*UPDATED – February 2010* Hunger for Blood now only gives a 5% buff to damage done, reducing the effectiveness of this spec in arenas.

While a Mutilate/Prep build can offer a big increase to survivability and mobility through double vanish/evasion/sprint, against plate/healer teams it seems to struggle in terms of damage output. One alternative that we’re playing around with at the moment is a full Assassination build with emphasis on damage output and armor mitigation. This build relies heavily on you being able to take an absolute kicking at the start, so Deadened Nerves, high resilience and a competant healer are, to us, pretty much a necessity. We’re currently trying out 52/5/14, though we’ll be experimenting with using Ruthlessness to make Cut to the Chase easier to benefit from (maybe opening with Garrote, Hunger for Blood, then Slice’n'Dice, and hoping for Ruthlessness to give a free combo-point for a quick envenom/eviscerate).

Advantages

Damage, damage and more damage. With +18% extra damage on all attacks from Hunger for Blood (glyphed), +3% crit and the increased rate of procs from Master Poisoner, plus either a self-refreshing Slice’n'Dice or extra damage/energy regen from other talents, this spec has the ability to hit like a truck.

Disadvantages

Say goodbye to preparation and heightened senses. Unless you are suicidal confident enough to pre-vanish when the gates go up, you will definitely be at an initial disadvantage vs stealth teams. More times than not their rogue WILL find you if you leave it long enough. Without preparation you’re likely to have a rogue breathing down your neck constantly to begin with; a rogue able to dodge most of what you throw at him for 30seconds and who potentially has one more opener than you.

Tactics and Thoughts

Against rogue/X teams, it feels that the most important part is surviving the starting burst. If you can stay alive until after the other rogue’s second evasion/vanish, you’re home dry. Rather than trying to find their rogue, you may want to accept that you’ll be spotted first and just jump their partner instead. A garrote will let you use Hunger for Blood straight away and you should be able to knock some health/mana off the partner before the rogue has the chance to Cheap Shot you. Try and predict how far away the rogue is from their partner – as soon as you pop up waving your daggers around, expect their rogue to head straight for you. If you can time a lucky Fan of Knives… well you’ve just saved your healer a lot of work and cost their rogue a valuable opening move.

Against plate and trees, use Master Poisoner to your advantage. I usually run with deadly poison on my mainhand and wound poison for the offhand (so you can shiv crippling when needed).

Restofariann over on http://arenajunkies.com has a lot to say about this spec (from a resto-druid’s perspective) and his thread on the subject is a very good read (http://www.arenajunkies.com/showthread.php?t=84046).