Are we now forced to drop Assassination to max dps?

[Venant]

It seems like the recent nerf to assassin's resolve was complete overkill, because sub is now completely dominant in single target fights and combat is completely dominant in cleave fights. If you don't want to have to explain why you are doing 30k+ dps less than other rogues, you will need to drop assassination and use Assurance of Consequence + 4pc as sub or combat. Do other rogues agree with me, or can you see a purpose for playing sin from this point forward?

[Galbrei]

If you're doing 30k+ less dps than other rogues than spec isn't the only thing holding you down.
If you feel more confortable with Assassination than it might be worth it to stick to it, at least until you get AoC. Mut is doing less damage than Combat yes, but the difference is not yet big enough to justify playing with a spec you're not good with.

Me, I'm just glad Combat is back in game, I always prefered it over Assassination anyway.

[Deleted]

Complete overkill? Completely dominant? 30k+ less? May I ask which universe are u playing in? Cos I've been trying sub for last 3 weeks and it's nowhere near the state it was in Cataclysm (only time it was worth it). It may be a BIT better than assa at best but it has significantly harder rotation and worst aoe ingame so if ur not particularly enjoying it or in need of on demand burst for progression, it's not even worth bothering. The best thing was getting wrecked by worse geared assa rogue on patchfuse normal, that moment simply killed it for me. Although It wasn't 100% play from me, still top 3 parse and that simply wouldnt happen if sub was as op as ur describing.

So... viable? Certainly yes. OP? Hell no. Even combat can pull same single target. It even looks like all 3 specs are doing nearly the same single target output. lol.

[Squirl]

Mut is fine until you get a bit of SoO gear, then the other two specs slowly break ahead. A 30k+ difference won't happen unless there's a huge gear/skill discrepancy or until near-BiS gear levels.

I've completely dropped my Mut spec because, as you said, Subt is better for single target and Combat is better for cleave. I'm not really using Combat on any fights, but I have it just in case. Protectors is the only one where it might be worthwhile (but cleaving too much is bad), or Spoils with some weird strat where you open a bunch of smalls (not a great idea on heroic), or Galakras if you're not in the tower group (but at the same time, Subt is great for the towers and rogues are good for manning the first cannon).

Personally, I love the departure from Mut. Though it plays more fluidly this tier than it has the rest of the xpac, it's still relatively slow and boring. The skill cap is super low and performing optimally isn't that fulfilling. Subtlety is the opposite: fairly fast (but not GCD capped), high skill cap, and pulling everything off feels good. Combat is fun once you get AoC because you're pressing CDs all the time, but it's not my favorite spec.

[Carp The Fish]

I haven't felt the need to drop Assassination for Combat OR Subtlety. This is the first patch of the entire expansion where all 3 specs are REALLY viable, and running my character through Shadowcraft, the possible weapon combo I have available for Combat would only be a 4k DPS increase compared to my current Assassination build (Haste-to-8.5k > Mastery > Crit > Haste).
And unlike my friends here who have stuck with the same spec for most of the expansion (which is why Mut is now stale for them), I've been switching around at least once a month, so Mut still feels fun.

[Grayjoy]

I'm one of the few rogues who's bummed that mut is relegated to inferiority this tier. It's far and away my favorite spec.

That said, I've noticed problems with more haste combined with both the t15 and t16 2 sets causing me to live in that dangerous zone of 5 anticipation charges, almost a full energy bar, and a few seconds left on envenom. It happens with more regularity, especially during heroism, than I'm comfortable with. Maybe sub/combat will be a nice change of pace. Still, I really don't want to drop mut for progression.

[Sesshou]

I think the response should really be "omfg we can finally drop assassination this expansion and be viable if we want to." We even have more than 1 viable spec in the same tier, omfg amazing.

That said, I've noticed problems with more haste combined with both the t15 and t16 2 sets causing me to live in that dangerous zone of 5 anticipation charges, almost a full energy bar, and a few seconds left on envenom. It happens with more regularity, especially during heroism, than I'm comfortable with. Maybe sub/combat will be a nice change of pace. Still, I really don't want to drop mut for progression.

