Is Assassination still viable?

[Synexlol]

I see a lack of reading comprehension... so I question if you actually read what I wrote, because that would explain it as well. Did I even once say in that post combat wasn't viable? Did I even once rage about combat damage? No to both. Seriously you should go read the whole conversation and then read my post again.

He was saying sub mechanics had to do with viability just like combat ones did which is wrong. Any viability problems combat has had since the release of wow were due to the lack of damage. The exact same thing applies to pretty much any dps spec, and that point should have been clear so I don't know how you missed it.

Couldn't have buffed coefficients without forcing slow offhands? Again, are you following the conversation? We are talking about viability, not scaling, not gearing, not balance in short or long term. Forcing a slow offhand would not matter in terms of viability as long as the slow off hand gave you enough dps. In fact none of the combat talents or gear would matter if you had the dps. If you could generate enough dps as combat by putting 1 point in there and leaving the other points unspent then it would be perfectly viable. So again, sub wasn't "not viable" because of mechanics, difficulty, or any of that crap; the real reason sub was "not viable" was because in a real raid the actual dps produced was too low. This mechanic crap is just one possible thing that could be changed to fix the actual problem which is lack of dps.

Edit: Also having a certain spec clear hard modes doesn't make it viable. I'm pretty sure Paragon could take me through all 13 hard modes as 0/0/0. So by your definition that would make 0/0/0 a viable raiding spec. Viability isn't just your damage at the end, but for dps on most fights, yeah the 2 most important things are your dps and your damage taken.

While I would usually agree with you, Combat was never going to be fixed by increasing damage, so the only solution to it's problems was to fix the mechanics. The same could be said for Sub. They are never going to give Backstab a 5000% multiplier, so the only logical solution to it's rotation problems (Which is it's only flaw, it's damage is totally fine) is to remove it's reliance upon Find Weakness/Shadow Dance, or provide an alternative way to get the buff up. This is why I think that Sub has rotation issues (Perhaps not 'no rotation', that's a bit extreme). The spec is based around Find Weakness and Shadow Dance, both of which require a cooldown. Neither of the other specs rely on a cooldown in that way. At the moment I think Sub is largely fine (But I still don't think it should be so reliant on ShD/Vanish for Find Weakness uptime), perhaps a few tweaks could help it out.

I am thinking perhaps a proc that allows Ambush to be used in normal combat (As a very rough idea), to give the rotation more of a rotation'ey feel, instead of just waiting for the next ShD/Vanish. From playing the spec, that's the only flaw I see.

[Sesshou]

While I would usually agree with you, Combat was never going to be fixed by increasing damage, so the only solution to it's problems was to fix the mechanics. The same could be said for Sub. They are never going to give Backstab a 5000% multiplier, so the only logical solution to it's rotation problems (Which is it's only flaw, it's damage is totally fine) is to remove it's reliance upon Find Weakness/Shadow Dance, or provide an alternative way to get the buff up. This is why I think that Sub has rotation issues (Perhaps not 'no rotation', that's a bit extreme). The spec is based around Find Weakness and Shadow Dance, both of which require a cooldown. Neither of the other specs rely on a cooldown in that way. At the moment I think Sub is largely fine (But I still don't think it should be so reliant on ShD/Vanish for Find Weakness uptime), perhaps a few tweaks could help it out.

I am thinking perhaps a proc that allows Ambush to be used in normal combat (As a very rough idea), to give the rotation more of a rotation'ey feel, instead of just waiting for the next ShD/Vanish. From playing the spec, that's the only flaw I see.

Well obviously they wouldn't do that. I just picked some absurd example to prove a point. Now they could go and smudge every coefficient in the tree a bit and create a big enough dps increase without changing mechanics. As for combat, there were plenty of ways they could have fixed it to pump out more damage without changing mechanics. One of the easiest would have been higher cp generator damage which could have been done without even making much difference in pvp, and another would be higher dot damage.

[Synexlol]

Well obviously they wouldn't do that. I just picked some absurd example to prove a point. Now they could go and smudge every coefficient in the tree a bit and create a big enough dps increase without changing mechanics. As for combat, there were plenty of ways they could have fixed it to pump out more damage without changing mechanics. One of the easiest would have been higher cp generator damage which could have been done without even making much difference in pvp, and another would be higher dot damage.

