long live assassination

[kilj]

Switched to it this week after getting a few more heroic pieces.... wont lie I enjoy it a lot more than combat. The deeps is just as competitive as well.

[Shuya82]

I much prefer Assassination as well, DPS being competitive though, no, just no. Especially on multi-target fights.

[Youarefired]

I've always liked Assassination as well. I used it for so long. It's the spec, I think, that really makes a rogue a rogue.

[Resentful]

Eh meh, Personally I've been Subtly main spec for awhile. Only fights I've ever truly been assassination on was Yor'sahj when it was progress and Madness of DW; I'll try it in time when I'm bored again.

Though the proc on assassination in terms of legendary is satisfactory at the very heart of my rogue soul

[Zik3l]

I went assassination last week as well, I'm enjoying it more - but mainly due to the legendary procs. Stacks so fast

[Dispirit]

now if only assassination was viable in pvp again. that's what i dream for. /fingers crossed for MoP

[Youarefired]

now if only assassination was viable in pvp again. that's what i dream for. /fingers crossed for MoP

I am pretty sure it will be. With the talent changes and everything, you can get skills just like when talents went up to 51 points in a tree.

[Deleted]

Its nice to see a clever rogue...idk but at some point during FL rogues seem to have forgotten that with early 85 equip, assassination is the best specc. That was the case at the start of cata, and it is the case now. Most people level a rogue up to 85 as sub, go combat and wonder why their dps drop like a stone.

Sadly, even with the Legendary procc, assassination is still behind combat, and doesn't scale as well with gear. It is my favorite spec as well, both in PvE and PvP and I look forward to MoPs Poison changes.

[Amaroq]

I've always enjoyed playing the "underdog" and beating other DPSers.

Even if Assassination is behind Combat, if played right-- any good Assassination Rogue can beat a Combat rogue.

It is a little saddening that the Legendary is so vastly better for a specific specs, and not all of them. There's always going to be those issues though.

[kilj]

if you look at fights on worldoflogs assassination is playing right up there with combat...

[Sesshou]

if you look at fights on worldoflogs assassination is playing right up there with combat...

Uh go look at them again...
Morchok: Massively behind sub thus crap. Ok technically its roughly even with combat, but originally you said dps was competitive and its absolutely not.
Zonozz: Massively behind both combat and sub which are 2 of the top specs across all classes.
Yorsaj: Top combat parse is only 2k over, but glancing down a couple ranks shows combat significantly ahead.
Hagara: Looks slightly behind combat, significantly behind sub.
Ultrax: Behind combat. Also if you ignore the couple that are a jump above the rest and look at #10 for both, behind sub also.
Gunship: Massively behind combat, seems to be lower than sub also.
Spine: Will definitely do less tendon damage than combat and sub.
Madness: Significantly behind combat, though assassination has specific uses that can make it optimal.

Now 8/8h guilds clearing stuff can easily get away with an assassination rogue, but it being competitive is a load of crap. Competitive means theres a chance it wins, but theres not really a chance in this case at all.

I've always enjoyed playing the "underdog" and beating other DPSers.

Even if Assassination is behind Combat, if played right-- any good Assassination Rogue can beat a Combat rogue.

Thats in general only going to hold if the combat rogue has less gear or less skill. Non spec differences held constant, combat is the clear winner this tier.

[Trainwreck]

I love playing assassination, but I went combat this tier just for some change. It's been fun, but I really hope I can go back to assassination in MoP.

[Deleted]

Best change will be the new deadly poison+envenom. Assa is nice but its just so... sluggish in target switching and movement. Combat can sprint often, can switch targets quickly and sub has ShS and prep.

[Phookah]

I tried assassination on my rogue the other day, and I found it to be a bit clunky. Part of it is probably the fact that it's new to me, but I don't like having to sit and pool my energy. I like the speed that combat has when it comes to attacking, it's just one after another. /shrug

[Amaroq]

Thats in general only going to hold if the combat rogue has less gear or less skill. Non spec differences held constant, combat is the clear winner this tier.

Actually, I disagree. There have been plenty of times I've been Combat Rogues as Assassination. I've done it repeatedly this entire expansion. Math and number wise, Combat excels under the perfect conditions. However, there are a lot of factors that play into it and you're never going to have 100% perfect conditions. So, I don't follow number charts to the dot and swear by them. --All from my personal experiences, not saying this is how it is for everyone. Merely stating my opinion.

[Sesshou]

Actually, I disagree. There have been plenty of times I've been Combat Rogues as Assassination. I've done it repeatedly this entire expansion. Math and number wise, Combat excels under the perfect conditions. However, there are a lot of factors that play into it and you're never going to have 100% perfect conditions. So, I don't follow number charts to the dot and swear by them. --All from my personal experiences, not saying this is how it is for everyone. Merely stating my opinion.