That dangerous zone is a figment of your imagination because it should pretty much never happen and when it does, what you should do is obvious because its the same thing you would do with 3 or 4 anticipation charges. If you are constantly at 5 anticipation, you are wasting CP (dont use a builder if a potential seal fate proc can be wasted) because the odds of you being at either 3 or 4 charges is a good bit higher than a full 5. Heroism / lust shouldn't really effect this happening.

Now should you go from 2 charges to 5 with a mut or 3 charges it 5 with a dispatch... absolutely nothing changes. You operate as you do pooling in any other condition under the same rule that you pool to wait for your envenom buff to drop up to the point where it potentially costs you resources and then envenom.

[Verain]

Mutilate is my least favorite rogue spec. I definitely like it, but sub and combat are both much more fun for me. The dispatch change helps the spec be nice, however.


Here's the thing: Mutilate has a lot of advantages over Sub. I have said- for YEARS- that sub needs more ST damage than any other spec. Here's why:

1)- Reliance on position means that in practice, sub will not be optimal on many bosses.
2)- Reliance on uptime caused by short cooldowns and a comparably short energy bar. A sub rogue who is disrupted loses a goodly bit of damage compared to a mutilate rogue.
3)- Lack of serious cleave or multidot. This means that fights that reward these very common situations will automatically not reward sub.
4)- Lack of serious AoE- this is partly mitigated by tempest, but remains a concern.
5)- Timer based playstyle- sub manages debuffs and buffs and has to plan moves ahead for optimum damage. Mutilate requires less planning.
6)- Global capped- at times, sub can be global capped.
7)- No cheats- Sub never gets to cheat to win. Some specs reward you when some bad guy dies, or give you more resources for multidotting, or reward you for hitting a low health or high health target (and some fights will provide a lot of these, allowing you to skew your average). No matter what else goes on in a fight, you never think "Ah, I have just the dps tool for that!" as a sub rogue.

Combat meets some of these requirements- 2 to a greater degree than sub, 5 entirely, and 6 was recently addressed.

Ultimately, sub is harder than mutilate and more limited than both mutilate and combat. It needs to be the highest ST- probably in the whole game- or the spec is trashed.


Further, you'll note that whenever sub is tuned below this point, you don't see any sub rogues. The number of sub rogues becomes negligible. You don't see them on WoL, raidbots, anywhere. You just don't know what sub even can do- it's a dead spec for pve those patches (and sometimes for pvp- 5.0 sub was so shockingly bad that most players respecced, didn't show up, or actively rerolled). This is a sign that sub needs to be tuned the highest single target.

Now, you could go a different way. You could give sub a trick that only it can do, and that you really like. You could allow sub to cast a debuff on up to three targets that mirrors a fraction of their damage to them, for instance (this was the shadow duplicate idea that eventually got implemented as SEF, which was how Blizzard brought over that WCIII mechanic, originally a survival / dps / utility cooldown, now an interesting monk cleave). But, they didn't. Sub doesn't have that.


Sub needs that edge. And mutilate will still have parses, and be played. If it was 30% behind, yea, that is an issue. But we all know it isn't.

[rayanne]

I got a heroic mace and decided to drop assassination for combat. There was a noticeable single target DPS increase. With the bonus of being able to cleave if I want! I enjoy the rotation on assassination more (especially during progression, it's just easier to learn fights and play assn), but combat just feels more well rounded. I am waiting on 4pc and another SoO to go subtlety.

The only thing I miss is the execute damage for assassination--it is really handy in some fights and shouldn't be ignored.

[Sesshou]

The only thing I miss is the execute damage for assassination--it is really handy in some fights and shouldn't be ignored.

I've seen others say or allude to that, but really, which fights really favor lumping the majority of your dps into the last 35%? Now granted I don't know all of the heroic fights and in fact I somehow haven't killed 4 bosses on any difficulty (always need volunteers to sit and idc about their loot, at least for now), but I can't think of a single one off hand where that is important except maybe heroic garrosh (though most rogues seem to be sub I think?).

[Kael]

It's a significant benefit on Immerseus (SPENDS more time <35%), Norushen (burn phase), Sha (burn phase), and Garrosh (burn phase - both end of p2 and ALL of p3).

These all assume the burn phase is a bigger issue for your group than the main phase (excepting Immerseus, for which I'd argue the opposite). This doesn't mean either that it makes assassination better than the alternatives, but the execute bonus is significant on these fights.

