Fatal attacks instead reduce you to 7% of your maximum health. For 3 sec afterward, you take 85% reduced damage. Cannot trigger more often than once per 6 min.
As assassins and redistributors of wealth, rogues specialize in avoiding unpleasant confrontations.[1]
Cheat Death is a rogue class talent. Its main purpose is to increase survivability in PVP situations, oftentimes allowing a healer just enough time to land a crucial heal.
Patch 10.0.5 (2023-01-24):[Elusiveness]/Cheat Death choice node has moved up to row 2, taking the position where [Feint] used to be.
Patch 10.0.0 (2022-10-25): Now a row 5 class talent (was a level 35 talent).
Patch 9.0.1 (2020-10-13): Now available at level 35 (was 60).
Patch 7.1.5 (2017-01-10): Cannot trigger more often than once per 6 minutes (was 2 minutes). This cooldown resets on death.
Patch 7.0.3 (2016-07-19): Now reduces to 7% of maximum health (down from 10%) with a 2 minute cooldown (up from 1.5 minutes). Now available at level 60 (was 45).
Patch 5.4.0 (2013-09-10): Now reduces damage taken by 85% after activating (up from 80%).
Hotfix (2012-09-14):Cheat Death can now only absorb up to twice the rogue's maximum health.
Patch 5.0.4 (2012-08-28): Now available to all specializations as a level 45 talent (was a Tier 5 Subtlety talent).
Patch 4.1.0 (2011-04-26): Cheat Death now reduces damage taken by 80% while in effect, (down from 90%). Its internal cooldown has been raised to 90 seconds, up from 60.
Patch 4.0.1 (2010-10-12): No longer modified by resilience. Moved to Tier 5 (was Tier 7).
Patch 2.4.3 (2008-07-15): This talent has been rebalanced significantly. Killing blows are no longer 100% absorbed. If the Rogue is below 10% health, the killing blow is still completely absorbed; if the Rogue is over 10% health, enough damage will be absorbed to reduce the Rogue’s health down to 10%. For the following 3 seconds, damage is not always reduced by 90%; it is now reduced by a maximum of 90%, depending on how much resilience the Rogue has. The damage reduction will be four times the damage reduction resilience causes against critical strikes.
Patch 2.4.0 (2008-03-25): A combat log message will now show when this ability activates and now has an animation. It will now almost always be accurate in displaying the amount of damage done to a rogue when under the effects of Cheat Death.
Patch 2.3.2 (2008-01-08): When multiple attacks land simultaneously, all those resolved after the attack which triggered Cheat Death will now have their damage reduced by 90% as intended. However, the combat log will still report them doing full damage.
Patch 2.3.0 (2007-11-13): Chance to trigger increased to 33/66/100% (was 10/20/30%) and now also causes the rogue to take 90% less damage for 3 seconds when the effect triggers. This effect cannot occur more than once per minute.
Patch 2.1.0 (2007-05-22): Added a visual, sound, and combat log message when the Cheat Death talent saves the rogue from death.