Yes, there are more subtle ways of fixing a spec, but when there is a gaping problem with a mechanic (ie. Mastery and off hand speed), there really is only one viable solution. Granted, the Subtlety rotation doesn't have such a bad problem, but it's there all the same and if they hope to make it equal in everyones eyes, simple damage buffs will still leave the spec with a feeling of 'waiting for the next ShD/Vanish to get FW up', and it's that fundamental problem with the rotation that drives people away from the spec.

[shadowboy]

The only major flaw to combat's mechanics is bandit's guile. In my opinion what needs to happen is that combat's baseline damage (no insight) needs to increase, have the bandit's guile insight stack for less (the original 5/10/15%), and stack faster (2 or 3 combo builders, instead of 4). This reduces both the dps penalty for switches, and the rampup time for the spec. Adding redirect to restless blades helps, but it doesn't help enough. The problem is that too much of combat's damage relies on a pretty long restless blades cycle.

The mastery buff wasn't so great of one (a buff nonetheless). It needs to be an offhand hit that deals mainhand damage (for extra deadly poison procs). The biggest contributing factors of the extra damage from combat with 4.0.6 came from vitality and revealing strike buffs (mostly the extra 5% AP from vitality).

[Brett Skullcrack]

This inability to see what the conversation was actually about, along with you claiming I said things which I clearly did not, makes me question whether you actually read my post or any of the preceding ones... Did I even once say in that post combat wasn't viable? Did I even once rage about combat damage? No to both. Seriously you should go read the whole conversation and then read my post again.

You seriously need to learn to express yourself in English if you did not mean to say that Combat was not viable due to lack of damage in the section that I quoted.

Any viability problems combat has had since the release of wow were due to the lack of damage. The exact same thing applies to pretty much any dps spec, and that point should have been clear so I don't know how you missed it.

And, if you read what I wrote you'd see I was describing the root of lack of damage - broken mastery. The rest of your post just shows you define "viability" as "getting the longest epeen on the meters". That's your definition, that I do not happen to agree with. You could use very own "dps not high enough" definition to say that rogues of any spec are not raid viable because other classes do more damage - that's the hypocrisy in your position.

[Sesshou]

You seriously need to learn to express yourself in English if you did not mean to say that Combat was not viable due to lack of damage in the section that I quoted.



And, if you read what I wrote you'd see I was describing the root of lack of damage - broken mastery. The rest of your post just shows you define "viability" as "getting the longest epeen on the meters". That's your definition, that I do not happen to agree with. You could use very own "dps not high enough" definition to say that rogues of any spec are not raid viable because other classes do more damage - that's the hypocrisy in your position.

What are you talking about...

Combat was never ever not viable because of conflicting mechanics.

Is what I said in the quote you used in your first post. You might want to go learn to read things expressed in english. All I said was should there have been a point where combat was not viable, the cause was not mechanics. That quote didn't even claim in any way there was even a point in time where combat was not viable.

Now in the new thing you just quoted, I did claim there was at least one point in time since WoW was released where combat was not viable, but that wasn't even there when you made your first post so you just pulled it out of nothing.

The root of lack of damage is not broken mastery. The root is that our damaging abilities did not do enough damage. Mastery is one such ability, yes. There are countless things that combine to produce out total damage. The total damage is the only thing that matters, so really you could change a rather large amount of things and make a spec viable.

Can mastery be buffed to an extent something could be viable? Yes. Is something not viable because its mastery sucks? No. I don't see how you fail to grasp that the argument doesn't worth both ways. The only way it would work both ways is if the only contributing factor to the damage being too low was the mastery.

And there is no hypocrisy. There is just being realistic. Were rogues as a class viable (talking pre 4.0.6)? Not really on many of the fights. You read Paragon's statement after they got heroic council? Now most people don't raid in guilds like paragon and don't have people who have alts and can field any raid comp for any fight. So many of us do have rogues in the raid on every fight and there is not much that can be done about it. However, the issue here is not viable classes, we are already assuming that you are bringing a rogue or the spec is irrelevant. So now that you do have a rogue in your raid, looking at what is viable for the rogue to do is important.

Also you failed to see my second requirement... it is not just your dps on the meters that matters. But if the other factors are equal, which they in general are among the 3 rogue specs, the dps you can produce will be the deciding factor for what is viable and what is just some one wanting to be a special snowflake.

