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[Treesh]

So it's a simple question of whether Ambush is ever surpassed by Garotte. There are significant enough advantages with Garotte (low initial aggro, not reduced by armour) that it clearly is worth using sometimes. If you personally never use it, you are playing sub-optimally

As for the Improved Garotte talent it improves damage from 438 to 525.6 damage if the target lasts for 24 seconds or more - something that is reasonably easy to predict
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Before being capped, Eth did actually have use for Garotte. Those +3 and above elites she would fight either with Taranna or with a full 5 man group. Garotte was the most consistent damage dealer for her on those bigger critters (didn't want to open with cheap shot sometimes because the critters needed to be moved around and such by the tank). She had full points in precision and murder so garotte was more likely to connect than her sinister strikes, backstabs and regular attacks. And because Eth was lower level than those critters (and they had the higher armor too), her melee attacks did piddly amounts of damage. In those cases, both garotte and rupture actually dealt more damage through the fights than her other melee skills. Yes, it's situational, but a lot of stuff in this game is.

Edit: NSD snuck in a post on me. I do agree with him. Growing up, garotte did have its uses. At 60? A cheap shot or ambush is usually better for an opener.