The change/addition of an assassination talent in order to make daggers more attractive is quoted for 3.2.2 , making it a tad more immediate than possible changes to the sub tree which are quoted as a part of the expansion.

It makes me suspect we should be hedging our bets in current content by picking up daggers when they become available. If Blizzard feels we should be primarily using daggers, they are certainly capable of making them more attractive , and the quote indicates that this is something they would like to start doing sooner rather than later.

True, It's more something to think about if you are in a raid with multiple rogues. I would be more likely to go after a BIS dagger if I had reason to believe it will be useful in the near future. We must all pick our battles and for many people taking one item means reduced chances of looting others. (depending on looting systems).

Knowing that daggers may become the new "it girl" Very Soon Now is worth noting, as it most likely will have impact on decisions people are making in the current content. I'm not claiming that anyone should stop bidding on combat weapons, but I thought it was valid to point out that this is something we are likely to see before Icecrown, as conversations have so far glossed over it or lumped it in with Cataclysm changes.

I'm certain Blizzard will not in any way pigeonhole Rogues into using daggers for raiding purposes. I do however think they'll make them a realistic option again. As things are at the moment, if you want to have the highest theoretical maximum DPS, you go into combat-fists or combat-swords depending on your current weapon set.

I'm currently using The Masticator and Steel Bladebreaker. A few weeks ago, we had Fang of Oblivion drop from Steelbreaker and when it came up for bids, I didn't even notice this dagger as being quite awesome, simply due to me knowing that we rogues do not have a viable dagger raiding spec. It went to a Fury warrior for 0 DKP, who wanted to "LOLOL PEWPEW" in battlegrounds with it and not a single rogue in the raid minded him having the dagger. This is a scenario I think Blizzard isn't very pleased with so they definitely need to boost daggers, either through mutilate or the good old combat-daggers spec. I don't see a situation where daggers are far superior though, that would just result in the opposite happening, where maces/fists/swords are being ignored by rogues instead.

It's not about being one stat >> * (STR for plate and AGI for leather/mail), but about being one major stat STR giving 2 AP and nothing else (while being subject to talent increases and BoK), while the other major stat AGI giving 2 AP AND giving crit (while again being subject to at least BoK).
While I do not know what agi increasing talents rogues or hunter have, the STR increasing talent of plate classes usually peak at 20% (for the fury warrior). I'd reckon the agi -> crit conversion being woth more than 20% increase in a stat ... but this is just guess work on my part.
Nevertheless the initial thought was that STR converts into one DPS stat, while the competing AGI stat converts into two DPS stats (AP and crit). There is no doubt Blizz knows about that though, so they are either fine with it (very doubtfull, as it would create immense problems with scaling) or change AGI affecting crit or charge AGI a different itemisation value compared to STR.

We don't know for certain yet that Agility will give two AP per point. Blizzard was extremely vague on just how much AP Agility would give, saying: "we're allowing Agility to provide the necessary Attack Power for leather and mail wearers."

However, I do agree that there is a good chance the Agility to crit conversion rate will be toned down.

I'm pretty sure they gave the number 2 for AP per Agi. I'd have to go back to the stream website and watch the replay to confirm, which I'm unable to do at this time.

Of course, it's always liable to change, like everything about WoW.

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...spanel_034.jpg definately confirms that agi will give 2attack power- wether agi will still give crit, they didn't touch upon.

Ulduar was a decent situation for Mutilate. It could've been better but at least it had some uses on Murder-able fights. As it looks now, it's not even close for ToC. It just needs some help so that players can decide through spreadsheets or whatever what to use on which fight. Things will never be perfectly even, and some people will never bother with a second spec. That doesn't mean they shouldn't try to give us the option though.

I don't see what they'd change that couldn't be used for PvP unless they bumped up HfB again or made deadly crit through talents. Hopefully, it's something that can be done without a new talent.

There are already several talents in WoW that have different effects based on circumstances. Puncturing Wounds being a good example. It wouldn't be that hard to tack on something dagger specific to any number of talents that aren't used in PvP. Blood Splatter seems like a good candidate to me but there are certainly others that can be tweaked without resorting to buffing HFB. Of course, none of this has been seen in any build of 3.2.2 yet so it's not even confirmed that it will happen.

Well even if it's not used in PvP currently, if it adds a significant amount of damage, people are willing to switch. There are several floater points that people debate between FA, FW, and Imp KS that could easily go to a new upper or middle tier talent, which was my reasoning for the later in the tree assumption.

I think they're deathly afraid of buffing the crit chance or straight damage of Mut as it is since the whole problem according to them was Mut/Overkill burst. They may be willing to live with white damage increases as long as it doesn't involve burst though.. What kind of changes can be made to white damage that wouldn't just be another LR haste chunk or CQC crit boost to daggers?

Another option would be buffing Instant through talents in a way that is prohibitive for Combat to switch to. I guess my point is that they can make daggers attractive through Mut spec rather than specifically attaching a benefit to the daggers themselves.

I just looked over at the PTR and noticed this on the rogue changes;

* Envenom’s scaling has been increased from 7% to 9% of attack power per combo point.
* Master Poisoner: Now also provides a 33/66/100% chance of preventing Envenom from consuming Deadly Poison.

I don't believe this has been bought up yet and has some pretty big ramifications for Mut pve damage, I think this might settle the question regarding how they might buff pve.