TherionSaysWhat wrote:
For occasional instancing. It's the only group-friendly talent worth taking. And anyone without Cats or Icewalker on their boots (instead of Fleet) should be slapped! ;)
fair enough, but we are talking leveling here (at least, I am ;-> ).. so enchanting your new boots every half a level could prove a little inefficient. Slap me silly if you want, I'm a cheapskate - there, I've said it ;-)
TherionSaysWhat wrote:
Mostly for grinding in quick succession. We don't have a lot to go on from the OP about "style" other than he seems to like to use two opening moves per mob =P The additional bang for the talent point buck in Imp Evis could be worth it, but it would depend on more downtime between mobs (as you note) and more dependent on additional crit from gear.
I sorta read between the lines and interpreted the OP's style as being one of not fighting when not having to. Now, while his shot selection may be suspect, I see where he's coming from, because I like to play the same way ... I engage as infrequent as possible, to the point where if it's possible not to fight, I won't - call me crazy, and it may be super inefficient, but I get the most thrill out of playing that way. With that in mind, grinding in quick succession is not an option.
Hoooowever, if we're talking farming for mats / gold, etc ... you may have a point ... although imp evis does have it's own virtues. Anyhow, it's probably a subject that has gotten a lot of airtime over the years with vehement defenders from both sides, the reason being is that you'll probably find the benefits being very similar at the end of the day, making it overall a moot point. I'd go for imp evis .. for the record :D
TherionSaysWhat wrote:
And, no offense, I honestly don't understand the attachment that many have to Sub-Daggers. Backstab (and Ambush) are both weak at later levels, their damage scales badly compared to other abilities. While grinding out the last 10 levels, I was regularly seeing 3-4k Evis crits (not to mention 2k Mutis) and that was untalented. Hemo works far better with a harder-hitting main hand, and even with gobs of crit I've yet to see an analysis that favors it over Sub-Swords, Mutilate or straight Combat. Not to forget the positional requirements are annoying, at best. What am I missing? And I'm not trolling here, honest question.
Mobility, and stunlock. Yes, I know you can (and should) stunlock a mob to death using any build, but Sub makes it sooo much easier (and more enjoyable).
tbh, I've only recently tried the dagger route, having played hemo swords for a while (which I loved), and mostly combat swords, but I do like the style. Again, admittedly, I'm yet to give hemo swords a try again since 3.0 (with HaT) ... perhaps I'll like that better. Also, I've not yet tried Muti .. at all ... since 3.0, so I can only comment on what makes sense by looking at the talents, and reading commentary (mainly here). The other spec I've tried (since 3.0) is the standard 5/51/5 combat build - which I quite like, but I found downtime to be a lot worse that a sub build (based on Stunlocking).
So I guess my fixation with sub-daggers is mostly from a point of view if inexperience / non-exposure to the other options out there since 3.0, but it does work very well in my experience, specifically from the mobility in stealth perspective (which I guess you can get with a normal muti/low sub build), but also from the huge stunlock potential. This last point is, to me, the highlight of the spec ... you can go from mob to mob killing with zero downtime, simply because you never get hit, and that'll happen in 5-6 seconds, max 10 seconds.
As for Ambush, I agree, it's pathetic, and it's only mapped to my action bar for use when I 1) know that my target is low armour / hp ... in which case the chance of decimation is high and 2) it's on my main bar for use with shadowdance .. and then only as a finisher if the target is low on hp.
Aaaall that being said, I haven't taken my rogue to northrend yet, and my experience is based on interaction in the top level zones in outlands post 3.0 but pre-wrath, so if you say Backstab scales back as badly as I've seen ambush scale, then I'm still to experience that, and it'll probably change my mind. But to start with, I'll go through the first few quests as sub-daggers, get the feel for it ... I have 2 S2 swords, which I can switch in and use if need be (although optimal use of those may require a slight respec). There's the blue dagger in Tundra I'll aim for, at which stage, I'll try out Muti ... so, by the time I'm 71, I'll have decided.