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Sinister Strike >> Backstab?

At level 43 with 32 points in assassination and 2 points in sinister strike in the combat pool that is my assessment.

Backstab costs too much energy, you are at the mercy of needing a dagger in your main hand and the constant attention to being behind the mob ultimately results in a loss of overall DPS.

Sinister strike + eviscerate = ownage.

What's your opinion?

Only use BS/Ambush on cloth wearers in pvp, everything else gets an SS spam to Evis

Backstab in pvp for more burst damage. Also more useful in soloing when you're trying to mitigate the most damage you take. Kidney shot, backstab or gouge backstab.

when I solo I usually sneak > cheap shot > sinister strike and by the time cheap shot wears off my combo points are usually full so I kidney shot or cold blood + eviscerate.

And as far as PVP goes, if I wanted to ambush I'd have to gouge, vanish, ambush, backstab...considering I'm on a PVE server and the only PVP I've done so far is duels I'm sure it'll be a different scenario when battlegrounds come out, then I'll probably always open up with an cold blood + ambush + backstab + kidney stike + sinister stike till I can eviscerate.

you can stealth before duels as of last patch

before you accept the duel you can stealth and it'll stick after the timer starts?

Yeap

I'm only 32 but this is usually how I solo.

Open with cheap shot, move behind BS, then attack a bit while energy comes back, then I Gauge then BS then Evis.

Evens or 1 lvl higher are dead at this point and if not there damn near it.

Rarely lose more then 15% health.

There are many styles.

I've been level 60 for a while now and have tried about 5 different talent sets. Right now I use a 21 combat / 30 assassination build, with points to parry/riposte, 3 to dodge, 2 to evasion, 5 to poison dd, got imp evisc, seal fate, um ruthlessness and relentless maxed and three points to improved slice and dice - also cold blood (of course). Oh yeah, and kidney shot refresh down to 6 seconds.

While this build does not excel at any one "style" of play, it is handy for most situations I can get into:

1) Helping lower level friends (I tank a lot) - this means backstab is bad.
2) Grouping - I do decent damage, and with blade flurry I can kill two mobs quickly (bladeflurry and backstab don't mix very well).
3) Raiding - improved sap and bonus stealth are fairly useless for this so I don't go with any points in subtlety (as I don't backstab either).
4) Soloing.
5) If I have to off tank or (gasp) tank a boss, I can sorta pretend to be able to do it, at least for a while. It's happened.

This build isn't as good for PvP as ambush/backstab or a subtlety build with preparation (for all that extra stun you can do to an opponent), but it can pump out decent damage even so.

My build relies on slice and dice and poison (and a fast off hand) for extra poison damage. Seal fate helps me get big eviscs in a hurry (cold blood available at need for the autocrit). I never have to worry much about positioning for a backstab, and can instead worry about staying away from potential adds or moving mobs close together for AE or better blade flurry usage.

Slice and dice also works VERY well when combined with blade flurry if I must fight two mobs at once (as does extra duration on evasion). Extra poison proc chance works well for this too. It all adds up in a hurry.

While horribly under level for me, I did tank Archaedus today. Group was 42 priest, 36 priest, 39 mage. The 48 warrior vanished on us before the earthen, that was fun clearing. Ick.

Went ok until all the adds wasted my group - them being too low to land spells on the adds. Oops. Weird bug, I hit vanish and archaedus followed me around, never aggroing. Kinda creepy.

I love fighting caster mobs as a rogue. Open with Cheap Shot, then Sinister twice. By now it's recovered from Cheap Shot and is trying to cast a spell, Kick to stop the cast then Sinister again. When he tries to cast again you have full combo points, Kidney Shot and Sinister untill you can finish it with an Eviserate. If the mob is lucky it might get off one spell on me.

First aide is nice as a rogue especially soloing cloth dropping, pick pocketable humanoids. Blind + First Aide can realy turn a losing fight around

Went ok until all the adds wasted my group - them being too low to land spells on the adds. Oops. Weird bug, I hit vanish and archaedus followed me around, never aggroing. Kinda creepy.

The exact same thing happend to us but instead it was our hunter who feigned death and when he popped back up archaedus followed him around. He tried logging, dying etc, but nothing worked so we had to leave

Killed him yesterday though. Armor 50 agi 8 sta 8 ring drop ~

following your FD bug tangeant, but I had a mob from plaguelands follow me all the way to Tarren Mill