[Brett Skullcrack]

Is what I said in the quote you used in your first post. You might want to go learn to read things expressed in english. All I said was should there have been a point where combat was not viable, the cause was not mechanics. That quote didn't even claim in any way there was even a point in time where combat was not viable.

Now in the new thing you just quoted, I did claim there was at least one point in time since WoW was released where combat was not viable, but that wasn't even there when you made your first post so you just pulled it out of nothing.

Sure you can hide behind weasel words like "people":

People said that, but what they actually meant was that conflicting mechanics were preventing combat from having enough dps, and without enough dps it was not viable.

but that's pointless. If you want to be pedantic, I didn't even claim you think combat was non viable.

The root of lack of damage is not broken mastery. The root is that our damaging abilities did not do enough damage. Mastery is one such ability, yes. There are countless things that combine to produce out total damage. The total damage is the only thing that matters, so really you could change a rather large amount of things and make a spec viable.

Can mastery be buffed to an extent something could be viable? Yes. Is something not viable because its mastery sucks? No. I don't see how you fail to grasp that the argument doesn't worth both ways. The only way it would work both ways is if the only contributing factor to the damage being too low was the mastery.

Had you read and comprehended what I wrote you'd see that broken mastery WAS the root of the low damage. Combat lost a large chunk of dps due to removal of poison talents and sword spec and what they put in place did not compensate for that loss of dps. However, they HAD to fix the mastery before doing any other tuning BECAUSE mastery was designed as the central balancing knob for all classes - hence broken mastery was the root of the problem. They couldn't just go buffing Sinister Strike damage before they fixed mastery because they'd just have to go back and rework those buffs once mastery was fixed.

Were rogues as a class viable (talking pre 4.0.6)? Not really on many of the fights.

Again you assume your own definition of "viable", which is "able to get biggest epeen on the meter". It's pointless to argue about viability if you don't even agree on the definition.

[Sesshou]

Sure you can hide behind weasel words like "people":



but that's pointless. If you want to be pedantic, I didn't even claim you think combat was non viable.



Had you read and comprehended what I wrote you'd see that broken mastery WAS the root of the low damage. Combat lost a large chunk of dps due to removal of poison talents and sword spec and what they put in place did not compensate for that loss of dps. However, they HAD to fix the mastery before doing any other tuning BECAUSE mastery was designed as the central balancing knob for all classes - hence broken mastery was the root of the problem. They couldn't just go buffing Sinister Strike damage before they fixed mastery because they'd just have to go back and rework those buffs once mastery was fixed.



Again you assume your own definition of "viable", which is "able to get biggest epeen on the meter". It's pointless to argue about viability if you don't even agree on the definition.

How is the word "people" a weasel word?

Yeah you did actually say that, heres the part where you did:

You seriously need to learn to express yourself in English if you did not mean to say that Combat was not viable due to lack of damage in the section that I quoted.

Which is clearly you saying that I said that, even though you do give the catch that I may not have meant to say that, but thats still wrong since I never said it at all to begin with..

And I did read that, you really completely fail at logic. Let me spell it out as best I can... We have a state which we will Call E. Now say C1, C2, ..., CN are all causes for E, meaning that C1vC2v...vCN ==> E. It is a logical fallacy to assume E is true because C1 is true. E is basically whether or not we do enough dps, C1 say is low damage from mastery. C1 is not enough to imply E. It is also not true that E==>C1vC2v...vCN, meaning that now if we assume E, it is not necessarily the case that C1,...,CN are true. Meaning you can do enough dps and C1 can still be false.

Basically, mastery is not the root of low damage. And yeah I see you said that multiple times, guess what it was equally wrong each time. Low mastery damage was a contributing factor, and that is it. The state we care about is being viable, and you can reach that state without fixing low dps mastery.

I did not say viable = "able to get biggest epeen on the meter." You are again failing to differentiate between what I said and what you said. What I said was dps is an important factor and the primary reason we are there. I did not anywhere define viability to be most damage. Back to the logic thing which you don't seem to grasp. A is being viable; B is high dps. A==>B. Staying with what I said earlier, it is not the case that B==>A. However, it is true that -B==>-A.

They couldn't just go buffing Sinister Strike damage before they fixed mastery because they'd just have to go back and rework those buffs once mastery was fixed.

