Time to talk about the ability only found in the subtlety talent tree... Ghostly Strike. But is it useful or useless? Let's start with a little bit of background...
Back in the original days of WoW, before the Burning Crusade, I was one of the only subtlety rogues around. I had Ghostly Strike speced. Not only was I one of the only sub-speced rogues around, I never once heard the Ghostly Strike sound effect from anyone... ever, besides from me. So all the rogues that may be usin' or talkin' about Ghostly Strike now, they weren't usin' it back then.
So, was it useful or useless? This is gonna' surprise you, but it was useless. I did heavy PvP in battlegrounds and it was useless in PvP, but no surprise there, tactics for PvP are complex. But, for PvE, it was useless. Yes, useless. But that was back then...
Why was it useless? Simply because it didn't do shit for me. Ghostly Strike isn't meant to be used for damage... Sinister Strike can be used for that. But Ghostly Strike is used as a mini Evasion in addition to doing Sinister Strike damage.
But, whenever I used it against fighting PvE targets, it didn't do hardly anything for me... I got hit the same way as if I didn't use it. It's important to note that I'm a bad ass night elf. I already have a special 1% chance to dodge attacks from my racial, Quickness. So I didn't notice it helping, that's pretty bad.
So, for the longest time I kept it speced but it was really useless to me. Although, from patch to patch, abilities get tweaked and changed. You see comments talkin' about it now, hailing it as a "GODLIKE!" type of ability... yeah, we all know "poster comments" can be complete bull shit because, well... anyone can post a comment.
How is Ghostly Strike now though? Useful or uselsss? It's a big surprise, but Ghostly Strike is very useful to me now. Clearly the mechanics or somethin' has changed. Now it's very useful. The way to think about it is as a mini-Evasion, like I've mentioned before. Don't find it realistic at all to use in PvP, but it is for PvE.
I've found it most useful in any kinda' groups where a tank is present. Ghostly Strike is perfect for when you draw aggro for some reason (including the death of your tank). Of course, Evasion is really the ideal thing if you get a shit load'a crap on you, like your tank dying... but Evasion should be a "last ditch effort" kinda' thing so you never wanna' use it for in groups unless you can get the most use outta' it. So that's when Ghostly Strike's become a god-send.
I've noticed myself using it so often in level 80 groups. In fact, when I notice myself taking damage (such as from melee AoEs), Ghostly Strike helps me dodge it. Or I suddenly will get a boss on me, I immediately hit Ghostly Strike helps me dodge some of those devastating attacks, until I'm able to put Tricks of the Trade on the tank or until the tank can regain aggro naturally.
So yeah, Ghostly Strike has become very useful to me. In fact, it'd really change the way I play in groups. In fact, there are many times when you can't do a lot of your normal defenses. Stuns won't work on some elites, including every boss. Blind is almost useless because every person in your group will be using some kind of AoE, even if you're fighting only one target (go fig...). Evasion and Vanish (and Shadowmeld for us night elves) are the only options we have (when Tricks of the Trade might not help in time)... but with Ghostly Strike, it can really help you. And best of all, if you take really serious damage, if you do use Evasion then, it's cool 'cuz the buff you already got from Ghostly Strike will already help ya.
There are tons of people that talk shit like "use it with Evasion". I don't recommend that at all. Don't use Ghostly Strike for Evasion... use it in the way I mentioned. Use Evasion just when you normally would. But, once you've got Evasion up, you can use Ghostly Strike to help out Evasion, but I actually recommend using Ghostly Strike towards the end of Evasion. "lol noob thats not how u use gs" The reason why is because it in a sense extends Evasion... Evasion lasts 15 seconds, so then if you use Ghostly Strike towards the end, it'll make your dodge chances last slightly longer. Now, I do use Ghostly Strike in the middle of Evasion, sometimes just to get insane dodge 'cuz I feel like it or because my health is so low I may not survive to the end of those 15 seconds of Evasion. So what I want you to understand both reasons for using Ghostly Strike to enhance Evasion and using Ghostly Stroke to extend Evasion.
Now there is a glyph called Glyph of Ghostly Strike. I don't recommend it at all. It increases damage and makes it last 4 seconds longer, which is really nice... But, it increases it's cooldown by 10 seconds. Instead of being 20 seconds, it's 30 seconds. That doesn't seem like much, and normally I would recommend this glyph... but shit, I've found myself hittin' my "f" key (key mapped to Ghostly Strike) in desperation because Ghostly Strike was still on cooldown, but I couldn't afford to use Evasion because we're right about to fight a boss (and you can't afford to have Evasion on cooldown during a boss fight). Or a more practical use... I get a target, or boss on me, and as I look down, I see Ghostly Strike finishing it's cooldown, thinkin' "Crap, it seems like I just used it a few seconds ago... Great!" and hit it. That 20 second cooldown comes in hand at the most important times.
So, when it comes to recommending Glyph of Ghostly Strike... if it's not good for me, then it's not somethin' I'm gonna' recommend to you.
Back to Ghostly Strike, it's somethin' I rely on so much in groups now and I recommend it to ya.
Jeaxx
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