Review of Deep Assassin build for Raiding

Over the past week, I tried a variation in the Assassin tree which reportedly lends itself to raiding. Its a 51/13/7 build (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=f0gfoexoVboIzAo0xV0hZxb). It leverages Hunger for Blood (HFB), along with Cut to the Chase for refreshing Slice-n-Dice (SnD) to its 5 point maximum. In this post, I wanted to discuss its gains/weaknesses from an overall playing experience. Additionally, I've included my own comments about its viability in PVE/PVP, however, this is just my own feelings about it.

Once I got this build setup properly, I hit the dummy targets over near SI:7 and put up my DPS meter. In this scenario, I loaded my blades with inst/deadly poisons and primed HFB to its 3 point maximum. In order to sustain maximum DPS output, you have to keep up your HFB and SnD. Here is what I typically do to maintain this:

1) Opener - you should get anywhere between 4-5 on Combo Points (CB). I typically use Rupture then Shiv followed by a Mutilate.

2) SnD - get this up, then use your normal attacks. When you're SnD gets low, use Eviscerate to bring it to its 5 point maximum (20 secs)

3) While your refreshing SnD, wait for the Mutilate cycle to hit (60+ energy) then execute it

4) Check HFB for expiry and refresh to its 29 sec maximum

5) Rinse / Repeat - but make sure you keep an eye on your expiry timers on HFB, and SnD while at the same time refreshing them and hitting your Mutilate cycles. There are probably add-ons from wow-curse that can aid in keeping track of this. Its important to remember your raid cycles will revolve around building mutiliate, followed by either another mutilate or Evis / HFB reprime. You shouldn't be using any other offensive maneuvers during this cycle.

With a little practice you'll get the swing of this as it does require thought about its execution. So getting back to my experiment, after a few minutes of doing this on those target dummies (the master type), I noticed my damage meters shot up several hundred points going from a measly 1100 dps to like 1600 dps - w00t.

Ok now for the real test. I went into a PUG for AN in heroic mode. I noticed some improvement in my overall dps but problems arose that made it increasingly difficult to keep up SnD + HFB. For example, several situations required me to move around a lot compounded by having to shift between targets periodically. This is on top of the typical defensive countermeasures that a rogue has to employ such as (evasion, vanish, cloak of shadows, etc.) To me, this *greatly* adds to the overall complexity of keeping your Mutilate cycles up along with HFB + SnD. Needless to say, I am not overly enthusiastic about this builds viability in a raid setting. I will admit that heroic AN is tougher than most Northrend heroics but irrespective of that, the aforementioned variables exist in other Heroics as well.

Because I primarily do PVP/PVE stuff, I wanted to feel out this builds usefulness in each specific context. To keep this short, I found it largely ineffective in PVP/PVE as I simply either didn't have the desire to keep priming my HFB or by the time I opened on NPC's the target was down already. For now I switched back to my 41/5/25 build. I might look at a deep combat build at a later time but am hoping Blizzard implements a multi-talent spec option in game without paying for it.

Regards,
TJ