You are missing the point entirely and actually derailing the conversation. Whether or not mastery was the ideal change, or whether or not there would be balancing issues is entirely irrelevant. Something extremely broken (in a good way) or extremely strong in a stupid way can both be viable. Is a million damage backstab/sinister strike op? Yeah, not even slightly balanced. Is it an intelligent fix? No. If combat made your SS hit for a million damage, or if sub did for backstab, would be be viable? Hell yeah it would.

In fact the only real reason changing mastery was a good approach was due to long term scaling of the original mastery being crap and would have caused a larger dps deficit as gear got better therefore requiring future tuning. However, it definitely was not the only way to fix it. Anything which buffed dps enough would have worked.

[Krid]

@Sesshou
A simple question was asked if Assassination was viable. Stop writing books about Combat.

[Sesshou]

@Sesshou
A simple question was asked if Assassination was viable. Stop writing books about Combat.

Hmm, except that I wasn't talking about combat but whether or not mechanics can cause a spec to not be viable (which they can't). The combat specific stuff was brought about by some one else initially derailing.

[suckafreem3]

http://stateofdps.com/

Assassination is still better then combat, not nearly as dominant as it was, but it still should top combat.

Maybe look at your gearing/spec/reforging and make sure your character is on the right track

[Morbash]

http://stateofdps.com/

Assassination is still better then combat, not nearly as dominant as it was, but it still should top combat.

Maybe look at your gearing/spec/reforging and make sure your character is on the right track

The jury is still out actually. The 4.0.6 data is not yet able to be separated from pre-patch data.
http://stateofdps.tumblr.com/

[sabrelime]

The jury is still out actually. The 4.0.6 data is not yet able to be separated from pre-patch data.
http://stateofdps.tumblr.com/

How is the jury out? The numbers have been run on EJ and combat and mutilate are pretty close, but for the most part mutilate is the spec you want to play for the highest dps, especially since quite a few fights have an important burn and mutilate does more damage during this burn even if combat and mutilate dps were even.

[Synexlol]

How is the jury out? The numbers have been run on EJ and combat and mutilate are pretty close, but for the most part mutilate is the spec you want to play for the highest dps, especially since quite a few fights have an important burn and mutilate does more damage during this burn even if combat and mutilate dps were even.

+1. I'd like to add that no spec is very far behind any others anymore, but Mutilate is still top DPS where it matters.

[Morbash]

How is the jury out? The numbers have been run on EJ and combat and mutilate are pretty close, but for the most part mutilate is the spec you want to play for the highest dps, especially since quite a few fights have an important burn and mutilate does more damage during this burn even if combat and mutilate dps were even.

Quote from Aldriana's FAQ:
"Assassination and Combat are both reasonable options. Combat should be a bit ahead above 35% and a bit behind below 35%, but its hard to say which is going to be higher on average. "

Also, the numbers on the logs have skewed in Mut's favour in because more of the best players in the game have been playing it over combat since Cata.

Like I said, until I see concrete numbers that emphatically prove mut is significantly more dps, I'll play better as the spec I know and enjoy. I'll be sticking with combat, and pulling perfectly fine numbers (and not holding my Guild back in any way IMO). Thanks.

[sabrelime]

Quote from Aldriana's FAQ:
"Assassination and Combat are both reasonable options. Combat should be a bit ahead above 35% and a bit behind below 35%, but its hard to say which is going to be higher on average. "

Also, the numbers on the logs have skewed in Mut's favour in because more of the best players in the game have been playing it over combat since Cata.

Like I said, until I see concrete numbers that emphatically prove mut is significantly more dps, I'll play better as the spec I know and enjoy. I'll be sticking with combat, and pulling perfectly fine numbers (and not holding my Guild back in any way IMO). Thanks.

Aldriana is saying that he believes that combat and mutilate are basically the same dps THEORETICALLY. This HELPS your case, BUT, in practice combat is almost always worse because some of the dps combat gets theoretically is almost impossible to get because of how the spec plays. A real world situation can only ever widen the theoretical gap between mutilate and combat. I wish Aldriana wasn't so wishy-washy about this, especially since he should well know how combat holds up in a real world situation vs a theoretical situation.

I'm not arguing mutilate does SIGNIFICANTLY more dps, it doesn't anymore, and I don't care that it doesn't. You still should really play the spec that is the most dps for a given situation which will still almost always be mutilate, but now combat is no longer as big of a drop.

