like antibiomech said there's no real set rotation. from what I use I can tell you that I generally open with a discharge > thrash/voltaic > thrash/voltaic > shock like punman said but from there it gets iffy. Use maul whenever EW procs. I try to only use 2 thrash/voltaics between each cast of shock, and you always want to use shock (assuming 2 charges of induction) and discharge whenever they're off CD. If EW isn't up and I still have shock and discharge on CD with the 2 charges of induction waiting then I'll use autoattack to regain some energy.

I just looked those up, why are you comparing Light armor to Heavy armor? As people have said above the armor rating means different amounts of armor to light, medium, and heavy. Assuming you're a juggernaut from the fact you're looking at heavy strength based armor you should never be wearing light, or medium for that matter. armor rating is not a definitive number for each piece of gear it's in, it will change based on what type of item you put it in (chest, legs, feet) and what the weight of the armor is (light, medium, heavy). In short don't expect to put the same armoring mod in a pair of light boots and a heavy chest and expect them to even be close Edit: Sorry Vanor, missed your post. Had this window open a while

just one unless I completely forgot something, Maul is our backstab and it isn't a spam ability despite a lot of posts I've seen. You only use it when EW procs for half energy cost.

I can comment on darkness and deception but I haven't tried madness yet. The melee/caster hybrid doesn't appeal to me either. For deception stealth isn't absolutely necessary, it just gives you an energy boost after you break it, which obviously you want to have but it won't make or break a fight. The only attack we can only use from stealth is spike which IMO is fairly useless pve. Deception itself feels kind of mixed between a fury warrior and combat rogue in wow terms. Our attacks feel more like a rogue with the backstab, gouge, spammable normal attack (voltaic/thrash) but instead of watching combo points you're watching for procs and cooldowns. Deception feels absolutely nothing like a caster as your only spells are instant and short range apart from an occasionally whirlwind to cc The darkness spec to me feels nothing like a rogue other than the stealth which gives no direct combat benefits. They have no stealth only abilities (other than a stealth buff) since you can train to use spike out of stealth as another interrupt. The actual combat in darkness feels like a death knight to me, very AoE heavy but still close range with very few cast times, a long range pull, and several low self heals. All this was written with PVE in mind, for PVP of course you'll be needing stealth or anyone long range will nuke you on the way. 45 assassin, half the time spent deception, half darkness.

Pushback means that the spell doesn't lose duration because you get hit, it has nothing to do with your character physically moving. If harnessed darkness made you completely immune to pulls and knockbacks that would make it too OP in my opinion. And probably piss off your own sorcs when they try to pull you to safety

Deception and madness both would use Crit Adrenals because of how many talents take advantage of critical strikes. Just as a side note, for a darkness assassin Crit is a semi useless stat because we auto crit just about every shock cast. I mean this for soloing of course, hope no one would try to use one as a tank.

Each of the three trees buffs one of the charges enough that you'll never want to use anything else or notice a big drop in dps. Dark Charge > Darkness Surging Charge > Deception Lightning Charge > Madness