...that said, the only ones here that are "difficult" are definitely Garrosh and possibly Sha (we're skipping him for now, so I can't say offhand).

[Mac223]

It's as even as it's ever been this expansion. All the specs are viable, and have situations/fights where they excel.

[Hanto]

The answer is simple:
(You kill the Batman)
If you want to maximize your DPS, you will be FORCED to drop the weakest link if you WANT to perform the best.

Now, if you just want to have fun, still be good but not AS good (see MM compared to SV and BM after the recent hunter buffs, and also know the term "viable"), you certainly aren't forced to do anything.

[Deleted]

I realy enjoy assassination, sub is too limiting in positioning requirements and combat realy feels boring to me, but does have good cleave and with the CDs lowered with trinket it does become much more enjoyable.... but having an entire spec only being fun with the help of a trinket does feel like a bandaid.

I play mostly for fun and you are probably refering to min/maxing but unless you are realy realy good most of the people around just play one spec better than the other, and that factor may contribute to more dps than just the charts tell you.

I do believe that assassination was overkill on the recent nerf tough, especialy because it's a spec that was not realy over-the-top on most fights due to poor cleave...

[Deleted]

I'm one of the few rogues who's bummed that mut is relegated to inferiority this tier. It's far and away my favorite spec.

It is not relegated to inferiority. Not only the single target output by each spec is extremely close, but above all ST damage is far from being the only thing to take into consideration when you're picking an (optimal) spec for a boss.

In SoO:
Malkorok: unless the tank is the only one to stand in front during p2 (most of 10man raids tactic I guess), you don't want to be sub; and assa suffers less from 'loss' of expertise than combat - doesn't matter though
Spoils: assa or combat for obvious reasons
Thok: assa is much more profitable than other 2 specs during fixate phases; also being sub can be problematic in the last screech phase, depending on your raid positioning
Siegecrafter: since the c&d fix, I doubt you should spec sub for this fight as it can take longer to recuperate from transitioning between belt & boss (again, depending on your raid tactic)
Paragons: movement & positioning make sub terrible
Garrosh: there are incentives to use combat (interm, mc) and assa (45% of the fight are with boss under 35% hp, incluiding p3 & p4, which are by far the hardest)

It's a significant benefit on Immerseus (SPENDS more time <35%), Norushen (burn phase), Sha (burn phase), and Garrosh (burn phase - both end of p2 and ALL of p3).

Thok too. The last phase is more healing-intensive than the first three.

[Deleted]

If you're doing 30k+ less dps than other rogues than spec isn't the only thing holding you down.

Actually Sub for me is 32k more than assas if both are played perfectly; so yeah, no play style issues, just spec imbalances.

Edit: Please note that this is at ilvl 559

[Senftw]

I generally default for combat for high cleave DPS and reasonable ST as well. Mut is dead.

[Kael]

Thok too. The last phase is more healing-intensive than the first three.

This would only occur if his phases were % based, which, unless I've missed something, they are not. Maximizing damage across the encounter ideally minimizes time in the final phase (or precludes it entirely), and he doesn't gain abilities which are dangerous from hitting low HP. I wouldn't count it =)

He - by what metric? Shadowcraft isn't meant to be used for cross-spec comparisons, since they're run differently by the engine.

[Deleted]

He - by what metric? Shadowcraft isn't meant to be used for cross-spec comparisons, since they're run differently by the engine.

As far as I was aware 320k is higher than 290k however it is calculated, unless I'm mistaken and by "they're run differently by the engine" you mean that either assassination or subtlety are out by 30k cumulatively in this case, which is a way too large margin of error shadowcraft...

[Kael]

I'm not sure how wide the swings are, but the way the engine functions is different between the three specs - SimCraft would be a better tool for cross-spec comparisons of expected DPS. ShC (at least in the last couple of tiers) has remained primarily focused on showing how changes in gear or a few select options are likely to affect your DPS - that DPS isn't really a target, but, for example, in assassination, if you switch weapons and the DPS on the side goes up, you should see an increase in game as well.

It's pretty easy to beat the mutilate DPS profile at current. For an approximation, rogues I run with read 290-295 in mut and see 300-315 in live play (including changing the fight duration). Unsure where the combat profile lands in relation to reality