I'll be sticking with combat, and pulling perfectly fine numbers (and not holding my Guild back in any way IMO). Thanks.

Good job sounding like a prick, and ignoring all of our points.

AND YOU KNOW WHAT the same people now who are like "Lolz I'm combat and it's justified and Lolz I even believe it's higher dps so that means everyone should be combat", are the same damn people telling me that they can be combat because they want to be combat and DAMN THE DPS FULL SPEED AHEAD FUCK PEOPLE WHO DON"T AGREE WITH ME, it's also the same people in ICC who scoffed at those who played mutilate when combat was "obviously" the clearly superior spec, why the fuck would you want to play what you want to play. It seems like combat rogues always swap their arguments around to support playing combat to hell or high water. I like the idea of mutilate over the two other specs but if either spec had an advantage in dps I would play them instead.

[Morbash]

Aldriana is saying that he believes that combat and mutilate are basically the same dps THEORETICALLY. This HELPS your case, BUT, in practice combat is almost always worse because some of the dps combat gets theoretically is almost impossible to get because of how the spec plays. A real world situation can only ever widen the theoretical gap between mutilate and combat. I wish Aldriana wasn't so wishy-washy about this, especially since he should well know how combat holds up in a real world situation vs a theoretical situation.

I'm not arguing mutilate does SIGNIFICANTLY more dps, it doesn't anymore, and I don't care that it doesn't. You still should really play the spec that is the most dps for a given situation which will still almost always be mutilate, but now combat is no longer as big of a drop.



Good job sounding like a prick, and ignoring all of our points.

AND YOU KNOW WHAT the same people now who are like "Lolz I'm combat and it's justified and Lolz I even believe it's higher dps so that means everyone should be combat", are the same damn people telling me that they can be combat because they want to be combat and DAMN THE DPS FULL SPEED AHEAD FUCK PEOPLE WHO DON"T AGREE WITH ME, it's also the same people in ICC who scoffed at those who played mutilate when combat was "obviously" the clearly superior spec, why the fuck would you want to play what you want to play. It seems like combat rogues always swap their arguments around to support playing combat to hell or high water. I like the idea of mutilate over the two other specs but if either spec had an advantage in dps I would play them instead.

Wow, someones a little sensitive....
I appear to have offended the DPS police....take me away officer

[Harlequin719]

Assassination will always be viable. Why? Because it's the most stupid, boring and OP rogue spec out there and pretty much has been since TBC.

The reason it will be the most viable is because of the fact that's stupid and Blizzard loves stupid.

[sabrelime]

Assassination will always be viable. Why? Because it's the most stupid, boring and OP rogue spec out there and pretty much has been since TBC.

The reason it will be the most viable is because of the fact that's stupid and Blizzard loves stupid.

Pretty big statement there.

Could you explain how combat is less boring? Hell combat by your definition of "OP" has been op before because it pulled more dps than mutilate at some points. In WOTLK combat's rotation was nothing special vs mutilate and it still isn't now.

---------- Post added 2011-02-15 at 08:26 PM ----------

Wow, someones a little sensitive....
I appear to have offended the DPS police....take me away officer

You are ignoring almost all of what has been said in this fourm, you brought up what I thought was a stupid statement and I responded to you. I don't care how you feel about it.

[Morbash]

Pretty big statement there.

Could you explain how combat is less boring? Hell combat by your definition of "OP" has been op before because it pulled more dps than mutilate at some points. In WOTLK combat's rotation was nothing special vs mutilate and it still isn't now.

---------- Post added 2011-02-15 at 08:26 PM ----------



You are ignoring almost all of what has been said in this fourm, you brought up what I thought was a stupid statement and I responded to you. I don't care how you feel about it.

Actually I read everything on the this thread and I just disagree with you. I simply don't buy that playing a spec that has a barely significant THEORETCAL DPS gain over a spec that I have the gear for and am used to playing is me being a "special snowflake" or holding my guild back in any way. I usually top the meters over our equally geared mut rogue, probably because of many different reasons (e.g latency, skill level, experience or whatever) and, before you start ranting again, I'm not in any top guild we are fairly average and enjoy playing together and are progressing fine thanks.

I genrally agree with most things you post here Sabre, but not this time. sorry.