So you out played them. I also wasn't talking the entire expansion since assassination was leaps and bounds ahead at the start. For this tier, either you out play them or out gear them. The specs are not that close right now. There is a clearly visible difference, and I'm not just talking about perfect conditions in theory crafting but also in actual parses done by actual rogues.

[Kael]

There's no shame in playing a slightly worse spec significantly better than someone else :P. If you outperform someone, what spec each of you are doesn't matter; in equal gear, this tier, as assassination, beating a combat rogue, you're outplaying the combat rogue and coming closer to your maximum potential than the other rogue. That's nothing to be ashamed of, but it also doesn't mean that at the exact same % of maximum DPS you wouldn't be doing more as combat than you do currently in assassination.

There's no impetus to switch just because combat is better by a noticeable amount unless you're having DPS issues, but arguing against that without any proof isn't making a very good case. I can't wait to switch back to it at the beginning of MoP.

[Deleted]

i stopped playing my rogue after bc, but in vanilla, i got so in love with combat, oh and hemo specc, was awesome with the mace from naxx, oh and 2.0 muti with hw daggers <3
-> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDXEZ75GJ1k
lol yes thats my little rogue from vanilla/bc oh god have the times gone past

Assassination is nice but so are all speccs =p

[Deleted]

Personally, I would not be so sure that Assassination is (still) the sub-par spec.

I can see three problems here:

1. Once upon a time, Elitist Jerks guides said that it's behind so almost everybody just followed blindly and played Combat instad. As a result of this (and the fact that DS encounters highly favour Combat), we simply don't have that many Assassination rogues around. Less players means less good players, less theorycrafting, less discussions, less tricks and tips and so on. Overall, Assassination rogues have harder time to improve their performance by studying external sources.
2. ShadowCraft does not model legendary daggers. So it's uknown what is theoretical DPS maximum of each spec, we simply do not know. The only thing we do know is that Assassination works significantly better with the proc and thats exactly what might change things a bit.
3. There is not a single patchwerk fight in Dragon Soul so we don't have any empirical data either. So once again, we do not know how current Assassination performs compared to Combat on a single-target tank'n'spank fight.

Is Assassination generally (there are exceptions) sub-par choice for current raid content in case you are still progressing? Definitely, it's based on encounter design.

But is Assassination spec actually weaker than Combat? Maybe, maybe not. We do not know.

[Sesshou]

Personally, I would not be so sure that Assassination is (still) the sub-par spec.

I can see three problems here:

1. Once upon a time, Elitist Jerks guides said that it's behind so almost everybody just followed blindly and played Combat instad. As a result of this (and the fact that DS encounters highly favour Combat), we simply don't have that many Assassination rogues around. Less players means less good players, less theorycrafting, less discussions, less tricks and tips and so on. Overall, Assassination rogues have harder time to improve their performance by studying external sources.
2. ShadowCraft does not model legendary daggers. So it's uknown what is theoretical DPS maximum of each spec, we simply do not know. The only thing we do know is that Assassination works significantly better with the proc and thats exactly what might change things a bit.
3. There is not a single patchwerk fight in Dragon Soul so we don't have any empirical data either. So once again, we do not know how current Assassination performs compared to Combat on a single-target tank'n'spank fight.

Is Assassination generally (there are exceptions) sub-par choice for current raid content in case you are still progressing? Definitely, it's based on encounter design.

But is Assassination spec actually weaker than Combat? Maybe, maybe not. We do not know.

1. Its not like the intelligent rogues were playing combat while it was crap just because theory crafting said it was fine. People immediately saw the difference and the majority quickly switched to assassination. If assassination was truly equal, there would have been more people in the last 5 months that noticed just like there was a huge amount of people in early cata that noticed combat wasn't equal. You say theres less people using it thus less tricks and tips, but part of that is due to it being an inferior option. Sub also has a comparably small amount of people using it and therefore would suffer from the same problems, yet sub shows up assassination on most fights.

2. If we had no actual live testing data, your point about the shadowcraft model might be valid, but actual live testing shows assassination is still behind. Its not just theory crafting saying that.

3. Yup, thats true. Again IF it was only theory crafting saying assassination was worse, that would matter.

We do know that assassination is weaker this tier. There is a visible difference between assassination and the top specs for each fight in actual results. The tier has been out for ~5 months. Legendary daggers have been in use for ~3 months. There is plenty of actual testing done that shows assassination to be lower (daggers or not) in addition to the theory crafting which shows the same.

@Muga
I agree, theres no shame in playing a slightly worse spec better than some one else's slightly stronger spec. I also agree that it isn't necessary to switch unless its a dps issue.