Grudge Match is included, they are a few percent weaker than Duskwalker’s Patch. Dashing Scoundrel will be made by most rogues in 9.1, making it a strong early pick.
  
  Zoldyck Insignia is an unusual choice here. Despite being a poor all-around pick, Zoldyck Insignia remains the execute legendary of choice. Zoldyck Insignia is a good option if we see a boss (maybe the jailer?) with an execute-based final phase. Whether or if the damage increase of a couple percent during execute compensates for the legendary doing nothing for the remainder of the battle is a more nuanced subject for which I, frankly, don’t have answers right now.

Best Mythic+ Venthyr Assassination Rogue Double Legendaries: Obedience & Duskwalker’s Patch
For identical reasons, Venthyr and Duskwalker’s Patch are back in the limelight. The mythic+ meta has shifted in the recent patch, with rogues dealing with bosses, mini-bosses, and priority targets in packs. While our AoE has increased as the tier set has progressed, we remain the kings and queens of single target damage. The combination of Flagellation and Vendetta’s 1 minute timeframe provides us with a steady stream of single target burst, accessible in every single pull. It will also be possible to have two Vendettas per pack for higher level keys with longer pull times, providing another powerful single target burst. With Obedience providing a reasonable amount of flexibility, you may want to consider picking up Venthyr for added survivability.
Toxic Onslaught & Duskwalker’s Patch, Night Fae
As we saw with the raid options, Night Fae is now the most powerful single target option. The timings may not be as ideal, but Korayn’s First Strike returns, delivering a huge critical strike boost at the start of pulls to aid in early combo point accumulation. Duskwalker’s Patch is an excellent pick for priority and boss damage for the same reasons as Venthyr.

• Necrolord: Deathspike & Duskwalker’s Patch

While Necrolord’s priority damage is lesser, he more than makes up for it with raw firepower during low to medium target cleave and aoe. Deathspike finally gets its chance to shine in an otherwise pointless and unhappy existence during single target and raids, offering a significant increase to the covenant’s aoe potential. As stated at the beginning of the piece, this legendary is still bugged, as it has been since its first appearance in 9.1, and will not give a refund charge on a dying target if hit with the additional Serrated Bone Spike that it throws, including targets that have already received an original Serrated Bone Spike. This may be highly erratic and somewhat irritating to play with because you never know if you’ll receive your charges back for the following pack. If this problem is addressed, Necrolord will have some bright moments in dungeons like Plaguefall, where having numerous Fleshcrafts available to extend the Various Ooze Buffs has proven to be really useful. Unfortunately, the problems were already looked at for remedies earlier in 9.1, but ended up being more bugged than before, resulting in a reversion to the 9.0 bugs. It would be nice to have this legendary working at least once this expansion, especially given that it is a necessary choice for Necrolords, so I hope they can get a set of patches and tweaking in before 9.2 comes.

Honorable Mentions are given to the following covenants:

• Invigorating Shadowdust
• Zoldyck Insignia

Some intriguing ideas are presented here. Zoldyck Insignia appears like a strong AoE choice, but falls short in single target. There is also some ephemeral execute value, which is usually brought up in heated discussions about damage profiles and their significance. It’s OK in my perspective, nothing spectacular, but not unplayable. You lose a lot of the priority damage that Duskwalker’s Patch provides, which will likely prevent the bulk of players from playing anything else, but you gain a boost in AoE damage. Zoldyck Insignia, in my opinion, delivers some intriguing targeted damage on raid battles that, for example, have a damage race end phase starting at 25-30% health. However, because to the typical combat time, you will frequently get more use out of Duskwalker’s Patch in these instances. In mythic+, monsters seldom have execute phases, thus the time issue is more noticeable in shorter engagements, such as dungeon bosses. All of this makes Zoldyck Insignia difficult to recommend for repeated and frequent usage.

The most fiery legendary on this list is the oddly placed Invigorating Shadowdust. There is a lot of disagreement over this among the rogue community. At first sight, it may not appear amazing, but cutting Shiv’s cooldown, along with the synergy with Grudge Match, allows for a lot more uptime on the debuff. It also enables for additional Shiv casts, such as cleansing an anger. The gameplay, in my opinion, is a little odd, and there is no statistically viable niche, but the overall performance is actually rather fantastic. While it lacks the high single/priority damage of Duskwalker’s Patch and the AoE potential of Zoldyck Insignia, it does provide a good middle ground by providing a longer burst AoE window through double Shiv activation. I don’t believe it’ll have much traction on the high end, but it’s a nice change of pace from playing Duskwalker’s Patch all the time.