08-30-2006, 04:54 PM
Quote:Mutilate also doesn't look so great...
Requires daggers, attacks with main hand and offhand simultaneously, gives 2 combo points.
Assuming equal weapon damage in MH and OH + 5/5 Dual wield spec., that's 175% damage + 2 combo points.
Compare to backstab:
170% weapon damage (assuming 5/5 opportunity)
+30% higher chance to crit if you have improved backstab.
so is 5% more damage + 1 combo point and loss of facing restrictions worth giving up +30% chance to crit?
I don't have proof, but it seems like at the very least it's worth the talent point flexibility to go with backstab (able to go weapon expertise for raiding or MoD for PvP) since mutiliate seems like it requires 41 assassination / 20 combat to be even comparable to backstab.
Considering Mutilate has +30% crit built in against poisoned targets (though it doesn't appear to be affected by Lethality, oddly enough) and, if it works like other "requires daggers" skills, only requires a dagger in the mainhand (letting you boost Mutilate damage with a slow sword or mace in the offhand), it's probably more competitive than it looks, especially combined with Find Weakness, since it'll give you a lot more combo points to use for finishers than current dagger builds (it looks like with Ruthlessness + Relentless Strikes + Seal Fate + Mutilate, you'll have Find Weakness up almost 100% of the time). Shiv will let you force a poison on the target from the start, too, so you can pretty much guarantee a poisoned state on a poisonable mob. I'm not sure where you got the part about "loss of facing restrictions", though--the Mutilate tooltip says you have to be behind the target.
I don't know if that's enough to compete with combat daggers in raid PvE or not; it might end up like the dagger version of Hemorrhage.