combat the only viable spec in hc ds?

[Guttz]

Just been looking at some logs on WoL and well, I don't really see many fights in there where sub is going to come with an upper hand. May be if they have any plans on making Ultraxion work for sub. Sub is obviously the winner on Morchok but that's it? Now you guys have had a chance to try most of the encounters in there on heroic by now and I was just wondering if you could give some insight on how it stands so far.

I currently raid on 10 man myself and well, I find this to be extremely disappointing if this is the case. We get the last patch of the expansion where we are all thrilled to see we're getting legendary daggers, the down side being that we can only play one spec though. Now before I start whining any more, which I'm currently doing here at home (got tissue in my hand). Do you guys think Blizzard will fix fights like Ultraxion and the Madness of DW so we can at least have them work for Sub?

[Diahi]

I don't think combat is the only option for anything other than Ultraxion and maybe the gunship battle. I'd say that it's even the preferred option for everything else, though I can't comment on the last two fights yet. Combat just doesn't pack the punch for times when you need to get some burst damage going (hagara, zon'ozz, madness?) and isn't able to pick up enveloping shadows for that awesome survivability (even though it usually isn't needed, I'd say it's worth to get 2 points into it as the dps loss is so minor). There's also the part where playing combat is dull whereas with sub you get to do something marginally more interesting.

Not being able to use Backstab in a fight is incredibly stupid design which just limits the possibilities for 2 classes for no apparent reason, but I don't think they'll be changing it anytime soon seeing as you could backstab him in the early PTR phases after which it was changed to the way it is now.

[Guttz]

I do agree with you up to a point, but then again I think the situation is a bit different in 10 mans vs 25 mans. I guess I'm not in the position to complain if we look at it from that pov though. I completely agree with you on Hagara but in most cases the setup requires me to play combat so I can bf down the ice tombs, zon'ozz bf on the claw. So the situation is a little bit different but me whining about it won't change it though.

The thing is that I find combat stupidly boring to play as well, sub is a lot of fun as it stands like you said. Plus, I feel like there's some form of a reward factor for playing sub well whereas you really can't say that about combat (omg I is good at clicking SS). I guess we'll see how it turns out later on.

[Frustror]

On HCs (and this is my opinion):

Combat is the clear leader on Warmaster (and on Zonozz if you are allowed to cleave the Claw Tentacles).

Sub is better on Morchok, Zonozz (if you are not cleaving), and Spine.

I think Assassination is clearly better for Yorsahj overall, although maybe at Paragon's level the adds die so quickly you can not ramp up your aoe that much. After Assassination, if you do not have to kill the blobs, Sub is better, but I find Sub falls behind Combat overall if you have to switch (because BF/AR/pot on the adds is quite good).

I would say it is close on Ultraxion between Combat and Assassination. The legendaries are really strong for Assassination. However, Combat should do more damage overall as you cannot catch up with Murderous Intent sub-35%.

However, mostly people do not even have an Assassination spec, because you can so easily switch between Sub and Combat without having to reforge.

On Madness, I know most of the top parses are Combat and there is some cleaving on the Corrupting Parasites and in p2. I also know there are some good parses for Assassination. However, I really like Sub on Madness because (i) it is has burst on a short timer on a short cooldown (SD), (ii) it has great mobility and you can SS to the Corrupting Parasites and Bolt, and (iii) if you drop a point (or more) in ES, the healers will like you.