Is Assassination still viable?

[Synexlol]

What Sabre is trying to say is that we don't care what spec you like and what spec you will play. We are here to discuss numbers and which actually does better. If you want to be a cupcake and play your spec, that's great, but these threads aren't here to discuss who prefers what spec. In these threads, we don't care about what gear you do or don't have, what buffs/debuffs you are missing or what damage you do, it's all irrelevant. Personal experience has no place in a thread talking about what is best.

On the note of which is best, I would say that Mutilate is the better DPS spec atm simply due to the fact that the % damage taken increases we see on a lot of fights scale very well with Vendetta. In practice on normal fights, the line between the two specs is blurred by RNG and player ability, and personally, I think the technicality argument is still up in the air. It would seem that in theory, Combat is now a few % ahead of Mutilate. We don't see this in logs however because most good Rogues have been playing Mutilate, and Combat gear is significantly harder to get (Axe from Nef heroic as opposed to dagger from Omnotron Heroic). At the same time, people are suggesting a ninja nerf to DP, which would obviously hurt Mutilate more than Combat. Sub is, I would guess, a small bit behind, but there and viable in most cases. Hell, simulations are appearing to put Sub above Mutilate, so it might be a bit better than most people think, but I can't see it significantly beating Mutilate/Combat, if at all.

I am going to wait and see tbh, to early to call.

[Morbash]

I am going to wait and see tbh, to early to call.

This ^^
Thank you.
If the numbers end up being heavily in favour of Mut (not like 100dps or something completely insignificant), I'll be re-speccing.

[sabrelime]

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, maybe proabably because of many different reasons (e.g latency 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.

That whole "Special Snowflake" bussiness has to do with arguements with Brett about SUB being viable and combat being viable last patch(which the dps difference was significant enough that I believe no one should have really been combat).

THIS patch I don't care as much, I still believe mutilate is the winner, because I have seen people in my guild try to play combat, and these rogues are definitely not herpidperiderp rogues(my guild is in the top 10), and combat always ends up behind mutilate, and combat being behind is NOT a skill problem, technically combat should be on par with mutilate right now per spreadsheets, it's just mutilate has an execute and a lot of fights have an execute phase AND combat cannot get as much of it's possible dps due to it's mechanics vs how much mutilate can get. The whole "Theoretical" dps thing used to help combat's case out due to fight mechanics, but, now mutilate has the advantage in the mechanics aspect and most combat rogues can't comprehend this.

However, I have given combat rogues the pass this patch because the dps difference isn't as significant.

[Synexlol]

That whole "Special Snowflake" bussiness has to do with arguements with Brett about SUB being viable and combat being viable last patch(which the dps difference was significant enough that I believe no one should have really been combat).

THIS patch I don't care as much, I still believe mutilate is the winner, because I have seen people in my guild try to play combat, and these rogues are definitely not herpidperiderp rogues(my guild is in the top 10), and combat always ends up behind mutilate, and combat being behind is NOT a skill problem, technically combat should be on par with mutilate right now per spreadsheets, it's just mutilate has an execute and a lot of fights have an execute phase AND combat cannot get as much of it's possible dps due to it's mechanics vs how much mutilate can get. The whole "Theoretical" dps thing used to help combat's case out due to fight mechanics, but, now mutilate has the advantage in the mechanics aspect and most combat rogues can't comprehend this.

However, I have given combat rogues the pass this patch because the dps difference isn't as significant.

While I agree, I think you are considering viability and best-dps as one and the same. Just because a spec is doing a bit less damage (As is Subtlety's case, and to a lesser extent Combat pre patch), that doesn't make it inviable. It does make the spec suboptimal, but not inviable. If it was 5k behind or some rather large number, I would claim it to be inviable, but that hasn't been the case.

That said, viability is a subjective idea. In a top 100 guild (As you are), I can understand you expecting your Rogues playing Mutilate or Combat at the least, but in a guild just finishing normals, viability isn't quite the same idea.