Assassination is a builder and spender with one buff to keep up. 
Mutilate builds combo points, 
Slice and Dice turns them into attack speed and 
Eviscerate turns them into damage. Energy is the limit: it refills at 10 a second, and every Mutilate costs 60.
The pull
Nothing is cast before the pull. You start with a full Energy bar and no combo points, and the benchmark opens with Mutilate, not from Stealth, so an Ambush or Garrote opener isn't measured here. Spend the first points on Slice and Dice straight away. Then press 
Cold Blood and drink the 
Mighty Rage Potion, whose Strength is all a rogue gets from it. 
Thistle Tea and the 
Goblin Sapper Charge (Engineering) follow a few seconds later, once the bar has room for the tea's 100 Energy.
Priority
Whenever you can act, the top line that's ready wins. It's a priority, not a sequence.
- 1Cast Slice and Dice if (combo points ≥ 1 and Slice and Dice not active and time remaining ≥ 14) or (combo points ≥ 6 and Slice and Dice remaining < 3 and time remaining > 9)2.6/min+234 DPS · 32.5 %
- 2Use the other cooldowns as they come up if Slice and Dice active+72 DPS · 10.0 %
- 3Cast Cold Blood if Slice and Dice active1.0/min–
- 4Cast Eviscerate if combo points ≥ 3 and (Slice and Dice active or energy ≥ 79 or time remaining < 6) and (Cold Blood not active or combo points ≥ 5 or time remaining < 6)7.6/min+113 DPS · 15.7 %
- 5Cast Mutilate35/min+432 DPS · 60.1 %
Each row shows the line's casts a minute and what the run loses without it. Line by line:
- Slice and Dice whenever it's down and you have a combo point. Don't wait for more points. Even one point gives about 13 seconds with Improved Slice and Dice. Close to half your damage is white swings (31.4 %, plus 10.6 % from Windfury Totem), and Slice and Dice makes them 30 % faster. The line is worth 32.5 %, more than any talent but Mutilate.
- Cold Blood once Slice and Dice is up, then hold Eviscerate for 5 points. In the beta, Mutilate takes Cold Blood's crit without using the buff, so each Mutilate crits with both hands and
Seal Fate adds a third point. Two Mutilates reach 5 points, and a guaranteed-crit Eviscerate spends the buff. Its line measures 0 because the sim would press it anyway. The talent is worth 2.8 %. - Eviscerate at 3 or more points while Slice and Dice is up. Mutilate adds two or three points at a time, and five is the cap. Waiting for five often overflows the cap, so the tuned rotation spends at three where the engine's original waited for four.
Relentless Strikes has a 20 % chance per point spent to refund 25 Energy, and 
Ruthlessness often leaves a point behind. The line is worth 15.7 %. - Mutilate with everything else. It is 18.4 % of your damage, but its line is worth 60.1 %, because every combo point the other lines spend comes from it.
In the last few seconds of the fight, stop renewing Slice and Dice and spend 3 or more points on Eviscerate whether it's up or not.
More than one target
Nothing changes. Assassination has no area attack, and the three-boss rotation is the single-target one. Only 
Dragonbreath Chili and the Goblin Sapper Charge reach all three bosses, plus 
Smokey's Lighter on the shorter three-boss fights, so the Chili rises to 6.1 % of your damage on a three-minute fight against three bosses. The sim stays on one boss all fight. Switching would leave Deadly Poison, and with it Mutilate's 20 % bonus, behind on the first.
Cooldowns
Everything goes on the pull. Cold Blood comes about two seconds in, as soon as Slice and Dice is up, with the potion beside it. A second potion follows two minutes later on a fight long enough for it. Thistle Tea has a five-minute cooldown, so you get one per fight, worth 6.6 % on this fight. Racial cooldowns (Elune's Light, Blood Fury, Berserking, Eureka!) and on-use trinkets go out with them.
The benchmark has every boss debuff up from the pull, so it never waits for Sunder Armor or Curse of Recklessness before pressing anything. On a real pull a few seconds' wait for them may be worth it, but these sims can't say how much.
| Cooldown | Uses | At |
|---|---|---|
 Everlook Pathcarver | 1 | 0:02 |
| Mighty Rage Potion | 1 | 0:02 |
| Cold Blood | 1 | 0:02 |
| Thistle Tea | 1 | 0:05 |
| Goblin Sapper Charge | 1 | 0:05 |
What your log should show
Compare your Warcraft Logs report with this table. Low Slice and Dice uptime means you are letting it lapse. Few Eviscerates a minute usually means you are holding points past three.
| Ability | Casts per minute | Of damage | Crit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auto attack | 92.0 | 31.4 % | 39.7 % |
| Eviscerate | 7.6 | 22.4 % | 39.9 % |
| Mutilate | 35.2 | 18.4 % | 36.3 % |
Auto attack via  Windfury Totem attack | 19.5 | 10.6 % | 39.7 % |
 Deadly Poison V | – | 5.3 % | 7.6 % |
 Instant Poison VI | – | 4.2 % | 15.1 % |
 Touch of the Grave | – | 2.8 % | 0.0 % |
 Dragonbreath Chili | – | 1.6 % | 15.1 % |
| Goblin Sapper Charge | 1.0 | 1.5 % | 14.1 % |
| Everlook Pathcarver | 1.0 | 1.2 % | 15.1 % |
| Brain Damage | – | 0.4 % | 14.7 % |
| Mighty Rage Potion | 1.0 | – | – |
| Slice and Dice | 2.6 | – | – |
| Thistle Tea | 1.0 | – | – |
| Cold Blood | 1.0 | – | – |
The Mutilate row counts the cast and both hand strikes, so its casts per minute are three times your real Mutilates, and its crit rate is diluted by the cast, which can't crit. Read a third of that figure as the target. Otherwise look for Eviscerate near 7.6 a minute and 22.4 % of your damage. Windfury Totem's attacks get a separate auto attack row.
Uptimes
| Buff or debuff | Uptime | Times per fight |
|---|---|---|
| Windfury Totem aura | 100.0 % | 13 |
| Deadly Poison Von the boss | 95.5 % | 1.3 |
| Slice and Dice | 82.2 % | 2.6 |
| Holy Strength | 35.7 % | 2.0 |
| Mighty Rage Potion | 33.3 % | 1.0 |
| Windfury Totem | 8.5 % | 20 |
| Cold Blood | 4.5 % | 1.0 |
Keep Slice and Dice near 82.2 %. Every gap slows the white swings that make up close to half your damage. Deadly Poison on the boss is the other, since Mutilate's 20 % bonus needs it. In the sim it is up 95.5 % of the fight.