Will there be a reason to choose Subtlety over Assassination in MoP?

[Jersovic]

With Shadow Step and Preparation (both Subtletly skills) becoming baseline I can't think of a reason anyone would choose Subtlety over Assassination.

Assassination's Poison damage ignoring armor completely seems to squash "Find Weakness," and the lack of positional requirement also seems as though it would dramatically give Assassination the edge?

Can someone with a bit better reasoning, and cognitive skills explain this to me? I know that MoP is a few months away, but the servers are down and I wouldn't mind having a discussion about this with other Rogues as the subject interests me. :-)

[Wynn]

I assume you're meaning for PVP?

[Muschi]

I honestly don't think anyone can tell yet before any testing has been done by the public.

[Jersovic]

I assume you're meaning for PVP?

lol, I should have clarified that. But yes!

[Deleted]

We don't know. There's still far too much balancing work to be done to try and guesstimate what spec comes out ahead. Focus right now should be on the new abilities and what strategical advantages they bring to the table.

[Wynn]

Assassination does look a lot more viable when compared to Sub now. If you take Shadowstep, Shadow Focus, Cheat Death, Paralytic Poison and most importantly, Anticipation, I can see a LOT of burst from opening with the energy regens with some nice stuns in there to boot!

Of course, it's all theory at the moment, we'd have to try it out and see. I'm really looking forward to the direction Rogues are taking in MoP, we've got some interesting choices.

[Verain]

Unlinking flavorful abilities from rotational mechanics will cause this problem, and I don't really know why Blizzard is doing it. However, the situation is improved now that the 41 talents are baked into spec.

Sub will get hemo, find weakness, backstab, HAT, and shadowdance. This means that sub will do good damage in small bursts, and be able to ignore 75% of armor (a rather large buff, especially versus the heavily armored types). One assumes that this spec will perform similar to current, but with either less mobility (if they forgo shadowstep, which a second smokebomb probably guarantees for most comps).

Muti will get muti, envenom, the new execute move, and vendetta. Vendetta is unquestionably far worse than shadowdance, but mutilate and the execute are likely better than hemo / backstab, and envenom is obviously superior to eviscerate. However, a mutilate rogue is still ultimately limited, at all points in time, by his energy and his combo points, whereas sub rogues are able to start wailing out damage every global during dance. On live, mutilate has more damage than sub- this may not be the case in mop. I'm a bit surprised that things such as 10% less damage taken are going away- it seems odd that the only pvp distinctions are these moves.

Combat has NO WAY AROUND ARMOR, an obsolete design for cataclysm and certainly for mop. In exchange it gets the silly sinister strike, extra energy regen, the amazing adrenaline rush, and the quite strong revealing strike. Launching an 8 second kidney is not a bad idea for anyone. But, lacking improved gouge and improved sprint, as well as the extra armor cooldown, combat is definitely hurting- it comes down to revealing strike and AR versus the ability to actually deal damage to most opponents. On live, right now, combat is the only dps spec with no way around armor. Note that it's impossible for combat to even PRESS envenom in the expac- it's an assassination only move.